Media & Film Studies
Extended Step-Outline
Advice from the WJEC. Here's how to present your information in the Extended Step-Outline.
The Extended Step-Outline is the option to take if you are creative and have a good ability to communicate well with the written word.
You can tell more of the story and develop characters over a broader timescale (narrative) than the other film courseowrk options. The other two options (the photographic storyboard and the video sequence both generally rely on others, whereas the ESO allows you to work independently producing five to eight scenes (as opposed to 15-25 shots) of your Imaginary Film.
The extended step outline will provide students with the opportunity to develop ideas for a series of scenes – between five and eight are required, totalling 1000 words – whilst still developing visualising skills. As a guideline, the average length of a scene for this extended step outline is envisaged as between 175 and 200 words (excluding the context boxes above the scene description and excluding the micro indications in square brackets). The word count for the extended step outline will thus be based on the words of the scene description alone.
Devising an extended step-outline (ESO)
Looking at the Step Outline sheet above right, you will see that half the page is given over for a scene description and it stresses ‘without dialogue’. The reason for this is to give you space to describe the setting and what is going on without worrying about what is said or how it is delivered. This allows you to visualise the setting, the action and the micro aspects without reliance on dialogue and this means you will be focussed on mise-en-scéne, on sound, on how it might be shot and even how it might be edited. (Although this is not directly your concern as a scriptwriter, it should be on your mind. If it is, you can more easily write a scene to suggest the way it should be shot.)
IMPORTANT UPDATE ! It is now a requirement that each scene (of between 5-8 scenes) will have a different micro feature focus – i.e. you will in one scene bracket information relating to lighting, in another the editing perhaps, and so on.
What follows is an example of an Extended Step Outline for one scene (you will be creating 5-8) as is proposed for AS Film Studies.
It’s advisable to read a few examples and speak to Stuart about submitting more than one draft for feedback -as this option is the hardest to achieve a high grade with.
Try writing a graphic description of this shot for practice:
Example of Lighting as one of the 5-8 scenes requiring a micro focus.- not a great example as camera details seem to be more in foucs!
Latest advice, guidance and example of ESO (lighting)
The Extended Step Outline
Scriptwriters commonly use a step outline as a planning tool for producing scripts. For AS Film Studies, this film industry planning and visualising technique has been adapted: it is being ‘extended’ to include the micro details of the scene being outlined. A further adaptation of the step outline for AS Film Studies will be the insertion of micro details in square brackets within the scene description.
Updated WJEC ESO Example - a Scene with a Focus on Lighting