This part is for people who have never written a screenplay to become more familiar with how to correctly format one. Even if you think you know how to write one from seeing them before, you might find out something you didn't know before! You can find better explanations about this on various websites about film writing, so feel free to consult YouTube or websites like Studio Binder for more support.
Each one of the components I'm about to mention can be seen in the code example before, so if you're curious as to how they're implemented, that'll be answered in the example. This is just for how to use them from a writing perspective.
Transitions
Transition between scenes with this. The first line of your script should always be a transition, which says "Fade in" — this is the beginning of every screenplay. This should also be the last line of your script, which should say "Fade to black". Every other transition in your script — which can go between every scene if you want but doesn't have to be if it's a simple cut — should end with "to:" e.g. "Jump cut to:", unless it's "Fade to black" or "Fade to white". You can have "Fade to:" as well, which does get a colon.
- Fade in — To start your screenplay
- Fade to: — Fade out and in again to another shot
- Fade to black — To go at the end of the screenplay
- Fade to white — If you're heading into a dream sequence or flashback
- Cut to: — Simply cut from one clip to another
- Dissolve to: — Cross-fade
- Back to: — After a flashback or something like that
- Match cut to: — This is a cut where some element in frame looks the same or lines up with something in the next frame, e.g. you cut from a shot of a hole in the wall to a shot of someone's eye, the pupil matching up with the hole.
- Jump cut to: — This is a cut that skips over some amount of time
Scene headings
Your scene headings have to have this structure:
[Intro] [Location] - [Sub-location (optional)] - [Scene time]
The intro says whether your shot is inside or outside.
- INT. — This scene takes place inside
- EXT. — This scene takes place outside
- INT./EXT. — This scene takes place in both
The location is where your scene takes place, e.g. LEVEL 11 STREET. Sometimes you'll need a sub-location like KALAG HEADQUARTERS - GANI'S OFFICE because you'll be moving through the location in different scenes.
The scene time lets you know when the scene is taking place. This is very important, especially for your first scene to help visualize it.
- Day — This scene takes place in the daytime
- Night — This scene takes place in the nighttime
- Morning — This scene takes place in the morning
- Afternoon — This scene takes place in the afternoon
- Evening — This scene takes place in the evening
- Later — This scene takes place a while after the previous scene
- Moments later — This scene takes place only a little bit after the previous scene
- Continuous — No time has passed between the previous scene and this one, and we're following the same character. We've only changed location.
- The next day — This scene takes place the day after the previous scene.
Feel free to add other ones! One good one is "Golden hour" which is a particular time of day that gets you golden-looking lighting. Just try be accurate to your vision.
Action
Action is where you narrate what happens in the script. You write this in the first person plural when talking about what the audience sees, and in the third person when discussing characters e.g. "We see the contents of A. RIVER's office
When you first name a character in the script, you have to visually describe them in parentheses e.g. "We see TOM (40s, African-American, beard, wide smile, chef's hat and apron) cooking a burger for a customer." After that, you can choose whether or not you want to capitalize the character every time they're mentioned or not, but keep this consistent. I choose to do it for a screenplay vibe and to make it easier to see where the characters are in the action.
Because this is a literary writing website, you don't have to be as concise as you would be in a normal script. But what you should remember not to do is introduce too much camera vocabulary, cause in production that comes in a stage after the script e.g. instead of "We see a close-up shot of TOM's spatula" just say "We look closely at TOM's spatula"
Dialogue
Dialogue can contain whatever text you want. But first, you need to name the character.
In the character part of the dialogue, the name will be centered and in all caps, simple enough. Refer to the character the same way every time.
Sometimes you'll have to write your character name with an extension, e.g. "BLANCHE (O.S.)".
- (cont'd) — Add this when the same character is speaking before and after a piece of action.
- (O.S.) — The character is speaking from off-screen
- (V.O) — Use this when the character is speaking as voice-over
- (O.C.) — This stands for "off-camera" and is basically the same as O.S., but this is considered a bit outdated. For more info, read this blog post.
- (SUBTITLE) — This is a subtitle. You probably won't need this, but my screenwriting software has it!
N.B. Rather than add the character heading in again with a (cont'd) marker, just take a new line when adding a natural paragraph into the dialogue. Only add the new heading with the (cont'd) marker when the dialogue has been interrupted by an action.
Then you can include a parenthetical in order to explain the way in which the line will be delivered, e.g. "(exasperated)". Don't just put it in line with the text, rather check the code example for how they're added. Try to only use these where it's important so they have more prominence when they do appear.
