The secret formula behind Johnny Harris' popular explainer videos. A visual look at how this ex Vox "Borders" video maker structures his journalism, map, & historical stories. Insight into scripting & editing YouTube videos that inspire, retain viewers, & get views.

The clips of Johnny Harris explaining his structure come from a much larger talk he gave, I've linked to the region I sampled from here:
   • Tips for Video Journalists: Johnny Ha...  

Those ideas were used as a base, but much of the ideas were original, for example, the "experience it, understand it", which my creative editor Michelle Jia helped come up with.

It's also important to note:
1. This structure isn't Johnny's creation: he learned it in large part at Vox under the mentorship of folks like Joss Fong.
2. Beyond his structure, Johnny Harris puts weeks of effort into deeply understanding a topic, which enables him to use this story structure so effectively. It's not the structure alone doing all the work :)
3. Johnny has a larger storytelling (paid) course here: https://www.brighttrip.com/courses/vi...



00:00 the formula behind Johnny's virality
01:40 1. Visual Anchors
03:02 look at his use of "look at this thing"
3:56 2. Contextual Bridges
4:53 look at his formula again

Music used:
https://artlist.io/song/82272/bloom
https://artlist.io/song/55750/still-life

That click sound effect in the video that everyone super excited about in the comments:
https://artlist.io/sfx/track/modern-u...