How to keep track of B-Roll in your script

I just spent two weeks in France filming a new video about how to write scripts FASTER.

It was pretty fun, I guess 👀

But the biggest revelation I had while filming led to me tweaking my scriptwriting format in a small but powerful way.

Here’s a quick extract from the final script:

Today, I want to explain what’s going on with this format, and why I think you’ll find it incredibly useful when filming your next video.

The best way of explaining why this is so powerful is to break down the purpose of each column:

Column #1: Phase

• Easily label the “setup” phase, the “tension” phase, and the “payoff” phase.
• Setup and payoff phases should usually be 2-3 sentences max. See this article for some examples of setups and payoffs in action.
• Tension phases will usually be much longer… this is where you’re building to the payoff, so you want to keep viewers in suspense
• A brief glance at this column will indicate whether your phases are an appropriate length - e.g. Are my setups and payoffs taking too much time? Are my tension segments actually long enough… to create tension?!

Column #2: Script

• I’ve always been a fan of the “Spreadsheet” format. But while filming this video, I reformatted the script so every sentence had its own row.
• This meant I could be incredibly precise with editing direction and B-Roll notes specific to each moment:

• But do this after the script is written. As you can see below, I wrote multiple sentences per row in V1 to avoid breaking my writing flow:

Additionally, before shooting anything, I colour-coded the script.

• Voiceover = highlighted green
• A-Roll = highlighted yellow, then re-highlighted pink as I checked off filming each line.

Column #3: Notes

• For editing direction, B-Roll suggestions, and text.
• I used the same colour coding system as before, too. Once I filmed a piece of B-Roll, I'd highlight it pink.
• This made preparing to film way easier and kept me on top of which additional shots I still needed to film.
• You'll notice that, by the end, every single row included pink-highlighted text... which indicates I'd filmed either a piece of A-Roll or B-Roll for every single line.

Formatting your scripts like this is easy in either Notion or Google Sheets 💻

That's all for this week.

Speak soon,
George 👋