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Our first scriptwriting assignment is for an ad or public service announcement (PSA). We can choose a product or service a local business offers, or we can choose to promote a local organization's advocacy.

This assignment poses a challenge for us as we have to figure out how to fit a message in a small amount of time (20-, 30- or 60-seconds), given that air time on TV is quite expensive. More than that, we also have to make our ad or PSA effective in delivering the message to our audience. And we have to make it as creative as possible to get our audience's attention.

We know, of course, that doing these ads and PSAs for local TV are excellent training ground for us. Let's remember that Ridley Scott (of Black Hawk Down fame) and Brillante Mendoza (Kinatay) learned their chops doing the same stuff. Like them, we can start creating our complete play for TV or film with our ad or PSA. Unlike them, however, our task becomes especially challenging when we consider the small amount of time and the limited resources available for local TV production (we definitely won't have the same budget like the "Angel and Devil" softdrink ad above got). This challenge though will keep our creative juices flowing.

But let's not forget that with such local ads or PSAs, usually commissioned work, our client's needs are paramount. It'll help us to do Friedmann's seven-step method for every ad or PSA project we do.
Creativity and resourcefulness will really go a long way in meeting the challenge of doing local TV ads or PSAs. As PSA above shows, humor and imagination make up for the lack of high-end equipment and financial backing.

Using a visual metaphor makes this PSA successful in keeping the audience's attention. We want to find out who will be the next to disappear with the passing van. And the humorous clincher at the end drives home the message.

Just like writing ad copy for a billboard, we have to keep in mind that visual communication plays a major part in persuasion. It's really in the visuals, and not so much in the text or dialogue, where we can put that message across to our audience in 20- or 30- or 60-seconds time. And this could never be more true than in a script for an ad or PSA.

That's why we come up with a storyboard for our clients to understand how we'll tell the world their message. Our clients need to see how our ad or PSA will look like on TV.

And as we learned earlier on, doing a storyboard draft will also help us visually think out our script that we'll write using the dual-column format (usually applied for ads and PSAs).

So let's get on with that ad or PSA.
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