Screenplays

A properly formatted screenplay reads at the speed it plays: one page, one minute. Whoever has to produce it knows this, and notices straight away when the numbers don’t add up.

I write in standard format, with the right scene headings and every block in its place, because that is how the text reaches the people who have to turn it into shooting days. This is where a screenwriter probably has to de-romanticise their writing and not get lost in stylistic exercises: it is all structure. Brutal, but necessary.

A scene exists if something changes. Before writing a line of it I ask myself what we go in with and what we come out with: if the answer is the same, the scene isn’t needed.

Dialogue comes later, and always says less than what is really going on.