Writing a script, simply put, involves describing what the eye sees through the camera lens and what the ear hears on the audio track. This is where we should start. It sounds easy enough. The problem, as we found out in the previous chapter, is knowing what to leave out. When you try to write a script for the first time, you usually end up describing too much, or not thinking concretely about what is seen within the frame. You must describe the essential visual event that happens in front of the camera, but without preempting the basic production responsibilities of the director. Describing what the camera sees means understanding the basic technique of shooting and what separates one shot from another. To communicate your intentions (and a script is nothing but a set of intentions that others must make concrete), you must let go of some habits that have been drilled into you for writing expository prose. Other habits must take their place.

Describing Time and Place

Consider this example. Look out of the window and describe what you see. First write it as prose. It might go something like this:

This is descriptive prose for an essay or a novel, not Hemingway, but the problem is similar. The events are brought together as an assembly of impressions without reference to order in time or place. To describe a scene is not the same as visualizing the sequence of images on a screen and then describing it so that a production crew can make it. The camera is like a robot. It sees only what it is in front of it. Anything not in front of it cannot be admitted to the description of the scene. What the camera sees is always in the present. Cinematography and videography record in the present–now. Therefore, the description of what the camera sees is always in the present tense—always.

Human vision scans a scene. The eyes move, the head moves, and the angle of acceptance of the human eye is very wide. Most important of all, the eye is connected to a brain that selects and interprets the visual information delivered by the optical nerve. The brain can assemble and arrange impressions in any number of ways. A camera interposes an artificial eye between the scene and the eye of the audience. That is what makes the medium an art. The audience only gets to see what the camera lens frames, which issue from the scripted scene. The artificial image on an emulsion (film) or an electronic scanning (lines, pixels) are visual experiences separate from reality, just like an artist’s canvas is a visual experience apart from the reality that inspires it.

So let’s take the same scene and explore how it would work to write it as a script. Always ask the question: what does the camera see? This means thinking about where the camera will be physically set up and in which specific direction it will point. The camera always expresses a point of view. Therefore, you must use it. The director has the final decision about these matters. You describe the possibilities.

Your first decision as a scriptwriter is to imagine whether we see the scene from the interior looking out or whether we play the scene as an exterior. You express this with an abbreviation: INT. (interior) or EXT. (exterior). The director, the camera crew, and anyone working on the shoot know the practical implications of this abbreviation.

The next piece of essential information is to describe where the action is taking place. This can be a word or two, such as STREET or LIVING ROOM. Next you have to decide what time it is, day or night. Again this has implications for lighting and production. You write: DAY or NIGHT. Occasionally, you can specify a particular time such as dawn or sunset.

We now have three critical pieces of information necessary to every scene in a script that tell a production crew a great deal about what they have to do and what they have to plan for. These three pieces of information are arranged in a well-recognized sequence called a slug line, e.g.:

Describing Action

So far so good! Your next job is to describe some action or object or person that you want to be seen within the camera frame. Now you need to think about how large or how small this frame is and about what is in the foreground and background.

The description could go like this:

This could be enough. What has changed from the written prose we looked at earlier? The description is in the present tense. Descriptions of action in scripts are always in the present tense as if we are seeing everything in front of us right now playing on a movie or TV screen. Another difference is that most descriptive adjectives and poetic embellishments are removed. We reduce the description to simple, short statements of action. Sometimes, it is permissible to write in incomplete sentence fragments that would usually get red ink corrections in composition classes. Try this:

This is probably enough. It could be shot as one shot by racking focus (see definition below), or it could be broken down into two different shots, one interior and one exterior. Also, specifying a CU (see definition below) or deciding what size of shot should frame the figure is optional.

Try another version with an exterior:

Now we have to visualize a different shot, which involves a different camera setup. So the scene has to be written as two separate shots that have to be produced separately. Even a script written the first way might inspire a director to cover the scene with an exterior and an interior. In fact, a director might shoot close-ups of the runner, or cutaways of the leaves, or a long shot of the window, none of which are specifically written into the script.

Deciding which way to play the scene is a writer’s prerogative. The scriptwriter is all powerful for the moment. In reality, once the script is turned over to production, the writer’s power wanes, as we learned in the last chapter, and the director assumes control. The interior version is cheaper to produce because it involves only one setup. The interior/exterior combination is visually more interesting and introduces more dramatic complexity. It takes more time to do two setups and, therefore, more money.

Describing the Camera Frame or the Shot

You may have picked up other features of scriptwriting style in these examples. CHARACTER NAMES and CAMERA ANGLES are usually typed in uppercase. Most important of all is the specialized language that describes the way a lens produces an image, often written as an abbreviation, such as CU. This is not a book about production. Therefore, we do not want to go into camera work in an exhaustive way. However, the following commonly used terms and abbreviations—and their meanings—must become part of your working vocabulary. The DVD provides an interactive glossary of live-action video or stills to illustrate every type of shot.

Camera Shots

Although you should know these terms, and although they will be needed from time to time to convey what your vision is, you should be careful not to pepper your script with minute camera directions. Too much directing of the script by trying to choose camera frames clutters up the script and encumbers the director. The director has to make a decision based on the real scene in front of the camera on the day of shooting. I have shot many of my own scripts and had to abandon visions of how it was supposed to be because the lens would not accommodate the idea. The performance of lenses is governed by the laws of optics, which limit what they can do. The principal limitation is in the way foreground and background can be contained in focus in what is called the depth-of-field. This could be a weakness of the interior version discussed earlier. The figure and the exterior scene will not both be in focus. As the figure turns, the camera crew will have to rack focus to feature the face. All of these problems of execution are the province of the director and his crew. A rule of thumb might be to give a camera direction only when it is indispensable to the visual idea on which your scene rests. Otherwise, leave it to the common sense of the director.

Describing Camera Movement

You need to learn the terms that describe camera movements. Camera movements change the size or perspective of a frame, the angle of view, or a combination of these. (See the DVD for live-action video of each camera movement.)

Describing Graphics and Effects

In contemporary television and video, a significant proportion of program content, especially commercials, is generated by computer imaging software output to video. This includes titles, 2-D and 3-D animation, and computer-generated optical effects that produce layers of video. Graphics and live action can be combined to create almost anything imaginable, including images that defy logic and natural laws. Metallic insects, hybrid creatures, science fiction worlds, a face metamorphosing into a different face or object (known as morphing)—all of these images are created without using a lens or light-sensitive medium to record a real-world scene. Therefore, the slug line has no meaning when describing a computer-generated graphic. A useful convention to adopt in place of the slug line is a heading: GRAPHICS. This graphics slug line announces to all production people that this scene does not have to be shot but must be scheduled for postproduction by the editor or by a graphic artist.

If you need a graphic image or graphic animation in your script, you need to describe it as you see it. If it is a 3-D animation, you can resort to the conventional frame descriptions to visualize the scene. For example:

A title is created either in a character generator or as part of computer graphic imaging. It is created in postproduction and needs to be identified by another slug line separate from a shot or a scene. You can indicate this by a simple slug: TITLE or CG.

Describing Transitions Between Shots

Transitions between shots are predominantly decided by the director and the editor. Although all scripts begin with FADE IN FROM BLACK, and often designate a DISSOLVE or a MIX in place of a CUT, it would be inappropriate for a writer to try to pin down the director or editor at every transition between scenes. As with other camera directions, sparing use for specific cinematic reasons will command attention, whereas constant use will irritate postproduction people who will probably ignore them. Let’s take a look at the terminology used to describe transitions between scenes. (See DVD.)

Describing Sound

The sound track is an enormously vital part of any program. There are basically three ways that sound works to intensify the visual image. The most obvious element is voice. The human voice is our most important means of communication. Speech or dialogue is commonly recorded in sync with the image of people when they talk. So the words we write for sound track, the manner of delivery, and even the gender of the voice, all contribute to the final result. If you listen to any sound track carefully, you will hear more than just the synchronized sound that was part of the scene when it was shot. Most dramas involve two other elements that are not part of the camera recording.

The second kind of sound that we use is the sound effect, either in sync with something on screen, or as a pure effect, natural or artificial. If we see an explosion, we expect to hear the sound effect. If we see a dog barking, we expect to hear it. Then there are ambient sounds that complete a picture or an impression of time and place without sync. An example would be a scene in the country reinforced by the sound of bird calls, or a city scene given greater realism by the distant sound of sirens and traffic.

Lastly, the emotional impact of music on a scene is well understood by makers of theatrical films and documentaries, and corporate and advertising programs. The right music can lift a scene that, in visual terms, is quite ordinary. Cutting footage to music allows the musical beat to reinforce a visual expectation and tie them together.

So visual writing has to include audio writing. You have to think about sound sometimes when you are writing visuals. The three elements of a sound track have to be mixed together in postproduction in what has become an elaborate and demanding multi-track mix. Both music and sound effects are usually added later in postproduction. Scriptwriters do not normally describe every aspect of this multi-track mix. Audio recordists and directors and mixers make production decisions as to how to produce the sound track of your scene. The exceptions are when you want to emphasize the specific dramatic, comic, or informational use of sound effects. So we mention specific sound effects or music cues only when they might otherwise be left out by the production team or because they have special significance. A character hears footsteps approaching, or hears a door opening off screen. That has dramatic significance.

If you are an editor or have been involved in editing film or video, you discover how ordinary shots can be transformed by music or sound effects, or how cutting a montage to a beat can transform ordinary and mundane shots into something visually interesting. So aesthetically and technically, we have to acknowledge that sound alters the value of images for a viewer. Sound cues are part of the scripting language that we need to learn.

Here are the abbreviations you should learn when working with sound directions.

We are discovering that the writer needs to know as much about production as possible, but also needs to know when not to intrude on the work of production and postproduction personnel. Only so many detailed decisions in making and finishing a program can be incorporated at a given moment in the production. It is unnecessary and silly to give instructions that cannot be used.

Shot, Scene, and Sequence

Now that we know the nuts and bolts of describing sight and sound in an individual shot, we need to think about how those shots go together to make scenes, and how scenes go together to make sequences. In dramatic writing, there is a larger structural unit carried over from theatrical writing called an act. This is used in television scripts (see templates on DVD) and is usually implicit in screenplays. Chapter 9 discusses large-scale structure that gives a script shape, rhythm, pace, and meaning.

Finding a Format for the Page

The last problem to solve for the beginning scriptwriter is to determine the accepted way of laying out a script on the page. You must respect well-established conventions. They evolved by trial and error for specific reasons. In a professional setting, using the right script format is crucial. Not to do so proclaims your ignorance of the business you are trying to break into. Your script will probably also be harder to read if you don’t follow the accepted conventions. Fortunately, computer software makes this part of the job easy. Most word processing applications can be formatted with macros to create any script layout. Dedicated scriptwriting software is also available. Some of the specialized software such as Movie Magic Screenwriter also plugs into budgeting and scheduling software that saves time and money for producers. In the professional world, you must get to know some of these systems¹.

(See DVD.)

Master Scene Script

Two broad types of script formats or page layouts are in common use. The first, called a master scene script, reads down the page and is close to a theatrical script in that way (see sample script format in the Appendix). It is written according to a plan that includes a slug line for every scene. In fact, if any information in your slug line no longer applies to the action you are describing—that is, if the time and place have changed—you must start another scene with a new slug line. The scenes are not numbered. Character names are typed in uppercase, as are camera terms. Dialogue is centered, indented, and separated from the description of action, which is margin to margin. This format it used for feature film and TV film and usually anything that involves characters and lines of dialogue.

Dual-Column Format

A dual-column format is the other main type of script format. It has to be read from left to right because audio and visual elements are separated into two columns (see sample script format in the Appendix). The description of everything that is seen on screen is placed in the left-hand column. The description of everything that is heard on the sound track is placed in the right-hand column. Each scene therefore consists of a pair of descriptions. For anyone involved in production, this is an ideal arrangement because it accommodates production techniques. For a reader, it is awkward to integrate what you read in left and right columns and then move down to the next pair.

What we are discovering is the difficulty of describing visual media via print media. That is the nature of the problem. Remember the analogy of the blueprint. An architect or designer has to represent a three-dimensional object in two dimensions on the page. Likewise, we, as scriptwriters, have to represent a multimedia time continuum in writing. Writing is a four thousand year-old technology that is still indispensable for many forms of communication, and the printed page is a five hundred year-old technology that is still an immensely successful medium. You are using it right now. However, writing and printing do not do justice to audiovisual media. A script is, in effect, a specialized kind of writing, just as a blueprint is a specialized kind of drawing. To solve the problem, a script would need to be a kind of musical score, a visual representation, and a verbal description combined. There is a suggestion of this in the documents that describe interactive media as we shall see in a later chapter in Part IV.

In the end, each format—that is, each way of organizing the page—has its advantages and disadvantages. A master scene script has to combine visual and audio descriptions. In production, these have to be disentangled. Because such scripts are usually driven by dialogue, the main audio event is read in alternation with the description of action, so the reader has to assimilate them and integrate in alternation going down the page. In the dual column script the problem is presented in a different way to favor production and requires the reader to assimilate pairs of audio and visual elements while parsing down the page.

Storyboard

Meanwhile, the best answer that the industry has devised to represent the moving picture media is known as a storyboard (see DVD). It was developed by art departments in advertising agencies to get over the problem of clients reading and interpreting scripts visually by supplying them with sequential drawings of key frames. It is similar to the problem of understanding blueprints. Architects visualize the result for non-technical clients with models and sketches. TV ads and PSAs almost always get rendered as storyboards before going into production. Some directors storyboard dramatic scripts, especially sequences involving special effects. A scriptwriter might not be a good artist and, although capable of writing excellent scripts, might not be capable of drawing. An artist who can sketch the key frames probably has no scriptwriting skills. So creation of a storyboard generally requires collaboration. It is a good idea to sketch a storyboard for certain sequences even if your drawing consists of crude stick figures. It helps you to visualize what you are trying to describe in scripting language.

New computer software has transformed traditional roles by creating libraries of characters and backgrounds with powerful routines that can vary camera angles, size objects, and change perspectives. Text can be imported into caption areas. This allows almost anyone to create a storyboard. The more film and television rely on sophisticated computer-generated effects, the more important storyboarding will become. There is already a trend to create program content directly with images in an imaging medium that sequences frames. StoryBoard Artist, a program developed by PowerProduction Software, will even let you add sound files to the frame. The storyboard as produced by such computer software is halfway to an animated movie.

Conclusion

After reading this chapter, you should have a useful repertoire of scriptwriting terms and conventions that enable you to deal with the detailed problems of describing sight, sound, and transitions. You now have the building blocks of scriptwriting. You need to try them out in small-scale exercises. Then the larger issues of devising script concepts and content and of writing scripts for specific program formats can be brought into perspective. The chapters that follow take you through the stages of script development and the process of devising script ideas and building them into a finished product that is ready for the production team to carry to completion.

Exercises

1. Write a camera description of yourself getting up and having breakfast. Use the camera vocabulary you have learned from this chapter. Think about what would you describe and what would you leave out.

2. Watch a simple real-life scene such as people having an argument, a cop giving a driver a ticket, or action in the street, on a bus, or in a restaurant. Now describe what a camera would see—what would appear on a screen if it were a movie? Describe it as you want to see it on the screen.

3. Listen to an auditory event or experience that involves more than one type of sound, namely, voice, sound effects, and, if possible, music—a restaurant scene, for example, or a scene in nature. Write an audio-only script using the terminology you have learned in this chapter. You can add your own music to your scene.

4. Write a scene that comes from your imagination, describing both visual and audio elements. Don’t be concerned about format. Just confront the problem of describing what you want to get shot.

5. Take a short scene from a short story or novel and adapt it for the screen. How do you want to lay it out on the page? Choose a master scene script format or a dual-column format. (See the Appendix and DVD.)

   

6. Choose a short scene from a short story or novel and make a storyboard for it.