INTRODUCTION

Why a second edition?

Since publication of the first edition of The Hollywood Standard in 2005, film and television writers have embraced it as a reference they keep close at hand when they write. Many writers — both professionals and those who aspire to join the professional ranks — have told me they refer to this book every day. It has become for them a useful and even indispensable tool. I’m glad for that.

This second edition results from a desire to make a good book better.

The first major change? Michael Wiese, my astute publisher, suggested that the book might be more helpful if we printed it in 8.5-by-11-inch format, so that sample pages in the book would match the actual dimensions of a script page. Readers would then be able to lay their script pages side by side with the samples in the book to confirm the accuracy of their margins. I think it’s a good idea and you can see that’s what we’ve done. We’ve also used a special “lay flat” binding so that readers can easily work with the book while writing.

Next, I’ve added a series of new chapters at the beginning of the book to get writers off to a fast start. The book now launches with a “Quick Start Guide” introducing the fundamentals of standard script format, designed to get writers turning out professionally formatted pages in a hurry. After that comes a chapter titled “Avoiding a Dozen Deadly Formatting Mistakes,” intended to help writers do precisely that. And, in response to questions from readers, I follow that up with a discussion of the differences between spec scripts and production drafts. Also in response to reader questions, I’ve added FAQs at the end of many of the chapters.

In the work of my students, I’ve seen the necessity of encouraging writers to proofread their work carefully, lest their creativity, attention to professional format and a million other details be dismissed by a reader who encounters a blizzard of typos. The problem is that effective proofreading is harder than it sounds. For that reason, I include a new chapter with tips for how to get it right.

Finally, because script format is an evolving discipline, I’ve updated the text in a variety of ways, including, for example, instructions about how to format things like email exchanges, caller ID readouts, instant messages and text message conversations.

What makes me such a know-it-all?

Fair question. Publishing a script format guide and calling it “standard,” “complete” and “authoritative” takes a certain amount of chutzpah and has provoked a smidgen of criticism. Standard according to whom? How complete is complete? And by whose authority can it claim to be authoritative?

Like you, I’m a writer, so let me answer by way of a story.

Long, long ago, before even the first season of ER, I came to Hollywood to try my hand at screenwriting. Shortly after I arrived, I took a job proofreading scripts in Warner Bros.’ acclaimed script processing department, in those days literally a 24-hour-a-day script factory. For fourteen years I worked alongside veterans the studio had lured away from Barbara’s Place, the legendary Hollywood script house, learning and applying standard format rules to untold thousands of scripts. I ultimately ran the department as the historic studio’s premier format guru. I wrote the script typing software the studio used to type countless scripts and served as the ultimate arbiter of format for that studio and for dozens of outside clients that included Amblin, Disney, Columbia, Universal, NBC Productions, Wilshire Court Productions, and many more. And, arguably, I ended up knowing as much about script format as anyone in Hollywood.

I’ve since found my way into the screenwriting career that lured me to Hollywood in the first place. With my wife and writing partner Kathy, I’ve walked the red carpet at the premier of our first film in Berlin. I’ve written movies for Touchstone and Paramount, Mandalay and Intermedia. I’ve also become a successful screenwriting instructor. And I’ve seen how badly we screenwriters need a reliable, easy-to-use format guide.

I originally wrote The Hollywood Standard to meet that need. The plan was to offer a guide based on my experience at Warner Bros., intended to be kept at a screenwriter’s fingertips and filled with clear, concise, complete formatting instructions, and hundreds of examples to take the guesswork out of a multitude of formatting situations that perplex screenwriters, waste their time, and steal their confidence. Based on the response of screenwriters around the world, the first edition hit the spot for many of my fellow writers. I hope this new edition proves even more valuable.

“But I Don’t Need a Book, I Use Final Draft”

Or Movie Magic Screenwriter. Or Scriptware. Or Celtx. Or one of the other incredibly useful and time-saving script typing programs on the market. What else does a writer need?

To begin with, standard format is about infinitely more than margins. It’s knowing when to add a shot heading and when to leave one out. It’s knowing how to get out of a POV shot and how to set up a montage. It’s knowing what to capitalize and how to control pacing and what belongs in parenthetical character direction and whether those automatic (cont’d)s beside dialogue should be turned on or off. No script typing software is designed to answer those questions. Consequently, too many writers who think they’re turning in professionally formatted screenplays are in fact often turning in scripts that brand them as amateurs.

The Fan Test

Stacks and stacks of scripts by first-timers and even professionals never receive serious consideration because they fail the fan test. Overworked readers, studio executives, agents, and producers pick up a script, flip to the last page and fan toward the front, looking at nothing but the physical layout of the script on the page. The format. What they see forms their first impression of your dream script. And sometimes their last. This guide tells you want you need to know to get your script past the fan test.

But That’s Not All

The fan test isn’t the only reason serous screenwriters need to master standard Hollywood format. Mark Twain was only joking when he said, “Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination.” For the same reasons we need dictionaries and standardized spellings, we need standard formats. Not because we can’t think of more than one way to lay out our vision on the page, but because we can think of too many.

The fact is that a standard format exists today in Hollywood and if we don’t master it, if we rely only on our imaginations, we’re bound to embarrass ourselves. Or appear ignorant. Or amateurs. Or confuse our readers because we haven’t been clear. Or waste our time reinventing what already exists. A standard gives writers confidence that they’re steering clear of all these dangers and frees them to think about more interesting things. Like their characters and stories.

Where Standard Format Came From

Pioneering filmmakers in Hollywood standardized screenplay format beginning as early as the 1920s. Look at a script from the silent era and you’ll recognize the basic layout of the modern script page. With the addition of sound and dialogue, the format evolved. It evolved further when television arrived. But the truth is, the look of a script page in Hollywood has changed very little since the beginning.

During the 1960s and ’70s, well before the appearance of the first PC and script writing software, screenplays and teleplays were being typed by large “mimeo” departments at studios and specialized script houses sprinkled around Hollywood. Probably the most important of these was Barbara’s Place, a legendary script operation that turned out thousands of scripts over the years and whose typists and proofreaders became the industry’s foremost guardians of standard script format.

By the early 1980s, that mantel passed to Warner Bros.’ acclaimed script processing department, where numerous Barbara’s Place stalwarts migrated with their exhaustive knowledge of the Hollywood script business. The studio provided what was then state-of-the-art computer technology, and soon laser printers the size of Winnebagos were churning out scripts around the clock at the astonishing rate of three pages per second for television series like The Dukes of Hazzard, Designing Women, Murphy Brown, and ER, and movies like Lethal Weapon, Batman, Forrest Gump, Rain Man, Unforgiven, Three Kings, and Twister.

I joined the Warner Bros, staff as a neophyte script proofreader in 1983. I remained for fourteen years. During my years at Warner Bros., I was privileged to learn from Barbara’s Place veterans Les Miller, Tim Alfors, Vern Hedges, Val Evensen, Kathleen Hietala, and Gordon Barclay, a group unrivaled in their mastery of script formats. Together with a staff of skilled typists and supervisors assembled by the studio, we applied what we knew to countless thousands of scripts, not just for Warner Bros., but for literally every studio in Hollywood.

The knowledge I gained during my years at Warner Bros, serves me every day as a writer and a teacher of writers. That is the knowledge I first set out to record in this guide and which I dare to call complete and authoritative, not as a boast but as a tribute to the unassailable credentials of those who taught me.

Is “The Hollywood Standard” the Only Way?

Of course not. Good writers with long Hollywood careers will find details here with which to quibble. That’s fine. The intent of this manual isn’t to pick fights, condemn alternative approaches, or impose restrictions on rogue writers. The intent is simply to offer writers a set of time-honored guidelines that will help them produce scripts in a form that is highly readable, clear, and professional.

Using This Book

The Hollywood Standard is designed as a manual that every screenwriter, from neophyte to old pro, will want to keep within arm’s reach. It is intended to be used as a reference, with the information organized for easy and immediate accessibility via the table of contents at the front of the book or the index at the back. You can spend just a short time reading through the new Quick Start Guide and learn the basics in well under an hour. Then, when you’re in the throes of writing and need to see exactly how to set up a telescopic POV shot or review some fine point of handling camera direction, you can find the relevant guidelines and examples in a matter of seconds.

The Hollywood Standard doesn’t cover story structure, character development, or dialogue. What it does cover is format and style, those components of a script that appear exclusively on the page and not the screen. Format is standard; style is personal and infinitely variable.

Throughout this manual, you’ll find the rules of standard screenplay format. But you’ll also find many examples of how to work within those rules to create your own crisp, professional, entertaining script-writing style.

Writing a great script is the most difficult human endeavor I’ve encountered. As you attempt it, I hope this book helps.