By Brady Betzel

I am often asked whether going to college or a trade school or learning on your own is the correct way to get into a multimedia-based career. My answer is always that a college or university is the way to go … if you can afford it.

But the learning doesn’t stop upon graduation or when you get a job. In fact, that’s when it becomes more important to keep up with the tools you use, both physically and mentally. And if you didn’t go to college, there is no reason why you can’t learn most of the same theories and techniques on your own.

While learning with like-minded peers — and potentially getting jobs from them in the future — is a plus of a classroom-based environment, we are seeing what happens when the world shuts down. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned college-based learning on its head. Even if some students are back to in-person learning, there is much more responsibility on students to structure their own learning techniques on top of professor-led instruction.

However, if you are like me, you never stop wanting to learn new things. With technology changing daily, books often lend a hand in reminding us of theoretical concepts that can be applied using whatever tool you want to use to accomplish your work. Larry Jordan, a media instructor from USC, is always there to lend a helping hand technically. He consistently hosts webinars and instructional sessions that have led to many people’s success in television and film post production.

Jordan’s latest book: “Techniques of Visual Persuasion + Create Powerful Images that Motivate” perfectly mixes theoretical multimedia learning concepts with technical and software-specific techniques guiding the reader into purposeful and persuasive media creation.

The book is 16 chapters packed full of learned wisdom and theoretical concepts that will help its readers navigate multimedia creation. In this review, I will touch on a couple of my favorite chapters, but keep in mind there is so much useful info that you will want to purchase a copy for yourself. You can download it as an e-book for under $24 or purchase as a soft cover for around $28. I love having physical copies of books around to reference or even to give another aspiring creator when they have questions.

Chapter 1: The Power of Persuasion
After reading Chapter 1, I was immediately invested. Jordan hooked me from the first page where he lays out just what persuasion is and, more importantly, what persuasion is not. “Persuasion, in the end, is about the other person making a decision… Persuasion isn’t (at least as we are talking about it) about power, coercion or force. It is about understanding, exploration, stimulation and ultimately, choice.” [Kevin Eikenberry, leadership expert and author, page 4].

In addition, Jordan presents the information in a way that makes you want to keep reading. He lays out what he is going to cover, explores each topic and summarizes the entire chapter with real-life examples — a simple and effective persuasion technique in itself.

What’s even more interesting is that Jordan wrote this book while the country began “locking down” back in March. He mentions how persuasion used to work in “normal” life but how most persuasion is now accomplished remotely. And how you must create trust with your audience.

As an editor, I completely identify with the constant struggle of gaining your audience’s trust. Whether it is a director, producer or the actual audience watching the show I am working on, I must allow the audience to trust me as a source of reliable information. Jordan goes further by explaining how visual persuasion is a powerful and fast-moving medium. Think of social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. We all remember a meme or GIF that was so poignant and/or funny that it is burned into our brain forever. But we may forget a meme or GIF that was boring. Being able to persuade your viewers, whether through a television show or a meme, is an amazing talent that doesn’t come easily.

Jordan strikes a great balance between the theoretical and literal concepts of visual persuasion by mixing examples with practical workflows. From Adobe Photoshop to Apple FCP X, Jordan covers multiple software tools used to create persuasive media.

Chapter 9: Create Composite Images
While this book has a ton of great theoretical concepts, it also goes through the basics of topics like image compositing, preproduction, camera gear, post workflows and more. Think of “Techniques of Visual Persuasion + Create Powerful Images that Motivate” as a 101 class in college. If you haven’t gone to a college or university, Jordan gets you as close as you can to a college-level class. In fact, you might learn more in this book than in an actual classroom.

Chapter 9 covers image compositing, which is a basic concept that is vital to a career in multimedia. From adding text to an image to blending multiple images together using compositing modes in Photoshop, Jordan goes through each Photoshop tool you will use and what it does. I constantly battle with “wasting” my time watching basic YouTube videos or reading “simple” books, but I always learn something new.

In Chapter 9, I relearned a lot of Photoshop tools that I knew at one point in time but that got buried in the back of my brain. Blend modes are one of those things I forget about unless I cycle through them. I remember Add and Overlay modes, but sometimes I forget ones like Hue. Regardless, Jordan goes through many tools in these chapters that will either get you started fast or renew your interest.

Summing Up
In the end, I really enjoyed reading “Techniques of Visual Persuasion.” From the first page, I felt the excitement I felt in college when taking classes that weren’t required, like math or history. I felt the feeling of obsession with how I could convey my story to an audience. It also helped me to remember to edit.

Oddly enough, editors don’t always know how to succinctly get their ideas across in real life or while writing reviews (like this one). I will be keeping my copy of “Techniques of Visual Persuasion + Create Powerful Images that Motivate” on a close shelf to reference when I want to go back over things like “The Six Priorities Determine Where the Eye Looks First” on page 27. Or to reference ideas like knowing the rules before breaking the rules, a common theme in this book (and in my life).

Whether you buy this book for yourself or someone looking to go into multimedia creation, “Techniques of Visual Persuasion” deserves to be on the shelf next to the great books of post, like Walter Murch’s “In the Blink of an Eye” or my personal favorite, “The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film” by Michael Ondaatje.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and The Shop. He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.