Screenplay Format Basics In Five Minutes - The Absolute Basics To Get You Writing!

You have two options with your scene. Inside, or outside. INT. is for interior, EXT. is for exterior.

Next up, we need to know where the scene is taking place. Is it in a cafe? In a football field? In a spaceship? It's best to keep this simple. Go with CAFE, or BEDROOM. Of course, there might be various bedrooms in the film -- so you need to separate one bedroom from the other, so you might say BOB'S BEDROOM or SMALL BEDROOM or CHILDREN'S ROOM.

Is it day, or night? You decide and choose either DAY or NIGHT. Some of my favorite screenplays from the past say things like 'LATER' or 'THAT EVENING' or 'TWENTY MINUTES LATER.' If you feel these are essential, then use them; but, generally screenwriting wisdom is that you just go with day, or night.

So far; your script looks like this:

INT. SMALL BEDROOM - DAY

Or:

EXT. BUCKINGHAM PALACE - NIGHT

Or:

INT. JUNO'S BEDROOM - MACGUFF HOUSE - DAY

All of the above must be in CAPITALS!
Now you need to set the scene for us. Where is it? Who is there? What information do we need to know?

Try to keep in concise. Some writers write a big long paragraph. The best ones don't. Say for example you need to tell us that Barry walks into the room and turns on a light switch. Some writers might write:

Barry walks into the room. He takes a look around, ponders over what to do-- before stepping further inside. He walks over to the light switch and hits it with his fingers.

But do you need to write all of that? You could just write.

Barry enters. He hesitates - then hits the switch.

If this is the first time we see Barry on screen, you need to capitalize him. BARRY enters. In fact; it's good to have a bit of information about him. You can write a sentence explaining him -- or you can be short and succinct. BARRY, 19, a computer-whizz. Obese. -OR- BARRY, 52, grumpy-and-balding.

Do whatever you need to do to make him interesting. It should be information that is relevant and important. There's no point saying that Barry is a chess fanatic if he spends every scene from that moment onwards surfing.

So far your script looks like this.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

BARRY, 79; a frail ex-cop with an attitude, steps awkwardly towards the light switch.

Now we need some dialogue. The person speaking always has their name in the center. Like this:
BARRY
If Barry speaks in voice over, it's like this:

BARRY (V.O)

If we hear dialogue, but the character is out of shot, we see this:

BARRY (O.S)

V.O meaning voice over, O.S meaning out of shot.

What you'll see in a lot of scripts is information under the dialogue, like:

BARRY

(screaming)

I am screaming really loud!

Or

BARRY
(confused)
I look like a woman.

BUT; I recommend you DON'T do this. I used to do it all the time. And if Aaron Sorkin wants to do it, no-one will stop him. And in fact, if you're absolutely desperate to do it, the world won't end. But it's best not to. If your dialogue is good, the reader/actor/dude on the internet will grasp your intent without them; and it allows for the actor and director to do their job, without you forcing something on them.

Dialogue between two people is very simple. It's as easy as this.

BARRY
I'm speaking dialogue.

GEOFF
No shit.

BARRY
Do you read that great
film blog?

GEOFF
Every day.

If something happens in the middle of the scene. Just write it in - from the left hand side. Like this.

BARRY
I'm speaking dialogue.

GEOFF
No shit.

Barry picks up a pen.

BARRY
Do you read that great
film blog?

GEOFF
Every day.
OR

BARRY
I'm speaking dialogue.

Barry's face suddenly ERUPTS into flame. Geoff ignores it.

GEOFF
No shit.

BARRY
Do you read that great
film blog?

GEOFF
Every day.

So now you can write a standard scene.

INSIDE OR OUTSIDE/WHERE/DAY OR NIGHT?
What's going on? What do we need to know?

WHO'S TALKING?
What are they saying?

The picture below shoes part of a scene from the 'Sunshine Cleaning' screenplay. I'm showing you this because it is a bit more accurate than my blog, formatting wise. As you can see, the dialogue isn't quite centered, it's actually to the left of the character name. For some reason, the blog editor isn't allow me to demonstrate that properly; so here is what it should look like.

Don't talk about camera angles. Writing CLOSE-UP or CAMERA TILTS LEFT is not your job! Your job is to tell a story.

The basic things I have told you are enough to get you started. I didn't want to say anything about content-- this is for people who've been daunted about simple formatting. And I hope this demystifies the basics!

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Whose Screenplay Is It Anyway? How Screenwriters Go Insane

You're seven years old, and you think "I really love laughing, hahahahahaha." You're 11 years old and you really really like Mary-Jane, who lives down by the place near the big tree, and you think "I really really love her and I want to be in love forever yeah it's great." You're sixteen years old and you look up at the sky and you're just amazed by how clear the stars are and how big and beautiful the moon is and you think "Holy marbles! The world is incredible! It's a miracle! I can feel it. Wow. Wow. Wow." And then you laugh hysterically, hahahaha. Not because you're insane, but because you really love laughing.

And then you become a screenwriter. And you write your first script in seven minutes. How you did it, nobody knows. But you did. You wrote a 100 page script in seven minutes, and it's wonderful because it's got soul but it's awful because you've never written a script before.

And then your friend Patrick says "dude, it's way too romantic. Nobody likes that cheesy bullshit," so you take out a bit of the cheese because maybe it is a bit touchy feely. And then you meet a guy who wrote two episodes of that thing on that channel nobody ever watches, and he says, "the joke about the pencils isn't funny. Pencils aren't funny. Lemonade is funny." So you take out the joke about the pencils and replace it with a joke that isn't about pencils.

The thing that is great about your script though is that you captured that really incredible feeling you had that time you and that girl went to that bench by the field near where the hill overlooked the big tall building near your old school, when you were looking up at the big beautiful sky. But Mr Singh who works in the shop near the place where they used to sell like a million different types of envelope says to you "I think you're being a bit silly if you think the sky is magic, there's so much pollution, and films that are about the sky don't really sell unless you have a machine blow up and fall out of it."

You know you're right, deep down, you love going hahahahaha and you love that girl and going to the bench near the thing and you love how amazing the sky is. But then you meet a guy called Zack who worked as an extra on that pretty funny thing that used to be on after that famous show and he also directed one episode of a webisode called "LOL @ Life!" which had at least a viewer, so he knows his stuff and he wants to 'develop' new ideas with you but he says "don't write about the moon because it isn't marketable," and he reminds you that pencils don't put people's asses on seats and what you really need are big guns. You're not sure about the big guns but Zack has lots of weird shit in his hair and he has a nice wristwatch so you figure he must really know his stuff so you say "okay, so you don't want the moon?" and he says "no, fuck the moon, that's bullshit," and then you take out the moon and replace it with a scene where the chick with the big breasts blows up the village with her nipples.

But the film never gets made because your script is really shit and the guy with the gunk in his hair is actually an undercover underachieving understudy in a play called "Chipmunks on Skates," so you stop listening to him and go about your day.. and you start to think again about working on a new screenplay.

You have this idea in your head but you don't have much clarity but you think maybe it's something to do with the moon and the magic of the night and a pretty girl with a smile but there's this voice in you that says "that's not marketable you fucking shitfuck!" and then you meet this guy in a suit who says "if you want funding, then you need to know that we need a script that can be branded towards a person who would wear clothes made out of iPhones and eat food made out of Facebook statuses, so you really need to write something current." You keep trying to write it but it's really fucking terrible and you keep asking yourself, "why can't I write?" and you keep trying to feed the magic into your writing somehow but it. just. isn't. there.

You keep looking and you keep trying and you keep hoping that you'll stop being such a bad writer. And some guy who's a big shot says "we really need a film where a guy in his twenties owns a gun and overcomes obstacles by saving the girl from the cheer-leading thing and then he falls backwards in slow-mo and a black man delivers a line about choices and then a woman gets her breasts out in close-up." You write it and it's exactly what they asked for but they don't make the movie-- and you don't know why and they don't know why and nobody knows why and instead someone makes a sequel to that thing with the Vampires.

This part of you starts jumping up and down and screaming at you --- and it's saying, "write a movie about a girl and a tree and the moon," but there are a thousand voices of everyone you ever met saying, "it's not marketable, it's not brandable, there's no breasts, what are you doing, don't you want to be marketable?"

You take a moment to look at your heroes, you look at the essence of what they did and how they achieved it -- and every sign points to people stepping out and saying "HEY, I AM ME, this is how I SEE THE WORLD!" - and you realize, you need to do that very thing.

And it's your choice and it's your choice and it's your choice. You look at your writing over the last few years and the only time you say hahahaha is when you realize the absurdity of the crazy pointless adventure you've been on. You run around, and you search your home and you realize there's just one thing you need and then it will all come together. You run downstairs, you look under the pad next to the table by the chair; and there it is, exactly what you need: a brand new pencil.

Hahahaha you say to yourself, as you write your new screenplay.

What do you want, Mary? You want the MOON? Just say the word...

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