Hey guys, I'm Anna, and today I'm really excited to share with you
some of the great ways that you can turn your story into a script.
Now, writing a script can help you tell a great story,
and organize and communicate your ideas
in a way that makes production manageable.
There are some questions, about like, whether or not you need a script for YouTube shows,
or if it's ok to just make a video by ad-libbing.
And that answer is just really dependent on the kind of show that you are making.
But I am a strong advocate for having a set script,
and then taking that on set and having fun with it.
And just using it as a guideline.
So today I'm gonna talk about the benefits of having that script,
and how it'll make your life a lot easier on set.
A lot of people are afraid to even get started.
It's like this paralyzing fear of, like
I've never written a script before, I've never done a video before.
And I think that starting, is really just the hardest part.
So the best way to actually get started writing
is to set aside a specific time that you're gonna commit
and make it a routine.
That will help you so much.
If you find yourself having writers' block,
what you can do is just take a tiny piece of your story,
and elaborate on that.
If you're writing a script, write out just one scene that you know from that script.
Or even just one piece of dialogue.
Feel free to totally indulge yourself in a scene for like 40 pages,
that goes nowhere. Because the more that you sort of drown and waddle around in it,
the clearer and clearer that story will become.
So, two years ago, I wrote a 200,000-word novel,
called "Schizophrenic Lesbian in Space".
That was total garbage, just didn't make any sense at all.
Everyone in it was a psychopath.
But I kept working on it and kept reworking it and reworking it,
and that eventually became Miss Earth, which is a 12 minute short film,
that actually made sense and had some semblance of a story.
So even if you find yourself writing total nonsense,
just keep going with it, because you'll start to walk around in that world,
and really be able to find the story and the protagonist that you're looking for.
Most stories are generally comprised of three acts,
although it can depend on the kind of story you are telling.
An act breaks up your story into three pivotal parts.
Usually the first act is the setup, the second act the confrontation,
and the third act is the resolution.
Something about it speaks to us in a way that leaves us feeling satisfied
when it is done right.
There are many ways to turn your ideas into script and to share your message with people.
You can simply write the pros, describing step by step how the story will evolve,
or you can adopt the industry standard and write the location of the action,
the action itself, and, of course the dialogue.
But keep in mind, write only what you can show on camera.
So try not to write out the inner, deepest thoughts of the characters,
unless you present that in voice over dialogue,
and consider referencing emotions only, if you're describing how a character looks
when they react to another character or situation.
This is what makes screenwriting extremely challenging and fun.
Tension! You need it! And here is why.
I wanna be sitting on the edge of my seat, especially today,
when everyone has a million things going on, we have our phones, we have our laptops,
and everything. Why should we pay attention to what we are watching?
You need to be able to captivate people, right off the bat.
And you do that with tension.
It's a unique thing, but it's creating a conflict with a character I actually care about,
and putting them in some kind of dilemma or peril that seems immediate.
And I think the best way to do this, is with stakes that are really high,
like life or death or some kind of ginormous failure.
Conflict to me in a story, is when a person either has to overcome something external,
or something internal, to be able to move forward.
Whether that makes them a better person, or a worse person, a la Breaking Bad,
We want to see that evolution of a character on screen.
I think the best stories are when a character overcomes something,
both externally and internally,
and both of those conflicts are interweaved.
When I shoot a short film, a script is absolutely necessary.
I did one called "Afflicted Incorporated", where it was all of these girls
in crazy make-up, sort of personifying diseases.
So I was anorexia, my friend was bi-polar disease,
someone was body dysmorphic disorder.
If I did not have a script, then we would not have made our day,
because six hours of the day had to be devoted into make-up.
And so one by one the girls would be coming out of make-up
and we would have to shoot their coverage.
If I didn't have a script I would have no idea what lines they would say,
where they are when they are saying those lines, or even what their emotional stakes are
in that moment.
It is absolutely essential that everyone on your crew has access to it,
so they can give you input and ideas on how to shoot a certain scene.
Especially if your expertise isn't in like camera department or lighting,
so then people can put in their ideas and really hone in on the tone that you were going for
in your writing.
A script allows you and your producers to control the scope and budget
of what you are creating.
So you're not kind of writing things that you can't realistically afford to shoot.
And finally, having a script helps you plan your schedule.
It is 1,000 times easier to plan your day, when you actually know what it is you're shooting.
I drink the script koolaid. I think that they are absolutely essential
in almost all genres that you're doing.
So when I do a script, if I'm doing like a regular sketch, or a regular Vlog,
I always break it down in; setup-punch, setup-punch, setup-punch.
It's incredibly imperative for me, since I do monologues to the camera,
that then have cut aways that interrupt that monologue,
to punch up whatever it was that I was previously saying.
For narratives, for short films, there's no way I can do a short film without a script.
Cause it's so cost inefficient.
If I show up on set and I'm like, ok think, maybe we'll do a shot here
ok, now that we are done with that shot, maybe we'll go over here...
that wastes everybody's time and you're definitely not going to make your day,
even if you have 16 hours to complete your shoot.
A way that I kind of break down my scripts into production elements,
is to go through it with different color highlighters,
with each color representing a unique production element.
So yellow can be props or pink can be costumes,
that way, once your done with this color scheme,
you can tell, at a glance, all the items that are necessary to plan your production.
Now the fun part. Controlling your budget and breaking down your script. Yes.
So having a script can allow you to gauge what your overall budget will be,
and help you determine, if realistically, you need to scale back on anything
prior to shooting.
This can be very, very important. Especially if you're on a tight budget.
The last thing you wanna do is overspend on something you're not really willing to.
Once you've gone through the script and done all of that,
write a list of everything that you need to make your production happen.
And once you've accounted for every single item, make a calculation and find out your total.
And ask yourself, can you afford to make this film, with the script that you currently have?
If not, then you might wanna go back and rework scenes in your script,
or cut down on the cost in some way.
You might even consider cutting out a scene entirely,
that may not have been moving the story forward anyway.
I like to do a lot of science fiction comedies.
And usually those have elements with prosthetics or robotic baby aliens of the sort.
So it's very, very important that I know exactly how much all this is going to cost me,
so that my checks don't bounce.
An example of being over budget that I remember is my short film Pregnapocalyse.
Where these four girls wake up and they find out that every woman in the world,
even little kids, who are female, are all pregnant.
And we don't know what the hell is going on.
So for this short, I had to actually go back and look at everything,
cause the baby alien prop, that like moved and smile and danced
cost about $2,500.
And my total budget for the entire thing was about three to four grand.
So to kind of accommodate that, I went back and I rewrote it,
so that everything took place in one setup.
We did one long take instead of having a bunch of cut-aways
to different aspects around the world.
And that saved me so much time and so much money,
that we could put all of our attention on lubing up the baby
and making sure we got the best smile from it and having it dance with like a little guitar.
And kind of made me reevaluate where the money should be spent in a short like that,
which of course, would be, selling this tiny little baby alien.
And kind of helped me reevaluate how I do budgeting in general.
You might wanna use dialogue that reflects the voice of your target audience.
And one really great thing about writing a script is,
that it allows you to develop characters,
and give them a specific voice that will really speak to your fans.
One of the most challenging aspects, I think, for scriptwriting,
is to reveal characters through action versus dialogue.
And that is something that I currently struggle with.
And when you notice it in a film or on TV, it's brilliant.
It's telling me something about a character, without him having to say a single word.
And that can be the way a character reacts to something,
or the way a character looks at someone,
in books, I know with J.K Rowlings Harry Potter, we knew so much about Harry Potter
just because of his aunt and uncle and how much they hated him.
And that made us love him so much more.
And so it does come to a point, where when you are writing your script,
you don't want it to just be talking heads.
You don't want people to just be talking about each other or talking about what's going on,
or just doing dialogue for the sake of doing dialogue.
There's so many instances in real life,
when I will see something about someone, and know who they are
if someone was over there and just dropped their coffee and slowly walked away from it,
and left. I would know a lot about that person.
So dialogue exempt action, I think is the number one thing that
I wanna work on in scriptwriting.
And is also one of the strongest elements I've ever seen in the medium.
And how does a script translate in time on screen?
And how long do people watch that for?
Well one script page roughly equals one minute of screen time,
that's kind of like the overall rule.
So if you're trying for a five minute narrative short,
but you have a nine page script, then you'll know right away that a lot of it needs to get cut.
You can also tide in scripts based on your viewers level of engagement.
So if you look at your YouTube analytics,
and see where fans are falling off,
you might wanna think about making your content a little shorter,
and closer to that engagement level.
Or you may experience the opposite,
where fans are fully engaged throughout,
and that's maybe when you wanna consider having a bit more content there.
Well I hope you learned a lot from this lesson,
thank you so much for watching.
If you wanna see more of Creator Academy stuff, you can go here.
And if you wanna see more of me, you can go here.