Screenplay Writing

Welcome to Movie lovers and Screen Writers, Directors also Filmmakers into my new outlined articles on Film and Television screenplay writing. Today I am going to tell you or introducing to you a common rules and regulations in screen-writing methods, such filmmaking and television genres. Most of Filmmakers and technicians are using these methods worldwide, especially in Hollywood.

Screenplay or Script Writing
A screenplay or script is a written plan, authored by a screenwriter, for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing works such as novels.
The major components of a screenplay are action and dialogue, with the "action" being "what we see happening" and "dialogue" being "what we hear" (i.e., what the characters utter). The characters, when first introduced in the screenplay, may also be described visually. Screenplays differ from traditional literature conventions in ways described below; however, screenplays may not involve emotion-related descriptions and other aspects of the story that are, in fact, visual within the end-product.

Screenplays in print are highly formal, conforming to font and margin specifications designed to cause one page of screenplay to correspond to approximately one minute of action on screen; thus screen directions and descriptions of location are designed to occupy less vertical space than dialogue, and various technical directions, such as settings and camera indication are set apart from the text with capital letters and/or indentation. Professional screenplays are always printed in 12-point Courier, or another fixed-width font that appears like typewriter type.

In the United States, the Writers Guild of America, East (WGA) has final control on who may be awarded screenwriting credit for a screenplay in a union production. The WGA is one of several organizations in the U.S. and worldwide which recognize screenplays with awards.
A script for television is sometimes called a teleplay.

Sample Screenplay Script

Spec script
A spec script is a "speculative" screenplay, one that the Variety slanguage dictionary defines as being "shopped or sold on the open market, as opposed to one commissioned by a studio or production company."
Spec scripts are written for various reasons:
by writers, who hope to have a script optioned and eventually purchased by producers or studios;
by writer/directors, who want to direct a film themselves;
by amateur writers hoping to convince a literary agent to represent them or a producer to hire them.
Spec scripts have not always held as much cachet in the business as they do now. Ernest Lehman describes how his original script for North by Northwest was unusual at that point in his career:

Originals were not smiled upon in those days, believe it or not. There was very little interest in originals in those days. [...] Studios, distributors wanted the assurance of someone else having thought a property worth publishing[...] In those days, if you went to a party in the Hollywood community and somebody would ask, "What are you working on, Ernie?" and you replied, "I'm doing an original now," the response would be "Oh." [...] Like they were a little embarrassed[...] If you were working on something that you were going to create all by yourself, they'd secretly think, "He's in bad shape. Working on an original." That definitely was the climate at one time in this town.

Attracting producers
The process of 'going out' with a spec script can be an extremely tense and nerve-wracking one for a writer. If the writer has an agent, the agent will identify a number of prospective buyers who may range from small independent producers to executives working in the major studios, and attempt to build up 'heat' under the script. The script is sent out simultaneously to all the prospective buyers, usually to be read over the weekend, in the hope of attracting a bidding war.
If the script sells, the writer may receive a payment of anything from a few tens of thousands of dollars to several million. If not, the script is sometimes dead in the water because it is now in the databases of the studios and development executives, and has been marked as having been 'passed' on.

However, most of the hundreds of thousands of spec scripts penned each year are written by unknowns who are trying to attract attention and find it difficult to generate the kind of “buzz” that more established scribes count on to sell their scripts. (See the screenwriting documentary Dreams on Spec.)

Sample script
A sample script is usually not intended for production, but to showcase the screenwriting skills of the author, in hopes of attracting the attention of an agent or producer. Often a spec script which fails to sell goes on to be a sample script.

Shooting script
A shooting script is the version of a screenplay used during the production of a motion picture. Shooting scripts are distinct from spec scripts in that they make use of scene numbers (along with certain other formatting conventions described below), and they follow a well defined set of procedures specifying how script revisions should be implemented and circulated.

Overview
When a screenplay is approved for production, the scenes are assigned numbers which are included in the script alongside the scene headers. The numbers provide a convenient way for the various production departments to reference individual scenes.
After a shooting script has been widely circulated, any rewrites are distributed on revision pages. This avoids having to print and distribute an entirely new draft for every set of revisions. Revision pages are distributed on colored paper (a different color for each set of revisions), with the revisions themselves marked by asterisks. The progression of colors varies from one production to the next, but a typical sequence would be: blue, pink, yellow, green, gold, salmon, cherry, white, and then back to blue.

In some cases, usually before the start of principal photography, an entirely new "white draft" will be distributed in lieu of colored revision pages. The pages in a white draft are renumbered from scratch, while the original scene numbers are maintained.

Preserving scene and page numbers
When revisions are made to a shooting script, they must be accomplished in a way that doesn't disturb the pre-existing scene numbers. For example, if a new scene is to be inserted between scenes 10 and 11, the new scene will be numbered 10A. Every scene thus retains its own unique number throughout the course of the production. When a scene is omitted, its number is preserved in the script along with the phrase (OMITTED). This effectively retires the number so that it can't be reused by a new scene inserted later at the same location.

Page numbers in a shooting script are handled in a similar way. When revision pages are distributed, the page numbers must flow sequentially into the pre-existing page numbers. For example, if page 10 is revised such that it now occupies a page and a half, the revisions will be distributed on two pages numbered 10 and 10A. These two pages will replace page 10 in the outstanding drafts. Conversely, if pages 15 and 16 are shortened such that they now occupy a single page, the revisions will be distributed on a single page numbered 15-16.

Scene continued
When a numbered scene is split across pages, (CONTINUED) appears at the bottom of the prior page, and CONTINUED: appears at the top of the subsequent page. This continued indicator appears along with the number of the scene being continued and a bracketed count of how often the scene has been continued thus far, e.g. 107 CONTINUED: (2). The number is usually omitted when it's equal to one.

Dialogue continued
When dialogue is split across pages, (MORE) appears below the portion of dialogue on the first page, similar to a parenthetical but indented the same as the character's name. On the subsequent page, the remaining dialogue is headed by the character's name, which is extended by an abbreviated continued indicator, e.g. JOHN (CONT'D).
When a character speaks more than once consecutively, with only action separating the speeches, (continuing) parentheticals can be used in the subsequent speeches. (continuing) parentheticals are positioned the same as standard ones: below the character's name and indented from the dialogue. Some writers indicate consecutive dialogue by including (CONT'D) beside the character's name (the same as for dialogue split across pages). Many writers choose not to indicate consecutive dialogue at all.

Dialogue continueds apply to both spec and production scripts. They are mentioned here because of the confusion that arises over the many uses of continued.

The revision slug
A slug (header) appears at the top of every revision page, aligned vertically with the page number. The revision slug typically includes the date the revisions were circulated, the color of the pages in parentheses, and usually, the name of the production or some other descriptive information. Every set of revisions is distributed along with a title page that includes a list of the revision slugs for every set of revisions distributed thus far.

Revision marks
Script revisions are marked with asterisks in the right hand margins of the revision pages. When many revision marks are present on a single page, or within a single paragraph or scene, the marks may be consolidated into a single mark. For example, if all the lines in a given passage of dialogue are marked, the marks can be consolidated into a single mark appearing alongside the name of the speaker above the dialogue. In the case of scenes, this single "consolidation mark" appears alongside the scene header. For pages, the consolidation mark appears beside the page number.

Screenwriting software
Most screenwriting software applications include functions for handling the formats and procedures described above, with varying degrees of automation.
Screenwriting software applications are word processors specialized to the task of writing screenplays. The need for such programs arises from the presence of certain peculiarities in standard screenplay format which are not handled well by generic word processors. A good example would be the formatting and revision-tracking requirements of shooting scripts. The page-break constraints imposed by standard screenplay format are also difficult to implement using standard word processors.

Most of the major screenwriting programs are standalone desktop applications. These include Celtx, DreamaScript, Final Draft, Montage, Movie Magic Screenwriter, Movie Outline, and Sophocles.

Some new solutions are web applications and run in a web browser with no software to install. These include ScriptBuddy, Scripped and Zhura.
Many other programs are available as add-ins for generic word processors such as Microsoft Word. Examples include Dr. Format and Script Wizard. There is also a package for LaTeX called screenplay.

Some screenwriting applications, such as Celtx and Sophocles, also incorporate production scheduling and budgeting capabilities. Others, such as Zhura, provide additional collaborative editing tools.

History
The first screenwriting software was a stand alone script formatter, Scriptor, from Screenplay Systems. It took a text file generated by a word processor and inserted the proper page break tags.

When used in conjunction with a TSR program such as SmartKey or ProKey -- keyboard utilities that assigned a sequence of commands to keystroke combinations -- the "dot commands" that Scriptor required could be inserted semi-automatically.
Additionally, keyboard macros could be programmed to properly indent and enter abbreviations -- allowing a user to customize the working of the word processor.
SmartKey was popular with screen writers from 1982-1987, after which word processing programs had their own macro features.

An update to Scriptor understood the style sheets used in Microsoft Word for DOS. And so the need for key macro programs was lessened.
Scriptor's limitation was that once formatted it was difficult to re-import the resulting text back into a word processor for further editing.
The next generation of screenplay software hooked into Microsoft Word. Warren Script Application was initially released as a set of style sheets for Word for DOS. It was updated for Word for Windows circa 1988.

gScript, a shareware script formatter / template, as released via CompuServe in 1989. It was included on the disk accompanying the book "Take Word for Windows to the Edge," published by Ziff-Davis in 1993. It has since been updated and released commercially as ScriptWright.
This third generation of screenplay software consists of the standalone script writing programs such as Movie Magic Screenwriter, Final Draft, Scriptware.

The latest generation adds online storage and collaboration. New partnerships, such as that recently announced between Movie Magic Screenwriter and Scripped, may lead to online and offline synchronization.

List of Screenplay Writing software
BPC-Screenplay - Screenwriting software Microsoft Windows
Celtx - An open source project on Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux.
Final Draft - Screenwriting software Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Considered the industry standard.

Montage software - Popular screenwriting software for Mac only.
Movie Magic Screenwriter - Integrated professional screenwriting software. Available on Mac and Microsoft Windows.

Movie Outline - Professional script writing and story development software for Mac and PC.
ScreenCraft Screenwriting Software - Windows based screenwriting software for MS Windows.
Scripped - Free professional browser-based screenwriting text editing software.
Zhura - Free online professional screenwriting software. Features public and group collaboration.


Model Screenplay: Titanic
Hi friends here I am giving first seven Scenes Screenplay from famous Hollywood film “Titanic”.

Titanic
A screenplay by James Cameron
Cast: KATE WINSLET... Rose DeWitt Bukater
LEONARDO DICAPRIO... Jack Dawson
KATHY BATES... The Unsinkable Molly Brown
BILLY ZANE... Caledon Hockley
BILL PAXTON... Brock Lovett
Written and Directed by: JAMES CAMERON

1 BLACKNESS
Then two faint lights appear, close together... growing brighter. Theyresolve into two DEEP SUBMERSIBLES, free-falling toward us like expresselevators.
One is ahead of the other, and passes close enough to FILL FRAME, lookinglike a spacecraft blazing with lights, bristling with insectilemanipulators.
TILTING DOWN to follow it as it descends away into the limitless blacknessbelow. Soon they are fireflies, then stars. Then gone.
CUT TO:

2 EXT./ INT. MIR ONE / NORTH ATLANTIC DEEP
PUSHING IN on one of the falling submersibles, called MIR ONE, right up toits circular viewport to see the occupants.
INSIDE, it is a cramped seven foot sphere, crammed with equipment. ANATOLYMIKAILAVICH, the sub's pilot, sits hunched over his controls... singingsoftly in Russian.
Next to him on one side is BROCK LOVETT. He's in his late forties, deeplytanned, and likes to wear his Nomex suit unzipped to show the gold fromfamous shipwrecks covering his gray chest hair. He is a wiley, fast-talkingtreasure hunter, a salvage superstar who is part historian, part adventurerand part vacuum cleaner salesman. Right now, he is propped against the CO2scrubber, fast asleep and snoring.
On the other side, crammed into the remaining space is a bearded wide-bodynamed LEWIS BODINE, sho is also asleep. Lewis is an R.O.V. (REMOTELYOPERATED VEHICLE) pilot and is the resident Titanic expert.
Anatoly glances at the bottom sonar and makes a ballast adjustment.
CUT TO:

3 EXT. THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
A pale, dead-flat lunar landscape. It gets brighter, lit from above, as MIRONE enters FRAME and drops to the seafloor in a downblast from itsthrusters. It hits bottom after its two hour free-fall with a loud BONK.
CUT TO:

4 INT. MIR ONE
Lovett and Bodine jerk awake at the landing.
ANATOLY
(heavy Russian accent)
We are here.
EXT. / INT. MIR ONE AND TWO

5 MINUTES LATER: THE TWO SUBS
skim over the seafloor to the sound ofsidescan sonar and the THRUM of big thrusters.

6 The featureless gray clay of the bottom unrols in the lights of the subs.
Bodine is watching the sidescan sonar display, where the outline of a hugepointed object is visible. Anatoly lies prone, driving the sub, his facepressed to the center port.
BODINE
Come left a little. She's right in front of us, eighteen meters. Fifteen.Thirteen... you should see it.
ANATOLY
Do you see it? I don't see it... there!
Out of the darkness, like a ghostly apparition, the bow of the shipappears. Its knife-edge prow is coming straight at us, seeming to plow thebottom sediment like ocean waves. It towers above the seafloor, standingjust as it landed 84 years ago.
THE TITANIC. Or what is left of her. Mir One goes up and over the bowrailing, intact except for an overgrowth of "rusticles" draping it likemutated Spanish moss.
TIGHT ON THE EYEPIECE MONITOR of a video camcorder.
Brock Lovett's facefills the BLACK AND WHITE FRAME.
LOVETT
It still gets me every time.
The image pans to the front viewport, looking over Anatoly's shoulder, tothe bow railing visible in the lights beyond. Anatoly turns.
ANATOLY
Is just your guilt because of stealing from the dead.
CUT WIDER, to show that Brock is operating the camera himself, turning itin his hand so it points at his own face.
LOVETT
Thanks, Tolya. Work with me, here.
Brock resumes his serious, pensive gaze out the front port, with the cameraaimed at himself at arm's length.
LOVETT
It still gets me every time... to see the sad ruin of the great shipsitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912,after her long fall from the world above.
Anatoly rolls his eyes and mutters in Russian. Bodine chuckles and watchesthe sonar.
BODINE
You are so full of shit, boss.


You want Titanic Film full Screenplay ?
Friends are you would like to see/watch Titanic Screenplay fully, then click on below mentioned links, you get full screenplay of world famous film Titanic.

http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-two.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-three.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-four.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-five.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-six.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-seven.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-eight.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-nine.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/titanic-exclusive-screenplay-part-ten.html

Making of 'Titanic' Behind The Scenes
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part1-6.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part2-6.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part3-6.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part4-6.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part5-6.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-of-titanic-behind-scenes-part6-6.html

Deleted Scenes from Titanic film
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/hollywood-classic-titanic-deleted.html
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/07/hollywood-classic-titanic-deleted_12.html

Documentory film on Titanic
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/heart-of-ocean-titanic-documentary-film.html

Titanic Trailer
http://filmtechniques.blogspot.com/2008/06/titanic-trailer.html