Pre-production: Scripts

During the scripting process myself and Jemma created an AV script, this is the usual scripting method for a documentary.

New York film academy recommends planning out the content of the documentary before doing the scripting process. This is the time to organise and plan how the story will be transmitted to your audience. The outlined story is detailed in regards to how the film will play out. When you have this outline clear in your head, shooting the frame is much easier because you already know what you want.-NYA We did this by using a white board and sitting together to decide the structure of the documentary and how everything would flow together.

Through experimenting and working out what our budget would get us we decided on a final structure.

This then slightly changed to a drag show with two other drag queens and Tanya to an audience of people.

From there I emailed the contributors questions so that we knew as much about the as possible and how we were going to script it. You must work backwards. It is the only way to write a documentary script. Once you have collected your research, data, and interviews, only then can you write the script. It would be impossible to conceive what an interviewee is going to say and how that ties into your message. Once you have all of the facts and materials, then you can sit down and write the script and voice-overs. -NYA 

First draft October 25th

Jemma wrote out the script in the with extra columns so that when I read over it I understood what she meant by it all. From there I made my feedback/changes to it.

From here we needed to put the script in narrative order rather then filming order, and format it as a proper AV script.

Draft 2 December 2nd

This time the script was formatted in an AV format and elements such as Tanya being bullied were taken out as it would be better to focus on Drag and let the conversation go that way if it happened on its own. Visuals were made clearer for the DOP to be able to work from.

More questions were added to keep the doc on track for the subject matter.

Me and Jemma took this version to Helena and from there received this feedback:

• Focus on shot types and visual descriptions more
• Pre-title is too long
• Strong statements shouldn't be in the first voice over
• We need to ease in the viewer more to the subject/characters
• Set up Tanya as a everyday person
• Show more tell less
• Drip feed information
• Let Tanya tell information about herself to us rather then us tell the audience
• Look at universal relatable themes like her being a teenager, living with family and being a student for the audience to relate to her
• Don't write in interview questions write in topic subjects
• Be less formal more youthful and conversational
• Have more actuality
• Be more observational 
• Be upfront about the fact it's constructed

From there we went into draft three.

Draft three

Me and Jemma sat down again and discussed what our structure was and what we wanted to show from it, visuals were focused on first and how we'd get our message across through that, then scripting was added. Jemma mapped out everything through post it notes.

From this we made sure that each part of the documentary flowed well together to avoid it being blocky. We used information we learnt through questions we sent earlier in the project and made our contributors more relatable. Viewers want to connect with your project. Find compelling personal stories that will enthral viewers. Emotionally, your viewers will open up and understand the complexity of the issue while making the issue entirely relatable. Every viewer wants to be transported somewhere else, learn something new, and then be motivated and moved by this information. -NYA From there we went into re-scripting with this new structure of having two other drag queens perform with Tanya.

Draft 3 December 7th

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Over all from this I have learnt:

• Constructed events are ok however you need to own the fact that it is constructed

• Use research to aid the writing that's why you've done it

• Focus on what is seen rather than heard, through this drip feed the audience information so that they aren't over whelmed

I'll use this information if our rescript gets re-drafted Be thorough with your writing and voice-overs. Writing and rewriting parts of the script is part of the process as you continue to define your message and refine the story. -NYA. Even after filming the conversations might not follow the script if the contributors go on a tangent that works better.