Writing for Video/TV NEWS

Ellin Bessner

Toronto, July 2012

QUIZ QUESTION:

How much (%) of the story do viewers recall?

They remember

10%

You will Paint pictures with words and sound and video

Writing for the ear :

Understand the story first

YOU……

15 steps….

Like the band Radiohead’s song?

1. Short sentences

President Barack Obama has made another surprising staff selection.

He’s asked CNN'S medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to fill the job of U.S Surgeon General.

Chicken nuggets

You can use.

Sentence Fragments.

Poetry.

Repetition.

Rhythm.

Alliteration.

2. One thought per sentence

President elect Barack Obama has made another surprising staff selection.

He’s asked CNN'S medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to be U.S Surgeon General.

No CP style leads

You don’t have to put all the 5 Ws and H in one sentence. You can dole them out, through a couple of sentences. Chicken nuggets. One bite at a time. Easier for audience to digest.

yummmmm

3. Active writing

The man bit the dog

NOT ! -- The dog was bitten by a man.

Be careful of words with -ing =passive

Eg. (bad) Having walked the dog, I then wiped his paws. (Yoda speak!)

yoda

4. Conversational language

Turn print style into storytelling

Toronto police say they’re astounded by the latest R.I.D.E. drunk driving statistics. (good)

Vs.

Law enforcement officials in Toronto reveal that the elevated level of impaired driving charges discovered during this holiday season has left them disconcerted by the sheer size of the increase. (bad)

5. Contractions

Ha ha

Contractions r us!

Don’t

Can’t

Won’t

They’re

All are okay!! Use them!!!

6. Attribution comes at the beginning!

The Prime Minister says he wants another election.

Not

Let’s have another election, the Prime Minister said.

7. Title of a person before name

Researcher Adrian Coombs says…

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says…

Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain says…

8. We don’t use “quotation marks”

Paraphrase! Almost always.

Eg: Obama says he thinks we can.

Attribution…

Comes first in the sentence, not at the end.

Police say they’ve arrested the suspect

(bad) The suspect has been arrested, police said.

9. Colourful, snappy, bright writing

Be a thesaurus..

Strong descriptive writing is needed to accompany strong visuals.

The storm hit -- blah

Vs

The storm pounded -- WoW!

But…..

but…don’t add adjectives that…

you wouldn’t say to someone in a phone call…Eg:You wouldn’t say “Stratford native Justin Bieber has a new hairdo.” You’d say “Justin Bieber has a new hairdo”. Leave out the CP style stuff.

biebs

10) No cross scripting.

Show video of what you are talking about, WHEN your script says it.If you say “Squeeze the lemons” you have to show pictures of this at the same time.If you don’t, it confuses the viewer and they stop listening to the rest or click off.

11. Numbers

Round them off

Write out ONE to ELEVEN in longhand

Use figures from 12 to 999.

Write out thousand, (m)million, (b)billon

Never say AM or PM. Say morning or night

Do the math

If the economy shrank by

6 percent this month

and 3 percent last month,

say the loss was twice as big

as last month.

12.Tense

Present or immediate past

The Queen is arriving at Pearson airport

The Queen has just arrived at…

13. Leads

Be creative...snappy…can be soft or hard. Your choice. Depends on context, of course. Don’t be in poor taste.

Eg: (bad) Speaking of having a stroke, Tiger Woods says he’s getting remarried.

But…Repetition is bad

Don’t repeat stuff words/stats from the online intro again in the body of the package script.

It wastes time.

It angers the viewer (Hey, I just heard this/read this/saw this)

14. Pronouncers…

Eg: Attawapiskat, Ontario.

Write (ATT - a - WOP - iss - cat) beside it or above...so the talent won’t stumble on air

turn to CP Stylebook (16th ed) page 362 has place names and how to pronounce them.

15. COPY tips

Write only 1 story per page

Three lines of copy is 10 seconds

Write it double spaced

Use a big font size!!

Always proof read before going on air!

PAUSE HERE

Web video PACKAGES run under 2 minutes.Must be self contained (with supers, subtitles

etc)

Viewer/readers have short attention spans for DIY videos

It should talk directly to the viewer.

Take lots of medium shots and close ups, not wide shots (better for viewing on mobile devices and tablets)

How to make a web video package sound better

It’s called a ROC or RANT. Reporter on camera. Rant. VLOG (video blog) About 1-2 minutes long, directly talking to the camera. It’s more personal, less scripted, audience forgives minor slip ups and stumbles.Start with the talent on camera to establish Hero/task or conflict/location –(you all will put subtitles on later, right?) Film the talent doing their entire “on camera” piece right through once.Advise them beforehand that if they mess up, they should keep going if it’s a minor thing. You can do it again, if need be. (But it will never sound as good the second or third time!)

After you get a clean take…

Then you can add the video cut aways, the close ups, the supers/subtitles, and music if required.

Audiences like to see the performer’s face. It gives the story credibility. Especially at the end and beginning (LIVE TOP AND TAIL)