If you read the sentence above aloud, you’ll find that it sounds like a lecture, not a conversation. It’s simply not the way people speak (except maybe your college professor.)

That’s because those words are written for eye, not the ear.

It’s simply the biggest mistake would be scriptwriters make. Because writing involves, well, writing, they write like they’ve been taught to write… as if they were writing a letter, or an essay.

Let’s say that the person writing the script does know how to write for video. They know the end result is not words on a page, or text boxes, or PowerPoint slides. It is an audio-visual melange, made up of visuals, music, graphics and words. And a picture is worth a thousand words, at the very least.

So the writer goes about the task differently. He or she writes “out loud“, visualizing what will be seen, heard, and said. Visualizing what parts of the story can be told purely visually, what parts of the story can rely on music to deliver impact, and what parts of the story need text on the screen, or when necessary, word written to be heard… out loud.

What do we mean by writing out loud?

Simple. Open your mouth and read what you’re putting on the screen. If it sounds convoluted or wordy, it is. If you need oxygen to read it, it’s too long. If it is so convolutedly complete in its coverage of every concept and fact, it’s a guaranteed video fail.

If you’re not sure from looking at the words you’ve put on the page are right for the ear, there’s only one way to tell– read them out loud.

Is your face turning red as you realize the pain the audience will be going through? Good for you– you’ve at least got a sense of self-conciousness, and an ability to feel shame.

Does your reading out loud allow you to hear music where there are no words, and envision picture sequences, sounds, interview voice clips, and animations that become part of the audience experience simply guided or led by the words?

Bingo.

When I started in this business, my job was the words and the soundtrack. I wrote the words, and I cobbled together music, words, sound effects, and interviews on two Sony 2-track recorders. We didn’t have an office, just a one bedroom walkup apartment in Milwaukee. And that bedroom had one closet.

I was just married, and just starting the business, and after I wrote the script, I had to narrate it by reading the words into the tape recorder. I was terribly self-conscious, so for that reason, and for better acoustics (this is Wisconsin– there were plenty of wool coats in the closet) I brought my tape recorder, microphone, a flashlight and words on paper into the closet. Doing my best “annoucer” voice, I began to read.

Within a minute my face was read, and I had stopped the tape.

This didn’t sound like Ed McMahon, Don Pardo, Dick Clark, Betty Furness, Kate Smith, Garry Moore, Durward Kirby, Arthur Godfrey, or any of the other great pitch-people of my father’s generation. It sounded like– like– a bunch of words!

I turned on the TV. I watched Ed McMahon, Arthur Godfrey, and others pitch products. There weren’t a lot of visuals  but the product was always prominent, along with simple graphics and the pitchman or woman. The person on screen sometimes did a demonstration, and sometimes just, well, talked., like he or she was leaning over your shoulder as you ironed or folded clothes (this was before two career families became the norm). And the “out-loud” words were succinct, brief, to the point, and not always in complete sentences. Just like a conversation.

If you’re under 40, you may have no idea who Arthur Godfrey was. But he was big. He was a CBS TV and radio personality who defined that term. He was a talker, singer, ukelele player, daily TV and radio variety show host, and pitchman. People paid Arthur big bucks to get behind their products. He was known for ad-libbing a lot of his endorsements, the best known of which, in the fifties, was Lipton soup, which he would slowly savor in front of you from his panel discussion hosting desk on his daily morning tv show.

As daytime variety shows faded, and game shows and soap operas dominated the airwaves, Arthur was still busy, making movie cameos and endorsing products in commercials– although, to his credit, he was selective on which products he would risk his well-earned reputation of trust.

In the late 60′s, he was paid to introduce a new product via a series of commercials– the first laundry  ”enzyme pre-soak”– Axion.

His conversation, simple demonstration pitches were classic and sold tons of the stuff. Watch:[pb_vidembed title="Arthur Godfrey Introduces Axion" caption="" url="http://vimeo.com/55230386" type="vem" w="480" h="385"]

His use of conversational language and “you and me” familiarity is phenomenal. “Look,”, “uh-huh”. “Someone got punched in the nose”, “it would take an hour and a half to explain it to you, take it from me it works.”

Hell, his magic logo reveal is pulling a piece of tape off the box!

I’m not proposing minimalistic production values a a solution to communications complexities. I am proposing that the use of human conversational language in a medium partially intended  for the ear is a pre-requisite for corporate communications success.

A good story, credibility, and decent visual proof. That’s at the heart of a successful product or image story.

By the way, Godfrey, an environmentalist, eventually stopped doing Axion commercials when he found out that the sponsors had withheld some information fron him: Enzyme action got clothes clean, but made rivers and streams a problem for wildlife.

The post Corporate Video Scriptwriting 102: Write it Out Loud appeared first on Brien Lee.

We both shared something in common– we both as part of our modus operandi retained creative control over the projects we produced, at least most of the time.

He said, “I have a philosophy. I tell potential clients ‘if you know what you want, you don’t want me.’”

I tried to put my head around that, since clearly they wanted him, or they wouldn’t be discussing a project with him.

He went on. “What I mean is, if they have already figured out what they want musically, without even discussing the their need, goals, expected results, and more, then they want to skip the best of what I can offer them.

“How’s that?” I said, channeling Jack Webb.

“I offer problem-solving”, he replied. “If they’ve figured out the answer, then I’m just a contracter, not an architect.”

Which reminded me of the single most often asked question we used to get at Sorgel-Lee in the old slide days. After a pasrticularly successful project, one in which we had analyzed a need, suggested an approach,wrote a script, shot the picture sequences, created dazzling animations, and put the whole thing together to a remarkable, Hollywood-style soundtrack, the client would declare:

“That was great. What kind of camera do you use?”

Like the camera was going to grant that individual the sudden talents of the 10-person team it may have taken to create the multimedia project that had just gotten him a promotion or corner office.

Which is why we never worked by the hour, only by project quote. You need some video shot? There are freelance shooters for that. Our shooters are working on projects that we have written and are directing.

You’ve got a script? Good for you. There are plenty of production companies that will risk their reputations and highlight reels producing your script. But we had a style, and it including certain script-writing techniques, rhythms and meters we had spent yeats perfecting.

You want a hundred copies? There were far cheaper places than us, and we didn’t want to risk our reputation and your trust in us with an attempt to make a quick buck by hooking up a couple of VHS machines and given you muddy copies, or burning single DVD’s with paper labels that only worked on SOME DVD plsyers.

Put another way, if you want to hire us, you want to hire us, not our equipment.

And our most successful professional relationships are built on that fact, and the trust it implies.

The post The Customer is Always Right– Always? appeared first on Brien Lee.

And in February, I’ll have been doing this– this being creating visual communications projects– for 40 years. Slide Shows, museum events, audio-visual theater in the round, multi-screen extravaganzas, video in all its permutations, wide screen meetings, business theater, web video, interactive DVD’s, you name it. (Go ahead name it– I’ll wait—- yup, did that too.)

So, I’ve created a lot of media. Yes, that was my job. Create. Analyze a communications need, through research, meetings, reading, talking and listening, and finally, offering a solution that would accomplish the change necessary. I was right on the money about 94% of the time (that’s an educated guess; I’m guessing I was probably involved in nearly 1000 various projects throughout the years, some as a creative director, sone as writer, some hands on. Generally, because I either owned the company producing, or because I was a high level executive with the company producing, I had final responsibility for sduccess or failure. I took that pretty seriously.

But not always. Contract corporate communications– where a company executive or a communications or video department executive hires outside assistance– is a very complex thing. Some companies have media departments that produce much of what they do internally and hire out turnkey responsibility only occasionally. Others develop a relationship with a producer (or to make it even more complex, an ad agency) and rely on them to create solutions and accept responsibility, which CAN be two different things.

Corporates can choose to be their own producer– hire a writer, shooter, editor, graphics, editor, etc. Or they can hire me (alright, and thousands of other like me.)

When my partner Ric Sorgel and I began, we had the advantage of being early adopters of a technology– slide shows. But out love of the technology did not blind us to wanting to just play with the toys. We wanted to make complete, stand-alone, hey ma, we did this ourselves shows. The technology was so new (and the budgets compared to 16mm film so enticing to potential clients) that we were busy almost from the start. The clients– had no idea what we did or ow we did it, they only knew the end result. Despite our having conceived, outlined, written, shot, done interviews, created soundtracks and edited them altogether, the clients first question after applauding the show was– “What camera did you use?”

I wonder if Hemingway ever got the question, “What typewriter do you use?”

This syndrome continues to today. Avid or Final Cut? Red or Canon DSLR? Mac or PC?  Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter? (or Word with two columns?)

The questions are more complicated because video has become part of the language of communications, movable type was to the book. And the tools of video are more affordable. Thus, everyone’s a director / shooter, everyone’s a producer, everyone’s a creative. And almost anything can be seen by anyone… i.e., YouTube.

But pens and pencils and typewriters were used for many things– grocery lists, love letters, invoices, instruction manuals, summons, and, yes, novels, great and not-so-great. So, was the grocery list writer considered an “author?” Is anyone with a camera or web access a “creative?”

Add to that the interactive world– iPhones, Twitter, SMS, GotoMeeting/Seminar.com, chat groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, and we can be connected all the time! We can live, therefore, in a virtual committee. I’m not talking about production teams, where everyone has a specific role.

I’m talking about virtual groupthink, where quiet time vanishes and creative ideas are ground by a group of peers into sausage. I know, you like sausage, but is it really good for you?

There is a way to be successful on both sides of the fence in corporate communications. I’ve made enough mistakes to know how. In these pages, over the next few months, I’ll share– wait, I hate that word– I’ll provide– for free– ideas on how to avoid the sausage of creativity and allow the prime grade AAA meat  to sizzle.

The post The Corporate Communications Choice: Creativity or Committee appeared first on Brien Lee.

Well, I began doing creative stuff for pay on February 1st, 1972. I have a few thoughts on how to encourage, develop, nurture, sustain and even monetize the creative soul in or for a corporate environment.

I also have some ideas on how to add creative secret sauce to our videos, whether you work in-house, on contract, or for your own devilish purposes.

So, excelsior! Let’s learn from each other!

But no committees.

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