WRITING FOR NEW MEDIA
Module 11
The AV Script: Content
Objectives
- Introduce writing for audio-video projects.
- Discuss the shift from the infographic to the AV Script.
- Introduce the AV Concept.
Methods
- Lecture.
- Fill-up AV Concept Worksheet.
Introduction
The last project for class was the Infographic, which required you to work on both process writing and copywriting. Process writing was about how you decided to put one card after another, given the subject of your infographic set. Copywriting is about writing the content for those cards, where you display your skill in choosing the best words to talk about the subject matter, given the limits of each card, and the audience that you are speaking to.
Your topic for the infographic is also your topic for the AV Script, and this begins the last two requirements for the course, where you shift from text and image, to text and moving image.
The Shift to Moving Image
One of the things that is important to remember is that you are not executing the two scripts that you are doing for this class. But you are going to use those as starting point for your video class, so it’s important that you at least have the first drafts of your scripts on hand when you enroll for that course.
In terms of the writing, the one thing you need to remember about this shift to the moving image, i.e., an audio-video presentation or project, or a film project, is that you are being made to imagine what the screen will look like.
Whereas for the About Page and the Infographic, you actually knew what the screen or infographic would look like, here you are only being made to imagine it, and putting that in writing. So much of your scriptwriting’s success will depend on your ability to describe what your moving images will look like.
Review Exercise
We actually already discussed description in earlier modules. You can go back to those lessons now, or go back to it later.
The AV Script
The audio-visual script is important because it is the kind of script you will encounter for many projects, including but not limited to: event programs, corporate presentations, project pitches, advertisement scripts, and documentaries.
For this particular project, you are writing the script for a 3-minute documentary-style AVP (audio-visual presentation) or video. Your topic can be the one that you used for your infographic project, so that you’re already familiar with your subject, and you don’t have to do new research. This would mean you’re talking about the same issue, taking the same stand on it, but transforming it from content for an infographic, to content for an AV script.
The AV Concept
Now what must this script contain? What are the elements of an AV Script that you need to consider before you start writing it? These are detailed in what’s called an AV Concept, which is usually a document that’s drafted for a given project to make sure that everyone’s on the same page about it before writing, planning, and prepping even start.
The AV Concept captures the look and feel of your video project, that is, not just the words that it will have, but also what it will look like, and the tone it will take.
It includes basic information about the project such as, but not limited to, the following:
- its title,
- its subject,
- its objectives or goals,
- its audience or market, and
- needed facts, data, sources.
But it also includes information about your treatment of the project such as, but not limited to, the following:
- the tone it will use,
- the attitude it has about the subject,
- the music and/or graphics it will use,
- if it will use animation,
- if it will use a host, or voice over.
Think of the AV Concept as your project brief, which also functions as your guide for when you start writing your script.
Activity
Fill-up the AV Concept Worksheet. Make sure to read the sample answers in blue, so that you can formulate your own versions of those given your own topics. Email to me once you’re done, unless you’d like to just continue on with doing the script. That’s fine as well. Good luck! ***
