The first thing we have to have is the need to tell , to share an idea, a dream, a story, a reality, a criticism … There are thousands of things that we can tell through audiovisual productions, but the first thing is to have that need to communicate what we are concerned about, like or care about.
If we have that need, we already started well, now we have to focus on what we want to tell. This is the basis of any audiovisual production, which from now on we will call video.
The idea
The idea is the engine that generates the need to tell a story. It is the one that encourages us, provokes us and encourages us to share with others something that goes around our head. We will start working on this idea to make it visible through our video.
We can transfer that idea to the audiovisual message, to the video, in multiple ways. Surely if we offered this possibility, on the same idea, to a group of kids, each would make a very different video. The different possibilities that open up in the production of a video are immense. But broadly speaking, there are three fundamental ways to tell an idea:
- Fiction production (dramatization)
- Documentary production (capturing reality)
- Video Creation Production
Types of audiovisual production
Fiction production
Contrary to the documentary, works of fiction do not seek to capture reality but to recreate and transform it in order to narrate events that may or may not have occurred. Most of the time they have never happened. This genre is the most commercial and appreciated by the general public and is based on the ability to make up stories. Within fiction we find different genres with their particular formal conventions and narratives: drama, comedy, thriller, science fiction, etc. Unlike the documentary, the pretense of recreating “a” reality that moves the director of fiction requires, in most cases, the use of actresses and actors, sets, makeup, etc.
Documentary production, reports, news
Its objective is the recording of real events in order to reflect them as faithfully as possible and / or subject them to analysis. You can also make a video using recordings or filming files, or from other documentaries, reports, or audiovisual works that already exist. In the first case, original materials recorded or filmed by ourselves would be used. In the second, archival material would be used. Both formulas are not exclusive and, in fact, much richer and more complex results can be obtained using a mixed documentary technique.
Video Creation Production
The object of this type of video is art itself, its foundations and the investigation of the processes of the audiovisual work. Whoever makes a creation video tries to create an artistic object without the limitations or restrictions that the genres and narrative or commercial conventions can impose on it. They often have, on many occasions, a marked experimental vocation.
Public
Once we have chosen the type of video that we are going to make, we have to concretize the idea that we have. It is time to start writing to put your ideas in order. But first of all we must think: Who is our video aimed at?
This is a key question when designing our video and we should never forget it. It is not the same to make a video aimed at adolescents than at older people, at children, than at parents. So before starting the writing of our script we have to ask ourselves this important question. The more we close this question, the easier it will be for us to make our video and we will obtain a better result.
The script steps
When starting to write our script we must take into account the following steps:
- The idea : we must describe in two lines what we want to discuss in our video.
- The synopsis : a little more detailed description of the subject of our audiovisual production. We begin to introduce the characters that can appear and where the action happens. conflict appears. We start giving more details. In this first stage, good documentation is essential to do a credible and rigorous job: obtain the maximum information about what our video is going to deal with and process it properly.
- Treatment : In approximately two or three pages, we write in a more detailed way the development of our idea. We present the characters and their relationships, as well as the spaces where the action takes place (the locations).
The script
This is one of the fundamental phases of our audiovisual production. A good job is always based on a good script. The script is an orientation in which everything that will later appear on the screen is described. In the writing of the script we can distinguish two phases:
- The literary script is one that describes what will be shown and heard in our video. It involves division by scenes, actions of characters or events, dialogue between characters, as well as brief descriptions of the environment. A good literary script must transmit enough information so that whoever reads it can see the film: how the dialogue takes place, how the characters act and with what objects they interact, although not yet specifying the details of the production. Once finished, it is passed to the technical script, which will describe in detail how the camera will capture all that information.
The fictional literary script tells us the scene changes, whether the action takes place indoors, outdoors, day or night, and separates the dialogue of the characters from the rest of the action. The documentary literary script is usually not as accurate as the fictional one.
- The technical script is a script prepared by the director or the video maker after a careful study and analysis of the literary script. In the technical script, the filmmaker can delete, incorporate, or change action passages or dialogues.
In the technical script the sequences and the plans are detailed, the staging is adjusted, incorporating the planning and precise technical indications: framing, camera position, decoration, sound, playback, special effects, lighting, etc. In the technical fiction script, the storyboard is usually carried out, which consists of drawing vignettes of each plane that we have planned in our technical script, indicating the corresponding action.
In summary, the technical script offers all the necessary indications to carry out the project. The technical script is followed by a block containing the description of the action, the actresses and the actors, their dialogues, effects, music, ambience and the characteristics for the sound recording.
This first stage of writing the script and preparing everything necessary to record is called the pre-production stage. Once we have prepared the script and we know what we want to tell and how we want to tell it, we have to start preparing all the technical and human resources to be able to make our video.
We have to define all the means we need:
- Technical means: recording cameras, tripods, lenses, microphones, lighting, tapes, batteries, etc.
- Artistic means: costumes, sets, furniture, props.
- Human resources: Technical personnel: director, producers, cameras, sound designers, illuminators, decorators, makeup artists, editors, etc. Artistic staff: actors and actresses. In the case of documentary productions in which there are usually no actors, we will have to define the people we are going to interview or record.
Another very important point of this first stage of pre-production is to decide the locations , which are the places where we are going to record: whether they are interior (natural or decorated), or whether they are exterior, day or night.
All this information we must organize to make our video in a planned, effective way and with the lowest possible economic cost. The more resources we need and the more personnel intervene, the better planned we must have everything. Many people and many media are involved in the filming of a movie. In more modest productions we must also make a good organization to make the most of the means we have.
Some of the tools that we must develop before recording are:
- The breakdown : Used mostly in fiction productions. it consists of establishing in detail the needs to carry out the script from the artistic, material, technical and actors and actresses points of view; sequence by sequence. This allows to determine the set of elements necessary for filming and thus prepare a work plan.
- The work plan : It is a document made by the producer that plans and organizes the filming phase. It intends that we quickly visualize the set of days, with the specific aspects of each one, and organize the filming in such a way that the sequences that share common elements can be grouped in order to save travel and other costs. The work plan indicates the members of the filming team, the days they participate in the recording, the number of shots, scenes or sequences to shoot per day, the appearance of actors and extras and the requirements of any order that must be available for each workday.
- The budget : It aims to evaluate the total cost of the audiovisual production that we are going to carry out.
