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Charlie Productions : Format A ScriptA fantastic book to help you on your way is, "Get Your Short Film Funded, Made and Seen" which is a collaboration of artists and directors and Shooting People. The book is edited by Tricia Tuttle and has contributors such as Lee Kern, Daniel Mulloy and Nik Powell. Not only does this show an example of how a script should be laid out on the page (which incidentally is our very own script for Death Of A Revolution) but it aids you in how to finance, shoot, plan, budget and a whole host of helpful notions one would need to take a film from start to finish. For a downloadable pdf of the script example please click on this link.It's one thing that you want your script to be made but it's a bloody good start if you can get the format correct. The screenplay has been standardised throughout the industry because it makes sense. It flows and translates as roughly a page per minute. This is useful because screenplays are not an end in themselves - they are a step on the road to making a film and films are very expensive so the length is, tragically, very important. Knowing the length of your work (roughly) is also very useful for keeping a rhythm to your work. There are actually quite a few slightly different versions of the standard universal format that everyone everywhere uses and, to be honest, I don't think it matters too much which one you stick to. But ultimately I have to stress that this is extremely important. If you cannot format your script properly then more than likely it will end up in the scrap paper pile or the bin. If someone decides to ignore convention when it comes to formatting the first thing someone will say to you is, "No". Their reason being that if you cannot find time to persue your film career by abiding to a simple rule then surely you won't be a very good client because it's there for a reason. A very good reason. This is how we type our films up...
Each scene starts with a heading in capitals of the form: INT (interior) or EXT (exterior). A PLACE - A TIME OF DAY (usually general like DAY or NIGHT).
All dialogue is indented as follows and starts with the CHARACTER NAME (in capitals) and any notes for the actor like: "angrily" or "relaxed" (in brackets beneath the name) on seperate lines before the text.
Finally all CHARACTER NAMES are written in full in capitals on their first entry into the script as are any important objects (JOHN comes in and looks at the KNIFE). You should also try and write as if you were watching the events unfold leaving a line between each new action. So... JOHN comes into the room and looks at the KNIFE. Picking it up he spreads jam on both slices of the bread and starts to rub his bare chest with them both. Slowly he starts to dance and rock is head around his shoulders.
Is bad for more reasons than the content where as... JOHN comes into the room and looks at the KNIFE. Picking it up he spreads jam on both slices of bread. John starts to rub his bare chest with both the slices of bread. Slowly he starts to dance, letting his head rock around his shoulders.
It's only bad because of the content. The second example is a more accurate representation not only of what happens in the scene but how long each action will take the poor man playing John.
Oh and it's all on A4 with a number in the top corner and your name and address on the front page. If you stick to roughly this sort of thing and take care in how you describe what goes on then you should at least get a good working definition of a page/minute which is the only really important reason for doing any of this.
Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in
time for tea.
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