Powering the Narrative: Scripting the UNDP Biomass Project

by Vasantha Wakkumbura

There is a massive gap between scientific innovation and public adoption, and that gap is almost always paved with complex, alienating jargon.
When dealing with national transitions to renewable energy, you cannot simply hand an industrialist or a community leader a highly technical engineering manual and expect them to change how they power their lives. The science has to be translated into a story.

This was the core challenge of my work as the Script Writer, Translator, and Audio Visual Producer for the UNDP Biomass Project in Sri Lanka.
Biomass energy—utilizing agricultural and industrial waste to generate sustainable power—is a critical component of Sri Lanka’s renewable energy future. But explaining the intricacies of biomass supply chains, gasification technologies, and carbon footprints requires more than just accurate linguistic translation; it requires compelling narrative structure.

As a Script Writer and Translator for this project, the task was to take dense, technical data provided by environmental engineers and craft it into an engaging, accessible audio-visual script in Sinhala.

When you write for the screen, the translation process changes completely. You are writing for the ear, not the eye. The Sinhala terminology must be technically accurate but colloquially smooth enough to be delivered naturally by a narrator, perfectly timed to the visual cuts of the documentary. It is a meticulous puzzle where linguistics, environmental science, and film editing intersect.

A sustainable future relies on our ability to explain the solutions clearly to the people who need to implement them.

To the writers and technical communicators out there: what is the most difficult technical or scientific concept you have ever had to break down into simple, everyday language?