A good script is written by four hands

Every film project reaches a delicate moment: the first draft of the script goes to the client. On the other side, someone who has known the subject for years reads it for the first time as a film. Sometimes they recognize their own cause and are moved. Sometimes they feel everything is missing. Almost always they come back with comments, and that is where the script starts to get good.

At Forest, we believe a socio-environmental communication script isn’t born fully formed in the scriptwriter’s head. It comes out of a partnership in which each side brings what it knows. The organization knows the cause, the data, the people, the political sensitivities. The agency knows story, rhythm, image and the way audiences pay attention. When these two skill sets meet early, the film wins. When one tries to do the other’s job, it loses.

It starts before the first line

The script starts with the counter-brief, the document in which we give the client back our reading of the request: who the film is for, what that person needs to feel and understand, and what action we hope for afterward. It sounds obvious, but many scripts fail because they try to talk to everyone at once, or because no one decided what the main message is.

In SAVE Brasil’s videos on Lagoa do Peixe National Park, the same subject became three films, each for one audience: an emotional one for the general public, a technical yet light one for legislators and one for the local community. That decision, made in conversation with the organization, shaped everything that followed.

The client knows what isn’t in the documents

Reports and technical notes are a starting point, but they rarely tell the whole story. What brings a script to life usually comes up in conversation: the name of the leader everyone respects, the meeting where the community decided to change course, the detail only someone who was there would notice.

It is also in conversation that the points of care emerge. In the Citizen Science for the Amazon project, the Mamirauá Institute asked for care with one message: the fishers don’t help the research, they lead the production of science. That guidance changed the way we told the story. In the reel for the Amazônia Resiliente call, Fundo CASA changed an expression at the start of the text that was flagged as possibly ableist toward deaf people. These are adjustments only those who live the cause day to day can see.

The agency knows what the client doesn’t need to know

It is up to the agency to defend what makes the film work as a film. One idea per scene. Image before explanation. Starting where the audience is, not where the organization would like it to be. Cutting data, even good data, when it gets in the way of emotion.

In the animation on Indigenous fire brigades, the script opens with a confused family in front of the TV, asking who is setting nature on fire. Only then comes the explanation about fire, biomes and management. All the technical information is there, but it comes in when the audience is ready to receive it.

That is the balance we look for: rigor in content, freedom in form.

Good review is organized review

Scripts get better with review, but worse with disorganized review. When five people comment on the same draft without talking to each other, the requests contradict each other and the text becomes a collage.

In our experience, it works best when one person on the client side consolidates comments and settles internal disagreements before sending the draft back. It also helps to agree on the number of rounds. Complex projects need more: the scripts for the series Amazônia vista do Espaço went through seven rounds of review with Imazon, and the editing script for the Cerrado Initiative had four versions with WWF-Brazil. What matters is that each round moves forward rather than starting from scratch.

Another useful practice: separate corrections from taste. A wrong figure has to change. A word someone didn’t like can be discussed.

When the script is born in the edit

Not every script is written before filming. In interview documentaries, much of the story emerges afterward, in the logging. In these cases, the partnership takes another shape: we film from a list of questions and then propose an editing script built from the real interviews.

For the video on UNICEF’s One Million Opportunities initiative, we sent the interview transcripts to the team so they could choose, together with us, the lines for each cut. In the Campos do Cerrado documentary, the script grew out of the logging and went through the scientific team, who checked the subtitles and technical terms. That way, the client takes part in the edit without having to be in the editing suite.

What makes the partnership productive

After many scripts written with all kinds of organizations, a few agreements make a difference:

• Define the audience and the main message before discussing scenes.
• Share what isn’t in the documents: people, stories, points of care, risks.
• Trust the agency to decide the form, and hold it to rigor in the content.
• Channel comments through one person and agree on the number of rounds.
• Separate corrections from preferences.

A good communication script is one in which the organization recognizes itself and the audience is moved. Getting there takes two different skill sets working together, with respect for what each one knows.

Discover our film services and more projects in our work.