Production Diary: Research into screenplay conventions

The screenplay which I will soon write for my film must be formatted in a specific manner, consisting of six main elements.

Elements of a Screenplay

Scene Heading

Also known as the slug line, the scene heading is written in all capitals and is accompanied by INT (interior) or EXT (exterior) respectively. Alongside this, the scene heading purpose is to also give a brief description of the location or setting, as well as the time of day.

Action

Action describes anything that is able to be seen or heard. Any sound effects of importance must be written in block capitals.

Characters

The names of characters belong on a separate line in all capitals. Any character who appears off-screen or any voiceover should be accompanied by (O.S.) or (V.O.) respectively.

Parenthesis

Parenthesis (or brackets) provide contextual information or act as a stage direction for dialogue delivery. These should be used sparingly as to not reduce the readability of the screenplay.

Dialogue

Dialogue is formatted as blocks offset from all other text and is centralised on the page. Any overlapping dialogue is written in a block parallel to the main dialogue block.

Transition

Transitions mark the change from one scene to another, perhaps denoting a shift in time or place. This effectively marks any visual cues on the screenplay, but these should also be used sparingly.

An example of a correctly formatted screenplay