You Have to Know Proper Screenplay Formatting

 I think almost everyone who wants to be screenwriter starts off as a reader.  If you don't know what a reader is, it's someone who works for a producer, agent, or production company and reads scripts and writes coverage all day.  Coverage is a like a two page review of the script stating whether it should be reviewed or passed on.  I have worked as a reader for two studios: Mark Wheeler Management and Ben Katz Productions.  At both places the rule was this, if the screenplay isn't in proper format, throw it away.  

So as you can imagine, formatting is a big deal.  To be a professional you have to know what the standards of your craft are.  Could you imagine a lawyer showing up to court with his legal documents scrawled by hand on a ketchup stained napkin?  He would be thrown out of the court room.  So why would an aspiring screenwriter submit his screenplay to a studio without knowing what a screenplay is supposed to look like?  Sadly this happens a lot, so as you can imagine, I was throwing screenplays away like crazy while working as a reader.  

It doesn't matter how great your story is, if it's not formatted properly it will never make it to the people who make decisions since it'll be trashed at the door.  

Here are my lecture notes on formatting that I have taught from for three years.  I was taught my formatting from my film professors in college and by the studios I used to work for.  

 

Memorize this crap since your career depends on it!

 

I.               Proper Screenplay Formatting – use Final Draft.

a.     Basics – 12 font, Courier, single-spaced.

b.     Title Page:

                                      i.     Title is in caps and is in center of page.

                                    ii.     Under title is space.  Then “by” with a lower case B.  Under that you put your whole name in normal casing.

                                   iii.     Lower left hand corner is your contact info: Name, Company (must be legit), Address, phone number (mobile number is best, LA area code is better), and e-mail (this is the most important aspect because everything is done through e-mail now, try to have professional e-mail because sheepkiller420@hotmail.com won’t cut it).

                                   iv.     Bottom centered is registration info: either copyright or WGA registration.

1.     You can either register your work with Library of Congress (www.copyright.gov or www.wga.org ).

c.     Transitions – transitions happen on the right of the page. 

                                      i.     CUT TO, FADE IN, FADE OUT, FADE TO, DISSOLVE TO, BACK TO, MATCH CUT TO, JUMP CUT TO, and FADE TO BLACK.

                                    ii.     Transitions should be used very sparingly and only when necessary.  These things are usually dictated by the director.

1.     Example: show passage of time you use a dissolve.

2.     Example: use CUT TO to show quick cutting like when we figure out Jigsaw was in the bathroom the entire time. 

d.     Scene Heading (Sluglines) – always go before actions lines.  All caps.

                                      i.     First element is interior (INT.) or exterior (EXT.).

1.     This gets a little tricky if you have car shots.  The way to know whether your shot is interior or exterior is think where does the camera go?

                                    ii.     Second element is location.

                                   iii.     Third element is time of day: DAY, NIGHT, or CONTINUOUS.

1.     Only use exceptions if they’re really specific to the scene.

a.     Example: use DAWN if you have a scene where the characters fought vampires all night and then the dawn comes and kills the vampires.

b.     Continuous – you use this when one scene directly carries to another one.

c.     Don’t use LATER as your time of day.  The reason for this is because movies are not shot in order.  If you put LATER in your slugline, it’ll be difficult for the AD to schedule.

e.     Page Numbering – number doesn’t begin until page 2.  Page numbers are on the upper right hand corner of the page and consist of the number and a period following.

                                      i.     The length of a screenplay is determined by genre.  Comedies and horror movies usually are 90 pages and dramas are usually 120 pages.  Remember, one page of screenplay indirectly equates to one minute of footage.  Your average screenplay now is 100 pages.

f.      Action Lines – these lines describe what is occurring in the story.  These lines are in present tense and are short and sparse.  Nothing in a screenplay is too descriptive because it’s the responsibility of the crew to fill in the details.  Remember, film is a collaborative medium.  

                                      i.     Verbs in action lines should ends with “S” instead of “ing.”  This makes for a quicker read.

                                    ii.     Character Introductions happen in the action lines.  A character introduction occurs right when the character appears.

1.     It is composed of: character’s name in caps, age, and brief description of the character.

2.     The character introductions happen within the prose.

g.     Character Lines – character lines are your character’s name, in caps, and centered right above the dialogue.

                                      i.     This just signifies who says the following lines.

h.     Parenthetical – parenthetical are under the character lines.  Obviously, these are in parenthesis. 

                                      i.     Emotions – parentheticals are used to convey emotions that otherwise wouldn’t be derived by the dialogue.

                                    ii.     Three shot and above – when there are three or more characters in scene, you can use parenthetical to signify specifically, which character is speaking to whom.

                                   iii.     Beat – a beat is a pause in speech.  It can signify a change of thought mid-speech.

i.      Dialogue Lines – these are your character’s words.

                                      i.     These lines are indented twice and are below the character lines. 

j.      Key Elements and Noise Effects.

                                      i.     Key Elements are things that will make an impact in the story.  These are caps the first time they show up.

1.     Example: a lightsaber.

                                    ii.     Noise Effects are always in caps.

k.     Offscreen and Voiceover.

                                      i.     Offscreen takes place in the same time but the character isn’t on screen.

1.     Example: character on the phone.

2.     This is represented by (O.S.) on the character line.

                                    ii.     Voiceover doesn’t take place at the same time.

1.     Example: narration.

2.     This is represented by (V.O.) on the character line.