Scriptwriting, Test 1

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Chapter 1: Writing for Visual Media

The Script

  • Written to be made, not just read

  • A set of instructions to a production crew

  • From it flows production decisions, consequences, and actions

  • Write with a budget in mind. Every word is money.

Writers

  • Have been known to write, produce, and direct films/tv shows

  • The more you can do = the better chances to find work

History of TV/Film

  • 1896:edison invents the motion picture technology (also lightbulb)

  • 1939: first public broadcast on TV, World’s Fair in NY

  • 1948: Cable TV invented

  • 1965: Color TV comes to all 3 networks

  • 1978: Digital Video/audio becomes industry standard

Writer’s Guild agreement:

  • The Writer’s script credit must come immediately before the director’s which is the last credit before the program

Role of a Scriptwriter

  • Once a writer is paid for the script, the producer and director have the power to change it

  • Make sure the script has a clear vision and clear plan! (pg. 13)

Visual Writing

  • Making images stand for words

  • Visual writing is writing and thinking with images-not with words

Scriptwriting Differences to Plays and Novels

  • Plays do not usually describe action in detail

  • Plays assume a constant point of view based on the stage and sight line

  • Plays are not always visual and depend heavily on dialogue

  • Novels describe emotions

  • Visual media have to show emotion

    • Action must be described as it is framed by a camera lens and by camera movement

How to advance a story visually (pg. 16)

  • Three solutions

    • Create an observer (excerpt from ch. 1)

    • Create a montage

    • Use audio to add value to the scene

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Chapter 2: Describing sight and sound

Writing a script, simply put…

  • Involves what the eye sees through the camera lens and what the ear hears on the audio track

  • Problems for first writers include...

    • Describing too much

    • Not thinking concretely about what is visible in the frame

Always ask..

  • What does the camera see?

    • The camera sees what is in front of it

    • Think about where the camera will be physically set up

  • The camera always expresses a point of view

    • The director always has the final say. YOU describe the possibilities

    • Descriptive prose (page 24)- NOT GOOD

Descriptions

  • Film and Video scripts are written in the present tense so what the camera sees is ALWAYS in orsent tense

  • Short, simple statements of action

  • You can write short incomplete sentences in descriptions (pg. 25)

INT. or EXT.

  • Will the scene you're writing be inside or outside?

  • Example:

    • INT: Interior

    • EXT: Exterior

Where the actions is…

  • Location

When is it?

  • Is it night or day? The lighting crew neds to prepare for the scene

Tying it together…

  • Ex: Int. Burke 007-Day

    • Known as The Slug Line (Scene heading)

  • Everytime you change locations (even if its a different room in the same house) different location everytime you change location you need a NEW scene heading/slug line

Upper Case:

  • Character names and Camera shots are always in Upper Case

    • Steve

    • LS

    • Two Shot

    • MS

Camera Angles:

  • VLS

  • LS

  • MS

  • CU

  • ECU

  • OTS

Camera movement:

  • PAN

  • TILT

  • TRACK

  • DOLLY

  • ZOOM

  • CRANE

Transitions:

  • CUT TO

  • CUTAWAY

  • DISSOLVE

  • FADE IN FROM BLACK

  • FADE OUT OF BLACK

  • WIPE

Sound:

  • SFX

  • MUSIC

  • FADE IN

  • FADE OUT

  • FADE UNDER

Dual Column:PSA, Corporate

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1/23/25:

Chapter 3: 7-step Method for Developing a Creative Concept

The Creative Concept:

  • The key idea or seed from which a script grows

Step 1: Define the Communication Problem

  • What do you want to help accomplish?

  • What message will work?

  • How will you communicate the info?

    • What is the problem?

    • Who is the audience?

    • What is the objective?

Step 2: Define the Target Audience

  • Demographics

    • Age

    • Gender

    • Race/ethnic origin

    • Education

    • Income

  • Psychographics

    • Def: what’s going on in the mind of your audience. How they feel governs how they act and respond.

      • As a writer, put yourself in the shoes of the audience.

  • Psychological issues that make up a person’s mind.

    • Emotion: moods- sad, happy, wild, etc.

    • Attitude: beliefs or predispositions

    • Attention span: keeping interest

    • Information overload: how much info can your audience absorb?

Step 3: Define the Objective

  • The objective: to answer why or what for?

    • Example: to impart info, to entertain, to convince people to stop smoking

    • Example: the objective to teach students how to write various scripts

Step 4: Define the strategy

  • How will you achieve your objective?

    • Ex: through humor, a testimonial, a dramatic story, a case history, unique footage, suspense, shock, etc.

Step 5: Define the Content

  • Step 5 answers what

  • What will we see/hear?

  • What happens in the story or narrative of the program?

  • What is the program going to be about?

  • What will be shot?

Step 6: Define the appropriate medium?

  • TV? Video? Film?, Web, Radio commercial, Social media, Webinar?

  • What works best?

Step 7: Create the Concept

  • The work of a script writer’s imagination

  • It's a creative task NOT analytic

Script Development

  • Script writing is a process

  • There are several steps

The seven stages of script development:

  1. Research and investigation

  2. 7 step method

  3. Creative concept and pitch

  4. Treatment

  5. First draft

  6. Revision

  7. Final draft

#1 Research & Investigation

  • Know your topic

    • Smoking PSA?

    • Historical?

    • Documentary

  • Research

    • Researching for visual media is different (than research for a paper)

  • Researching includes:

    • Factual background

    • Images,phtos

    • engravings/artificats

    • Locations

    • Talking to SME (subject matter experts)

  • subject matter experts

    • Have extraordinary knowledge based on research and/or personal experience

      • Commonly used for corporate videos and dicumentaries

Types of Interview Questions (test alert) Pg. 70-71 (study for test-also posted on canvas test 1 Review)

  1. Open questions

  2. Closed questions

  3. Double-barreled questions

  4. Leading questions

  5. Hypothetical questions

  6. Self-assessment questions

#3 Creative Concept (And pitching)

  • First formal document in scriptwriting

  • Writing the key ideas and vision

  • The nutshell of ideas from which the script grows.

  • Usually a paragraph or less than a page

    • Page 73-74

#3 Pitching (The Creative Concept)

  • Is talking not writing

  • It sells your ideas of the production

  • While the concept can be read by the client, you must be able to effectively “tease” more than what the concept describes

#4 Treatement

  • An expansion of the concept

  • Reveals the complete structure of the program

  • storyline/basic content is arranged in the order as it will appear in the final script.

  • Written in the present tense. It’s a prose description of the action.

#5 First Draft

  • To transpose the content in the treatment into a script format with camera and scene descriptions

#6 Revision

  • Throwing out unneeded material

  • The hardest part of a writer's job because it requires being self-critical.

  • You have to develop thick skin

  • Don’t be oversensitive

  • See it as a way to make your work better

#7 Final draft

  • Final copy of the script and all the changes

  • End of the writers contractual arrangement