So you want to see a TV Script?

The next four pages are a relatively simple story, or “package” as we call them.

The script is the result of a six-hour field shoot in the Smith & Wesson Factory, the day before the IDPA Indoor Championship in Springfield. The package explains, both what the Performance Center is, what they do, and explains the process of building the new Pro Series Production guns. 

When this package becomes part of a Sighting In Show, there will be introductory comments from me in the studio, and what we call “outro” comments, in the studio, after the package ends.  Those are videotaped separately, after the editor has built the “package”.

How to read the script:

“Voice Over” is in the column on the right.  This is me doing the announcing in the studio, as the voice track, that will pace the editing.

In the left side tables (we use Word to do this) are the scene descriptions of what the editor is showing in video to match-up with what I’m saying in voice over.

Notice the odd numbers.  Those are the time codes of where that scene is located in the field tapes.  Time code assigns numbers to each frame of video, but we’re only concerned with hours, minutes, and seconds in telling the editor where the scene can be found in the “raw tape”, another term for field tape from the camera.

When I wrote the script, I knew where the scenes are, because I’ve first indexed the tapes from the field, looking at every scene and taking notes, by time code, on what’s happening.  We use the hour position to count the number of the tape as we shoot them in the field. There were just two tapes in this field shoot, so you’re mostly seeing hour code 01.XX.XX.  There’s a few scenes from tape 02.

Notice the full width transcriptions.  These are “sound-bites”, in this case from Master Gunsmith, Jim Rae.  Notice that they are in both the video column and the sound column.  Also notice they have a start time and an end time.  So we know exactly how long it takes Jim Rae to say those words on tape. The transcription is full width because it’s “Synch-Sound”… audio with the matching video, in this case, of Jim Rae talking at his workbench.

There is one final rule in TV.  I can’t be talking about something, unless I have video for the editor to show on the screen.  So every table box on the left side has to have a suggestion.  Then our editors go to work on the piece and add their own creativity to the process.