Writing Scripts Research

Scripts are used in any visual story to give directions for the rest of the production, whether it is to film, animate, or draw.

Comic scripts seem to be a lot different than scripts for animation; it depends on the writer, and the artist they are working with, but some give a lot more description and direction than others, while some leave a lot of decisions up to the artist. Comic scripts think more in terms of panels, giving more specific instructions on pacing than others. A lot of comic scripts are done only in Word, or other simple software because of the flexibility a comic script has.

Geoff Johns' layout is one of the easiest scripts to read, in my opinion. He uses bold lettering to separate the panels, making it easier to read them separately. Each line of dialogue is numbered which also makes it easier for the letterer. Capitals are used for key words and characters, making it easier to find the most important parts of the script. The panels are described first, rather than one at a time, giving the artist an idea of how the page is to look before the details are added in.

Kieron Gillen uses a system to show panel layout before describing the action in the panels;

"The main difference is a little piece of tablature at the top of most pages. This is basically a shorthand
I devised to talk about panel grids. I don't do it on any other scripts, because people will clearly think
I'm trying to communicate in gnomic runes or something. The basics are....
X = Panel
O = Panel merged with panel next to it
Number = The panel number.
I use the latter only when the basic tab won't transfer the information. So...
OO
XX
XX
Is a six panel grid, with the first two panels merged into one panel. Whilst...
11
22
XX
Would be a six panel grid, with the first two rows turned into their own individual panels."

This seems somewhat confusing at first, but can actually be a very efficient way of showing the panel layout to an artist who can get used to it. The panels shapes can be drawn first without having to worry about the details and reading everything else (unless more suggested changes are within the script). He describes things in the panel through emotions and character thoughts, rather than just plain actions, giving the artist more insight into the feel of the pages, and the character's thoughts.

Mark Waid has everything in capitals instead, using lower case writing for the dialogue. It is easy to see which words need to be in bold when the lettering is done form the capitals actually used in the dialogue. The panels are described in detail, leaving less room for the artist to add their own take (in comparison to the other two scripts).

While some of this is stylistic choices or just the way the writer/artists can express/understand themselves easier, so formatting used would definitely be more helpful than others. In my own script, I would like to make each panel title/number bold so that is is easier to read them separately while having a description of the page layout at the top, like Geoff Johns. Since I am writing this script to animate myself, I do not have to think so much about how to make this understandable for someone else to draw, which gives me a bit more freedom and flexibility in the script. I want to keep the panel descriptions loose enough that I can try out a few different things while thumbnailing, but descriptive enough to get to the point - I don't time to try everything I want, so I need to make sure I keep myself on track.