Visual Storytelling - The Digital Video Documentary

Visual Storytelling, the Center for Documentary Studies’ (CDS) e-book, is a guide to making a watchable short documentary using a consumer camcorder, digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, or cell phone. CDS, founded in 1989 at Duke University, North Carolina, United States, offers interdisciplinary programmes of instruction, production, and presentation in the documentary arts - photography, film/video, narrative writing, audio, and other creative media. This is designed as a step-by-step guide to making a low-budget video with a one-person crew. The Visual Storytelling approach covers the process of shooting and interviewing, editing, and the ethics of telling someone else’s story.

Visual Storytelling is a resource for aspiring filmmakers, students working on creative projects, libraries, community organisers, and non-profit professionals working in communications and fundraising. According to the introduction: "Making low-budget camcorder documentaries is particularly rewarding because you maintain independence and control over the project. You, the filmmaker, get to decide what to research and how to shoot. You’re the one who spends time with and learns the most from the participants in your documentary. And you decide how to tell the story during the editing process."