Media Tips

Unlike radio or print where the words are the main conveyors of the story, with television the pictures should dictate what you write. A common mistake is to describe what the pictures are already showing. Instead, the best television scripts enrich the pictures and use them to tell the story in a natural way. Here are a few basic tips to follow when writing to pictures:

• Look at the pictures before writing

• Opening shot and closing shot are crucial

• Pictures inspire the lines. Be selective with your words. Don't describe what you see

• Use language that would be “understood by a truck driver but not insult the intelligence of a professor” (Ed Murrow)

• Take time to compose your opening line

• Your sentences should convey: 1. Narrative, 2. Atmosphere, 3. Context
• Make each line hold hands with the next
• Listen to the sound. Let pictures breathe. 10% should be a natural sound. Close your eyes and listen.

• Talk to the editor and the cameraman. Try out the lines in the team

• Talk to yourself. Rise and fall, rhythm

• Finish. Go back and polish - “there is no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing” (Mark Twain)