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In earlier columns, we focused on where to find corporate media work and covered how to research and develop suitable concepts. Before moving on-let's address a topic that's not exactly fun, but must be tackled to meet market demands: script formatting.
Since you've written motion picture scripts, you already know formatting is vital. Readers take non-standard formatting as the sure sign of an amateur. There's no value in bucking the system. Same goes for corporate/organizational media writing. So, we'll focus on the dual column script format that serves as the staple in the industry for writing linear video scripts. It's also frequently used for projects that will be shot on film. (Interactive script formats for multimedia CD-ROMs or Web-based communications are another beast altogether. More on that topic in a future column.)
Two Columns
The dual column format is hardly intimidating-everything pertaining to what will be seen on screen belongs in the left column. All narration, dialogue, music and sound effects go in the right hand column. For the film/TV history buffs, here's how this format came about.
Back in the days of studio-based, live television shows, the director worked from a script that contained narration and dialogue typed at the right. In the left-hand margin, the director would indicate the number for the camera he would ask the Technical Director to punch up on air. (Typically, camera one, two or three.) Once this master script was prepared, each cameraman received a sheet listing his/her shots and a brief description (close-up, two-shot, etc.). This gave the cameraman time between shots to prepare the next.
As scriptwriting became more formal, this same two-column format continued to evolve. Today, it's used even for programs shot entirely on location with a single camera.
When you set up your two columns, make the left-hand column approximately one-third of the page; leaving two-thirds of the page for narration and dialogue.
Narration, dialogue and music are double-spaced; while camera directions, animation and special effect descriptions are single-spaced. Align each camera direction with its corresponding paragraph of narration. Typically, camera directions, animation descriptions and the like are upper and lower case. The narration, musical descriptions or dialogue are all caps.
Back in the dark ages of typewriters and even early word processing programs, this was a royal pain. Today's word processing programs make it a snap to conform to the format. If you're using Microsoft Word?, for example, simply set up a two-column table conforming to the one-third, two-thirds rule. Start your left hand work in a single space format with double-spacing in the audio column. (Some of the popular script formatting software programs include the dual column format as an option.) You'll find samples of these formats in the major books on T V and media writing.
Using this format, each full page equals about one minute of running time. A ten-page script, for example, results in about a ten minute viewing experience. This sixty-second rule is extremely helpful to media writers when assessing the pacing of your script.
Now that you've got the nitty-gritty formatting down, we'll get back to the writing by exploring the drafting stage of the writing process next time out.
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