PART 2 The Process, Script, and Production Plan audience already is with the subject and the terms used. Where details are new to the audience, and the information is complicated, more time will be required to communicate the informa- tion in a meaningful way. Ironically, something that can seem difficult and involved at the first viewing may appear slow and obvious a few viewings later. That is why it is so hard for direc- tors to estimate the effect of material on those who are going to be seeing it for the first time. Directors become so familiar with it that they know it by heart and lose their objectivity. The key to communicating complex subjects is to simplify. If the density of information or the rate at which it is delivered is too high, it will confuse, bewilder, or just encourage the audience to switch it off--mentally, if not physically. As sequences are edited together, editors find that video images and the soundtrack sometimes have their own natural pace. That pace may be slow and leisurely, medium, fast, or brief. If editors are fortunate, the pace of the picture and the sound will be roughly the same. However, there will be occasions when they find that they do not have enough images to fit the sound sequence, or they do not have enough soundtrack to put behind the amount of action in the picture. Often when the talent has explained a point (perhaps taking 5 seconds), the picture is still showing the action (perhaps 20 seconds). The picture, or action, needs to be allowed to fin- ish before taking the commentary on to the next point. In the script, a little dialogue may go a long way, as a series of short pieces cut into the program, rather than a continual flow of verbiage. The reverse can happen, too, when the action in the picture is brief. For example, a locomotive passes through the shot quickly in a few seconds, taking less time than it takes the talent to talk about it. So, more pictures of the subject are needed, perhaps from another viewpoint, to support the dialogue. Even when picture and sound are more or less keeping the same pace, do not habitually cut to a new shot as soon as the action in the picture is finished. Sometimes it is better to continue the picture briefly, in order to allow time for the audience to process the informa- tion that they have just seen and heard, rather than move on with fast cutting and a rapid commentary. It is all too easy to overload the soundtrack. Without pauses in a commentary, it can become an endless barrage of information. Moreover, if the editor has a detailed script that fits in with every moment of the image, and the talent happens to slow down at all, the words can get out of step with the key shots they are related to. Then the editor has the choice of cutting parts of the commentary, or building out the picture (with appropriate shots) to enable picture and sound to be brought back into sync. 82 Style The worst type of script for television is the type that has been written in a formal literary style, as if for a newspaper article or an essay, where the words, phrases, and sentence construction are those of the printed page. When this type of script is read aloud, it tends to sound like an official statement or a pronouncement, rather than the fluent everyday speech that usually communicates best with a television audience--not that we want a script that is so colloquial that it includes all the hesitations and slangy half-thoughts one tends to use, but certainly one that avoids complex sentence construction. It takes some experience to be able to read any script fluently, with the required natural expres- sion that brings it alive. But if the script itself is written in a stilted style, it is unlikely to improve with hearing. The material should be presented as if the talent were talking to an individual in the audience, rather than proclaiming on a stage, or addressing a public meeting.