Tips on Script writing

5 Scriptwriting Tips that Will Make Any Story Better

by Jeff Goins | 26 Comments | Twitter, Facebook, Google+

From Jeff: This is a guest post from Lia London. Lia is a writing coach, author, and blogger. You can connect with her at her blog or follow her on Twitter (@LiaLondon1).

Whether it’s a work of fiction, a poem, or the narrative of a soul, good writing pulls the reader into the reality of its words and imprints an experience in the mind’s eye as real as any staged play.

After 30 years of scriptwriting, I’ve found a handful of  techniques that can help tell any story.

Photo credit: Karen Cox (Creative Commons)

1. Establish and maintain a clear voice

In a well-written play, each character has his own speech patterns.  Some ramble; some utter grunts. Some use flowery language; others are coarse. If they all sound alike, none feel genuine, and the audience senses a disconnect.

Likewise, our voice — our character, if you will —should not sound like everyone else. We may admire the way another person writes, but if we emulate too closely, we rob readers of diversity and run the risk of presenting only a stale copy.

If we are writing a work that requires more than one voice, we should be careful that no given speaker flips back and forth between sounding like Dr. Spock and Anne of Green Gables. That gets very distracting. Each voice should be distinct and consistent to ensure fluidity and credibility.

This is not to say that a writer cannot be poetic and verbose in one essay, and practical and concise in another. But within a given text or persona, we need to make the voice clear.

2. Speak in vernacular

Characters on a stage need to convey their personalities through the way they speak, and the more natural the speech is, the more accessible the character. That is partly why plays are not written to sound like chemistry text books.

Depending on the venue, grammar rules can and ought to be flexible. Avoiding split infinitives, for instance, is a rule left over from Latin where infinitives are one word, not two. Is it really going to thoroughly unravel the message if I say I need to quickly run to the store for more eggs? Of course not. And half of you probably didn’t catch the “mistake” anyway. 

In casual writing, following stuffy, prescriptive rules, with all those “to whoms” and “with whiches” feels like legalese, not a blog post from a friend.

Intentional disregard for a rule can create a timing or mood effect that enhances the writing. Conscious use of fragments, for example, can direct pacing or add emphasis. And it’s how people talk. (Anyone who has ever had to transcribe candid speech can tell you that. Some sentences contain more switchbacks and drop-offs than a hike in the Gorge.)

A word of caution: “natural” is not the same thing as “sloppy.”

It is a mistake to think that grammatical conventions are unimportant. They provide clarity. A communication world without proper punctuation gets messy and confused very quickly. (You’ve all seen the “Let’s eat Grandma!” vs. “Let’s eat, Grandma!” example, right?)

Thus we need to know the rules of grammar well enough to know when and how we can break them.

3. Give stage directions

In a script, there are often cues given to the actors as to how they should say their line: 

[Sadly], [Hesitating], [While toppling off the desk].

Sometimes we need to tell our readers how to “hear” the lines we are delivering. In casual writing, this usually involves things like bolds, italics, CAPS — em dashes — or ellipses…

These tools, like the tweaks in grammar, aid in a sense of timing or emphasis, which in turn help convey the intended mood.

That said, we can overuse these tools easily. We should write the first draft without all the doodads, and then read it aloud to find out where the natural words of emphasis are.

Are they obvious? Or could someone logically punch up a different word, and thereby change the meaning? If so, add the cue.

But if it is 99% likely that the average reader will interpret the sentence the same way you do, then leave out the markers. It gets too visually busy and pulls away from the import of the words that do receive special font treatment.

4. Show, don’t tell

Although it is occasionally necessary to have a Narrator explain exposition in a play, that’s usually deemed a cop-out for a script writer. Audiences should ideally be able to pick up on the context from the dialog and action.

A well-placed line can give attentive listeners information about the past and clues about the future.

Likewise, we don’t need to say, “This is a story about a youth coming of age blah blah blah…”

We need to paint the story of growth and self-realization through the events and images in our writing. Our readers are smart enough. They’ll figure it out.

We can get our message across without stating and restating the obvious.

5. Leave ‘em hanging

No playwright wants that 15-minute intermission to turn into an opportunity to slip out the back door.

Well-crafted scripts make sure that questions are left unanswered and conflicts left unresolved at the end of each act so that the audience will keep coming back for more.

When writing, we need to be aware of the adrenaline levels of our readers. Are they up? Are they metaphorically on the edge of their seats, wanting more? Good. Time to end the chapter.

Because then they have to start the next one… just to see what happens next, of course. And then they’re hooked for the next umpteen pages because no one wants to put the book down in the middle of a chapter. It isn’t right.

Every writer wants to hear,

Music Video Directing

Shooting the music video

1. Record the track that you are playing back on set as you shoot. Thisscratch track will help you synchronize the shots with the clean track in post-production.

2. Instruct the singer to sing properly – no half-hearted singing or, worse, miming. If they mumble or mime, it will not look right when you lay the shots against the song, because the tension and movements of the face and body will not be consistent with the sound of the song. They must sing as if you were making a real recording of the song.

3. Remember that recording the singer while you shoot and using that copy of the song for the music video is not an option. It simply doesn’t work. You need the definitive recording of the track before you shoot, and the singer must match it exactly. It takes a little practice, and as the director, it is your job to make sure it is being done properly (check outhow to direct.)

4. Shoot plenty of angles, and make sure that most angles cover the entire song. If you do not shoot enough angles of the whole song, the final edit of the video might be too slow.

5. You should also shoot plenty of cutaways, also known as B-rollshots. Use these to give some variety to the video. Some directors intercut performance or dance routine shots with random cuts to shots in which the singer is neither singing nor dancing, but doing something vaguely relevant to the music video’s theme. This jump cut technique is usually disastrous in movies, unless it is used to achieve a specific effect, but it works nicely in music videos.

6. It is inefficient to shoot complicated and time-consuming setups that only cover a small part of the song – don’t schedule too many of these.

7. If there is a dance routine, make sure that the dancers know it properly, and that the lead singer is also completely at ease with it (you’d be surprised).

Editing the music video

Review all the takes and choose your favorite take for every shot. In practice, you may prefer different sections from different takes. For example, you may decide that your favorite beginning of a crane move is in take 2, whereas your favorite ending of the crane move is from take 6. That’s okay, providing of course that there is a cutaway between the two clips. If you want the crane move to be uninterrupted, which is highly unlikely in a music video, you will have to choose your favorite take and leave it uncut.

Use the waveform picture in your editing application to align the scratch track with the master copy of the track. In this way you will achieve perfect synchronization between sound and picture. Having synchronized the video clips with the track, disable the scratch sound tracks, but don’t delete them from the timeline, because you might need them again later. In this way when you scrub the timeline you will only hear the master track and you will see your music video take shape.

A nice trick I have used to edit a music video efficiently is to place all the selected clips on the timeline, one above the other on stacked video tracks. They must all be in their correct positions relative to the song, i.e. they must all be synchronized – except, of course, for the cutaways, which can be placed wherever you like.

To cut from one shot to another, you simply use the razor tool and delete all clips above the one you want. In this way you cut the video without having to drag and drop clips, because that step was taken care of when you synchronized your selected clips with the song. In this way you are effectively switching view from one angle to another, a bit like real-time editing of TV shows. This technique is not applicable to movies, but works very nicely when editing music videos.

Advice for success in the music video industry (includes rant)

Stylistic coherence

One of the characteristics of high-end music videos is their high level ofvisual and stylistic coherence.

Very simply, that means that every shot in those music videos looks like it was designed, lit and directed by the same person. This makes the whole music video gel together very well.

The importance of this is that many music videos for which I am asked to give feedback tend to lack visual coherence: the shots in the music video do not match particularly well in terms of art direction and lighting, and the music videos just don’t feel like a coherent whole.
For an example of a highly visually coherent music video, check out Mark Romanek’s video for “If You Can’t Say No” by Lenny Kravitz:

The kind of music video that tends to do well: conceptual, non-vanilla videos

The music videos that tend to be appreciated by the industry these days are highly conceptual. This means that the imagery used in the music video is mostly unrelated to the lyrics — sometimes ideas and visuals are shamelessly stolen from famous painters, as if plagiarism were somehow ennobled by its employment in a music video (you know who you are, mister!).

The best way to make a music video that will be overlooked by those who matter in the industry is to make a video that is very obviously based on the song’s lyrics. This is an understandable tendency for narratively oriented filmmakers, but the problem is that, as a music video director, you’re quite simply not allowed to make sense. The further removed from the actual story the images are, the more the music video will be appreciated by those who matter.

Again, refer to the Mark Romanek music video above to see what I mean: although the music video features a man and a woman and the song is about a man and a woman, that is where the storytelling ends as far as I can see: everything else is just extremely stylish, eye-catching shots that elicit the correct mood without actually telling the story directly. I actually like that music video a lot – it is my favorite, and even this one is probably too “straight” by modern standards.

You shoot yourself in the foot as a music video director when you employ a close reading of the lyrics in your direction of the music video. For example, if the song is about unrequited love, shooting a video based on couples walking on the beach and things like that will guarantee that the music video industry will not respect it — it would be too straightforward for them, too vanilla, too 1990s. Yes, there are exceptions, but you cannot rely on them — be smart and let the general trends guide you.

The general trend is that the music video industry disrespects vanilla directors and meaningful storytelling. Just pack as much visually impressive nonsense as you can into the music video and you stand a much better chance of impressing those who can make a difference to your career as a music video director. If you are exceptionally fortunate, you might even impress those who are most out of touch with good filmmaking and good taste, such as advertising creatives.

The only case in which you would be well advised to make a music video that has a strong narrative element to it is when the narrative of the song itself is bizarre and outrageous. If the song is just about a gal who is feeling sad because she cannot secure the commitment of the man of her dreams, you cannot follow that narrative, because it will result in vanilla storytelling. You will instead have to come up with spectacular, impressive and completely unrelated visual and narrative elements.

The 1990s ended a long time ago and this is the reality of the modern music video industry. They can’t afford me and I will have nothing to do with them, but if music videos really float your boat, this is what you will have to put up with.

Can young directors earn a living making music videos?

Back in the 1990s when the music video industry was not yet in its death throes, it was general industry practice to allocate 10% of the budget for the director’s fees. No matter how much or how little money was available to make a music video, 10% of that amount was automatically designated as the music video director’s fee.

Back then music videos were an excellent way for a young director tobuild a reel and gain some practical experience while at the same time earning a modest living. Most of them were not wealthy by any means, but they managed to pay the bills by directing — imagine the privilege!

Fast forward to the present day and there is no longer any money in the music video industry, for reasons I explained in the past.

The music video industry never really respected directors, partly because directing music videos isn’t really about narrative filmmaking, it’s more about making a commercial for a song that will attract as many views (and therefore sales) as possible, and partly because the music video industry doesn’t really appear to treat anyone particularly well.
The current reality of music videos is that everyone expects directors to work for free indefinitely. There is no longer even the pretence that anyone will get paid — young music video directors are shamelessly exploited and told in no uncertain terms that there is no money in it for them. As far as serious career-oriented directors are concerned, there simply isn’t anything in it for them any more: no money, and above all no prospects!

If you are a serious narratively oriented director — in other words, a maker of films — there are sound financial and philosophical reasons for abandoning music videos altogether. The financial reason is that you are exceedingly unlikely ever to see a penny from music videos.

The philosophical argument against music videos is that they are strongly anti-filmmaker: as a director of music videos, you’re not allowed to make sense, and you’re not allowed to tell a story in any meaningful way. Meaningless visuals and jump cuts are the bread and butter of modern music videos.

If you’re serious about making films that will touch hearts, my advice to you is to bypass the music video industry completely and focus on TV commercials and films. TV commercials are much more difficult to break into as a director, but you will very rarely be asked to work for free, and you will develop more transferable skills that will come useful in feature films. The pay is better, prospects are better, and TV commercials have considerable benefits in terms of professional development. You will have to grit your teeth with advertising agency creatives looking over your shoulder while you direct, but that’s life.

In short, the more talented you are as a filmmaker, the more you stand to lose by involving yourself with the dead industry of music videos.Focus on what you really want to do and stop agreeing to make videos for an industry that cannot and will not ever pay or respect you.

9 Top Tips For a Music Video Director

Posted on August 10th, 2012 by Lee Jarvis in TV & Film Industry Advice

Image by Gamma-Ray Productions via Flickr (Creative Commons License)

So, you want to be a music video director? After wading through what little help is out there, Media Match pulled together some of the prime pieces of advice to help you with your entertainment industry career, and avoid some of the pitfalls made by new music video directors.

Writing

John Dowdle tells The Art of Manliness “I do think it’s important to learn to write. Having a good sense of story is invaluable. I believe nothing is more important than that.”

Crew Selection

Jeff Clark at MV Wire advises about working on a tight budget: “A small crew travels fast, so use as few crew members as possible. Hire those that are diverse in their talents and can work several jobs simultaneously. A good example is a Production Assistant who does craft service or a makeup artist who handles wardrobe.”

Shooting

Some solid ideas from LA Video Filmmaker: “Instruct the singer to sing properly – no half-hearted singing or, worse, miming. If they mumble or mime, it will not look right when you lay the shots against the song, because the tension and movements of the face and body will not be consistent with the sound of the song. They must sing as if you were making a real recording of the song.”

Organize

Video director Arthur T. Flegenheimer wrote a step by step guide on About.com: “On the day of the shoot be prepared and organized. Keep a record of shots you’ve made; it’ll make editing much easier. Always allow plenty of time for shooting – the finished shot may only last 10 seconds, but could easily take several hours to set up and shoot. When you’re happy with a shot, if you have time, shoot it again. You can never have too much footage, and the retake may capture something that you hadn’t noticed first time round. You’ll have your plan and storyboard to follow, but remember that some of the best moments in a video can be unplanned. Keep the camera rolling – these days tape is cheap.”

B-Roll

Roy Sallows authored a page on music videos here, and says: “You really have two choices when it comes to B-roll for musical performances. You can mix multiple camera angles and show various shots of the performer performing, or you can cut away to show shots of images related to the theme of the song, like ocean waves or snow-topped mountains. These related images can be full-motion video, but they don’t necessarily have to be. Still photos often work well in music videos. Search old photo albums to see if the images you want are already there. You can use still photos to create a video montage, with the music in the background. Try cross fading from one photo to another or slowly scanning across an array of photos.”

Stock Footage

Jeff Clark chips in with another budget idea: “Short-ends or buy-back (leftover film stock from other shoots) are good ways to purchase film stock cheap. You can purchase such stock directly from shoots that are nearing completion or from film brokers such as ShortEnz or Dr. Rawstock. Sometimes Kodak and Fuji will donate film or give discounts to students and young filmmakers. A little begging may be involved, but you may find their generosity to be quite rewarding.”

Editing

More expertise from LA Video Filmmaker: “A nice trick I have used to edit a music video efficiently is to place all the selected clips on the timeline, one above the other on stacked video tracks. They must all be in their correct positions relative to the song, i.e. they must all be synchronized – except, of course, for the cutaways, which can be placed wherever you like.”

Stay Green

Adam Powell gave an interview with Sound on Sound last year and said: “If I was starting now I’d approach everything in the same way; I’d put my heart into it. You have to be true in what you’re doing and true to yourself, and don’t put formats and technology before ‘soul’. One piece of advice that I always give people is: don’t try and make what you think a music video should be, make what you feel is right. It’s easy to become limited by what you’ve seen already, but with so much out there, doing that can make a video fall by the wayside. If you have a strange idea, go for it with whatever tools you have. Don’t worry about whether it ‘seems’ like a music video or not.”

Have Fun

Tech site Mashable had some wise words from OK Go‘s Tim Nordwind: “When thinking about making videos, we ask ourselves, what would be fun to do for a few weeks? That’s where our ideas stem from; dancing with dogs, making a Rube Goldberg machine, a dance with time, performing with a marching band, they all just seemed like fun things to try to create.”

Lastly, if you want to take the easy short cut, simply follow comedian Rich Fulcher’s 10 easy steps to achieving your Music Video Director career dream.