Working with AV scripts

Commercials, storyboards or documentaries – what do you want to write?

Working with AV scripts

AV scripts or Audio Visual scripts are often used when a drama script isn’t visual enough or a more detailed script is needed. Dramatify’s AV scripts are super flexible, making them useful for everything from documentaries and commercials to live entertainment, radio and webcasts.

You write AV scripts from scratch in Dramatify, and they work well for team writing. You can add a lot of different content and get it nicely separated, each with its own icon. You can create an unlimited number of episodes, and also mix them with drama scripts. AV scripts work with all other features in Dramatify that you can learn about in our FAQ & tutorial section.

STEP 1: Add a script

1. To add a script, click on Scripts and then on the blue button labelled “Add script to production“.

2. Select the script type you want, AV script for this tutorial.

3. Add the title for your script

STEP 2: Add scenes to your AV script

Add scenes to your AV script by clicking on the Edit menu to the right in the orange toolbar, and then selecting “Add segment“.

STEP 4: Mandatory elements

A few items are mandatory for each scene:

A scene number
A scene heading
Estimated segment time (i.e. how long the finished scene should be)
Estimated production time

With the creative content, you can add all or any of the following to a scene. Dramatify only shows the content you add.

Storyboard image
Camera instructions
Action / image
Dialogue / Sounds
Sound / Sound effects / Music
Participants (add them first in Characters or the breakdown)

STEP 5: Adding an image

The image upload is at the top of the scene input form. You can add any image you like, from proper storyboard images done by an artist, concept images or uploads from your mobile, regardless if it’s a napkin sketch, a snapshot or using a director’s app like Artemis Director’s viewfinder.

STEP 6 (optional): Adding characters

Add characters during in the breakdown.

STEP 7: Adding more scenes & segments

Edit scenes by clicking on the edit / pen icon to the right. If you can’t see it, you don’t have permission to edit the script.

STEP 8: Editing and deleting scenes & segments

To edit or delete a scene just click on the pen to edit and the trashcan to delete.

STEP 9: Inserting and moving scenes & segments

If you want to reshuffle your scenes, you can do one of two things:

In an unfinished or short script, you can open the edit window on each scene and renumber them from the end (since you can’t have two scenes with no 1).
Insert a letter; i.e. if you want to insert or move a scene between two existing scenes, say between scenes 1 and 2, the scene you insert or move becomes 1B, then next 1C and so on.