Scenario

A scenario is an account technico-arts person intended to be filmed, drawn in the case of a Cartoon or modelled in 3D in the case of a Video game or of a Cartoon film. It constitutes one of the stages of the manufacture of a film, big step which concludes the phase from development of the project (phase including work on pitches, synopsis, séquenciers, treatments) and will allow its setting in production (pre-production, realization, post-production). The scenaristic writing dissociates literary writing by its presentation of facts visual and auditive, always at the present, and approaches in that the theatrical writing. A scenario is supposed to describe or suggest what one will see and hear with the screen (or on an album of data base). In addition to the dialogs, the scenario contains also descriptions (visual and auditive indications), that one calls didascalie S in a theatrical text.

For its plural, the French Academy recommends to employ scenarios and not scénarii (scénarii is employed a little; it is noted that neither the singular nor plural are written as in Italian, since the original word does not have an accent).

The adaptation

When the source of inspiration of the scenario is an original work already published, one speaks about adaptation . It can be a novel, a tale, a news (more adapted to the duration of a film), a Cartoon, or created in the form of play, of operetta, musical comedy, opera. With the cinema 85% of films are inspired by novels, data base, literary accounts…

The reconstitution

A work inspired by historical facts tends to be called thus. This term is disputed when imaginary intrigues and characters appear there.

Fictionné report

The source of inspiration is here a contemporary fact of company with sequences of report and sequences reconstituted. For these last, it thus requires a scenario.

Various manuscripts

A scenario of television or cinema arises in various forms.

Since the invention of the Cinematograph, about fifteen of the types of document were born, adapting each time to the technical needs (external, talking films, special effects) and artistic one time (sequence shot, improvisation, choreography, etc). The current shapes of documents, in particular in typographical working, were fixed in the Années 1950, and are held in a scrupulous way with Hollywood, but, certainly, with more license in France and elsewhere. The important thing remains that the scenario is comprehensible for each speaker of film.

Currently, we use:

  • the argument : it is the principal idea of film summarized in one or two sentences. The English term pitch indicating it is often used.

  • the Synopsis : it is a summary of the history of film told in details, into ten to fifteen lines. It is distinguished from the teaser , which summarizes film without telling the end.

  • dialogued continuity (or sequential cutting) is the visual and auditive description chronological of the history. It describes the sequences in the order envisaged in final film, numbered, accompanied by some technical mentions necessary like the Diégèse (" interior/nuit" , for example), and of the didascalie S. a standard of page layout (more or less respected) allows the timing of work with as principle which a page is equivalent to one minute of film after assembly.

This shape of document is most known because it is commonly required by the producing . Starting from this document, they can estimate the project, quantify the needs and the budget of it. Many people are unaware of that there exist other forms and reduce the word scenario to that one.

  • the note of intention , in 1 to 3 pages, makes it possible the author to specify his ideas concerning the tone of film, the psychology which it considers for the various characters, the way in which it visualizes the luminous and/or sound environments; it can also specify the type of technique which it wishes for such or such particular effect. It is also in the note of intention which must be detailed and explained the topic of the history, and what motivates the author to make a scenario of it. All in all this note makes it possible to specify all that one can put neither in the continuity dialogued nor in the synopsis, which is purely descriptive. In the case of a project of documentary film, the note of intention is longer, becoming the decisive element for a producer.

  • the appendices , optional, can contain indications of location, contacts already made to turn on specific spot (for example abroad) of the preparatory documents (possibly of the extracts of technical cutting or story-board) or precise details on the actors already contacted for such or such role. Certain names can indeed have a large impact on the decisions of the producers.

  • technical cutting consists of a fragmentation of the continuity dialogued in plans containing all the indications, namely: classification of the plan, didascalie S, Diégèse, band (dialog, music and noises), framing, movement of camera, light effects, special Effects, and schedule precise. This document is produced by the realizer, in general with the First Assistant Realizer, possibly with the Chief Operator and the scenario writer. Certain realizers as Buñuel prefer to exempt themselves some completely.

  • the Scénarimage (or Storyboard , in English): this form consists in drawing plane by plan the account, by indicating the movements of the characters and the camera. The scénarimage is very much used in films employing of many special Effets, in the Clip S, and the Cartoon films. Although not recutting exactly the same thing, this term indicates also a general sketch of the boards of one (future) data base

  • the bible is the document containing all the references for the collegial development of scenarios of series TV. It contains the description of the characters and the intrigues, their progressions, and also a schedule of conditions for the identity of the series.

For example, in each episode of Starsky and Hutch, there are a continuation in the car, a shooting and at least a humorous counterpart.

  • Master is a bible for a series in serial. It is gigantic a Synopsis of all the history cut out in episodes which is connected according to a narrative continuity.

Once accepted and put in production, the scenario becomes often a quasi immutable reference. For certain scenario writers (New wave, for example), the scenario is a framework or a material which turning can, even must, to transform.

As a cartoon

In Cartoon, the scenario generally indicates the narrative screen, without there being necessarily document written to support it. Sometimes the scenario writers of cartoon intervene only on sequential cutting, equivalent to the Montage in the audio-visual one.

Concerned of role

In Roleplay, a scenario is the screen which will be used for the development of the history. One also speaks about “adventure”, in particular in the translations (the English term is adventure , the German term Abenteuer ). At the beginning, one spoke about “module” (especially in the first years of the play Donjons and Dragons ).

See also: Scenario of roleplay

With appeared

The scenario is also a word of Psychologie indicating a recurring mental process leading to a Passage to the act or the expression of a particular emotional state. Examples: scenario of a crisis, a phobia, obsessional scenario…

One finds also this word in the popular speech to indicate ruts in the daily behavior. It then approaches the direction of ritual as in a scenario of seduction .

See too

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