VHS Vs. Betamax

I’ma let you finish

Now that we’re finally going to be looking at actual script pages I think it’s important for us to discuss format. Script format is extremely important.

What a script is not

Scripts are not prose. They have descriptive language and should be interesting to read but they are not books. A script is not a literary work intended for publication. A script is not a free form poem. Scripts should show an economy of language that communicates as much information in as few words as possible like poetry but must be clear and (relatively) simple.

What a script is

A script is a blue print for a movie. A script describes the key elements of a visual story. Would you build a house using blue prints drawn in crayon on a napkin? No, you would want actual blue prints drawn by an architect. An architect can look at blue prints and know if the structure will be sound. A script is the same. The script needs to be formatted like a script so that those reading it know if they’re building it correctly or if it can be built at all.

Format is more important than you think

Why is format important? If the story is good then it doesn’t matter right? I’ve read a lot of scripts. I’ve read scripts written by great and renowned professionals and young filmmakers just starting their journey. I say this with complete confidence: The scripts that are incorrectly formatted are weak stories. This has held true without variation. Why is that the case? When I look at a script that is formatted incorrectly it tells me 2 things right off the bat. First, the writer probably doesn’t understand the medium they are working with. Second, this person likely doesn’t have a firm grasp on the basics of storytelling. These two things have, in my experience, been true in every case.

No one wants to read your script

It’s true, until you’ve built a reputation for yourself as a good writer, no one wants to read your script. Even with a good reputation people still don’t really want to read your script. They’re busy. They have their own projects. Time is a valuable commodity and spending it reading a script, even a good one, is hard to justify. Especially when it’s likely to be a bad script. If your script is incorrectly formatted it’s the first and only excuse they need to not read it. It’s an uphill battle, don’t give them such an easy excuse to skip the script.

Comparison time

For the sake of comparison let’s take a look at the same scene in three different formats. The first two are the most common bad script formats that I’ve seen.

Example 1:

Sal walked into the bar and nodded to the bartender. “I’m looking for Darby O’Gill.” Sal says.

The Bartender pointed to the corner and replied “He’s over there with the little people.”

Example 2:

Int. BAR – Night

Sal walks into the bar and nods to the bartender.

Sal: I’m looking for Darby O’Gill.

Bartender: He’s over there with the little people.

Example 3:

INT. BAR – NIGHT

Sal walks into the bar and nods to the bartender.

                                                 

                                                 SAL

                        I’m looking for Darby O’Gill.

                                               

                                                BARTENDER

                        He’s over there with the little people.

Each scene is essentially the same. What’s the difference?

Example 1: This example is a weird mix between prose and screenplay.

What’s wrong with it? No slug line to identify basic location information. It’s told in the past tense. A script is immediate. You’re describing actions that are taking place now, not actions that took place in the past. Words ending with ed shouldn’t exist in your scene descriptions. The dialog and actions aren’t separate. The reader should be able to easily differentiate dialog from description at a glance. Quotation marks are too small and disappear on the page.

Example 2: Slightly better, and easily the most common bad format I’ve seen. It’s what people think a screenplay looks like who have never seen a screenplay. The action line and dialog are separate lines. The dialog is preceded by the name of the person speaking. No quotation marks. It even has a slug line. Well, an attempt at a slug line. Can you spot the slug line errors? First to post the error in the comments gets a smiley face in response!

What’s wrong with it? Even though the description of action and dialog are separate elements on the page it’s still difficult to distinguish between a line of dialog and a line of description at a glance. The character name and the dialog are kind of mushy and blend together visually. Remember, you want the reader to be able to glance at the page and know what they’re looking at without thinking about it.

Example 3: This is proper format. The slug line is written correctly. The action line describes the scene and important actions quickly and concisely. The character speaking and their dialog is easily identified at a glance. The character’s name over the dialog is in CAPS. Everything is simple, clean, and you know what you’re looking at based on where it is on the page. Dialog is in the center with a big bold name over it so we know who’s talking. Actions and descriptions are left justified.

It’s easy

Format is actually extremely simple. It’s made even more simple by using screenwriting software such as Final Draft, Movie Magic, or Celtx. These are the big three currently. I prefer Final Draft but really one is about as good as the other. Celtx is free and I’ve heard it can be buggy and have awkward formatting. But it’s free and probably getting better every day. If you’re serious about writing a screenplay, or even just kind of interested just try Celtx out and save yourself the hassle of figuring out specific format measurements.

But Final Draft has like a dozen different script formats!?!?!?!

Yes, there are different script formats. There’s the side by side format with audio on one side and video descriptions on the other. There’s a broadway musical format. There’s a format for stageplays, TV dramas, Sitcoms, and on and on. We’re writing a screenplay. The format for screenplays is relatively universal.

I heard somewhere that you should…

Yes, there are lots of variations and flavor of the week additions to screenplay format out there. You might be told you should always start with the character name at the beginning of a description. Or maybe you should always have three lines of description per scene. These tend to be something people saw in one successfully sold script and want to apply to all scripts. The basic format that I’ve described and that you’ll find in one of those programs will be remain the same regardless.

Bottom line

In the end screenplay format is pretty simple. A slug line, action lines, and centered dialog. Capitalize the slug line and character names the first time they appear in the script and in the header for dialog. Transitions such as FADE IN: and FADE OUT: are capitalized and right justified. And that’s pretty much it.

Next time we’ll take a look at the first few pages of the script, maybe talk about format again (it’s actually that important), and probably discuss the mistakes I’ve already made.