How to Format a Movie Script

1. SS Intro to How to Format a Screenplay: Hey, I'm Jordan D Mola, an award winning screenwriter with many produced films, TV shows, and more. At this point in my career, I've written about 40 feature film screenplays, and I love teaching others the essentials of screenwriting. If you're brand new to screenwriting, then this quick video lesson will show you the basics of how to format a screenplay. 2. SS How to Format a Screenplay: There are many screenwriting softwares out there to choose from. And for the first decade of my career, I used Final Draft, which was considered the industry standard at the time. But then in 2016, I discovered my favorite screenwriting software, Writer Duet, and I've been using Rider Duet ever since. I'll be using Rider duet for this demonstration, and you can sign up and use Rider duet for free at rerduet.com. There you can write your first three scripts for free. For this quick demo, I'm going to rewrite the first page of my feature film screenplay Leap Day. It's an ensemble comedy about the craziness, confusion and chaos that can only happen on that extra day we get every four years. These are the basics, and this will get your story going. Alright, so the first thing you do for any screenplay is fade in. You're only going to fade in once at the very beginning of the screenplay, and at the end, the last thing you do is fade out. So open a document. See this. When you press Enter, you'll see all these choices. What I want to do is transition. So transition, and then fade in. With a lot of screenwriting software, they make it super easy. All you have to do is press Enter and you'll get choices, and you can just keep moving forward. Back in the day, people had to use a typewriter, but now it's super easy, and anyone can do this from anywhere. So after you fade in, then you'll start every scene with a scene heading, which is also known as a slug line. So so for Leap Day, it starts off in a hockey arena. So I put interior hockey arena, and you're always going to use INT for interior and EXT exterior. And always remember interior means inside, exterior means outside. So if this scene was outside a hockey arena, I would put EXT period hockey arena. But since it's inside, I'll use INT period hockey arena, which means interior hockey arena. All right. After that, then you start writing the action description. So for this, I'm going to put it's a packed house. In the third row, Lucy, who's my main character. She's 29. You usually put the age after the character, and then you describe them. So she wears punk rock wardrobe. I could say that word. She's frazzled because she's about to do something she's never done before. And she's with her sister right now. So talks with her sister Jade 31, business casual attire, she's way more professional than her sister. And she's calm, cool, and collective. Now, you'll notice I capitalize put this in all capitals. Her name Lucy, and I put Jade in all capitals. And you only do this when you first introduce a new character. This is how the reader is going to know this characters brand new. But from this point on, I'm only going to have the first initial of Lucy's name be capitalized and the first initial of Jade's name be capitalized. Alright. After that, I'll do some dialogue. So I just press Enter and tab, and then I'm going to type in Lucy. Now, from now on, you'll see this in all screen writing software. It's going to keep this name. So it's going to be easier for me to write. I'll just pop up, and I'll show you that in a second. So I can't believe I'm going to do this. And then again, Enter. And then I press Tab, bring dialog again. I'll type in Jade. You and Tommy have been together. And it's okay to misspell things. I do it all the time. It's about time you got engaged. So if you're figuring this out now, Lucy's about to ask her boyfriend to marry her. So I'll put Lucy holds a ring and looks at the empty seat. Next to her. And then I press Enter again, tab, I'm going to go back to dialog, and you see, see how it pops up Lucy. So all I got to do is press L, and then boom. It gives me that I press L, and then Enter, and it fills in the rest of the name. So I don't keep typing in Lucy every time I put in dialogue. It All is put in L and it'll find it for me. So I don't know about this. And then I'll again, Enter tab. There's J, J just pops up. And there's only two characters, screen learning software will kind of read like who's going to be next. So I'll put women propose to men all the time, especially on leap day. It's a leap day tradition. And it is. I've done a bunch of research on Leap Day, and this actually is a huge tradition. Alright, so take a leap. And then, again, I just pressed tab again. And then I'll write down Lucy. I'll go, Okay. Okay. I'm Leepin. And then I'm gonna introduce Lucy's boyfriend. So I'll start typing an action description again. They look behind them. As Lucy's boyfriend enters the aisle. I'm going to describe him. He's a blonde. You always describe the character, especially main characters. You don't need to describe minor characters. Like say, you just have a random, I don't know, waiter. You don't need to describe that person, but anytime there's a main character, you want to give them a little description. So the reader knows this person is important and they're forwarding the story. So he's a blonde, tatted up 29 you're old musician named Rocket. And again, I'm gonna capitalize. Just for now, I'm gonna capitalize this name in all caps because this is a brand new character. This makes it easier for the reader to know this is a brand new character. Rocket launcher Tommy. So as you can see, the screening software doesn't know. I have a new character in the dialogue, but it will from this point on. So I put rocket launcher, Tommy, and then I do his dialogue. And I'm not going to do all caps anymore. Hey, sweetie here. I got us all more beers. Anything else you need before the third period? And then again, as you can see, it has all the characters now that I've written so far. And as I add more characters, they'll just show up. And all I got to do is just type in the first initial and it'll just pop up automatically. And all screen learning software does this pretty much. So I'll just have type in L. Lucy usme pops up, press Enter, and then that's it. No, honey. That's all. Alright, that's pretty much it. Those are that's the basics. This scene goes on for another four pages, but I don't want to waste your time and keep showing you things you've just shown you. So that's pretty much all you got to know. And this scene pretty much Jade leaves, and then Lucy gets down on one knee, and there's a big announcement in the hockey arena. Then the camera goes on Lucy and rocket launcher Tommy. By the way, rocket launcher Tommy, yes, it's a parody of what's his name? Machine Gun Kelly. But anyways, Lucy proposes to rocketauncher Tommy, and rocket launcher Tommy says, No, and breaks up with her in front of thousands of people. And this is the first scene of my screenplay Leap Day. But that's it. If I ever after this scene, again, this isn't a full scene yet. But the scenes four pages long. But after the scene when you want to start a new scene, again, you just go to a new scene so if I wanted to do a new scene, say, I wanted to do a coffee shop. I could do INT period, again, which means interior and then coffee shop. And again, the screen learning software will remember the different locations. So if ever wanted to go back to the hockey arena, it'll remember it. So I'll just put day. And as you can see, there's day night, continuous later, moments later morning. The two you use the most are day and night. You can use the other ones, continuous, especially use if you're going from, like, inside a building to outside a building, and it's a continuous, you know, it's continuous within the scene. So you use that every and again, but really the basics are day and night. Those are the ones you'll use the most. And you can use these other ones if you like, but day and night are the ones you'll see the most. So I'll just put into your coffee shop, and then keep going. Whatever our next scene is. Lucy drinks coffee blah, blah, blah. If you're like me and you make spelling and grammar mistakes, you can go back and fix them later. I always tell my clients, progress is more important than perfection. The first screenplay I ever sold had a bunch of misspellings when I looked back at it years later. But the reason it sold is because the story was great. And if you have an amazing story, people don't notice those mistakes because they're so into the story. If you like to see the first ten pages of Leap Day or other script examples, you can find these on my website at www.jordanmola.com slash GAPS.