Chapter 2: Writing and Formatting a Screenplay

This is an outline of the screenplay or script.

• Storyboard

• Treatment

• Theme

• Genre

A written version of a film, video, audio, animation, or television show, indicating specifically what the audience is seeing and hearing.

• Outline

• Story

• Plot

• Screenplay

A unit of action in one location and time.

• Genre

• Scene

• Act

• Treatment

The overall change in the main character from the beginning to the end of the story as a result of the action in the story. 

• Depth

• Character Witness

• Character arc

• Treatment

The idea behind the story or lesson of a movie or written work.

• Depth

• Theme

• Plot

• Story

What is this an example of?

INT. CROWDED SCHOOL HALLWAY – DAY

• Transition

• Scene description

• Slugline

• Communication

These act as scene breaks in your screenplay, they tell the reader how to go from one scene to the next.

• Transition

• Scene description

• Slugline

• Communication

What is this an example of?

BANNER

He really grows on you, doesn't he?

STEVE

Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?

THOR

He has an army called the Chitauri.

• Dialogue

• Scene description

• Narration

• Inner Monologue

What is this an example of?

RED (V.O.) So when Andy Dufresne came to me in 1949 and asked me to smuggle Rita Hayworth into the prison for him, I told him no problem.

• Dialogue

• Scene description

• Narration

• Inner Monologue

What is this an example of?

Lindbergh looks out of the cockpit window and sees small islands in the Atlantic Ocean. 

LINDBERGH’S VOICE

There’s land. It is land. It is land! That’s no phantom, that’s earth. That’s green living earth!

• Dialogue

• Scene description

• Narration

• Inner Monologue