I would just like to state for the record

[rm]

That screenplay format may kill me.

This shit is hard.

Granted, I entered this contest to force myself to acquire this skill, and plan is working, but UGH.

Because you know what is not useful to Google? "How do I indicate a swoopy tracking shot?"


ETA: First draft is DONE. Too ambitious and too weird for five pages. Probably TOTALLY student work, and you know what, I don't even care. I'm trying to get used to thinking in a text-based way about what is a storyboarding exercise. Hence doing this competition. So, successful on that front if nothing else. Also, I suspect, like with fiction, "short" is not my form.

I'm really proud of myself for doing this, as it's actually pushing a lot of my buttons and is sort of confronting.

Comments

[loveslashangst.livejournal.com]

*sticks nose in*

What kind of format are they calling for?

If it's a spec script (you're just telling the story), then no camera directions of any kind. Barely even stage directions, if you can avoid them.

If it's a shooting script, that's another animal.

[loveslashangst.livejournal.com]

When in doubt, think Shakespeare -- he'd give you the place where things are occurring, then encapsulate all the relevant info in the text, with only major events (exit, enter, he dies, they kiss, exit, pursued by a bear, etc) as stage directions.

Worked 400 years ago. Works now.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This is a remarkably funny and useful comment for reasons I have too much dignity to explain.

Thank you.

*glees*

[loveslashangst.livejournal.com]

It only took me 10 years of writing screenplays no one would produce (because they were overwritten and stage-direction-heavy) to figure this out.

May your journey to screenplay brilliance be much shorter and full of fewer stupid mistakes than mine was.

Or, in theatre terms: break a leg. :D