0180 – ‘Marking Up A Script’ Tips

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice

English - June 28, 2021 23:01 - 3 minutes - 2.23 MB - ★★★★ - 4 ratings
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2021.06.29-0180 – ‘Marking Up A Script’ Tips

Making annotations on your page will help you communicate your message.

Normal punctuation will only get you so far, commas giving a basic idea of phrases within a sentence, and full stops showing you the end of a complete thought. To help you interpret copy to be read aloud, particularly for broadcast and particularly to make it sound ‘conversational’[1] then you need to get out your pen and mark up some additional punctuation.

Marking up a script will remind you how to ‘act’ naturally, in an artificial construct – in other words how to sound as though you are ad-libbing conversationally, when actually reading pre-considered, written words. Then later we will look at when and how to ‘ignore’ the guidelines, to sound more natural. But we have to know what the ‘rules’ are first.

You will use a system of symbols on your script[2], additional punctuation if you like, to show you how it should be read. There are no standard squiggles, you can develop your own, but it’s important to keep them simple and be consistent with how you use them so they aid rather than lead to on-air errors.[3]

At first, marking up scripts will perhaps seem time-wasting tedium. But you’ll soon change that ‘first thought’ to ‘second nature’ and realise that doing it helps you become a better broadcaster-performer.

But remember, making these marks are only a guide. You may read a script slightly differently from another person because you have brought your own experience and interpretation to it – and that’s why you have been hired.

If you are working on a paper copy of a script, mark it with a pencil. Then if you decide to make a change, it’s easy to erase one mark and put it somewhere else in the copy. But do consider saving the planet and using an online ‘marker-upper’ instead, such as https://scriptation.com/ or these: https://clickup.com/blog/annotation-software/

[1] There’s a full section on ‘conversationality’ that is, reading a script with the ‘attitude’ of it being adlibbed, later in the book.

[2] Of course, marking scripts can’t be done when you are reading from a screen!

[3] You may want to use a coloured pen when marking a script, to better see your directions. This is particularly useful for those working in video with an autocue as well as notes, or with a series of bullet points, as you can more quickly see where you are in a script when you take a glance at them.

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo