I had an imaginary horse growing up.
So when I watched Disney’s new short, The Invisible Horse, there was a personal connection right away. I recognized something from my own childhood.
But what stayed with me went beyond that memory. The film reminded me why I believe storytelling matters more than the equipment we use to tell a story.
Great cameras matter. Lighting, composition, movement, and editing all shape how we experience a film. I care about those things because they help us tell stories well.
But the story gives us a reason to care about what we’re watching.
One story, different connections
On one level, The Invisible Horse offers something familiar to kids: an imaginary friend, a little magic, and the experience of believing in something other people can’t see.
I remember what that felt like.
Watching as an adult, though, I found another way into the story.
I saw the feeling of trying to share something that matters to you with people who don’t understand it yet.
That’s my interpretation of the film, but I suspect it’s a feeling a lot of us recognize.
Maybe you’ve tried to explain a business you want to build. You can picture the work, the people you could help, and what it might become. Someone else hears the idea and can only see the reasons it might fail.
Maybe it’s a hobby. Something you spend hours doing because it makes you feel more like yourself. To somebody else, it seems like an odd way to spend a Saturday.
Or maybe it’s something you want to create, and you haven’t found the words to explain why it matters.
You can see it. Helping someone else see it is harder.
The adult version of an invisible horse
For me, the connection is often business.
There’s a particular vulnerability in building something before you have much to show for it. You’re asking people to understand a vision while you’re still figuring out how to make it real.
Sometimes people laugh. Sometimes they’re skeptical. Sometimes they care about you and simply don’t understand what you’re trying to do.
That doesn’t mean every idea will work. Belief still needs effort, learning, and a willingness to change.
But being misunderstood doesn’t automatically mean you’re wrong, either.
Some things take time to become visible. And some things are deeply meaningful even if they never make sense to everyone else.
That’s what the invisible horse brought up for me: the experience of carrying something important that other people can’t quite see.
Why that makes the storytelling work
The film gives children and adults different ways to connect with the same story.
A child can enjoy the friendship and the magic. An adult can bring years of experience with belief, doubt, and being misunderstood.
The film doesn’t need to explain my business to me. It gives me a situation I recognize emotionally, and I bring my own experience to it.
That’s one of the things I love most about storytelling.
We can watch the same scene and find different meaning in it. We can even return to a story years later and discover that a different part of it matters to us now.
A story can reach across generations because its characters and experiences leave room for our own.
What this means for the stories we tell
When we’re making a video, it’s easy to start with what we want it to look like.
What camera should we use? Where should we shoot? What would make the opening look impressive?
Those are useful questions. But I think we need to ask a few others first.
What does this person care about? What are they trying to do? What makes that difficult? What might someone watching recognize from their own life?
For a business, that might mean showing why the work matters to the person doing it. It might mean letting a customer explain a problem in their own words. It might mean including a moment of uncertainty because it helps us understand what was at stake.
The answers give our visual choices a purpose. We know what to linger on, what to leave out, and where the audience needs a moment to feel something.
A beautiful shot becomes more meaningful when we understand the person inside it.
Helping someone else see it
I think a lot of us have some version of an invisible horse.
Something we love. Something we’re building. Something that feels like part of who we are, even when we struggle to explain it.
We don’t always need everyone to understand. But when someone does, that connection matters.
That’s why I care about storytelling.
A camera can show people what something looks like. A story can help them understand why it matters to you.
And sometimes, that’s what allows them to finally see what you’ve seen all along.
