Celtx makes writing a screenplay intuitive.
A public service announcement (PSA) is a short commercial broadcast on television to bring public attention to a certain topic. PSAs have taken many forms through the years, including the famous crying Native American and NBC's "The More You Know" campaign. Networks often run these spots for free by networks who care deeply about the issues brought up in the PSA. Some PSAs take a humorous tone, while others a serious tone, depending on the material. For beginning writers and students, Celtx is a program available for free from Celtx.com to write the script for your PSA.
Instructions
1. Choose a topic for the PSA. It should be something that has a deep emotional connection to you, the writer.
2. Research the topic. Become as knowledgeable as possible about the information surrounding the topic. This will be fodder for your ideas later. You may want to use the notecard feature in Celtx to keep track of your information. The note card feature is accessible through the tabs at the bottom of any new document. It creates a series of virtual cards which you can make notes on and link them to different parts of the script for research or structure.
3. Create a concept from your research using the notecard feature from Celtx. Each notecard should contain a point you want to make in the PSA. You can drag the notecards around to rearrange them until you have the most effective structure. Think up a story which you can tell in 30-60 seconds about your topic. The story should give some information about the topic as well.
4. Write a first draft of the script using your outline from the notecards. Remember that you have scene heads, prose, characters and dialog as the primary formatting functions in Celtx. The default is to start with a scene heading, so add place and time of day, i.e., "Location - Day/Night." One return will put you into a prose paragraph, where you can write an introduction to the scene. Another return puts you on a new prose paragraph, then use the tab to go to a character name; a return from here puts you into dialog. Alternate between character and dialog until another return.
5. Read the scene several times out loud and edit any parts of it that sound awkward or bad. Continue the rewriting process until you are satisfied with it.
Tags: from Celtx, notecard feature, prose paragraph
