Scriptwriting Tips Always start the script with the following: Location and Time of Day INT = Interior location EXT = Exterior location All descriptions of camera shots and character should be aligned to the right-hand margin Try to be as detailed as possible with information about the character All camera shots and movement should be written in CAPITALS All characters and significant props/set should also be written in CAPTIALS Dialogue should be centred on the page with bracketed stage directions as to the style of delivery (tone of voice, movement of actor)

Scriptwriting Examples

Example 1 – The Usual Suspects

INT. HALLWAY. NIGHT TRACKING a pair of feet in MEDIUM SHOT as they shuffle across the cement floor. The shoes are shabby and worn, as are the wrinkled pants that hang too low and loose at the cuffs. The right foot is turned slightly inward and falls with a hard limp. It is clear that the knee does not extend fully. The sound of a steel door opening. The bottom corner of a steel cage comes into view. Another set of feet falls into step with the first. Another set of feet falls into step with the first. Another steel door and another set of feet. Another door, another and another. Five pairs of feet walk single file down the hall. The lame feet are in the front of the line. They come to another steel door, this one solid and covered with dents and rivets. CRANE UP to reveal: ROGER KINT, ‘VERBAL’ to his few friends. He has a deeply lined face, making his thirty-odd years a good guess at best. From his twisted left hand, we can see that he suffers from a slight but not debilitating palsy.

Example 2 – Clerks INT. BEDROOM. EARLY-MORNING HOURS. A DOG sleeps on a neatly made bed. A CLOCK reads twenty to six. TRACKING across A SHELF OF BOOKS holds such classics as Dante’s Inferno, Beyond Good and Evil, The Catcher in the Rye and The Dark Knight Returns. A FRAMED DIPLOMA, dusty and unkempt, hangs askew on the wall. A PHONE sits quietly atop a bundle of laundry. It suddenly explodes with a resounding ring – once, twice, three times. A CLOSET DOOR swings open, and a half-clad figure falls out. THE PHONE rings yet again, and a hand falls upon the receiver, yanking it off the trash can, OC. THE RUMPLED FIGURE lays with his back to the camera, phone in hand.

FIGURE: (groggily) Hello...What?...No, I don’t work today...I’m playing hockey at two.

Example 3 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day EXT. CITY STREET - DAY Downtown L.A. Noon on a hot summer day. On an EXTREME LONG LENS the lunchtime crowd stacks up into a wall of humanity. In SLOW MOTION they move in herds among the glittering rows of cars jammed bumper to bumper. Heat ripples distort the torrent of faces. The image is surreal, dreamy... and like a dream it begins very slowly to DISSOLVE TO: EXT. CITY RUINS - NIGHT Same spot as the last shot, but now it is a landscape in Hell. The cars are stopped in rusted rows, still bumper to bumper. The skyline of buildings beyond has been shattered by some unimaginable force like a row of kicked-down sandcastles. Wind blows through the desolation, keening with the sound of ten million dead souls. It scurries the ashes into drifts, stark white in the moonlight against the charred rubble. A TITLE CARD FADES IN: LOS ANGELES, July 11, 2029 ANGLE ON a heap of fire-blackened human bones. Beyond the mound is a vast tundra of skulls and shattered concrete. The rush hour crowd burned down in their tracks. WE DISSOLVE TO a playground... where intense heat has half-melted the jungle gym, the blast has warped the swing set, the merry-go-round has sagged in the firestorm. Small skulls look accusingly from the ash-drifts. WE HEAR the distant echo of children's voices... playing and laughing in the sun. A silly, sing-songy rhyme as WE TRACKS SLOWLY over seared asphalt where the faint hieroglyphs of hopscotch lines are still visible. CAMERA comes to rest on a burnt and rusted tricycle... next to the tiny skull of its owner. HOLD ON THIS IMAGE as a female VOICE speaks: VOICE 3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare, the war against the Machines... A metal foot crushes the skull like china. TILT UP, revealing a humanoid machine holding a massive battle rifle. It looks like a CHROME SKELETON... a high-tech Death figure. It is the endoskeleton of a Series 800 terminator. Its glowing red eyes compassionlessly sweep the dead terrain, hunting. The SOUNDS of ROARING TURBINES. Searchlights blaze down as a formation of flying HK (Hunter-Killer) patrol machines passes overhead. PAN WITH THEM toward the jagged horizon, beyond which we see flashes, and hear the distant thunder of a pitched battle in progress.