Scriptwriting 101: How to write awesome scripts for your videos

Ready to master the art of script writing? This course will help you structure your script, communicate your message effectively, and capture your audience’s attention.

It will cover: script writing tips and strategies, how to structure your script, how to write a video script for YouTube, storytelling techniques, how to plan your production with a shooting script.

Let’s go y’all.

Expressing yourself has never been as accessible as today, pretty much anywhere in the world. That’s what we call UGC, User Generated Content. YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram – it takes about one minute to create an account and then you’re ready to roll. To tell stories, to tell your stories. But what stories? Well, then you are in the right place. Hi, in this video we are going to find out what you want to say.

Let’s say music is your cup of tea. What do you want to say about it? You’re a singer. Cool. Do you want to sing? Do you want to discuss singers? Lyrics? Do you want to talk about the process of songwriting? I don’t know. You tell me. there are so many ways you can deal with what interests you. You need to narrow down a slice of your niche to start with. At first, you might think and fear that you might have gone for an audience too small. But truly, this is how you’re going to succeed. Start small but relevant and then grow your audience. As you’re getting confident and legitimate. On YouTube, I’m in the filmmaking industry. Filmmaking is wide. Do I speak about gear? No, I don’t. Do I speak about the latest release from DJI Sony Canon? No, I don’t. Do I show how I edit? Not really. There are plenty of people doing it very well and this is not my thing. I just want to tell stories. And the more I tell stories, the more I grew my community, which likes my stories, my style, my edits. I just have to be consistent.

Make a statement. That’s the freedom of social media today. If you’ve got something to say, you’re free to say it out loud, but you must be 110% confident in what you say. People want to listen to leaders, people who are confident people who they can trust people who inspire people who seem legitimating their field. Trust your potential and build your confidence. You must have a faithful confidence in the value you bring to the world through your voice. You must commit. If you want to be controversial, then be controversial. But be at 110%.

You feel horrified at how humans are killing earth. You want to save the planet. You want to be a voice that rises among others. Then make your voice relevant. Make your content better than others. Be open-minded. Don’t be afraid to be the one who does the extra work, who steps up to stand out from the crowd, who pushes the boundaries, who steps aside from what everyone else is doing, who brings new information, or at least another way of seeing things. you must be convinced that what you share has value and it’s worth it. Don’t be the plus one, be the one.

My edits are inspired by Peter Lindgren, Daniel Schiffer, and a bunch of other creators. Does it mean that what I do is already done by these guys? No, because my stories are personal. The way I Mix What I learned from those guys and my way of doing things is personal. Does it make my stories better than them? Certainly not. But it does make my stories unique. And this is the most important. would you rather watch a Martin Scorsese movie, or Quentin Tarantino’s or Christopher Nolan’s, or Woody Allen’s? obviously, to each their own, but nevertheless, you couldn’t say one is better than the others. They all have unique ways of making stories. One will play with your mind, another with your gut, another with your beliefs, another your reality, and so on. My point is once you know what interests you and what he wants to talk about, don’t be afraid of being different. Remember, to bring value. Doing the exact same thing as everybody else does, does not bring any value.

Never underestimate the power that you have in your hands and in your mind. Everyone has something to share. But not everyone is willing to spend days, months, years sharing the message until someone eventually hears you. And this my friends, is the beginning of your audience building. So tell me, what do you want to say to the world? I hope you guys learned something from this video. And thanks for watching. I’ll see you in the next class. Bye.

Hi, my name is Austen Paul, and I’ll be your teacher for scriptwriting 101. So you want to start writing a script, but don’t know where to start. You feel overwhelmed with the daunting task ahead, and that’s okay because I’m going to walk you through the basics of scriptwriting and where to start.

The first and most important thing to know is don’t force the script. Allow creativity to come to you. But when creativity strikes, capitalize on it and build off of that. I personally carry a small notebook and pen around with me wherever I go. And whenever I have a big idea or a small idea, I write it down. And from there, I let it build.

For example, I could come up with an idea like a string of disappearances in a small town leads a washed-up detective into the underground sewers to find answers. This is also known as a logline and a great place to start formulating your script.

A logline is a brief summary of your story. Typically one sentence long. In this logline, we have already so much information to work with. We have our protagonist the detective, who is the main character of our story. We have the antagonist, the murderer, who is the villain of our story. We have the goal for our detective to solve the murders and uncover our antagonist. And lastly, we have our conflict, the unanswered disappearances.

After creating a logline and coming up with the basic idea for our script, I like to use a method called The Story Circle by Dan Harmon. Dan Harmon’s Story Circle is split up into eight steps for you to build your story and a great way to work through your script. The Story Circle’s eight steps are one – a zone of comfort. Two – they desire something. Three – enter an unfamiliar situation. Four – adapt to the situation. Five – get what they desired. Six – pay a heavy price. Seven – a return to their familiar situation. Eight – they have overall changed. These eight steps will dictate the path of what your protagonist will do throughout your story.

So let’s start building our story circle. One – a zone of comfort. This is the protagonist’s day-to-day routine before being introduced to the events that will unfold. For example, our washed-up detective once great at his job is now an alcoholic, barely attempting to try at his job, let alone his life. He’s alone and his wife and daughter have both left him. Even though this is uncomfortable, this is a zone of comfort for our detective because this is the life he’s been used to for many years.

Let’s do the next step. Number two – they desire something. In this section, our protagonist desires a goal that they will achieve at all costs. We already know the goal from our logline, but can detail it even more and give reasons for his goal based on our character we built so far. For example, the detective uninterested in the missing people popping up around town suddenly wants to solve the case when a little girl that reminds him of his daughter that left him goes missing.

Number three – enter an unfamiliar situation. Now our protagonist must enter an unfamiliar situation, a situation that is beyond their control, that drives their story forward. For example, our detective now in a state of caring, must battle his inner demons as he focuses on this case. He gets wind of weird sightings outside the water tunnels that run underground throughout the city and must enter them to find the girl.

Number four – adapt to the situation. Our protagonist must adapt to the new situation that he’s put himself in. For example, in the tunnels, finding his way farther and farther from civilization, our detective gets lost. He slowly starts to run out of the alcohol he brought with him, facing withdrawal and uncomfortable memories he’s buried inside himself. He must fight through the pain. As he knows, there’s little time to save this girl’s life.

Number five – gets what they desire. At this point, our protagonist gets what they have desired. For example, the detective finds the girl and is able to save her life. But not without paying the price.

And number six – pay a heavy price. The protagonist gets what they wanted but must pay a price for their reward. While fighting off the withdrawals, the detective discovers a true reason his wife left him. He allowed the killer to previously walk, which caused the deaths of multiple people.

Number seven – return to a familiar situation. Now the protagonist returns to their original life. The detective is hailed a hero as he safely returns the little girl to her family, returning the town slowly back to normal.

And lastly, 8 – they have changed. Even though our protagonist has returned to a normal life, they’ve changed because of the journey that they have overcome. For example, the detective learns to cope with the truth on what he has done and learns to forgive himself for the murders of the other victims. He’s able to stop drinking and starts to rebuild his life. Ending with him, with flowers in his hand, knocking on the door of his ex-wife’s house. And that’s the Story Circle.

This Story Circle is a great foundation for a script and has now given us a very solid foundation to work off of. Think of the steps as the main points that drive our story and everything that will be written in between will help lead from step to step.

Now let’s build on our main characters. This is an important process in scriptwriting because it’ll help determine the dialog, actions, and outcomes of our characters in each scene. We can already take a lot of information from what we’ve created so far.

Let’s start with Dan Carter, our protagonist. His occupation: detective. Location: small town in Flora, Mississippi. His age: 35 to 43.His backstory: once a successful detective in a bigger city, he was too reckless and too aggressive, which ended up overturning a case where the man that was guilty got let free. He was put on suspension from his job. So him and his family packed up and moved to the small town of Flora, Mississippi. There he faced a day-to-day boredom and shame of his last job. The end of his work routine slowly required more frequent stops at the bar before heading home. Alcohol started to overtake his life and he wasn’t there for his wife and daughter. Fighting with his wife, Louise Carter, more often, she eventually had no other option but to leave him and take their daughter, Jenny Carter, who was seven, with her and move far away. This sent Dan in a deeper spiral, where he became bitter with life caring less and less about his job and his health.

And lastly, we can talk about his characteristics. He’s tough. He’s a good detective. He’s an alcoholic, but he’s overall morally good. This back story and details may seem unnecessary, as a lot of it will never come up in the actual script. But again, this will help you write and determine your character’s actions in each scene. I’ll let you build the rest of your characters. Make sure you do this for every main character in the script. Also, this doesn’t have to be done right away. You can let your story unfold and the characters themselves tell a story as it goes on. As I stated from the beginning, there are many different ways to write a script and this is just one of the techniques.

The famous writer Stephen King once said, “I never know the ending of my story when I begin writing it. I allow my characters to tell the story and determine where to take us.” And even with the rough outline that I’ve created so far, my story can change from revision to revision. Maybe I want the antagonist to be aliens, or maybe the government maybe our protagonist isn’t led into the sewers, but into a different dimension. As you write, you’ll run into roadblocks and you’ll have to rework your script and write what fits best for your imagination.

Now it’s time to begin writing the script, and the best way I like to do that is by using a scriptwriting software. Luckily, there are quite a few out there, and there are quite a few with free versions. Two scriptwriting softwares that are commonly used are Final Draft and Celtx, both great in their own way. But I’ll let you do your own research on what works best for you.

Now, I’ll show you the basic outline on how to format a script. There is an industry-standard for formatting your scripts and you must do it properly if you want you and your script to be legible and taken seriously. Luckily, most softwares are formatted for this, so it takes a little bit of guesswork out. For each scene, you’ll start with your headline or slug, where and when the scene is taking place and we will format it like this. If it’s inside, you’ll start with INT. period for Interior, or if it’s outside EXT. period for exterior.

Next you will write the locations, like the doctor’s office or Dan’s house or town square. And lastly, you will write the time of day. For example, day, dawn, night, and so on. Next, we’ll write the action. This is the description of who and what is in the scene. You’ll want to communicate the best you can the look and feel of the scene. For example, I could write something like this: Hazy light beams from the sun hit the interior office of the detective’s messy desk. The office is worn out and disorganized. Dan, sitting in his chair, had his head laying on the desk, trying to nurse his intoxication. But a rattling fan keeps spinning, breaking the peace and silence that he’s seeking.

Next, we will write the dialog. First, I’ll start with the character’s name that is speaking, for example, Dan and make sure you put it in all caps. Dan says, “Ughh.” Then depending on if there is dialog with another character, you would write the next character’s name in dialog. If not, you can go back to the next action. We will continue the action since Dan is alone, for example, you can say Dan rolls his head overlooking directly at the fan as if mocking him. As if defeated by the fan, he reaches into the top right drawer of his desk, fumbling around, pushing empty mini bottles of whiskey around. He finds one with a few drops left in it. He opens it up and holds it over his head to shake out the remaining two drops. He tosses the empty bottle back into the drawer and gets up to grab his coat and leave. But his desk phone rings.

All right. Now we can go back to the dialog. We can add a parenthesis right after the name and right before the dialog like this to convey the character’s intentions clearly. In parentheses: Exhausted. Then Dan says: “Sighs.” Now back to the action. He takes a second and walks over the phone. Now back to the dialog. Dan says, “Yeah.” Now we switch to our character on the phone. We’ll put their name, then in parentheses O.S for offscreen. This means a character is in the scene but off camera. Or you can put V.O for voiceover, meaning the character’s not in the scene, but you can hear them like a narration.

For example, Sergeant Bill Dunningham. O.S (angry) “My office now.” Back to Dan, “Sarge, I was actually about to…” Back to the sergeant, “If you aren’t in my office in the next minute, your ass will be looking for a new job so fast you won’t know what hit you.” Now back to Dan, “Yes, sir.”And now we can finish with the action. Dan hangs up the phone and walks over to the inner office window and using his two fingers, peers through the blinds across the sheriff’s department to Sergeant Bill Dunningham’s office, where you can see him visibly upset behind the desk. Dan takes a breath, grabs his coat, and exits the office. And that will do it for our short scene.

Here are a few key takeaways when writing your script. Don’t be too hard on yourself, with your first draft. You’ll write and rewrite and write some more. And most scripts that become movies have had more drafts than you can even imagine. When you’re struggling or hitting a roadblock, take a break and go for a walk and recenter yourself. Working under stress will never produce the results you want. And lastly, practice-write as many scripts as you can. Most famous writers talk about their first few scripts and how terrible they are. It takes a lot of practice to become great at this process. And a lot of learning along the way.

Good luck with your scripts and allow your creativity to take you wherever you desire. That’s it for scriptwriting 101. Join me for the next one.

Today we’re going to talk about choosing the right words when writing a script. Choosing the right words when writing can be very difficult, but highly important when creating any script. The fundamental key to choosing which words to use starts simple with being concise. Don’t try and make your words overly complex or your sentences overly fluffy by using unique adjectives. Sometimes the most powerful words are usually the shortest and simplest. You should always ask yourself, does what I’m about to say or write have value?

In Script Writing 101 we talked about building the universe in which our character, Dan lives in. Dan lives in a small town in Flora, Mississippi. So when I begin to write the script, I need to do research. So let’s talk about the rules.

Step one: research. Research is super important for many reasons, but mostly because when writing, you want your story to be believable and accurate to the universe that you’ve built. How someone speaks in California is much different than how someone from a small town in Mississippi would speak. So we must research how those people would speak, what type of slang they use, and what are common discussion topics. Just by doing a little bit of research, I can find out that people from Mississippi say, “the Sip,” which means they’re referring to Mississippi. And they also say, “carry,” which means to drive. So instead of Dan saying, “I had to drive to Old Pritchard’s farm,” he could say something like, “I had to carry myself to Old Pritchard’s farm.” This is only a small part of research and is extremely important when writing for making sure you’re choosing the right words.

Another thing to think about that we haven’t discussed is time period. What time period is your story set in? The way people spoke in the 1960s would be much different from today. For example, if this script was set in the 1960s and we had our character say, “I totally understand,” that would be incorrect because a more common phrase would be, “I dig it.”

The last concept that falls under the research category is context and character. When writing about your character’s backstory and who he is, this will determine the words you’ll be using when speaking. Since our character worked and grew up in a bigger city, his word choice and slang might be different from people around himself in the small town of Flora, Mississippi. His attitude and motives will also dictate the way he speaks and responds to situations. How drunk is our character in a scene? That’s going to affect the words he uses. Will he be more brash or careless with his words? All important things to think about when writing your script.

Rule two: building moods with word choice. The words you use will probably convey the mood that your character is trying to convey in their dialogue. For example, if your character’s sad instead of your character saying, “I’m sad,” we can use words like anguish, grief, heartache, heartbreak, hopelessness, melancholy, misery, mourning. “I understand your misery, but finding your daughter is hopeless.” Another example is instead of Dan saying, “I feel bad for the Smiths.” He could say, “I pity the Smiths.” Short yet concise and to the point. Or we can change the wording to convey something positive in the dialogue. Dan could say, “I understand your hopelessness, but I feel optimistic about finding your daughter.”

Choosing the right words will take practice to master, but for now, you’ll want to be mindful when you’re writing your script. Does this enhance your story? Does this fit my character? Is this actually what someone would say if they grew up here? This is why writers typically will tell you to write what you know or what you understand well. Especially when you’re first starting out it’s much easier to take a life experience and morph them into a story because it will be authentic.

Another way to think about choosing the right words is in a non-scripted video, something like a tutorial or an unboxing video on YouTube. The words you choose to use will impact how the viewer interprets the product you’re talking about on screen. Be mindful to use positive words when you are promoting a product. Even if there’s something that you don’t like about the product or not too fond of, you can still be critical in a positive way.

For example, say you’re reviewing a slider and dislike the battery’s attachment to the control module. Instead of saying, “I dislike the battery attachment,” you could say something like, “The way they designed this battery attachment is unique. I would prefer if it was higher up on the module.” You’re still being critical about the battery attachment, but you’re not using negatively charged words to describe it.

Alright, let’s talk about the last rule. Number three: find your voice. To become a great writer, similar to a great filmmaker, you must set yourself apart. You create your scripts unique to yourself and no one else. For example, Quentin Tarantino’s style of writing is very heavy on character-building dialogue and relatable discussion. As for Christopher Nolan, he will play with time jumping forward then backward, then into the present in most of his films. Piecing everything together for one cinematic end. Finding your voice again will take time. But just remember to be true to yourself. That’s it for choosing the right words. Come join me for the next lesson.

In today’s video, I’m going to teach you how to create a script for YouTube. This will be super easy, concise, and allow you to maximize your time and effort when creating content on YouTube. Similar to writing a narrative script, we first have to come up with an idea for a video on YouTube. Let’s say I’m reviewing the newest broom in Wizard Technology, the Nimbus 3000. We’re going to want to ask ourselves, what are the talking points of this broom? What would the viewer be interested in knowing about this broom itself?

Let’s start creating a rough outline with our talking points like an introduction on how I got my hands on the new Nimbus 3000/unboxing. Then, new key features compared to the Nimbus 2000. Then, a speed test. Then, maneuverability test. Then, price range. Then, my overall thoughts. This is a rough but simple outline that will allow us to build a solid script with all the points we think our audience would like to hear.

Typically, there are two ways people will write their scripts for YouTube, either word, for word or bullet points. This really depends on what you’re comfortable with and how you’d like to present yourself in front of the camera.

Word for word means you’ll write out exactly what you’re going to say, and will read it from a teleprompter, memorize it, or read a section at a time. Some people prefer this way because it allows them to convey precisely every key point in their script using the exact words that they want. While bullet points would be similar to the outline we created earlier with a few talking points under each section, then when recording, you’ll be talking more off the cuff and what comes to you in the moment.

Some people like this method because it comes across more natural and true to their voice. You’ll have to practice and see what fits you. I actually use a mixture of both where with certain videos I’ll write it word for word and read off a teleprompter. This is usually when I have lots of details, information, and specific things I need to convey and want to make sure that I don’t miss a thing. While when I do tutorials, I like to use a bullet point style and talk from my heart about what’s going on in my thought process when I’m creating the shot. Now let’s talk about the typical structure of a YouTube script. It’s simple. You have your hook, your content, the bullet points we created earlier, and a call to action.

Now let’s talk about the hook. A hook is a statement that you’ll see at the beginning of most professional YouTubers’ videos explaining what the viewer is about to watch and gain the viewers’ interest so they stick around and continue watching. A hook should be exciting, simple, concise, and explain what the viewer is about to watch. For example, my hook would be, ‘is the Nimbus 3000 the best broom ever created? In today’s video, I’m going to put this broom to the test and show you if it’s worth it.’

So what did I explain in my hook? I explained to the viewer that not only do I have Nimbus 3000, but I’ma test it out and let you know if it’s worth buying. This video would therefore attract viewers who are interested in buying the Nimbus 3000 or viewers that are fans of brooms. This hook will typically be something called A-roll. A-roll is the primary footage of a project’s main subject. What I would do for this A-roll, is film myself talking directly at the camera with the broom and hands speaking my hook. After the hook, I typically lay out a short video trailer of B-roll footage. B-roll footage is the secondary footage shot outside of the primary A-roll footage. It is often spliced together with the main footage to bolster the story, create dramatic tension, or further illustrate a point. This B-roll footage will consist of exciting, engaging clips of what the viewer will see later in the video.

Think of this like a trailer. This is also important because again, it will keep your viewer engaged in continuing to watch your video. Next, we’ll start to hit our talking points. Right after the B-roll trailer, we will shift back to A-roll. So again, it’ll be a talking head of me, directly talking to the camera.

Our first talking point is the introduction on how I got my hands on the Nimbus 3000/unboxing. I will now write a rough dialogue that covers this talking point. So, for example, I can say something like, “I am so excited because Nimbus recently reached out to me and told me that they wanted me to test out their new broom, the Nimbus 3000. As a huge fan of the Nimbus line, I’ve been anticipating this launch forever. I just want to open this box right now. So let’s pop it open and check it out.” After creating a rough draft of this introduction talking point, I can reread through it and possibly look for points on where I could add some B-roll footage to enhance the video.

For example, I talk about how Nimbus reached out to me. Maybe I film the FaceTime with Nimbus, or I want to recreate the FaceTime with an actor to add in when I talk about them reaching out to me. Or, when I talk about anticipating the launch, I could show a B-roll of myself waiting around, checking the Nimbus website for updates. If I want to add the B-roll in I’ll mark it down on the script with parentheses. For example, “I’m so excited because Nimbus recently reached out to me and told me that they wanted me to test out their new broom, the Nimbus 3000, (Skype call with Nimbus).”

If I wanted to write this intro in bullet points, I’d write it as something like this. Nimbus reached out. Why I’m excited and let’s unbox. Again for bullet points. I’m only writing down the key things I want to convey in this section. Then when I go to record, I’ll have the bullet points near the camera and make sure I touch on each point as I begin to talk. Whether you decide to work with bullet points or word for word, you’ll go through your whole outline and write your script out for each section, just like I did above.

Remember. Be clear, short, and authentic. Don’t overly talk to the camera and bore your audience. Try to get your point across in the shortest, clearest way possible. Make sure to add your B-roll in when you think it relates to what you’re talking about and can enhance the viewer’s experience. Most people don’t want to see you talking the whole time, but they want to see you in action testing out the product.

Lastly, you want to create your call to action. What do you want the viewer to do now? Do you want them to subscribe and comment on your video? Do you want them to buy the product from Nimbus? Do you want them to watch more of your YouTube videos?

It is up to you on what you want to try to persuade your audience to do. So what if I want them to subscribe? I would say something like, “That’s it for the review of this Nimbus 3000. I had so much fun testing out this broom. Remember I’m constantly creating content just like this for all the latest brooms and if you want to be notified on the latest broom news, make sure to subscribe and turn on the notification icon. Until next time.”

Or, if I want them to buy the product I would say something maybe like this, “This broom is truly incredible. I highly recommend it. Nimbus is giving me a discount code for 25% off if you purchase this broom through the link in my bio below. Don’t sleep on it because this deal will only be going on for the next two weeks. I hope you enjoy this video and until next time.”

Or if I’m trying to get them to watch another video on my channel, I could say something like, “I had so much fun reviewing the Nimbus 3000, but it’s a toss-up whether I like this more than the Nimbus 3000 X. If you’re on the fence on which one is better, you can watch my video review on the channel where I break down the best and worst features of the Nimbus 3000 X. I hope you enjoyed this review and until next time.”

When writing a call to action, try not to combine too many different tasks for the viewer to do, otherwise, they’ll feel overwhelmed and do not want to do any of them. Decide what is the most important action for the audience to take and focus on that. Make a compelling reason for why they should do what you’re asking. This will take time and practice to get the flow of things. And as you develop, watch your trends and your analytics to find out where you can adjust your videos and scripts to keep your viewers engaged. I hope you enjoy this tutorial and join me for the next one.

In today’s lesson, I’m going to talk to you about creating a post-shooting script. Now that you have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of script writing, we’re going to work a bit backwards. We’re going to start with the footage first, then we’re going to build a story script based off the footage our production team has sent us. It’d be very rare that you’d receive a bunch of footage without some sort of script or story. But this is a great place for practicing your editing and learning to build a story. And the principles on how I approach editing a story together would be the same whether we were given a script or not. This is also good practice if you were handed a bunch of stock footage and need to create a montage.

By breaking down the key elements in a story or a scene, you’ll be able to manipulate your edit into the exact visual feeling you want to represent on the screen. The footage that we’re going to use is footage from Artgrid of a cop car chase scene, but before we start looking through the footage, we must understand what does a scene typically consist of? Typically, you have an establishing shot, which is the first shot in the scene that helps the viewer understand the setting.

It doesn’t always have to be the first shot, but it’s important to allow the viewer to understand where they are so that they can better paint a mental picture in their head. Next, we’re going to want a shot that will establish our protagonist or our antagonist, whether that be a full, medium, or close-up. Without really looking through the footage, I know there’s a cop car with a cop or two in it and there’s a bad guy.

The question is, how do we want to tell the story? Is it a story where the protagonist is a cop chasing down a low-life criminal or is our criminal actually just a misunderstood outlaw who’s actually the protagonist of the story? Let’s make the outlaw our antagonist and our cops, the protagonists. This will be important because our main focus will be on the protagonist compared to the antagonist. And through editing, we’ll establish with the viewer that our cop is a person of importance.

Now that we have our key characters, let’s understand our footage better. We know in just a brief glimpse that this is going to be an action scene.

There are two key features of an action scene: 1. A rapid series of physical events that take place. And 2. A strong element of danger or urgency exists either causing or caused by the action. For a scene, we’ll have our beginning, which will be the establishing shots and our protagonists. Then, the building suspense, introducing our conflict, antagonist, obstacles, and goals. Then the climax, the ultimate challenge made. For example, maybe the cop car crashes while pursuing our antagonist. And then the end, a resolution to our scene. For example, our outlaw could get away.

The story or scene is like a hill that your viewer must climb. They start with a walk that turns into a jog that then turns into a sprint, then back to a walk. We want to start slow and build tension until we hit our climax and then resolve the scene. We can do this with the shots we choose and how we edit the shots together. Again, I haven’t even looked through the footage yet, but these basic principles will help carry us when building out our scene. Now let’s dive into our clips and start culling the shots we think will fit our scene structure. Remember, I’m looking for establishing shots and our protagonist shots first before we start to build tension.

Alright guys, so now we’ve dived into the editing portion of this on how to build an action scene or a scene in general. And what I’m going to just talk about really fast is, I’m editing in Premiere right now. You do not have to be in Premiere to edit a scene. This is the program that I use. There are so many different programs. So if you feel a little confused, all of this is transferable into any editing program you’re working on, whether that be Final Cut, DaVinci, Avid.

So the first thing that I said that we’re going to do is we’re going to do something called culling. And what culling is, is you’re just really going through clips and kind of getting a better understanding for them. And then either you can cut them down or you can organize them into groups. And what I want to do is organize them into groups. And I have actually already started to do that. But I’m just going to show you guys kind of the process. So these are kind of already split up into groups just because I was doing this tutorial and then I forgot that I pressed record. So, you know, things happen sometimes and so I have…

What I’ve done is I’ve taken all my clips of the car chase scene or the scenes or the videos that I’ve got off of Artgrid. And I’m just going to start going through them. And what I did was first start putting them into sections. So this section right here, as you can see, these are all the cop car chasing the bad guy’s car. And so I just separate these and I already know what they are, but you’re going to go through and then you’re going to separate them.

So, say if this one is part of that, then I’m just going to put it over there. But it’s not because again, I’ve already put them into groups and the next section I’ve kind of broken it up into is now I have shots of my antagonist. So these are kind of facial shots of my antagonist. Here is one right here, as you can see. But here’s a few more as you can see right here. Then right here I have my protagonist shots so you can see the cops, right? And so I just what I did was just go through all the footage because it’s not in order and I put it into different groups and just spaced it out.

Then I have the ending scenes because obviously, you can tell that there is a resolution happening right here. And then I have shots of the initial scene happening. This is where the lights go on, boom. And then the car goes by. It’s hard to see right there. And then another one right here. And then lastly, I couldn’t find any establishing shots that I really liked. And what’s nice about Artgird is that they have so much different footage that I found something that is very similar because looking at the footage, it is kind of a snowy, woodsy area. So I thought this drone shot right here would be perfect.

So this is what we’re going to be using as our first shot, but we’re going to dive into that in a second because I’m going to show you the next step.

Okay. So the next step, what I do now that I’ve separated all of them, this is just to help me a little bit more in the editing process. I would select the different groups that I have right here. I go to Label and then I’m going to make them different colors so I can go mango for those. And then just each group is going to be a different color. So these are antagonist shots. I’m going to make these red for bad. That just is an easy way for me to remember that.

So we can do something what is magenta right there or pink or whatever. And then we can do a nice ocean blue or something like that for this blue and so then you’re just going to label them and then eventually you’re going to get something like this. So now I’ve split up my shots and like I said, what we’re looking for first is an establishing shot, and I’ve decided my establishing shot is going to be this footage of the forest. And again, this is not a shot that comes in this pack but I thought it was a lot better of an establishing shot. So we’re going to use that.

And the first thing that we’re going to do is we’re just going to come over here to the timeline that I’ve started to build very slowly and I’m just going to lay in the establishing shot, which is this one right here.

So now that I’ve looked through the footage, I’ve got an even better idea in my head of what I want to build out and so I’m thinking I’m going to start very suddenly with sound effects, and I’m going to show this establishing shot. You’re going to hear wind and everything like that. And then the next thing I want to do is I want to break this calm shot up with some rising tension. And you don’t have to do it like this is just what I envision. And that’s a beautiful thing about editing is you can get really creative.

What I want to do next is I want to break it up with the antagonist, but I don’t want to reveal the antagonist yet because I want to reveal my protagonist before I reveal my antagonist, just to show that they are a character of importance over the antagonist. But I still want to show that rising tension is coming towards them. So what I want to put next is I saw a few shots in my car chase scenes of a close-up of the antagonist’s car or the bad guy’s car. And I think those are perfect. So I grab those right here. So we’re going to go – this. And I’m going to break it up with “Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”.

And then we’re going to go to another calm shot. And I found this perfect shot just here of the car just sitting here. And that’s perfect because now it establishes there’s a police car. So now we’re kind of building the story for our viewer, even though we only have these quick shots right here. We have, oh, it’s wintertime. And then here’s another shot. This is definitely a different time of day. Because this is shaded. But we can fix this probably enough with color grading that I think it should be A-okay.

And then another thing that I notice, and this is something that you just want to be aware of, is I actually flipped the shot because in this scene right here, the car is going this way, and so they filmed in a bunch of different angles. But, for continuity reasons, I do know that the car’s eventually going to cross this way.

So if we have our car going this way and all of a sudden it’s going to cross this way, in one of the shots, it’s going to be highly confusing to the viewer. So just a quick little fix is I just flipped it like that. After this shot, I want to go back to a calm shot and then I want to go to another energy or tension-rising shot right here. And so, like, I’m going to use this pattern to start building to our rising action.

And so we have a calm shot. We have a tension-building shot. We have another calm shot, tension-building shot. Then I want to show our protagonist, look, he’s eating a donut and he’s like, “Hey pass me the box.” And as he’s handing him the box, I kind of cut it right here, and he’s like, “Oh, there is a car coming, right?” So I’m just trying to match it a little bit. And then right here, they turn on their lights, and then the car flies by. And then from there, I took from this shot to another shot because I want to show them peel out, and this is kind of taking too long. I even might cut it right there. Because I just I think it’s just too long of a shot and go like this. And then “tuvvvv,” right? Car’s flying by and then the next shot is right here.

And yeah, these are two different times of the day. It looks like these are supposed to be continuous shots, but unfortunately, they shot at different times of the day. But that’s okay. We will try to color grade our best and we’re going to only, we can only do the best with the footage that we’ve been given. We did not shoot this, right? But, before I go in any further, typically I like to choose my song first, and I’m not going to go through the whole process, but this is what I love about Artlist, is that you can pretty much go in here and then you can start selecting a mood or you can even go to Spotlight ‘cuz Spotlight is going to have it sometimes, or genre, or anything like that.

But I think what I’m going to do is go to mood and then I’m going to put in things that are going to invoke what I think is going to happen. So it’s going to be powerful, it’s going to be exciting. And then another thing is, I think it’s probably going to be pretty tense because this is a car chase scene. The way that I’m building my scene, I’m looking for a song that’s going to build. And you can tell by the waveforms of songs that are building in action. So for example, this waveform right here, this is going to start out really hard and fast. And the way that I already have chosen my shots and the way that I envision it is I’m looking for waveforms to click on just to save me a little bit of time that are going to be slow and then start to build.

This one’s kind of very slow and then very hard, but something along these lines would be a good waveform because it’s going to slowly build up and then get louder and louder to build to our action. I’ve selected a few different songs that are kind of completely different from each other, but I’m just going to listen through them really fast. Our song right here is about to rise on this action right there. And as we can see, we have our car right here. One second of displays, and the car is going to pass right there.

So that would be kind of where our rising action starts to pick up. So I would select the song and kind of put it right here. Whoops too far. And we’ll just see how that lines up really fast. Most of this is going to be sound design for the beginning parts. And that works pretty well. We’re really going to start kind of basing our edits off of the song and I might put a shot in between here just because I don’t think these cut well together.

So let’s see, let’s extend this shot really fast and see what happens. So this even showing right here, look how that kind of cuts together better, you know, and I might just even cut a little bit farther because… A lot better. A lot better, right?

So we kind of have to react right there, if we’re going to add this in, I think, and put it like that. Much better. I think that’s much smoother. And so it’s just tweaks like that, that we’re going to start to make as we build out our story. So that is the starting introduction into our action scene.

What we’re going to do is try to find a shot that maybe matches with this. And if we can’t, then the obvious thing that we would do to kind of jump from the next part of this is we could find a shot of our antagonist, maybe looking through the rearview mirror or him looking backwards. But let’s look through our action shots really fast and see if there’s anything of this, the car pulling out. I think our best shot is going to be this one right here. Because now that we’re in center, we can cut from this one to one of him on the other side. We’re just going to slowly build this out and we’re going to put in shots and we’re going to build tension all the way up until we probably hit here. I’m going to finish putting this together.

And the last thing that I would say that I would just think about when building your scene is you remember what the diagram that I pulled up earlier is that we’re starting with the walk, we’re establishing our shots, then we’re showing our protagonist, then we’re showing our antagonist and the problem, and then we’re going to build rising action right in here. Right. So just follow a song, really, to do it. We’re going to be showing our rising action and we’re going to have our climax which is him getting caught because that’s the footage that we have here.

Here’s our protagonist putting on his gun to stop him. Here’s our antagonist with the gun. Right. And that’s going to go in, probably, right here and that’s how our song is going to end. And we’re just going to have our resolution ending right here.

After all the editing this is what we came up with: [scene]

I hope you all enjoyed the process of creating a script backwards. I believe it’s a super important technique, not only on building your editing skills but understanding the structure of a scene. Thanks for tuning in. And, until next time.