What makes writing an av script hard is not knowing how easy it can be. By the very nature of the written word for a visual medium, the key to success is less, not more.

For one thing, you’re writing to be heard, not seen. For another, the medium is a visual one, which means it prefers the pictures to do the talking. Finally, a script for video needs a lot more than just words. It has to provide visual direction, audio direction, and the essential creative blueprint that leads to the success of the project.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that your goal is to write a short script about a new software program that helps people track their spending. Let’s call it “Fast Money”.

It’s a simple, easy to use program which can help people budget, save, an ultimately have the money they need to fulfill their dreams.

The success of all video or audio-visual products is to engage the audience by appealing to their desires. You could talk about how “Fast Money” has been written by coders certified in C++, how it is delightful in its use of a user-friendly GUI, and how it automatically sends back error messages to “Fast Money” HQ so that the program can be constantly improved.

But you’d be talking to yourself, because the potential buyer doesn’t care about any of that. They care about money. Their money. Their life. Their future.

SO you need to create a hook. A way to start the script that talks right to them and their needs.

SO you begin writing:

ANNOUNCER: You want to make Money!    VISUAL: Picture of Dollar Bill. SOUND EFFECT: Ka-Ching. MUSIC: Money, by Pink Floyd.

Well, it’s a start, if you want to hit your audience with a sledgehammer.

But hitting audiences with sledgehammers doesn’t create intrigue. But this is often the approach an unseasoned writer will take– they’ll cover all the bases.

The good news is, luckily, you don’t need to know or present all those technical facts. What you need is a way to engage the audience on their terms.

Instead, try writing without using words– ie, skip the narrator for now and create a scene instead.

SCENE: Slow zoom in on man working at kitchen table, He has a yellow legal pad, a checkbook, and a calculator. He looks worried and is wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. A woman, his wife, walks in behind him and looks over his shoulder.

SHE: Well?

HE: It doesnt look good.

ANNOUNCER: Too familiar? It’s hard to save a buck these days.

VISUAL: Alternating closeups of Husband and Wife faces, cutaway to their checkbook showing small negative balance, cutaway to pile of bills.

Now, that was fun! Instead of a litany of facts and figures, suitable only for the engineer that developed the product, we’ve now created an emotional scenario almst anyone running a household can identify with. They’re ready to hear more.

And we didn’t use corny music, jangling cash registers, overblown prose, or dollars marching off a cliff.
Now you’re on your way to being a scriptwriter. Yes, you have to know the facts. But no, the audience doesn’t need all of them. They need reasons to care. And you’ve just given that to them.

Now, they’ll listen to more– even if there are a few facts thrown in.

For more information on this and other create techniques to make your video production life easier, see my book, “Tribute Videos for Fun and Profit”, elsewhere on this site.

As the keeper of the remote, I have spent a  lifetime hearing “turn that damn thing down” whenever commercials come on.

Here’s the secret: they aren’t louder. Well, technically. TV spots are just as loud as tv shows… at their “peak volume”. The trick is– tv spots are all peak volume…. through a technical audio processing technique called “compression.”

So while 24 has a peak volume of guns being fired and Jack shouting and bombs detonating and stuff blowing up, it also has low peak volume of Jack muttering under his breath, “With all due respect Madam President, ask around.”

Then, a few seconds later, he yells “We don’t have time!!!” at the peak of his lungs.

So TV spots are the equivilant of Jack Bauer yelling “we don’t have time!” for 60 seconds straight.

When I started ouyt many years ago, I didn’t use compression. That’s because even if I knew what it was, I didn’t have any. I had a $6 battery operated mixer from Olsen Electronics, and two tape decks.

If I wanted the soundtrack to sound louder, I mixed the volume louder. This sufficed for many a slide show.

But the first time I did a radio spot, I learned the difference. Despite the brilliance of my creative mixing technique, my spot sounded muddy compared to the other radio spots touting REO SpeedWagon and Styx.

So I asked around, mainly, I asked the pro film guy we had hired a few weeks back. “Buzz,” I said, “Why does my soundtrack sound murky compared to the other radio spots?”

Buzz asked, “What DB compression did you use?”

“Huh?”

Compression seeks out the peaks and valleys in a track and compresses their dynamic range. “S”‘s are more syballent, backround noise and music more powerful, and announcers sound like they just grew a new pair of..

compressors.

Luckily, Buzz had joined us to do audio, so I didn’t have to figure out the archane art of compression until years later.

But now whenever I’m asked to turn it down, I begin to explain compression– after I turn it down.

Well, that’s great. Because I figure, I’ve been doing this video thing for about 30 years now, and at this point, I hope I am a pro, so that I don’t need to edit “like” one.

The problem with “editing like a pro” is that you are– courtesy of some software tricks– imitating a pro, not being one. You can only look like what a pro looked like last week; you can’ develop new ideas and techniques because you’ve been nowhere near the theory and underpinnings of what good audio-visual, slideshow or video storytelling technique is all about.

The heart of “Slideshow Secrets” is that there is a secret to making all of this second nature. And second nature comes from understanding what makes the heart tick, not what button makes the text shimmer or one picture cube-turn into the next one.

You’ve got to push the right buttons– on your audience, not your interface.

Take a listen to the short podcast abot the reasons for slide show secrets in the next entry.

Thanks.

So what is so special about slideshows?

It’s not so much what’s special about slideshows per se, rather it’s what they teach us that is important.

Slideshows taught me everything I know.

They taught me the importance of great photography (and accidently great candid photography.)

They taught me how to tell a picture story.

They taught me the importance of the big screen.

The taught me the importance of sound.

They taught me the importance of pacing.

They taught me you can do a lot with a little.

A Bit of Background

Slide shows– speaker presentation slides, slides synchronized to soundtracks, and even multiple slide projector “events” were a big deal in the ’70′s and ’80′s.

In fact, what I learned from slide shows helped me have the nerve to abandon them as a medium and move into video way back when, a bit before my time.

But those that made the move with me knew what I knew– that we were all fully equipped to tell audio and visual stories– no matter what the medium.

Through video, “electronic” presentations, Powerpoint, web video, DVD’s, iPods, and cell-phone mobile messaging, the rules have stayed pretty much the same. I won’t argue that you don’t create differently for a phone than you would a 70 foot panoramic screen.

But the basics are there, and we’re going back to basics.

What Slideshow Secrets is about is using the language of slides– which does include sound– to learn how to tell a story.

Slides are Everywhere… Again!

Since you found your way here, you know slides are back. Various slide show sites have popped up that allow you to create and / or share your slideshows. They may call them various things, but they are indeed slide shows. They take advantage of presentations, digital images, and a variety of special effects (depending on the site or program.)

And slide sequences timed to soundtracks are becoming a cost effective substitute for more expensive (and less polished) video presentations on the web.

And why not? A still image’s beauty can crush a half-assed video clip anyday. Put a sequence of beautiful images together and you might even have a story.

Our Promise

Please stick with us. We wil review software, on-line services, and creative efforts. We will offer you what we’ve learned about storytelling from slideshows, and tell you how to apply that to all kinds of media.

And we’ll share (hint– that’s a two way street) case histories, successes, and oh, yes– failures.

How else do you learn?

Let the show begin!