I doubt most people spend much time thinking about silent Western films. I get that—I wouldn’t spend much time thinking about them either, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m taking a class on them. But because of this class, I’ve watched a lot of them, and there’s something that can be taken away from watching these films, which applies to every kind of film and video: visual storytelling.

Silent films need strong visual storytelling in order to get the story across—yes, from time to time a dialogue or exposition card will pop up, but relying on text alone would break the cardinal rule of storytelling: “show, don’t tell.” This applies doubly when the audience only has visuals for information. It’s boring just to read a title card saying that the outlaw is a bad guy, when the audience can already tell by his scruffy beard and big black hat. No one needs to say that the landscape is wild and untamed—views of canyons and deserts make it clear enough. Even without the inter-titles to explain, the viewer gets the point, and the images on the screen become a sort of visual shorthand for the ideas in the film.

Everyone, at some point, has seen an ad and been left thinking “I have no idea what that was selling,” or “What did that have to do with whatever that was selling?” And while obviously motion pictures no longer need to operate entirely without sound, the importance of connecting images the viewer is seeing and the intended message remains. If you can’t watch something without sound and walk away with some idea of what’s going on, the visual storytelling is probably lacking.

Given that people tend to believe what they see over what someone tells them, and if what they see makes a big enough impression, with good enough visual storytelling, you might not have to actually “tell” them anything. Show people that something is cool and they’ll believe you. Tell them, and they’ll probably think you’re making stuff up.

When the Account Supervisor of your agency sends you (the intern) an article to read about getting the most out of your internship, I’d suggest reading it.

Aside from the standard stuff: go to meetings, build your portfolio, ask higher-ups to talk copy over lunch (hey Alex, want to grab lunch tomorrow?); the article brought up an interesting if not obvious point about writing. Nobody cares that you can write well; they want you to be creative.

So I responded with: “Ya bro this totally makes me want to saddle in #amiright?”

For those of you with the sarcasm part of your brain impaired (hi mom), I didn’t really say that, but I was intrigued about the underlying point in the article. I consider myself a pretty good writer, and I’ve hammered out a million essays on The Great Gatsby over the years, but can I be creative?

If I were handed the Dos Equis account tomorrow, could I come up with something as funny, witty, and memorable as “Sharks have a week dedicated to him…” Truth is, I don’t really know.

As my mysterious co-intern expressed in her first blog post, writing can feel impossible at times. But writing creatively is a whole different ballgame. If writing is Tim Tebow, creative writing is Tom Brady (shameless pandering to Boston sports fans: check).

My current strategy has been to write as informally as possible, make a bunch of pop culture references, and harness the innate humor that comes with being an intern. But is this sustainable, or will the novelty of my Tim Tebow style wear off after everyone realizes the other intern is Tom Brady? Again, I don’t know.

My initial thought is this: being creative is about letting your mind run wild on whatever topic or idea stimulates it the most. So all I can do for now is keep blogging about whatever weird thought pops into my head while shackled to my chair in the intern corner. Because I don’t always write blog entries, but when I do I try to end them with a clever line.