How To Write A Comic Book Script

Рет қаралды 1,837

3 ай бұрын

Writing a comic book script isn't terribly hard because there are no official rules to it. Unlike the film industry, which adheres to strict standards because cast, crew, and various collaborators will be required to read and understand the written material, all that really matters is that you and your creative partner understand each other.
Despite that, in this video I discuss film-script formatting, best practices in comic book page layouts, script writing programs like final draft and celtx, and a few other tips and tricks to get your next comic project underway.
Artwork credit 18:29 - Buğra Batuhan Berah - IG @Bugracomic / bugracomic

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@leandroaraujo9515 3 ай бұрын

"there isn't really an industry standard for comic scripts" me remembering Frank Miller's scripts to Jim Lee for All-Star Batman and Robin: yeah I kinda got that impression tbh

@DJtheLoaf 3 ай бұрын

I do like your use of 1 logline per panel, so it's visually clear at a glance what each panel is. Maybe it's just my insecurity with it being me writing my first comic or the fact that I know my artist has much more training and understanding of comic panel layout than me, but I have instead been writing in a looser way that gets across the key action and dialogue I want to have represented, but lets the actual panel layout be something we can figure out together-- if my artist has a better way of laying out the same action than what I'd think of myself, I want to be open to that. In film school I was trained in a little screenwriting trick where since Loglines are for full scenes (for shooting schedule production reasons, like you noted with the day-vs-night shoot thing) then the screenwriter can instead suggest "shots" via paragraphs of action text-- if it's a new paragraph, it's implied to be a new shot. And as my screenwriting teacher who taught me that tip noted: "That's your suggestions of shots as the writer, but ultimately what each shot is is the director's decision, so they can take or reject your suggestions as they choose." Hence the subtlety of the paragraph-as-suggested-shot method: It's meant as a way to say "Hey here's my thoughts but I'm not stepping on your toes with the final call for how this should be done." So I've been personally using the same philosophy with my comic script: my artist can see from the paragraphs what I had in mind for panels, but they can also come up with their own way of showing it if my suggestion was too limiting or they have a better way to represent it-- and as long as the action itself gets shown, I'm still happy.

@creatorowned851 3 ай бұрын

I definitely did all of that when I went back and did the polishing. It was just really me being a little OCD about it since in theory a page does not have to all be in the same location. Sometimes I do just continue to do “panel 2 panel 3” just to whiz through it, but I think in the end it can be helpful when I’m searching the script for something. My artist has done a fantastic job and adds a lot of things I would not think of. To that extent I trust them to do what they think is best and they are yet to fail, they’ve even swapped characters out because I wasn’t paying enough attention to where they are placed in the shot. I might adjust my method in the future and reduce the amount of detail, but I think it makes the script look tight if anything lol. Thank you for the response! Love to see people contributing

@coinopanimator 3 ай бұрын

You can set up a drive sync folder on your desktop which any of your programs see as a regular folder (and it is) I'm the background it automated to the cloud. Goodle have their own program or you can use NAS like qnap which can do it too whilst 🔙ing up to the NAS.

@coinopanimator 3 ай бұрын

I have both a sync folder and a backup too, so if I mess up I've got a backup of the backup. The only Thorne is apple which makes cloud backups a pain unless you're using the apple cloud.

@creatorowned851 3 ай бұрын

Yeah I figured there was a workaround to final draft that makes it a little more convenient, I am lazy so I enjoyed being able to just log into my account and the living draft is there (however it does make saving revisions a little more tedious because I do like to have those kept around for posterity too)

@coinopanimator 3 ай бұрын

I don't know if this is still true, but when I first learned how to write script, I was talk on my cheer to capitalize the name of the character when they first appear and then lowercase afterwards. So when you look at that script you know exactly when that character first appears but I don't know. Is that still a thing or is it all capitalized now? For neatness i certainly prefer all the characters' names being capitalized all the time.

@creatorowned851 3 ай бұрын

Interesting, I was under the impression you capitalized them every time they are on screen, but I do see this in some results I’m looking up. It makes sense to function just as when a character is introduced. I don’t mind doing all caps for any character who is in a panel just to be obnoxious about it and not forgetting who is present lol.