By John Oyster | AV Support Analyst

When it comes to creating a polished video project, script formatting is a key component that often goes overlooked. The script is your blueprint for the entire video; it tells the photographer what they need to shoot, it tells the talent what they need to be doing, and it tells the editor how to piece it all together. Therefore, it is critical that your script be formatted in a clean and concise way. Luckily, professionals in the industry thought of this long ago. As a result of their endeavors, there are two different ways to format a script; the first is primarily used by film and television (narrative), and the second is a two-column audio/video (AV) script.

The most common format to write a script is what I’ll call the “narrative” format. The narrative format is laid out this way to make it easy to read, and to ensure planning the shoot is as easy as possible. For example, each scene is numbered so the producers, directors, etc. can have a final count of how many scenes there are in the script. Each scene begins with whether it takes place outside (EXT) or inside (INT) and whether its daytime (DAY) or nighttime (NIGHT), so scenes can be easily placed into groups and shot in the most efficient manner possible. Directly below the scene heading, we find a description of what we can see and/or hear (with key words, actions, and props CAPITALIZED), and dialogue is indented inside, with the character’s name centered above and capitalized. A fun fact about the narrative style: these scripts Continue reading FEATURE: Choosing a Script Format →