Most studios have the folder: script_final.docx, script_final_v2.docx, script_final_REAL.docx, script_final_REAL_client.docx. On shoot day somebody reads the wrong one out loud, and you find out in the edit.
The rule that prevents it is one script file per video, for the life of the video. Revisions change the file’s version, never its identity.
How to hold the line
Name the file with the video code so it is impossible to confuse: ACME_014 script.
Attach it to the task rather than to a comment or a message. The task is the only address the whole team already knows.
Turn revisions into new versions. Use New version (file), New version (Drive) or New version (OneDrive) when the writer sends a rewrite. View history keeps what came before, so nobody needs a copy just in case.
Never download and re-upload a Drive file. Link the file where the writer is already working, because two copies become two truths within the hour.
Where the workspace has a Google Docs script template, Create from template copies it into a new Doc, named and filed for you.
What follows the script automatically
Attaching the script to the task is not only tidiness. Three things read that attachment.
The plan can count the words and estimate the reading time, filling in the video duration and, from your pace, the recording duration. In Production Mode, a video block with a script offers Extract automatically, which pulls the readable text out of the file so nobody retypes it at 6am. And a guest opening a shared production plan sees the current version of the script, only the current one.
Because all three read the same attachment, changing the script once changes it everywhere, which is the thing the folder full of _REAL files can never do.
Warning: A script belongs to a video task, so operational blocks in a plan (travel, setup, lunch) never carry one. If a block needs a script, it should have been a video block.
What’s next
Link scripts to a plan covers attaching, versioning and duration estimates step by step.