My dear friend,
SETH (right), has started working on his screenplay. He usually writes in novel form, so this is his first time formatting a screenplay. Format is very important when you want to sell your script. So he came to his best friend in the entire world who has
*ahem* perfect screenplay formatting--ZACHARY HAYES. Well, okay, maybe not perfect. We will find out for sure after this semester. A week from now I'll start my screenwriting class. But I'm still qualified to give amateur to amateur advice. The email is really long and is full of information that anyone can use so I decided to post it. Because Brayden... erah, I mean
SETH, is going under author alias Seth Nielson because that's the sexy thing to do these days, I've replaced his name with SETH to keep his identity hidden. His real name is most certainly not Brayden. From Brayden
To Zachary Hayes
Subject- Re: Not complete scriptDear
SETH,Wow you came up with 13 pages so fast? That's very impressive. The dialogue is good. Who is Seth Nielson? An author alias? I like it lol. I think it makes you a true author when you write with an alias because it shows that you're not in it for glorifying yourself, you're writing for the people. Unless that's not what you meant by having that as the author. Or maybe that has been your name all these years and I haven't paid attention.
Here are my notes on formatting. There are some grammatical errors but those aren't important right now because you probably only made them from writing fast.
INT. CAR NIGHT TIME (Scene 16) In the bottom action bar you say "collage" when you mean "montage". I use to do the same.
When formatting the scene heading, use this for example: INT. THERAPIST OFFICE - DAY Notice the - between place and time. It is superfluous (lol) to put TIME after the time of day. This is just semantics. You can do it however you want unless you plan to send it in to a Hollywood producer because they DO mind. They're pricks.
There are some scene, especially towards the end, where you break up a characters dialogue with an action. This is good, but when you go back to their dialogue put their name before it and then (Cont.) in parenthesis beneath that. This can be acheived by pressing Tab while on a Dialogue line. Por ejemplo:
-------
ZACHARY
I'm a douche.
Zachary begins eating shit.
ZACHARY
(Cont.)
I like to eat poo.
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The scene description doesn't have to be in capitol letters. Only the Scene Heading. You can merge your scene descriptions with the action you put after it. Scene descriptions will include a complete description of the location, characters, props and what the actions of the characters is. The reason you don't want to capitalize this is because you capitalize SOUND. Sometimes certain ACTIONS, camera movements (such as PANS and ZOOMS and ANGLE), and PROPS are capitalized but don't worry about those.
I think there is only one part where you describe a camera movement. This is good. You only want to describe the cinematography when it is crucial to the story/mood. You also only want to refer to story from a second person perspective ("You see this or that") when it is crucial. You only do that once, so that's good.
For example:
CAMERA FOLLOWS HIM ALWAYS BEHIND HIM AND ABOVE IN HELICOPTER PERSPECTIVE.
Should be more like:
CAMERA follows Arthur from behind from helicopter PERSPECTIVE.
In scenes like scene 3, you have Arthur's over voice describing the action. You should still write a scene description and describe the action even if it is exactly what the character is saying.
Because Arthur's speaking in the beginning is non-diegetic, you want to put (Over Voice) below his name.You would do the same thing if the character speaking is (Off Screen). Do this for the first DARKEND SCENE and then every time it is an over voice after that, use (O.V.). And after the first time you use off screen, use (O.S.). For example:
----
ZACHARY
God, will I be a successful filmmaker?
GOD
(Off Screen)
No.
ZACHARY
(Over Voice)
It was then that I realized, I wasn't ready to grow up.
FADE IN DRAMATIC MUSIC
-----
This is also a good technique for showing how a character says something.
------
ZACHARY
God told me I should find a new career path.
BRAYDEN
(Sarcastically)
Yeah, I'm sure.
-------
Parenthesis should not exceed one line.
Introducing a character. This is very important. I have a hard time imagining the characters. The first time a character is seen on screen, introduce them in the scene description. So start with Arthur and the Therapist. The more important the character, the more you say about them. You won't have to say much about the therapist. Age (range) and gender are important. But for main characters like Arthur you should describe their age, gender, hair color, body shape, height, clothing style, mannerisms, facial deformities, penis size, and preference of Pepsi or Coke. The first time you introduce a character, capitalize their name. After that, don't. That way we know it is the first time we are seeing this character. Here is an example of roughly how much you need to know about a main character. You can format it many ways.
ZACHARY; 20 years old, 145 lbs, very tall, hansom, short sandy-blond hair, wears clothes that are either too wide or not long enough, always smiles but looks retarded when he does so.
That's one way, here's another.
CALEB is very very gay. He is 20 years old, but could pass as a 16 year old. His hair blond and shaved. He has a long scar stretching across his eye the width of a tiger's claw. When he speaks, his jaw TICKS from having been dislocated. He stands naked before Brayden, waiting for Brayden to touch his long and supple dork.
I think that reads a lot smoother than the first one. But I have my own way of formatting character introductions using an em dash -- Here I will use it to describe an unimportant character.
BRAYDEN--20, fat, brunette, wearing a DQ uniform, his smile says 'Can I take your order?'--stands behind the cash register at DQ.
That's my style, no stealing.
Last thing, the text message scene. Typically, things that are read are capitalized and kept in the action bar. I have a bit of trouble with that because what if I want the text to be capitalized or not capitalized for a reason pertaining to the plot? And how does the reader know they're reading text? So I put mine in quotations.
Example!
Zachary opens up the email reply from his good ol buddy ol pal, Brayden. 'FUCK YOU, ASS HOLE!' it reads.
Now how do I know whether or not the email was actually capitalized? In modern text-speak, there is a huge difference between FUCK YOU and fuck you. The world may never know now. So don't worry too much about that.
I think that's all my notes. Just remember, you don't need to have this in real time. We don't always need to know how a character gets from one scene to another. The movie would make sense if it cut from the therapist office to him picking the sister up from the polar bear swim the next day. I'm not saying you should do that, don't! You'd cut your movie down 10 minutes and lose important dialogue. That's just an example. Also, the fact that this email is so long doesn't mean you did a bad job formatting. There are a lot of books out there about screenwriting, and now I know why. It's easy as fuck to talk about! lol. Write 20 more pages and send it again. I have to write 60 pages for class. Considering you're halfway to 30 after a day or so, you should consider transfering to the U. I'm working on something I'll be making this semester along with my class screenplay which might be a rewrite of Citizen Prophet. Except it will be a lot more action and less boring because I can write whatever I want without worrying whether I can actually shoot it lol. (No, we're not remaking Citizen Prophet. Just reviving the idea.)
The best advice I got on screenwriting came from Bret Stern's 'How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10.000* *and Not Go to Jail'. He said that before you start your screenplay, take 5 note cards. The first note card is the beginning of the movie, the last note card is the end. The 3 others are plot points. Figure those 5 scenes out, and then fill in the gaps between them with 25 more note cards, a scene per card. Then you can reshuffle them, edit them and move them around until it all comes together. It actually works quite well. Because I spent so much time writing this email, more time than you spent reading it, I'm gonna post it on my blog for fun. Peace.
Zachary Hayes MD
http://www.zacharyhayes.com
This isn't an advertisement, just part of me returning a favor. Not because I have to but because I feel it's necessary. After some unfortunate issues regarding my short film's soundtrack that arose the day before it was to be shipped off to festivals, I was very lucky to have the help of a very understanding and immensely talented composer, Christopher Hanson. Although I don't know him well, I've been a fan of his work for longer than I knew (I realize that doesn't make any sense but I won't go in depth about the situation). From what I do understand, Chris' dream is to one day be a film composer and he doesn't live too far from me. Quite the coincidence.
