Winning Strategies for Power Presentations: Jerry Weissman Delivers Lessons from the World’s Best Presenters

37. PowerPoint and Movie Stunts

Use Graphics to Create Continuity

At first glance, movie stunts would seem to have nothing to do with presentations, but an article about stunts written for Salon by Matt Zoller Seitz, a freelance film critic, provides a valuable lesson for presenters. Mr. Seitz noted that the latest cinema technologies, while creating imaginative and exciting action, have lost the important element of continuity. He wrote that the modern movie “seeks to excite viewers by keeping them perpetually unsettled with computer-enhanced images, fast cutting and a camera that never stands still.” As a result, he claimed, the film denies “the viewer a fixed vantage point on what’s happening to the characters.”¹

In contrast, Mr. Seitz cited ...