Screenplay Format: A Step-by-Step Guide with Examples
It’s time to make your movie. But there’s a lot of steps before ACTION can be triumphantly yelled on set. Pretty much every story starts at the beginning, so let’s start at step 1: The Screenplay. The screenplay is quite unlike any other artform, as it primarily functions as the elemental schematic for production. Your story is the blueprint. Your art is the foundation for what’s to come. And the format of a script is derived from that functionality.
A screenplay format example page from Inside Out (2015)
All great writers read, read, read, read and then do some more reading. Check out this article on how to read a script: How to Read a Script: A Beginner's Guide
Prep a Script Outline
Before we dive in, a good place for any screenplay to start is through an outline. The blank page can be pretty daunting to look at, but an outline can help guide any screenwriter into the labyrinth of their story. Use your outline to note your plot points, your setting, your characters, and how you roughly want the story to begin and end. These are the principle pieces to your puzzle
Why is Screenplay Formatting Important?
As we see from this example, screenplay formatting is quite different from other literary mediums. This is specifically because a screenplay is trying to deliver information efficiently, both to readers and to the crew on set, turning your story into reality. Film professionals, from actors and directors to agents and producers, will toss aside a script on page one if they see the script is not formatted properly. They’ll see it as not worth their time. The format for writing a script is such because it streamlines the visual information needed by the reader quickly. Where is this scene again? Look up to the header and see, EXT. FRIEND’S HOUSE - NIGHT, and you know instantly what type of location is needed, whether it’s inside or outside, and when to schedule the shoot.
In addition to the functionality of the movie script layout, its aesthetics help you as the screenwriter look professional. Just like any job that requires a uniform to declare their status or authority, the format of script writing will help you appear as if you know what you’re doing. And that’s before we even arrive at the writing-the-story part. So, let’s dig into how to format a movie script.
Basic Elements of Screenplay Format
Your script is the story’s blueprint, a roadmap. And a map needs a key. The elements of your formatted screenplay are your key.
Scene Headings and Subheaders tell us where we are at a glance. Action lines are the visual elements to your story. With prose, you can brandish language as you please; with a screenplay, your writing needs a visual purpose. What’s the audience seeing?
Your characters are the players in your tale, and their dialogue is your sharpest tool for drama. Parentheticals and Extensions are used to inform the nature of the dialogue.
Shot Direction, Montage, and Transitions inform the reader of the flow and initial direction you intend the visual imagery to become.
We have our key. Now let’s examine the puzzle pieces and start putting them together to perfect our fully formatted screenplay.
Scene Headings
The first peak of any scene we read is the scene heading, also known as a slugline. This provides vital information for reading, but especially for the crew when they’re putting together call sheets, organizing the schedule, and locking down locations. If we only have permission to shoot a scene at a school for two days, do we want our producer saying how many scenes are in the school again and needing to interrogate the action lines on every page? Might as well just re-read the entire story again.
Scene headings help us quickly determine not only where our current scene is, but also how many scenes from that location are in the script, to also help locate those scenes later on. For instance, if there’s three scenes at the school and they happen on pages 6, 12, and 68, it’s way easier to find them thanks to scene headings.
But location is only one part of the scene heading. Time of day and whether the scene is indoors or outdoors are also part of every heading. For example:
Int. Protagonist’s Hotel room - Night
Indoor/Outdoor first–Location second-time of day third
Here’s a screenplay example heading from the film, Bottoms (2023)
Some scenes will take place in a setting that’s simultaneously indoors and outdoors. You can label them int/ext. This also applies for scenes within cars. Some screenwriters just put interior for car scenes, so it’s up to your discretion.
Subheaders
Subheaders, or subslugs, are a shortened form of a scene heading. They’re in all caps and isolated from any action lines. Subslugs help you clarify what could be a complicated scene description.
For instance, In Inside Out, Joy is trying to control Sadness and lures her away from the console. The Screenwriters could have opted to use a distinct scene heading, which would look like INT. HEADQUARTERS, BACK OF ROOM - CONTINUOUS. Trimming it down by using a subheader–THE BACK OF THE ROOM-helps maintain the flow of the action without confusing the reader about where we are.
Subheaders can help the action lines flow together instead of breaking continuous action up for a repetitive looking, slightly altered scene heading
Action Lines
Herein lies the visual description of your scenes. Your action lines are describing what we are seeing on the screen. Anything that isn’t visual is not necessary here. You don’t need to write that the garden full of lilacs is redolent of grandma’s house. Instead, describe your character taking a deep breath, taking in the smell. It puts her at ease. Her shoulders slack. She tells her friend that her grandmother’s house smelled just like this. They share a moment of connection.
Show don’t tell is the mantra of storytelling across all mediums. Don’t use your action lines to tell us that a character is sad. Show us. If you say 2+2, you don’t need to say the answer. The audience will arrive at the answer on their own. Let them feel your character's emotion.
Action Lines will dictate the flow of your screenplay. If you are verbose, it will read slower. Your plot and your characters will have to pick up the slack and take extra effort to urge the reader to turn the page. A good rule of thumb is no more than four action lines together before a break. This isn’t a concrete rule by any means, but is a good guard rail to protect against a wall of text.
Characters
When your characters are first introduced, capitalize their name, give their age, and perhaps a short, visual description.
Two screenplay examples of character introductions from May December (2023).
Capitalizing the character's name alerts the reader that this is a new character being introduced to us. The age can be specific, like 59, or somewhat broader, like late-20s. The purpose is to quickly tell us who we are SEEING. If you describe them, describe how we are seeing them. What makes them stand out either by visual appearance or by their aura and mannerisms. What makes them memorable, noticeable.
Perhaps the character's appearance isn’t important to the scene, however. In this case, simply bold the character's name and move on. This is generally the case for extras. The character’s name in such cases might just be their job title: CAB DRIVER.
Dialogue
Along with the scene headings and the action lines, Dialogue is the third main element of your screenplay. Whereas sluglines and action lines orient to the left side of the margins, dialogue goes right to the middle.
Screenplay Example from Origin (2023).
Character name goes first, getting a line all to itself. Their dialogue goes one line below, keeping the margins of the dialogue way tighter than the action lines. The distinction allows for quick decipherability between what’s on a page when a reader turns to it. If a character’s dialogue is broken up by an action line or the end of the page, Place (Cont’d) after the character’s name to indicate the dialogue is conjoined. It would read: Brett (Cont’d)
Parentheticals
Screenplay Example from Inside Out (2015)
A parenthetical is a note to indicate additional context to the character’s actions or disposition during their dialogue. Parentheticals are useful for dictating the flow of the dialogue, helping to break up long soliloquies, and providing useful information necessary to the dialogue.
One last important note about your dialogue. Read it aloud to see how it flows. That will help you determine whether to place in or take out a parenthetical.
Extensions
Similar to parentheticals, extensions provide context to your character’s dialogue. Extensions are used to indicate the type of dialogue being spoken in the frame. If the dialogue is being spoken by someone not in frame–if they’re in the other room yelling, for instance–indicate it by placing (o.s.), short for off screen, in between the characters name and their dialogue.
Likewise, if the dialogue is a voice-over, indicate that with a (v.o) next to their name.
Screenplay Example from Inside Out (2015).
Montages
The most basic editing tool for the moving image is montage.
Montage is the assembly of shots to create something more than the sum of its parts. It goes back to the infancy of cinema. For our purposes, however, Montage is also the word to describe the type of scene that inter-cuts actions across space and time.
Training sequences
Getting the band back together
Elaborate heists where a team all has a different task happening at the same time
All examples of montage
Subheadings are very useful to hop back-and-forth between the disparate locations within your montage. You can simply write, BEGIN MONTAGE and then use subslugs like in this scene from Ocean’s 11:
The montage is a sequence masquerading as a scene. In the Ocean’s 11 example, the time of day is foregone because it’s happening chronologically anyway, so it would be just adding redundant words to the page that aren’t needed. Montages can be hectic by nature, so trimming information can clarify the scene.
Transitions
This element is the connective tissue between your scenes. Transitions help the individual scenes connect into a tighter sequence. For example, you have a character refusing to go to a party. They are adamant about not going, saying, “Never in a million years!” You follow that line of dialogue with SMASH CUT and then show them at the party. The transition is the vehicle to tell the joke.
FADE IN/FADE OUT/FADE TO BLACK are common for the beginning and ending of your story.
Transitions get their one line in your script and are in ALL CAPS. Other transitions include CUT TO, JUMP CUT, DISSOLVE TO, FLASHBACK, FLASHFORWARD. Not every scene change needs a transition. If the transitions aren't enhancing the juxtaposition of the two scenes, think about if it’s really needed.
From combining these elements, you can start to structure your scenes. Read more about scene structure here:
Detailed Formatting Guidelines for Screenwriters
Now that our basic elements have been examined, let’s discuss the film script layout. By this, I mean the page size, font, margins, etc. The industry can be picky and even callous if you don’t stick to the normal format for a movie script. If you stick to the normal format, it affords you the opportunity to break rules with intentionality. If you are breaking the format in many ways, industry professionals might just put your script down and move on, regardless of how amazing your story actually is. If your story is hidden behind a mess of structure and ill-formatting, then it weakens the chance that your story will be taken with serious consideration.
With that in mind, let’s make sure your screenplay format is ready to showcase your story.
Font
Courier is the standard screenplay font type used in screenplays. Readability is key, so pick a font type that’s easy to read and decipherable at a glance. The Queen and I traversed the countryside may look elegant to your eyes, but might also strain another’s and make it difficult to read.
Font Size
Use 12pt font to make sure your script can be read easily. We don’t want to make a reader have to squint to decipher what we intend. Likewise, if you want to emphasize something, use bold and caps for emphasis, not enlarging the font size. BOLD will do enough to stress the importance of the word without interfering with the structure of the scene.
Page Size
Use the 8.5 x 11-inch page size. This is what’s gonna be printed and placed in binders hundreds of times during a shoot.
Margins
Use 1 inch margins on the top, bottom, and right-hand sides on your page. Use 1.5 inch margins for the left-hand side. This allocates enough space for a three hole punch to place your page in a binder.
Line Spacing
Use single space for your action lines and dialogue, and double space between different main elements of headings, action lines, and dialogue. The uniformity in your spacing will allow a reader to quickly know the structure of your scene.
Page Numbering
Place the page number in the top right corner to ensure easy access to where the reader is in your screenplay. Without page numbers, the middle of your script could become a labyrinth for a producer trying to find a certain scene.
Scene Length and Pacing
It’s important to read your script aloud to see how it is flowing. The goal is for your dialogue to be spoken by an actor, right? Another rule of thumb to remember is that the film script writing format is designed for 1 page to translate to 1 minute of screentime.
You can time yourself reading your scenes to see how they flow. Also, pay attention to the rhythm of the actors' dialogue in the films and television shows you’re watching. Not every line of dialogue is being spoken as fast as possible. Focus on the rhythm.
Script Length
Your typical feature script length is gonna fall between 80-120 pages. This translates to an hour and 20 minutes to 2 hours. Between 90-120 minutes is a sweet spot for holding the attention of the audience and also allowing theaters to overturn showtimes quickly. A theater can exhibit fewer 3 hour film slots than 2 hour film slots.
For television, the length depends on the nature of the distribution and the genre that you’re writing in. If the show is broadcast on television, your typical hour long drama will be about 44-47 minutes while your typical comedy will be about 22 minutes to account for advertising. If your show is going to a streaming service, it can be longer, approaching 60 pages for a drama.
How to Format the Title Page
Place your all caps TITLE in the middle of the title page slightly above the center of the page. Underline your title. Below the title in the middle of the page, write Written By on one line and then your name below it. All caps again.
In the bottom left of the page, write your contact information.
Sample Screenplay Format Example
Alright, Alright, Alright. We’ve gone through all the elements and the script writing format. Below is a movie script format example:
https://amazonmgmstudiosguilds.com/app/uploads/2023/09/AmericanFiction.pdf
American Fiction, written by Cord Jefferson, won the 2024 oscar for best adapted screenplay. An oscar winner is a great screenplay format example to start with.
Common Formatting Mistakes to Avoid
Screenwriters are a relatively new breed. We’ve been at it for just over a century. In that time, many common mistakes and pitfalls have arisen to snare new writers. And every great screenwriter started as a new writer.
The first pitfall is tense usage. Your characters are doing things. Whether someone is watching your character tie their shoes in 2024 or 2094, your character is still actively tying their shoes. Use the present tense for these actions.
Screenplays follow these formatting rules to ensure readability and understanding quickly. So if you’re going to break a convention, do it sparingly and intentionally so the reader knows what you’re doing. Remember, screenplays are functional to assist the story to be told in a visual medium. We’re helping the crew and cast quickly access the information in the screenplay during a busy day on set. Time is of the essence on set. We don’t want the entire crew waiting around while the actor and director parse through an ill-formatted scene.
Trust your story to tell itself and don’t overly rely on any one element we discussed above. Transitions can go from a useful tool to stitch two scenes together, enhancing them both, to a crutch being used to stitch every scene together whether the transition is needed or not.
Transform Your Screenplay into a Film with Kinolime!
If you have any more questions, such as how to write a good logline, or where to submit your script, you can contact Kinolime to pair you film with a writing professional to enhance your screenplay. From checking the formatted screenplay to discussing every aspect of STORY, Kinolime can help you with every step of the process. If you're confident in your script, enter it into the Kinolime writing contest where we will turn the winner into a movie!
Kinolime is a community platform for aspiring filmmakers–join us and connect with the community of like-minded individuals with the same passion for storytelling as you. Join us!
For continued learning: What is Genre?
