Chapter 7 – Planning Shows and Writing Scripts

Planning your show to the nth detail is not necessary. In general, the value of
detailed planning increases with the scale and scope of the project as well as
the number of people involved. For example, with a show of only moderate
length and complexity but a loosely organized team of collaborators—say a
class project—planning and the clear communication of the plan help to focus
the objective, lay out the process, and divide up the work.
This chapter offers some general tips on how to prepare a video project. While
none of these suggestions are specific to Visual Communicator, we hope they’ll
help you polish your process and produce better videos with less work—and
with more hair remaining when it’s all done.

Planning your Show

1. Scratch your head and think for a bit
If you haven’t already done so, take some time to think about what you want your show
to say. Develop the message or objective until it’s entirely clear. Keep the objective in
mind as you develop your show so that the point of your show does not stray off track.

2. All great things start with a list

List the scenes in order of appearance along with the media or inputs you’ll use for each.
This will be your list of ingredients for making a great, effective show. For example if you
are doing a sales show, you might want to include the following:

1. Opening music
2. Opening Title Slate and image
3. Live video of the person announcing product
4. Product photo
5. Video clip of someone using the product
6. PowerPoint slide listing benefits of the product
7. Closing comments from salesperson
8. Closing image and music

3. Collect your ingredients

Go out and create or collect any of the ingredients that don’t come with Visual
Communicator such as PowerPoint slides, person(s) to act in the video, photos of
product, etc.

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Making an Outline of Your Show

A show outline is like the blueprint for your video. It’s a great way to communicate your
vision of the video, to keep track of what ingredients are required, and to make sure that
every detail is assigned to someone on the production team.

Here is an example of an outline for the Gravity Demo project, one of the VC shows in the
Demos folder of the Projects Library.

Scene Description Media Video Effect Who’s Responsible

Opening Title: “Gravity and You,” Intro Music Dissolve John
with background music Title Graphic Jill
Live video of Mark reading script Camera 1: Mark Dissolve Emily & John on script
Microphone Jill on camera setup
Transition to picture of Sir Isaac Image file of Isaac OTS Kid Power Suzy
as Mark continues reading GoldFramed_TV
Display PowerPoint slide of PowerPoint slide Tumble In Upper Mark
gravity formula Left

Describing What Happens in Each Scene

Scene descriptions help each team member know how exactly his or her contribution fits
into the larger project.

Creating a Quick Sketch of Your Scenes

We all know what a picture is worth, and with Visual Communicator those thousand words
can become exponentially greater. Moving pictures convey powerful messages. The
images in your show are arguably more important than the words in your script. Whether
you use the images that come with VC or decide to create your own, sketching out a quick
storyboard can help you get a preview of how the scenes in your video will flow. Create
some simple sketches of each event in your show. Again, if you are part of a creative team,
sharing ideas in this way is invaluable.

Making a List of What You Will Need

Once the basic scenes have been framed out, getting a handle on the required component
parts is typically pretty straightforward. Having a list of ingredients will help you assign the
members of your team to particular jobs.

Assigning Tasks and Responsibilities

If two or more people will share a task, designate one of them to have the final word.

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 Chapter 7 – Planning Shows & Writing Scripts

Writing Your Script

If you’ve never fancied yourself a writer and get writer’s block just thinking about writing a
script, reading this section may help you clear the block and hit the keyboard running.

Understand Your Audience

The first rule of communication is to know your audience. This will help you manage the
tone and level of detail for the presentation. Be sure the general vocabulary and topic-
specific terminology is appropriate for your intended audience.

Keep It Simple
Always be clear and concise when delivering your presentation. Write your script so that
your information flows smoothly from one topic to the next. Try not to over embellish your
script. If you spend too much time on a topic you may lose your audience. The average
TV news story is about a minute long. Watch some network television newscasts, paying
particular attention to the way the newscasters convey the information. Everything they say
is scripted, clear, and to the point. You’ll also notice that the news shows try to avoid being
stuck on a “talking head” for too long. They insert graphics, video effects, and over-the-
shoulder visual elements to illustrate what’s being said and keep things interesting.

Leverage the Power of the Medium

Hollywood writers know that great books can’t usually be translated directly into great
movies because they are dramatically different mediums with very different strengths.
Books and other printed text are ideal for communicating a great amount of detailed
information. Video can deliver information, but where it really excels is effectively conveying
feelings and the innate ‘sense’ of something.

Resist the temptation to cut and paste the text of your entire employee manual into the
Teleprompter to make an employee orientation video. You would be wasting the most
powerful aspects of the medium now at your disposal (as well as possibly boring your
audience into a deep coma). Video can have much more intellectual and emotional impact
than text, but to gain this impact you must distill your message to its most essential
points. If you don’t keep your audience interested, they will tune you out and your
message will not get through. The biggest mistake in many videos, especially corporate
and educational videos, is that they contain too much detail. If you want your audience to
digest a lot of technical information, better to feed it to them in written form. If your goal is
to communicate the essentials, convey a feeling, generate support, and inspire action, then
make a video.

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Remember, while your audience may have varying levels of knowledge, education, and
sophistication regarding your subject, almost everyone is an expert at watching TV. We all
have expectations about how it should look. A good exercise is to watch some television
shows and analyze the content and pacing. Notice how they are put together scene by
scene. You will see that the best television programming usually has a lot of visual action
and that the messages are kept fairly simple and easy to understand. Now try to create a
script or outline on your subject or message that has similar pacing and content.

Ease of Reading and Comprehension – It’s All in the Flow & Rhythm
Where two words are equally effective, the shorter one is generally preferable. Consider
that in the Gettysburg Address, only 19 of 278 words (6.8%) were three or more syllables. In
John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, the ratio was 108 out of 1372 words (7.9%). You can
do worse than to follow the lead of these two enthralling orators.

Bite-Sized Chunks: If you have a very long video, break the content up into chapters or
segments. Delivering too much information in an unbroken stretch can turn your audience
off. If you have VC Studio, you can use Chapter Markers (page 109) to provide easy access
to the sections.

Sending the Script Through Your Team’s Approval Process: If you are writing a
script for your company, it’s easy to distribute scripts via email or other electronic means
for final approval from management, marketing, and other groups.

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