[00:00] Screenplay formatting. Okay, look, there seems to be a lot of hand-wringing over how to do it. What's right? What should I invade? What's capitalized? What's not capitalized? How detailed do I need to be? Okay, and yeah, there's some general rules and people have little preferences and things like that.
[00:14] The key here is to understand the most important thing, and that's you want your screenplay to be as economical and direct as possible. Now, in order to do that, look, you should absolutely, positively use screenwriting software. No question.
[00:26] The last thing you want to do while writing is wasting time inventing and formatting, and really you should be concentrating on your story. And screenwriting software will absolutely do all the annoying stuff for you. Okay, so let's focus on the important stuff.
[00:38] Here are the eight kinds of items or lines you can find on a screenplay. Headers, action lines, character items, dialogues, character parenthetical, dialogue parenthetical, transitions, and overblacking title markers.
[00:53] And that's it. There's really only eight. Let's go through them one by one. Headers or slug lines. There's lines up top that are all capped, and they're very important for your scene. The first part of it tells you whether it is interior or exterior, and this is really important for when you're shooting.
[01:06] You need to know if you're shooting indoors or outdoors. After that, it's followed by location, followed by a dash, followed by the time of day. And it looks like this. Interior. Joey's kitchen. Dead. You need a new slug line any time the location changes or the time of day changes,
[01:20] or you're just beginning a new scene. Sounds obvious, right? I should mention there's one little complication you can run into, and that's any time the scene is transitioning from an interior to an exterior without cutting. Well, when that happens, what you can do is you can write interior slash exterior.
[01:33] Joey's up. Dead. Joey walks out of the door. Stop. Walks back in. Stop. Walks back out again.
[01:47] Stop. Okay, where are we starting this scene? Item number two. Action lines. The action lines is a line of description underneath the header that describes in more detail what is happening in the scene.
[02:02] It looks like this. Joey walks into the kitchen, scratches his butt, and gets milked out of the fridge. Okay, important thing to consider. Action lines should only be visual information. Things you can actually see on screen.
[02:18] Now we get into more detail about what makes good action lines later but a good thing to note is the first time you see a character in the script Their names should be in all caps It just an easy way to keep track of how many characters appear in your story Three character Okay a character designation goes below an action line and it lets you
[02:38] know who is talking, and really it just looks like this. Joey walks into the kitchen, scratches his butt, and gets milk out of the fridge. Why do you have me keep scratching my butt?
[02:52] That's how it's written, Joey. I can make you do anything. Oh, God.
[03:07] Four. Dialogue. You can see a frequently in the example we just did. The character's words are put below the character's name. And then when another person talks, it looks like this.
[03:20] Oh, hey, Danny, what are you doing in this scene? I don't know, I just wanted to show up to go over what dialogue looks like a two-day plan. In this scene? Perfect. The next kind of line is character parenthetical.
[03:34] Now, these are the parentheses next to the character's name that tell the reader if the character talking is doing something besides the standard talking to another person on screen. Now, for a few examples, there is VoiceOver, VO, Offscreen Dialogue, OS,
[03:50] and then there's special designations for things like talking into a phone. You can use just the simple Into Phone. It looks like this. You want to play Mario Kart? You can catch your second place, but I do.
[04:03] Here we go. Hello? Hello? Okay, you can play two chairs. Four races, random, all-irons, on hardcom.
[04:17] No! No hardcom! The sun's here, touch the scale! Yes, I know, that's what I think, Cherish. And so, the great debate of what setting of com difficulty would truly separate the casual from the more dedicated real racers raged for nearly a fortnight.
[04:38] And this tutorial was put off for several weeks due to the aftermath of the great banana incident of 2015. Look, Brian, uh, we're not doing the banana incident. What I had a whole thing about the bananas This is probably sensitive right now Are you talking about the bananas I talking about the bananas Joey Um you can stop me Okay uh anyway uh so you hopefully notice how many different kinds of emphasis you can put on who is saying what to who and from where
[05:06] But, you can also control how people say the actual dialogue with dialogue parentheticals. Sixth, dialogue parentheticals. Okay, so this is different from the character parenthetical, and is placed instead right
[05:19] below the character one, and right above the dialogue, sometimes just a little. Now, the purpose is to illustrate how the person is talking, or what is their tone, or what their emotion is. It can also indicate when another language is being used.
[05:33] It looks like this. Not fair, Danny! I know, that's the point. Life is unfair. It's difficult. It's hard. It's not fair. Come here, come here. Okay. It's a...
[05:45] Okay, look. The thing to know about character parentheticals is that, unlike the deeply moving scene that you just saw, you really don't want to use them that much. For one, you're a writer.
[05:58] It's not your job to direct the actors. And more importantly, you're a writer, which means the emotions in the scene should already be clear from the dialogue itself. Seriously, in the scene you just watched, you can remove every single one of those dialogue parentheticals.
[06:10] They're unnecessary. Now, honestly, the reason we use them is because you want to inform the reader when an actor is behaving or delivering a line differently than how the dialogue would have us expect on its own. And one last version of the dialogue parenthetical
[06:23] is when a character begins speaking in a different language. No es justo. No es justo. Mi español es terrible. Me gusta.
[06:36] Haría pedir tres tacos, por favor. Okay, that wraps up all the dialogue and brings us to our next subject, transitions. So, transitions come at the end of the scene, but right down on the little right-hand side of the page,
[06:51] the JavaScript's pointing the kind of transition being made between the scenes. Now, the most common version of a transition at the end of the scene is, of course, cut to. And you would use that to lead into the slug line of the next scene.
[07:03] But you don't have to use it every time. For one, it's obvious you're cutting to a new scene because of the new slug line. For two, it's a waste of precious green places. Now it's not specifically an editing mode. You're not trying to be like, cross-stage, star-wise, etc.
[07:17] You let your editors do that You really only want to use it for a transition anytime you emphasizing a cut and its importance to the story Specifically how it winds the action Really you want to think of a cut to as a therefore
[07:30] Dude, are you sure you should be doing that? Yeah, Mike said he can make me do whatever I want. Oh my god, this is all Mike's fault! But there are of course other kinds of transitions you can use too. You can use smash cut to, which is anytime you want a cut to land really really hard and rock the audience and have them notice it.
[07:46] and have them notice it. I'm going to be alright, right? They'll be fine. I think. Sorry, buddy. And then there's Fade to Black, which you can use to end your film or any time you want to emphasize
[07:58] a slow transition over time. And here's the second one for you that I get questions about all the time. It's called Intercut Web. This is an awesome time saver for when two characters are in two different locations, usually on the phone or something like that,
[08:10] and instead of rewriting the timelines every time you want to cut back and forth, you can instead inspire the filmmakers that they should film the entirety of both teams in both locations and leave the tough decision of the undercut back and forth to the other.
[08:24] Hello? Yo, I heard you were playing Mario Kart. You better save me a spot. You can play too, Cherish. Four races, random, all-riders, all-in hardcom. No! No hardcom!
[08:37] It's gonna be a test of skill! Right, a hardcom is a weaker game. Yes, I know. That's what I said, Cherish. Still with me? Okay, here we are. Time for the last one. Over black. Now, reading screenplays, you'd be amazed how many people don't know what to call it when the screen is black and you're doing a title card or audio or just whatever.
[08:56] People think there's no interior or exterior being shown. So, all you do is write over black in the header screen. It looks like this. How much longer is this edit going to take? About an hour. You sure? Because we really need to sign.
[09:10] I'm telling you! An hour. I'm sorry, I yelled. Joey! Lori! Joey! Sorry, it took longer than I thought. Joey! Your name is Lauren. My name is Joey.
[09:25] Yay, that's it. As always, you can find us on the forum discussion for the video, and we'll talk about any burning blessings you may have. See you next time. Thanks, everybody.
[09:41] © BF-WATCH TV 2021