In-class Assignment:
Introduction to Scripting
When you make a professional audiovisual artifact (aka, "film"),
whether it's a commercial, a documentary, a feature, or even a YouTube
video, you're almost always going to want to script it first.
Scripting allows you to work through possible issues with what's going
to be said before you start shooting, which saves time. If you
can work through issues without wasting your talent's time, you save
resources. Even in live shots, like interviews, having a good
selection of possible routes to pursue will help tremendously.
It's better to have too many lines of questioning to pursue than to
have to make them up while your interviewee waits.
For today, we just want to get used to using the two-column script that
we've read about and seen in our class readings. Much like our
initial foray into Audacity, which we'll return to at the end of the
semester, we're here going to move through an introductory example to
get a feel for scripting.
Instructions
- Download this template
(same template with some general information on scripting) for
writing in a two-column format using Microsoft Word.
- There are many pay-to-play extensions and wizards, even
stand-alone applications, for writing scripts.
- This is the best (though very old) template I know of for doing
this for free.
- For the script portion of this assignment, you can find a poor
transcription of this video at this URL.
- Paste the contents of the script into your Word template.
- The template is very
moody. Try typing some audio instructions after you paste and see
if it took.
- Watch the video (will be done as a class).
- Make sure you edit it to accurately reflect what's said.
- Using some of the techniques discussed in chapter two
from our readings (pg. 23-30), begin to fill in the video portion
of the script.
- This is a very simple example is some ways -- only one speaker
-- but the changes in the camera and effects make it more challenging.
- Consider how you'll need to space out the audio script to make
it work well with the video cues.
- Once you're done editing a rough cut of your script, email it to
your instructor.
If we have time, we'll watch some of this video
on the commercial's construction.