Writing for Visual Media

By Anthony Friedmann

Book Overview

This book looks at the fundamental problems a writer faces as a beginner learning to create content for media that is to be seen rather than read. It takes you from basic concepts to a first level of practice through explicit methods that train you to consistently identify a communications problem, think it through, and find a resolution before beginning to write. Through successive exercises, Writing for Visual Media helps you acquire the basic skills and confidence you need to write effective films, corporate and training videos, documentaries, ads, PSAs, TV series, and other types of visual narrative. A new chapter looks at adaptation as a specific script writing problem. Writing for Visual Media also lays a foundation for understanding interactive media and writing for non-linear content with new chapters that cover writing for the web, interactive corporate communication, instructional media, and video games. This book will make you aware of current electronic writing tools and scriptwriting software through a companion DVD, which offers links to demos and enriches the content of the printed book with video, audio, and sample scripts. Scripts are linked to video clips that are the produced result of the words on a script page. The DVD demonstrates the visual language of scriptwriting (shots, basic camera movement, transitions, etc.) discussed in the book by means of an interactive, illustrated glossary (video and stills) of terms and concepts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 024080726X
• ISBN13: 9780240807263
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Focal Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Honest, Insider Perspective

Candor is refreshing in any work because it let's an audience member identify with the vulnerability of the process being described. In this case the process is producing, marketing, and seeking acceptance of a script for a visual medium of communication. Professor Friedmann shares his successes, but he doesn't ignore his failures. Failure is part of the road to success in any endeavor. The only person who hasn't failed is the one who hasn't attempted anything of significance. In this insider account, we're given a look at the various markets and media forms available for aspiring writers.The accompanying CD is a bonus. It is full of ancillary material that adds enormous depth to the explanations described in the book. Anyone interested in pursuing scriptwriting will learn a lot from this book.

Comprehensive, Humoristic, and Entertaining

I thought Writing for Visual Media was very informative, and easy to understand. At first I got intimidated by the many words the book contains, I usually like to see more pictures and visual examples in the books I read, but the entire book is very informative and has a nice flow, with a nice touch of humoristic remarks. I've never seen a CD-ROM for a textbook, with so many visual elements. I spent about an hour and a half navigating through it. I kept finding more and more stuff to see and read. I thought the CD-ROM was very creative, and indeed entertaining. I like the idea of the book linking to specific chapters in the cd-rom. The book is great for people like me who are just starting to begin writing for the Media. I probably wouldn't recommended for semi-pro's who already know most of the writing techniques, and know what a video camera tilt and pan is!. There's actually a lot of funny video clips in the CD-ROM, which makes it very compelling for learning purposes. In the beginning the CD-ROM loads slowly because the contents of it are stuffed like a turkey with multimedia content. But I do like the fact that there are tons of multimedia content which helps to understand "visually" what writing for the media is all about.