When does bang for your buck fizzle out?

Here’s a handy Script Quality Dial™ for short-form video. I’ve come up with it to help ask what I think is one of the most important questions in the production process - one that too often gets forgotten.

Whatever the project, clients usually have a list of points they’d like to get across. They’re spending a lot of money for a minute or two of video, and they want to make sure that it’s good value.

But what actually is ‘good value’? Isiit making sure that the script says everything they’d ideally like their audience to understand? Or giving viewers something more characterful, that’s more likely to stick in their heads – even if it conveys less information?

There’s no right answer, of course. It always depends on what the client wants to get out of a video. But there is – always - a trade-off. The dial can’t point to two places at once.

As a writer, I’m biased - I know where I prefer the dial to point. But that’s not what I’m saying here...

I’m saying the conversation should always happen. It needs to be an integral part of the scripting process.

Whether it’s an educational video for 6 year olds, or an ad for wi-fi connected, AI powered false teeth, the dial is always there… but if we don’t show it to our clients, they can’t make a clear choice about where they want it to point.

Too often, in the process of getting a script signed off, this very basic decision gets lost. Somewhere round about second draft stage - after the client has asked if it’s possible to include point x and detail y - everyone’s brain starts saturating. The clock is ticking. The producer wants the greenlight so they can get on with storyboarding and all the rest of the pipeline… And the client can start seeing the script as something like a shopping list.

That’s when we need to say: Step back. Look at the dial. Give it a bit of space in your head. Think about the differences between the first draft, and the third… And keep asking, what impact are we going for? Who is the viewer going to be, and how much of this is going to get between their ears, and stay there? Given the time constraint, can we afford to include all the things we’d like? If we do, what will the trade-off be?

Dan England