PBC Scripts 2

What's up everybody! I recently found out that people actually read this! Which is exciting! I always just assumed I wrote this for my own deluded ideas of self importance... and you know Jared and Alan, but apparently I'm wrong and I actually do have the occasional reader! (Thanks Laura!)

So last I told you I had a first draft of what I could kind of assume would be in my scrip when it arrived. Well following that I got the real script...

I was not pleased.

So my focus with this film really was these children we were making them for. Every decision I made was made with them in mind and when I got this new script through I had a lot of issues with them. But I'm sensible, levelheaded and pragmatic so I made a note of them all and sent a quick email to Kelda to ask if we could schedule a meeting to discuss it before we went any further. 

Let me just go over the issues I had really quick. They basically just come down to the same reason and that is appropriateness for child audience.

1. Complicated language. - Children aren't going to know what half of these words mean.
2. Non stimulating visuals. - In addition to not understanding the words there's not a lot of ways for me to graft visuals to them and have the film be stimulating 
3. Too Upfront - far too much of this is too literal for an audience like this. There's a lot of things in here that can be taken out, simplified or worded in a way that means they understand but we don't scare them with what is happening to there parents.

I guess these are pretty much the headings of the concerns with the script I had. To be honest it felt like a complete 360 from the taster script they had previously sent me. I understood that they were really concerned with making sure they gave out the correct information to people and didn't become liable for anything but I also knew that for the audience we had this wasn't the most effective way to convey that information. So like I mentioned above we arranged to have a meeting with them just to make sure that we got everything perfect before they started recording the audio.

I didn't rewrite it for them, I didn't dictate or give them specifically wrong words, I went into the meeting with general directions. They wanted our help and they made that clear when they pitched to us that they not only needed an animation from us but also some insight on these kinds of things and that's something I kept in mind here. I didn't want this to become a one way project and although they were paying us to provide them with a service we were also working with them to make this video which meant that our input was important.

The meeting went well, I was a little scared because they brought in the big boss but he just wanted to make sure that things were perfect this time around. We had some conversations about how I thought it would be easier for their age group to understand if there were more visual comparisons in the script that I could draw upon. I also let them know that they jargon didn't have to be so intense but that I could definitely work with some of it and they didn't have to take it all out. Comparison is important. I really benefited from this opportunity to open a dialogue with them in many ways. It was my first chance to voice concerns with clients and deal with them and I'm happy it went well because that means I have a positive and working experience for the next time I have to voice concerns with clients. I actually really liked these clients because they were easy to work with, there was a real process here and I got a chance to properly back and forth with them. 

I'm going to put the final scipt in the next post because I'm going to put it in the post with the storyboards.