INTRODUCTION

A great screenplay has two functions: first, to create a world in which film viewers will become completely rapt up in and experience an emotional response which equals or exceeds the price of the admission, and, second, be a work of literature which can verbally project this emotion to a script reader, producer, director, actor, and crew so that they will want to make the film the screenplay describes.

The first part is the literature of writing. The second is the craft.

A lot of what makes the craft work is the process of proper format. Script readers, producers, directors, etc. have trained themselves to read scripts, and most of this training has been on properly formatted screenplays. The format is designed to accomplish a number of things:

            It forces the writer to be clear and concise
            It provokes the reader to be excited and think creatively about the project.
            It forces the film makers to make the film the writer envisioned.

A screenplay is not a novel. It is not a flowery descriptive device to show off literary prowess, unless that prowess is the ability to simply provoke images and concepts through simple,economical language.

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