Scriptwriting (assignment 2)
Master scene script (All examples are from drama film 'Brooklyn')
A master scene script is the accepted format for film production in the industry. It is purposely designed to be easy to navigate and read for producers to show potential investors, it offers both description and dialogue to make the story easy to follow and read, this means technical information is very limited in the MSS format.
A master scene script must follow a few conventions to be read or considered by a commissioning editor. The font must always be courier and the size must be 12, slug lines and characters names in dialogue must be capitalised. Another convention of the master scene script is voiceover and offscreen must be abbreviated as V.O. and O.S. Footer at the bottom should say CONTINUED where a scene continues to the next page, the next page should have CONT. top left.
A scene heading is known as a slugline, the slug line has three parts interior/exterior, location, time of day. These three are written on one line and abbreviated, this makes it easy for investors or commissioning editor to picture the scene. Below the slug line is a narrative description this tells the story of the scene, it should be precise and visual and aim to engage the reader. Also in the description a writer must only write what could be seen and heard in the scene, this is because in a screenplay everything must be recorded in picture and sound.
In the MSS script one page normally equal one minute e.g. 120 pages equals a two hour film. This makes its convenient for producers as they will know the length of the script quickly, because of this script convention, narrative description passages should cover as many pages as the scene is expected to be in real time. For example, if you feel that a action scene will take a minute of screen time, it should be written to cover one page.
Dialogue blocks also called "speeches" consist of three parts character name, wryly, and dialogue. Character names are written in upper case, wry lies are written in lower case inside parenthesis and dialogue is written in normal case. A wryly indicates how a particular line should be said. Although they should only be used as context and should be kept to a bare minimum
Radio script (all examples from radio drama 'The Book of Yehudit')
Radio differs from film production as none of the story can be told visually therefore there is a lot more dialogue.
A familiarity of film and radio scripts is that (V.O.) stands for voiceover in both. Radio also has various other shortened meanings such as, (OFF) which indicates to the actor the they should speak away from the microphone, this is the equivalent to off screen. There is also (D) which is distort this indicates a character is speaking through a mechanical device like a phone or radio, Another is (Low) this tells the actor they should speak quietly. (Close) indicates an actor should be close to the mic to give an intimate feel to the dialogue.
The video script comes in two parts. The first is the flowchart, This documents every major decision a player has to make. It consists of text boxes with arrows to indicate what the decision means.
The second is the script, once all the choices have been defined writers must write a script that take into account the variables of the interactive world. Interactive world means the the script may be incredibly time consuming and detailed. There is no one format for video game scripts because of the variety in the gaming industry. Game scripts often have simple dialogue that explains to an actor how perform their lines.
A master scene script is the accepted format for film production in the industry. It is purposely designed to be easy to navigate and read for producers to show potential investors, it offers both description and dialogue to make the story easy to follow and read, this means technical information is very limited in the MSS format.
A master scene script must follow a few conventions to be read or considered by a commissioning editor. The font must always be courier and the size must be 12, slug lines and characters names in dialogue must be capitalised. Another convention of the master scene script is voiceover and offscreen must be abbreviated as V.O. and O.S. Footer at the bottom should say CONTINUED where a scene continues to the next page, the next page should have CONT. top left.
A scene heading is known as a slugline, the slug line has three parts interior/exterior, location, time of day. These three are written on one line and abbreviated, this makes it easy for investors or commissioning editor to picture the scene. Below the slug line is a narrative description this tells the story of the scene, it should be precise and visual and aim to engage the reader. Also in the description a writer must only write what could be seen and heard in the scene, this is because in a screenplay everything must be recorded in picture and sound.In the MSS script one page normally equal one minute e.g. 120 pages equals a two hour film. This makes its convenient for producers as they will know the length of the script quickly, because of this script convention, narrative description passages should cover as many pages as the scene is expected to be in real time. For example, if you feel that a action scene will take a minute of screen time, it should be written to cover one page.Dialogue blocks also called "speeches" consist of three parts character name, wryly, and dialogue. Character names are written in upper case, wry lies are written in lower case inside parenthesis and dialogue is written in normal case. A wryly indicates how a particular line should be said. Although they should only be used as context and should be kept to a bare minimum
As shown in the above screenshot the master scene script form the film 'Brooklyn' uses a lot of the conventions mentioned. The script includes a slug line and it is done in the industry accepted way, the script example also shows dialogue blocks, which clearly splits up the dialogue and makes it clear which characters dialogue it is. It also follows the convention of font and size, which should be courier and font size 12. This script also has character names and slug lines in capital letters. This example script also complies with legal guidelines.
Radio script (all examples from radio drama 'The Book of Yehudit')
Radio differs from film production as none of the story can be told visually therefore there is a lot more dialogue.
A familiarity of film and radio scripts is that (V.O.) stands for voiceover in both. Radio also has various other shortened meanings such as, (OFF) which indicates to the actor the they should speak away from the microphone, this is the equivalent to off screen. There is also (D) which is distort this indicates a character is speaking through a mechanical device like a phone or radio, Another is (Low) this tells the actor they should speak quietly. (Close) indicates an actor should be close to the mic to give an intimate feel to the dialogue.
As shown on the above example this radio script has the expected simplified dialogue and explains to actor how to perform their lines.
Video game scripts
Video game scripts differ from both film and radio scripts, as they often exist in an interactive world with multiple options. Scripts might have something called branching, this means there are elements that are optional and may affect the interactive world late. This means the script almost splits in two.The video script comes in two parts. The first is the flowchart, This documents every major decision a player has to make. It consists of text boxes with arrows to indicate what the decision means.
The second is the script, once all the choices have been defined writers must write a script that take into account the variables of the interactive world. Interactive world means the the script may be incredibly time consuming and detailed. There is no one format for video game scripts because of the variety in the gaming industry. Game scripts often have simple dialogue that explains to an actor how perform their lines.
The flow chart above has all the conventions of a video game flow chart
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