1. The cover page

3/8ths down, centred:

"THE TITLE"

A screenplay

by

Your Name

At the bottom:

All rights reserved

Address (yours/your agent)

(000) 000-0000

Your screenplay should begin like this:

Hit <Enter> five times and on line 6, centered, between inverted commas and in capital letters, write "THE TITLE" of your movie.

On line 10, justified left, the words: FADE IN:

Two more <Enters> and, on line 12 write the first slugline

For example:

1.

"DENISE QUITS SMOKING"

FADE IN:

INT. DENISE’S PLACE - DAY

(...)

3. Elements of the Screenplay

Sluglines, or Scene Headers.

Written in capitals and containing three pieces of information: (1) Where; (2) Exactly where, and (3) when. (2) and (3) are separated by a space, a dash, followed by another space.

(1) can be INT. (interior) or EXT. (exterior); (2) is a short identification of the place; and (3) can be either DAY or NIGHT.

For example:

INT. DENISE’S PLACE - DAY

You can use more than one subject.

For example:

EXT. DENISE’S PLACE - TERRACE - DAY - LATE AFTERNOON

or:

EXT. DENISE’S PLACE/TERRACE - DAY - LATE AFTERNOON

You need a new slugline each time you change the place, and/or change the time. However it is not necessary to use a whole new slugline every time a character goes to or from, say, the kitchen. In this case, simply writing the name of where he or she goes is quite sufficient.

For example:

Denise gets up from the sofa and goes towards the kitchen.

KITCHEN

Denise opens the fridge and gets a beer.

Or even:

Denise gets up from the sofa and goes towards the...

KITCHEN, where she opens the fridge and gets a beer.

But:

• if Denise goes from INT. LIVING ROOM to EXT. TERRACE, we use a new slugline because she changes place INT./EXT.
• if we cut scenes to three hours later, and Denise is still in the living room watching TV, we also need a new slugline because we’ve change the time.

Another element of the slugline are the scene numbers. For spec scripts, these aren’t compulsory by any means, but for those of you who want to number your scenes, the numbers are placed in the left margin, about 2 cm from the slugline.

Warning: placing scene numbers should be the very last thing you do before printing the script! Otherwise you’ll spend hours re-numbering draft after draft, quite unnecessarily.

Action, or Description

The screenplay’s visual elements, where we show what is taking place on the screen. Character descriptions, what they are doing, the places, and everything the audience will need to assimilate visually. And nothing else!

Try to create the experience of watching each scene, using only the information available to the movie-goer, in the order that he or she will be presented with it.

Some of the action is usually written in capital letters:

• CHARACTERS with speaking parts, the first time they appear in the script, or the first time they appear in each scene.
• the words ENTERS and EXITS
• those SOUNDS which require some kind of mechanical production, such as telephones ringing, gunshots, whistling wind, etc. There is no need to capitalize sounds made on the spot by characters smashing plates or slamming doors, and so forth.
• Important props.

For example:

1.

"DENISE QUITS SMOKING"

FADE IN:

INT. DENISE’S PLACE - LIVING ROOM - DAY

A tiny verandah leads off the small living room through open French windows. From the street, the noise of TRAFFIC. On a glass dining table, on the coffee table and all around the living room, there are dirty ashtrays, empty bottles and dirty plates.

DENISE DE CARVALHO, a dark 34 year-old woman with long dishevelled hair covering her face, appears in the corridor. She is wearing a long night shirt. She ENTERS the living room and, covering her eyes in order to avoid seeing the light and the mess, she fumbles around the table for a PACK OF CIGARETTES.

She finds the pack, takes out a cigarette and goes back down the corridor to the...

BEDROOM, where she lights the cigarette and lies on the bed smoking, trying not to wake up too much.

(...)

Keep paragraphs short. Tell your story visually, using the least amount of detail in order to keep your reader interested and informed.

Names

The character’s name over dialogue, always in capital letters. Can be followed by:

• (V.O.), Voice Over, when we hear the voice of a character who is not in the scene. This might be a narrator, an answering machine message, or someone being heard over the phone, etc.
• (O.S.), Off Screen, when the actor is still in the scene but is not visible at present
• (cont.) or (cont’d), when the character continues a speech broken by action. This can also be done using a parenthetical (see below) as follows: (continuing)

For example:

(...)

She finds the pack, takes out a cigarette and goes back down the corridor to the...

BEDROOM, where she lights the cigarette and lies on the bed smoking, trying not to wake up too much. Suddenly the telephone RINGS in the living room. Denise remains still.

Beat.

The phone keeps RINGING. Denise gets up and EXITS.

Denise ENTERS the bedroom again, holding a CORDLESS PHONE.

(...)

Or:

I consider the latter more logical, but it is far less common, probably for reasons of space.

Parentheticals

Written in brackets on a line between the character name and his/her dialogue. These should be used very sparingly indeed, for two reasons. First, because actors don’t like being told how to say their lines. But more importantly, if you find yourself needing a lot of instructions like (shouting), (crying), (to the waiter) etc., it’s probably a sign that your dialogue isn’t crystal clear in general. It is nearly always possible to avoid these instructions, limiting yourself to employing them on the few occasions when the tone or meaning of the speech really would be ambiguous.

Dialogue

The character’s dialogue. If a speech is split by a page break, write (MORE) centered on a line underneath the dialogue at the end of the previous page, and start the next one with the character’s name and (cont.). This is another thing you don't want to bother with until you're ready to print your script.

Spacing

Single spacing for: names/parentheticals/dialogue; action;

Double spacing between: sluglines and action; description and names; dialogue and action; FADE IN and the first slugline; the last line and FADE OUT

Triple spacing between: action or dialogue and sluglines.

At the end - the last page.

After the last line of your screenplay, hit <Enter> twice and write the words FADE OUT.

Two more, and END, or The End, centred on the page.



To see what the cover and first page of "DENISE QUITS SMOKING" would look like, CLICK HERE (Acrobat format)

Copyright © 1996-2000 by Hugo Moss
All rights reserved