by Matthew Russell - Posted 11 months ago
Well, today is my birthday. I’m old. The one thing that seems to keep me feeling young is writing. I love to tell stories about adventures, and far-off places. I love getting creative. I wrote this article a while ago but since I publish a blog post about once a week, this got pushed back…until today.
Writing a comic script and a movie script are two different forms of storytelling, each with its own unique set of challenges and opportunities. While both scripts serve the purpose of conveying a story to an audience, there are several key differences between the two that writers need to be aware of.
I have written several scripts for TV, Movies, as well as comics. I tend to enjoy writing comics more due to the fact that I have more control over everything. Writing a Nevel is another beast entirely.
These suggestions apply ONLY if you are working with someone else. If you are 100% on your own, then everything from formatting to scripting doesn’t matter. At that point, it could literally be just scribbles on a napkin.
This is also the pre-editing phase. Everything that we will go over today comes before you give this to your editor. If you don’t have one, trust me, find one! Your main goal with this is communication between yourself and the artist.
Comic scripts are written specifically for sequential art, meaning they need to convey story and character development through the interplay of text and images. A comic script typically includes dialogue, sound effects, and description of visual elements, such as camera angles and character movements. The writer must be able to paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind, making it easy for the artist to interpret the script and bring it to life on the page. Comic scripts also tend to be shorter and more concise than movie scripts, as the space constraints of a comic book page mean that writers need to be mindful of the amount of text they include.
With a Comic Script, you are the director. You have to decide everything from the angle that the audience is looking at the scene from, the facial expressions that the characters portray, as well as the dialog. There is no room for ad-libbing.
Movie scripts, on the other hand, are written for a moving image medium. Movie scripts are typically much longer than comic scripts and include a detailed description of each shot, character movement, and background action.
The writer must be able to convey the story and tone of the film through the script, taking into account the visual and audio elements that will be used to bring the story to life on screen.
With a Movie script, let the director and actors do their job. Trust your actors to know their characters. Allow them to improvise and…well…act.
Your television or movie scripts tend to be about 1 page per minute of screen time. This is a general rule of filming, not gospel. This means that when a director takes on your project, they can at a glance, guess the approximate runtime.
I tend to personally use a combination of Google Docs & Microsoft Word to write both. In order to make sure that I don’t lose them, I will also save them all in my personal Google Drive, just so they are all in 1 place.
I know that many people use other programs to write their scripts, but you can get by just fine with the free Google Docs or even Open Office. If you are turning in a final draft for an actual Hollywood Producer, go ahead and spend the cash to use the software “Final Draft”.
The format of the script types is fairly similar. Many actually stick with 1 format for both. Personally, I don’t. I have a distinct format for each that I reference throughout the script.
That being said, many people tend to make it more complicated than it needs to be, so here is how I simplify everything. Keep everything double-spaced for simplicity reasons.
I always include the header of
Title & Issue Number
Comic name
These are all in bold and might look like this
HUNTER #1
HUNTING GROUNDS
I like to follow that up with the page number and panel count along with any special notes about the panels if it’s needed. This is also all in caps but not bolded. Then I break directly into panels. The panel number is in all caps and then directly followed by the panel description.
Think of the panel description of a photograph only. Describe in as much detail as you can without going into any movement. Then again, if you are building a comic to be used specifically for CryptoComics and one of the panels is a gif, then by all means add movement. This might upset your artist, but your fans will love it.
PAGE 1 - 4 PANELS
PANEL ONE: A man (in what would have been a nice suit but is now covered in blood and torn on the left shoulder, and front pocket. THIS IS DAMAGE THAT THE HUNTER TAKES IN ISSUE #3 TO COMPLETE THE FIRST ARC.) walks into a cathedral with a severed hand (the hand has a strange symbol that resembles a masonic eye between 2 obelisks) and is showing it to a Catholic Cardinal. There is a stained glass window in the background depicting demonic attacks from above. It is from this window that light is pours in.
As you can see, I use numbers when I am illustrating the page and panel numbers, and when I am talking about panel 1, I am writing it out. Personally, it helps me keep it straight in my mind and visually.
There are several things that you will have to keep in mind as well; dialog, sound effects, and information boxes. The artist will add sound effects to the overall drawing. The letterer will primarily use the dialog for the speech bubbles but your artist will have to make sure that there is room for it. The same goes for the information boxes.
If I am writing these I will use the first name of the character and then hit the tab button to show what they are saying. The same goes for the information boxes and sound effects. I will label them accordingly; SFX is sound effects, BOX #1 is the information box on the page. This indicates that there are more than 1 box on the page as well.
OLD MAN * VOUS AVEZ NOTRE ATTENTION.
HUNTER YOU SEEM TO KNOW MORE OF THE STORY THAN I DO!
SFX BLAM
BOX #1 MEANWHILE IN THE CATHEDRAL
BOX #2 * FROM FRENCH: YOU HAVE OUR ATTENTION.
Notice that whoever is speaking, the SFX, & Info Box are all underlined. This is also all in caps for simplicity when the letterer uses this to add to the comics. They can simply copy and paste without having to rewrite the content.
Sidenote: According to graphicdesign.stackexchange.com comics are written in all caps to make it easier to read due to the roughness and non-whiteness of newsprint.
Keep this up with every new page in the comic being a new page of your script. If you write more than 1 page of script, hit “CTRL+ENTER” or “CMD+ENTER” depending on if you are typing on a Mac or PC. This will give you a new clean page to start from.
Now we move to the big screen. Formatting correctly here isn’t simply stylistic, it’s necessary. Your script has to be broken down into characters, props, costumes, and more. The job of the First AD (Assistant Director) is to take the script and plan everything from the film schedule, and work with location scouts, prop masters, and so on to make sure that everything goes smoothly.
If your script isn’t formatted correctly, something can easily be missed.
Scenes start with a slug line or Scene Header to tell everyone what the action is. Below is an example. I will use the same script as above so that you can see the differences.
The first part of the slug line shows if we are inside or outside. Use INT for interior and EXT for Exterior. If you're in a vehicle, you can use both INT./EXT. And state that you are driving within the action.
Next is the location. This can be anywhere. I’m sure in the Batman movies “GOTHAM ROOF TOPS” was used a lot. If you are writing something like a Star Trek script, you would indicate what room they are in ex; BRIDGE or
For the time, you can use anything from Early Morning, Noon, night, and so on. Use Continuous if the scene carries onward from a previous scene that would be filmed together. Also, if it’s a flashback, indicate that here in the time section.
INT. CATHEDRAL - FLASHBACK/EARLY MORNING
Now onto the action.
The next line down from your slug is the action line. This is everything that is going on in a scene. Remember to keep this vague enough to give the director and actors room to do their job. Try to keep everything visual and in the present tense, even if it is in a flashback.
“A man (in what would have been a nice suit but is now covered in blood and torn) walks into a cathedral with a severed hand (the hand has a strange symbol on it). He hands it to a Cardinal who doesn’t seem very interested. He begins to walk away as he casually speaks to the man.”
If you notice, I did not go into the exact expression on either of their faces nor did I get into the various angles the camera would take. As the writer, that is not up to me.
Dialog is simple. We have the character ID (Names written in Caps, bold, and underlined) followed by the words they say. Indent this quite a bit and center it.
CARDINAL
You have our attention.
HUNTER
You seem to know more of the story than I would.
If you want a Voice Over the action, add (V.O.) after the name of the speaker. For example:
HUNTER (V.O.)
If you are wanting to show HOW a character speaks, use a parenthetical directly under the name of the speaker and before the dialog.
HUNTER
(whispers)
Go to hell, old man.
This is just the first step in getting to know scriptwriting. If you would like to know more about things like transitions, intercuts, subheaders (time jumps), montages, lyrics within a script, chyrons, and more then let me know in the comments below and I will get something prepared for you,
Writing a comic script and a movie script are two different forms of storytelling that require different skill sets and approaches. While both scripts serve the same purpose of conveying a story to an audience, the writer must be mindful of the unique demands of each medium in order to create an effective and engaging story.
Whether writing for comics or movies, the key is to understand the strengths and limitations of the medium and to use those to craft a story that will engage and captivate the audience.
