Script Writing

Script Writing

All I can write about is my recent personal experience. I saw an opportunity to work with a person I know that has the requisite technological skills and equipment to create a DVD.

I discussed with him in the briefest fashion the kind of DVD we could produce. He agreed to do it if I could get some minimal expenses funding. He even agreed to work for free, if I in turn would be the Director and scriptwriter. His position was that that part of the creative process was not in his personal skills package.

I put together a thumbnail verbal sketch and approached the Board of my local Chamber of Commerce on which I have served as the Secretary for the last two and a half years. I asked for a financial commitment of $500 for expenses mostly for gasoline for our travels to take photographs, labels and paper, and an initial small order when the project was finished.

I am a writer. My job was to write a script. My job also contained a requirement to work collaboratively with the technician. We needed to meld and blend our array of skills to create an audio-visual creation for television or home use. It should contain a narrative story, still pictures, possibly video pictures, music background, and text on screen by way of titles, and credits.

Obviously this kind of presentation has some elements of advertising and promotion. The Chamber wants to help promote local businesses, and increase the number of tourist dollars that alight however briefly in our communities.

As may be expected, this writing project required many revisions, and sit down together working sessions. We had to work with a time restraint, targeting a total length of 23 minutes to fit the framework of a local public television-cable system’s need to fill 30 minutes slots. There was also a stated limitation of interest from the targeted audience, and a limitation for how long a program they might be willing to watch and listen. The major time involvement was for oral narration so timing was related to speaking speed. That job also turned out to be mine.

My idea for the DVD was to show a traveler’s tour of my local District here on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the State of Hawaii. We would try to show and give verbal information about sites of interest to tourists that might attract their travel to our area and most importantly suggest alternative side trips in our area to add to their usual fast passage to and from the Hawaii Volcano National Park from the big resorts properties in the Kona area.

The final script was to be used for a production guide, so it had to include approximately where in the time sequence photo scenes should appear, and there ought to be some correlation of the spoken words of the narrative and the visual presentation. At the end of each narrative section, a stopwatch timing is notes, together with a second timing for the length of time to be saved by elimination of that part of the narration in {brackets}. These are included to facilitate the melding work form the technicion. Photos are noted as follows: < photo >

Space limitations here dictate that I cannot show both the initial script, Version A, and the final revision. I therefore opt to share with you my final script, Revision G, which follows. Within a couple of months, possibly by the end of January, 2007, I expect this DVD to be for sale for a nominal fee on the website of our Chamber: www.ovchamber.com