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Scripting vodcasts
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By Jonathan Halls Vodcasting is a fast growing medium. To exploit all it can offer, you need to understand it as a medium. This article focuses on scripting Presentation Vodcasts. Pictures tell the story While we can learn a lot of video storytelling techniques from television, we must remember that vodcasting is not television. It’s a different medium altogether. It is consumed differently and it comes in a variety of shapes and formats. The first thing to remember when you write a narration script for your Vodcast is pictures are your primary storytelling tool. The narration is merely a supporting actor while pictures are the star. When people consume video, they watch more than they listen. They use more of their brain reviewing the pictures than listening to the words. In this sense, the rules for vodcasts are the opposite for podcasts. The spoken word tends to be the principal storytelling tool in podcasting. Pictures are the ‘storytelling workhorse’ for vodcasting. When you write narration for a factual vodcast, you are not writing poetry. It’s not literature. Your narration picks up the story from where the pictures fall short and carries it on. Narration picks up where the picture falls short For example, the picture of a traffic jam only tells us there is a traffic jam. It doesn’t tell us that toll collectors are on strike, or more people than expected were driving to see a Madonna concert. These extra details are what your narration picks up. Remember also that vodcasts are not television. Generally speaking, they will be shorter pieces of video that stand alone and may not be part of a longer series of programs. So here are a few tips for writing for video and vodcasts. These are for scripting short factual presentation vodcasts. Words Choose simple words that are quick and easy for your viewer to understand. Often, the best words are monosyllables. They’re quick and easy to understand. Add life to your narration by choosing verbs and nouns over adjectives and adverbs. Avoid abstract nouns which lack immediacy and instead use verbs. Write short sentences with one clause. Sub clauses and dependent clauses take longer for the brain to process and the aim is for quick and easy comprehension. Your viewer is spending more time reviewing the pictures and less energy on the spoken word so we need to make it easy to comprehend. Be a scrooge when it comes to sentence construction. Examine every sentence to see if you can shorten it by removing a word or two. Sentences Interrogate each word by asking yourself, if this word wasn’t in this sentence, would it change the meaning? If the answer is no, chop it out. Think about who will be narrating your script. Vocal expression can often convey the meaning when you need to cut words. Write the majority of your sentences in the active voice. Occasional passive sentences are fine if you want to moderate the pace or create a vocal effect. Construct phrases that do not run into each other. For example, “just as it is,” sounds like, “justice, it is.” “Attacks on tourists,” sounds like “a tax on tourists.” Always read your script aloud before recording it. Listen to be sure your words are easy to recognize and the sentences flow well. Conversational tone Write your video scripts in a conversational tone. Formality may be appealing at first but it quickly becomes boring. In the era of a vodcast, informality is important. VODs are on the Web which has an underlying philosophy of sharing, collaboration and democratization. Being able to express your own voice. Citizen journalism ties into all this. Spoken Word and Pictures You should either storyboard your short piece or cut the actual pictures into a sequence before you write your script. The script, remember, is to support the pictures. You script should relate to the pictures. However, your script should not repeat what is obvious by looking at the picture. This is just as we discussed above with the example of a picture of a traffic jam. Your words need to either enrich what the picture is saying or focus its meaning into something more specific. More about VOD Presentation Scripts These tips are focused on writing scripts for news, factual or corporate presentation vodcasts. In many ways this is a good foundation for scripting vodcasts. However, writing drama and feature vodcasts will take many of these rules and develop them further. We will be publishing more tips later on other forms of vodcasting. Script Mechanics If you have autocue or teleprompt, you will read your script from that. However, if not, you may find yourself reading from paper. The key to making it easy to read is using a serif font and double spacing it so it is easy for your eye to recognize the words. Use capitals for names and complicated words as this tends to slow your reading down. When you lay your VOD script out, create two columns. The left column should describe the picture on screen and the right-hand column, the text.
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Text copyright © 2006,2007,2008 Jonathan Halls. All rights reserved. Website copyright © 2008 Talkshow Communication Ltd and Licensors. All rights reserved.
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