What is a Screenplay?

A screenplay or script is a written work by screenwriters for a film, video game, or televisions program. These screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated.

Screenwriting Process

1. A company will hire a writer to write a script
2. Someone can write a screenplay and their agent can take it to the company
3. Someone can make a story, and someone else writes the screenplay
4. For Indie films, someone can send in a script they’ve made, but for bigger Hollywood films, you need to be asked or have an agent.

Language

How is the language of the description and dialogue in the screenplay used and what is the purpose? What does the description/dialogue suggest about…

• The characters – for example, Jules in Pulp Fiction. “His use of calming, conversational dialogue is employed to unsettle the characters within the scene and quietly assert his authority over them”
• The setting/location
• The situation/actions of the scene

Format and Layout

The generic conventions of the script (screenshot examples of these for all 3 scripts)

• Title page
• Sluglines
• Action/description
• Characters
• Dialogue
• Parenthicals

Three-act Structure

1. The setup – introduce characters, often in the context of a personal story. Set audience expectations, and set the scene.
2. The confrontation – protagonist is confronted by antagonist, who stops the protagonist doing what they want to achieve. The protagonist needs to find a way to overcome the antagonist.
3. The resolution – Final confrontation, where the protagonist either achieves his goal or doesn’t

Style

• Linear – films which present events in chronological order (most films adopt this structure)
• Non-linear – films which present events out of chronological order
• Point of View narrative – seeing the story from one perspective
• Single-stranded – one story
• Multi-stranded – there are several stories running at the same time
• Close structures – as in most films, when the story ends satisfactorily. There is a sense of closure at the end
• Open structures – there is no final conclusions. It is either left for audiences to interpret their own ending or it is left open for a sequel

Short film

A short film is a film which is not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn, the term featurette originally applied to a film longer than a short subject, but shorter than a standard feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as “an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.

Categorised by…

• Minuscule length of time
• Limited budget and resources – often independently produced
• Creative freedom – not bound by studio pressures
• Distributed through film festivals and now, in the Digital Age, through the Internet
• Lack of the mainstream audience – niche