THE POWER OF THE PICTURE

A picture speaks a thousand words. But what words does it speak? All too often it says something different from what you, the programme maker, intended.

Worse, when you add verbal words to the visual words the viewer can get totally confused.

You can mitigate the problem to a large extent by recognising the power of a picture or series of pictures. Try to make the words support the pictures, not the other way around.

For the best results, cut the pictures, then think about the words.

Second best is write with the pictures you'll use in mind.

Only at your peril should you choose to write first. It's very easy to take a piece off the agency wires, shorten it a bit, record it as commentary, then slap a few pictures on top. The result is, almost always, horrid.

Pictures are very powerful devices and that power should be respected.

Do you remember the famine in Ethiopia in the eighties? (Bear with me - it's relevant). For months, radio and newspapers told us about the people dying there. We knew - intellectually and factually - that there was a huge crisis.

But it was only when a BBC news crew got film of the scenes there, that we really understood. There were shots of tiny black babies with stick arms and distended stomachs. Mothers who were too weak to brush away the flies covering their faces. Fathers who could hardly walk tramped for miles trying to find some sort of food. All of a sudden, because we could SEE the problem, we understood. Then came Band Aid and Live Aid and Geldof Aid and things.

Pictures have power. They go straight to our hearts, not our brains. Film and television are primarily visual media, and a programme maker's main attention must be the visuals. But the pictures don't tell us the whole story. They can't tell us how many people are dying. They can't tell us how long this has been going on. They can't really tell us the cause of the famine. For that we need words.

BUT THE WORDS HAVE THE FACTS

In the end it's the marriage of words and pictures that gives a film or television programme its power. This section is about the basics of scripting. It's a primer, useful (I hope) whether you're interested in writing a blockbuster Hollywood screenplay or a fifty second piece for the evening news.

THE EAR, NOT THE EYE

From the age of five to twenty-one or more most people concentrate on writing for other people to read. But your viewer or listener will not be reading your story; he or she will be hearing it.

So you need to write for the ear, not for the eye - stored speech, in other words. And you should use the ordinary speech of ordinary people. Slightly modified. When we're chatting we often start a sentence, then as our ideas develop inside our heads we change the direction of that sentence in mid-flight. A script, of course, should be a cut-down, clearer, version of that chat.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

In normal conversation there is two-way communication - even in a lecture room the talker is getting feedback about whether his listeners are understanding him or not. Broadcasting is different. Never forget that the viewer or listener cannot turn back to read a previous sentence to clarify something you have just said.

So wherever possible write in simple, short words - with basically only one idea to a sentence. In general keep those sentences short, but vary them; if they're all short and breathless, you'll bore your viewer.

ONE TO ONE

Talk direct to one person - someone who has maximum intelligence and minimum knowledge. The cardinal sin is to talk down to the listener or viewer - to patronise. Almost as bad is to talk up - 'thank you so much for listening'. Just talk (and therefore write) as you would to a friend. I know broadcasting is a 'mass' medium, with audiences in the tens of millions, but it's there in our living rooms. It's immediate and it's personal. One person (no 'we's, thank you) talking to one person ('all of you out there'. Yuk!).

And you should visualise that person as you write. Is your programme for teenagers? For retired people? For keep-fit loonies? Think about your viewer or listener; think how he or she would receive each sentence, if you can. Say it out loud to him or her. Then - and only then - write it down.

Remember those three rules and you won't go far wrong:

	Write for the ear, not the eye.
	Remember the lack of feedback
	One speaker, one listener

If you can stomach it, press on for more blathering about words . . .