Scriptwriting: The Front

From the horrifying to the heroic, The Front preserves the lesser-known stories of war. The channel’s current focus is on the deadliest war in human history: World War II. The team behind The Front believe there are countless stories from the Second World War yet to be told. They aim to bring these stories from the murky shadows of historical conjecture into the limelight. 

Each week, The Front releases two medium-length videos (8-12 minutes) covering a specific topic related to World War II. These vary widely, featuring specific figures, battles, units, campaigns, and operations. Sticking to the lesser-known stories, The Front has produced many videos about topics not covered by any other channels. 

As well as being a writer and researcher, Brad is The Front’s leading ideas-man and provides a vital quality control service. It is his job to formulate and pitch video ideas, then, once approved, research the idea thoroughly enough to write a script for the narrator. Alongside the narrator’s script, Brad provides details of specific graphics, images, and text to be included in the final product by the video editors (affectionately called “stage directions”). Once this is complete, Brad reviews the draft video alongside the team as a quality controller. Throughout the process, Brad remains in close contact with the narrator, video editors, graphics artists, and other writers to ensure the best final product is released. 

As anyone working with YouTube knows, the algorithm can be fickle. Despite this, three of Brad’s videos produced by The Front have reached one million views, six have reached 500,000 views, and 13 have exceeded 250,000 views. The average viewership of any one of Brad’s videos is 217,000 views.