0634 – When To Ditch The Studio Script

2022.09.26 – 0634 – When To Ditch The Studio Script

The role of the script

A script is great when you need to fit in the accepted role as a broadcaster, maybe on the news bulletins or news programmes. It is expected that you will be confident and assured, fluent and natural. As we have seen, to read a script conversationally is an artificial construct and I’ve shown you how to do it. (What would you prefer to hear – a newsreader stumbling through an unrehearsed bulletin bursting with up-to-the-minute stories and failing to make sense of it, or a smoothly polished delivery of material that may be as much as 10 minutes old but makes complete sense?)

When to ditch the script!

So why can’t broadcasters/podcasters usually work from a script? Well, news people tend to of course as what they say has to be fluent, accurate legally and informationally, explanatory and fit to a set time. But for everyone else, a script:

·        Is really time-consuming to prepare

·        Not everyone can pass off a script as sounding off-the-cuff. Writing to be read and writing to be heard are different things. So, what’s on your blog and what’s on your pod really need to be different.

·        That means that although you may feel ‘safer’ with a script, you are putting a distance between you and the listener. You reading words prepared in advance rather than feeling them in the moment. But when you are presenting livestreams or YouTube videos or recording a podcast, you can sound more natural by not reading. In these situations, you’ll be more likely to be talking to one person at a time, (whereas live broadcasters are literally broad-casting, speaking to an entire nation at once). Presenters recording for social media video and audio will have their content consumed separately by individuals, and not from across the room, but from a foot or two away on a smartphone, or directly into their ears via headphones. So going ‘scriptless’, and not reading word for word, you will benefit from having a much more personal and authentic, even less-polished delivery, and therefore a better connection with your listener or viewer.

·        If you present with a co-host both of you may end up, heads down and reading words on a page rather than interacting with each other naturally, and so losing the authenticity that comes from looking into one another’s eyes. And you’ll always be waiting to read your next line, rather than having a genuine conversation.

·        The ‘better connection’ will also come from your knowledge of the material. It stands to reason doesn’t it, that if you’re doing a social video or audio post you are probably super-interested about your topic (in a way that you won’t know everything about the news story you are reading for a radio station). What you are doing is a ‘passion project’ and you may even be working from a book or blog post you’ve written. Turning that blog post into a bullet point list (or creating bullets on a topic from scratch) will give you a structure from which you can extemporise. You know this stuff inside out already, so all you need is a route map to get you from here to there so it’s clear for your listeners to follow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.