Script for Documentary

[VanceVanCleaf]

Hello,

I've been asked to write a script for a history documentation. No question what to put in, or to orchestrate the scenes, however ONE THING I'm not sure about:

They want a narrator commenting the scenes played by the actors (so you see, for instance, some knights walking through the countryside, and the narrator tells about the first crusade, V.O., no interviews).

Has anyone experience with this kind of script? do we work with two columns here? (What I would do in my opinion, but I'm not the expert )

[NikeeGoddess]

i have a friend who has done this. he said the scripts are written AFTER the filming and you tailor it to what's on the screen in an editing process.

did they already shoot the documentary? if not, then just write a scene treatment. do it in story fashion so it tells whatever it is they want to tell.
ask them what other scenes beside re-enactments do they want. ie - do they have access to museums? or can they do an interview with an old man historian?

hope that helps.

[VanceVanCleaf]

thanks - no, they want to shoot it soon and asked someone for help in setting up the scenes (obviously, they had no clue) and the someone called me as history expert.

I said I could well write what should be in the scenes, but so far I don't know if they use extra material (old scriptures and such stuff) as insert. I would recommend that, but I'm not the producer or director.

I'm a bit picky about the text the narrator should provide.... so you say, this is made during the filming process, not in advance?

[NikeeGoddess]

no - the voice over narration should be done AFTER the filming is complete. you tailor it to what is on the scene and the editor can shorten or stretch out scene (like in slo mo) to work with the narration as well.

just tell them what should be in the scene - a scene treatment.

[VanceVanCleaf]

okay... thank you very much!

[DavidK]

Originally Posted by NikeeGoddess

no - the voice over narration should be done AFTER the filming is complete. you tailor it to what is on the scene and the editor can shorten or stretch out scene (like in slo mo) to work with the narration as well.

Sorry but that's quite incorrect - I speak from experience having written/produced/directed many documentaries for the major networks.

Narration can be written completely before filming, or completely after filming, or a mixture of both. It depends on many factors, including the genre, how much of the material is actuality and how many scenes are pre-written. I've made docos for Discovery Channel where every word was written and signed off by the network well before filming.

If you are writing a history documentary where some or all of the narration is in the form of an essay narrative, it's common to write the narration before any filming takes place and the scenes will be filmed so that they effectively illustrate the narrative. Not just scene treatments, but specific narration, checked for every detail, and ready to be recorded There are many reasons for this, but doing so saves a lot of money because it means you only film what specifically needs to be filmed to illustrate the voice-over.

If the documentary includes interviews, the interview material is usually edited first and the narration is written or amended so that it seamlessly feeds into and leads out of interview excerpts. These are sometimes referred to as "links". It's usually also a good idea to shoot interviews very early in the process so you know what material you will be using from the interviews and which of that material you need to illustrate with additional footage.

If you have a narrator commenting on scenes played by actors - known as re-enactments or dramatization - then you certainly want to write the scenes completely before filming - that means writing the narration AND the specific shots or action that must be filmed. Doing it this way round gives you much greater control over the production keeps costs down. You can record your narration in the form of a guide track to check timing and so on or you can use a stop-watch or timer to work out scene durations to within a few seconds, which is usually accurate enough for pre-production.

Yes, the convention is to use two columns for documentary scripts, usually with the narration in the left column, divided into passages covering specific points or ideas, and image and scene descriptions in the right column. (However, some writers/directors have these columns the other way round.) If you are writing for a major network they will have a comprehensive, detailed script template and guidelines for you to follow.

In fact the "two-column" script often has four columns with two narrow columns at the left, one for scene numbers and one for timecode or scene duration, then the two main sound and picture columns.

And using "slo-mo" is not the standard method of "stretch[ing] out" a scene to match with narration; in the rare instances where that happens it's a last ditch effort because other editing options have been exhausted and it's usually only done with a single shot.

[VanceVanCleaf]

@DavidK, thank you! This sounds reasonable, and you speak of experience, so I trust you.

I'm going to check if there are any templates for this kind of script in Final Draft, but maybe the network has something, too. I'm going to wait for their call and what they say to my already given advice on the "skeleton-scenes" I've seen.

--- Really a helpful community here! ----