Script breakdown

First page of a script for a pornographic film, showing set elements, costumes and a brief character breakdown

A script breakdown is an intermediate step in the production of a play, film, comic book, or any other work that is originally planned using a script.

Film and Television

In film and television, a script breakdown is an analysis of a screenplay in which all of the production elements are reduced to lists. Within these lists, are in essence the foundation of creating a production board, which is fundamental in creating a production schedule and production budget of the entire production with any film or television program in pre production. This process is a very tedious and complex task, and is usually the responsibility of the Assistant Director or first or 1AD within the production staff, of any given the production company. However, many film directors, film producers and screenwriters have the knowledge of breaking down a script.

In particular, literally Breaking down the script is a very a thorough and detailed creative analysis of dramatic action in filmmaking, highlighting the reciprocal struggle, theme, and design elements of a screenplay. Which is to code the entire cast, extras, props, special effects, stunts, wranglers, picture cars, wardrobe, make-up with includes hair stylists, any special equipment or cameras, ADR, Foley film scores and soundtracks etc., which are all broken-down into colored highlights within the shooting script.

This is then organized into strips, and is more easily done nowadays on the computer with Final Draft Tagger, or Movie Magic Screenwriter than done manually. The computer software comes in both Microsoft and MacOS versions. This whole process of the script breakdown however is not to be confused with Character breakdowns utilized with casting calls, this is an entire different process with similar names, however administered by two entirely separate departments.

Comics

In comic books, it is the process of determining how each action, character, and piece of dialogue described in the script will be placed visually on a page. In the studio system that dominated mass-market comic-book production from the 1940s through the 1970s, breakdowns were done by the penciller or by a separate breakdown artist, rarely by the scriptwriter; in some cases, breakdowns were done from a rough story outline before the dialogue was written (the "Marvel method"). Later comics writers such as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, influenced by cinematic technique, began to include more layout details within their scripts. Cartoonists who both write and draw their own work sometimes begin with a script and do their own breakdowns, and sometimes work through drawings without a separate script.

see also

• Storyboard

External links

• Glossary for Introduction to Screenwriting