Feb. 23, 2006 - Writing a Screenplay - From the Zack Lawrence Christian Video Academy - Part 1
What’s the first step when making a movie? Writing the story. Every movie, good or bad, starts with a script, also called a screenplay.
Now, when you go to write your screenplay, there are certain rules for how to format the structure of your story.
First of all, when you type your script, you have to use a 12-point, Courier font. On your computer it may be called “Courier New”, but it must be one of the Courier fonts that look similar to a typewriter-style of typeface. When you get to your final draft, and you’ve got your screenplay in the correct format, one page of your script will approximately equal one minute of screen time. So if you want to write a feature-length film, you’re going to be looking at a script that is 100 to 120 pages in length. Now don’t start off doing feature films. Start by doing 5-15 minute long shorts, then as you hone your skills, move on to longer projects.
The cover of your script should be gray or white card stock. Don’t do pink construction paper with green flowers drawn on, even if your movie is about hippies. You definitely want to stay away from that. The title page should have nothing but the title of the film, and you, the author’s, name. Put the title of the movie in ALL CAPS, and type your name regularly, first letter capitalized, and the rest lower-case. Having your name in all caps makes you look like a snob.
Next is “screen headings”. Screen headings are what tell where and when the action of the scene is taking place. It tells you whether it’s inside or outside, the specific location, and whether it’s day or night. Let’s say your scene takes place inside a house, let’s say it’s the kitchen, during the daytime. You would put INT - KITCHEN – DAY. Now let’s say your scene is in an old, dark alleyway at midnight. You would put EXT – ALLEYWAY – NIGHT. You do not say whether it’s midday, evening, dusk, morning, twenty-five past 11:00. You just put day or night. Now that doesn’t mean you can only have your scenes take place in the middle of the day, or in the pitch black of night. If you want your scene to take place late in the afternoon, you describe it in the screen direction.
What is the screen direction? The screen direction simply is where you say what’s happening, what characters are in the scene, and where the scene takes place. Here’s an example of a screen heading and screen direction from a script that I wrote.
EXT – SWAMP HUT – DAY
Somewhere in the midst of
Now from what it says in the screen direction, at what time of day would you say this took place? Dusk or evening. Now did you notice the detail I went into? Can you picture the setting and surroundings in your mind just from what is written here? If you can’t, then it’s my fault for not being descriptive enough. I got to tell you, I don’t like writing. Of the whole process of making a movie, I most dislike the writing part. For me, I can see in my mind, clearly what I want to portray, but I just can’t get it down onto paper, or onto the computer fast enough for me to keep my creative juices flowing. Now I hope for you, it’s a little easier. If not, you either need to find someone who will write it all down as you dictate it, or you could record yourself, telling your story, and then going back and typing up, or transcribing, your story in script format.
In Christ,
Zack
Comments
Feb. 25, 2006 - Yippee!
Posted by KarlaKAkins
I am so excited to find your blog! My son and I were just talking about making movies! Woo hoo!
Karla
