If you’re shooting family holidays, speeches at a seminar or legal cross examinations in a lawyer’s board room to be played in court later - you don’t need a script. For just about anything else you definitely need a plan of some kind. Often a full set of paperwork.
To plan a production there are several types of documents you might need and each of these can take any of several forms. A proposal outlines the project and is usually used to attract investors. A script . . . well, that’s covered below. And a shot list (or breakdown) breaks the narrative script down into individual shots or scenes.
Technically any written document that outlines your story line in the order that it will progress on the screen is a script. Many film makers adopt a format that they are comfortable with, and that is usually determined by the genre and how many other people have to look at the script.
If you are writing for the feature film or television market you need to adopt the proper format for the industry to have your script considered by those who might buy it, but for most smaller productions you can write it any way that it suits you.
While writing scripts for corporate videos (as I have done for over 25 years) I usually adopt the “commercial” format of 3 or 4 columns denoting the shot number, the action to take place in the scene, the sound track (Music cues, narration script, etc.) and perhaps, in the case of a TV commercial, the time each shot is intended to take in the finished production. These columns are just named “#”, “Visuals”, “Sound” and “Time”.
In the case of a corporate video that’s mostly narrated it really helps to put the “Man sawing planks of wood to length” visual in the “Visuals” column right next to the, “The planks are now cut to either 8 or 12 foot lengths.” narration in the “Sound” column.
Documentaries can be somewhat different in that some are fully scripted before hand - like historical documentaries or any subject where all the fact are known ahead of the production.
Conversely, shooting the behavior of bears in the woods is difficult to fully script before hand as we might not know what the bears are going to do while our cameras are rolling.
I had an opportunity to create two documentaries where I did not use a written script but because I knew ahead of time exactly what was going to happen I was able to put the “script” together in my head and follow through with shooting exactly what was needed. When you do this, of course, you must be able to visualize the whole story line and then stick to that vision right through shooting and editing to finish the project.
Each doc. was about 15 minutes long and in each case I was able to create successful products because:
1. I’m good at pre-visualization.
2. I stick to my plan once it’s fully formed in my mind.
3. On both occasions I didn’t have to answer to anyone for my decisions.
4. I was the director and editor of both projects which put me in full control (I also did all the camera work on one (a regular one man band) and had two Ba camera operators on the other.
5. They were both short docs.
6. No elaborate shooting equipment or situations were required.
If you cannot lay claim to all six of these criteria you really need to write you script out on paper (laptop, iPhone, whatever).
At the beginning of this rant I said you don’t need a script for shooting your family on holidays, but when I shoot family holidays I use an “in my head” plan to make sure I have establishing shots, cut-ins and re-establishing shots of places we go, enough scenery shots and enough shots of my family members enjoying the events and attractions. I will sometimes “stage” something with my wife or daughter to purposely add a humorous moment. It all makes the edited version more interesting to watch.
Planning is important!!!
A full chapter on pre-production planning can be had at:
http://www.mikesdvp.com
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