R541 Instructional Development&Production 1

R541 Instructional Development and Production I

TECHNIQUES

As you begin planning your script, you need to think about the kinds of techniques you will use to present information. You may change your mind as you write, but techniques will drive many other decisions that you make about the script, so you should start out with a general plan. In the table below, the first 5 techniques (purple shading) apply equally to audio and to video scripting, while the last two (yellow shading) are applicable to video only.

In Writing for Video (1997, Petrel Publishing) Gene Bjerke says there are seven major ways to present information in video:

talking head	usually a head and shoulders view of an individual either speaking a prepared script, or otherwise telling the audience what the audience is supposed to know -- too much talking head is almost always boring, and the wrong talent used as a talking head can be deadly
narration	someone on screen (sometimes a person at a desk, in a chair, standing still and lecturing) or off screen ("voice over") tells the audience about what they are seeing or comments on other parts of the video at the beginning, at the end, or intermittently throughout the video
dramatization	a story is acted out, either by professional talent or by "real people" and the audience gets the point of the instruction through watching the story; this story does not have to be entertainment-oriented -- dramatized role play of work situations is often used in instructional video
documentary/interview	the video crew goes out into the world and records something that is actually happening; often the main script will be written after the footage is shot since no one knows what will take place on the scene; staged documentary is a recent variation of documentary video -- "reality shows" on television use this technique to recreate scenes where the video crew could not have been there at the actual event
montage	a series of images, often quick cuts but sometimes slow, is presented with music and/or narration; there is no continuous action, just a build-up of understanding through multiple images: historical presentations often use this technique, showing a montage of old photos, letters and other artifacts while the sound track plays battle sounds, music, readings from historical documents, and so on
graphics	in this context, graphics are drawn illustrations, diagrams, charts and other images serving illustrative purposes; you would rarely build an entire video around only graphics, but they can be used for fairly long sequences in which processes are being explained or procedures demonstrated
animation	moving illustrations serve as graphics with motion, or (if you have the budget and the talent for it) as the entire presentation - including an animated narrator; in instructional video animation can serve as the entire presentation technique (as in educational TV shows for children), or as short sequences that show something the audience could otherwise not see, or clarify something that would be hard to see in a regular video image