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Back-To-Basics Screenwriting With Snappy
Published: 2012-09-14 15:57:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 12113; Favourites: 578; Downloads: 1589
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A DD!! I'd like to thank you all sincerely for embracing my inner asshole and I hope it serves you well. I may not be able to get back to everyone who faves it, but seriously, BIG HUG. Full Title: Back-To-Basics Screenwriting With Snappy (Or, Why The Biz Might Not Be For You)
Written because the Deviantart Scripts & Screenplays section makes me want to put my head through a wall. Repeatedly.
Hope this helps you, minions. If you have any more questions, feel free to let me know.
Ironically, I wasn't going to upload a PDF to facilitate viewing, but then I remembered DA's upload system sucks and I didn't want to reformat the dialogue, so, you get a PDF anyway.
For anyone who's actually interested in film school, I highly recommend the Vancouver Film School's Writing for Film & Television program. All my props come from there.
Ps. Please let me know about any typos; I admit I uploaded this hastily and PDFs are annoying to change.
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Comments: 213
In fact, I think by leaving out all this stuff you said to leave out⦠it almost feels like it's easier to just focus on what's important⦠no looking up adverbs in a dictionary all the time 
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It's gotta stick in their heads somehow!
That's true, there's no dancing around what's actually happening and getting distracted from the plot. Good for writers AND readers. 
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Yes 
Well, eventually it's not meant to be read. The script is not what the audience sees in the end, it is supposed to come to live with actors and camera and scenery etc. The same script can be interpreted in a million different ways, I guess that's also why so many movies are remade and so little books
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True that. There is a certain magic to scripts themselves, but it takes a certain kind of person to appreciate them.
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I guess it's like people who read the notes to pieces of music, like works by Mozart or Beethoven, instead of listening to them
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We're currently having some short screenwriting assignment for a class (college, Game Design btw) and this really helps actually knowing what we should do (maybe, hopefully)
Thank you
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Thanks! I hope it helps you out. A guy in my class wrote dialogue for video games for awhile after film school.
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That's awesome definitely a well deserved DD
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Thank you!
This is a great help
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Glad I could be of service!
Thanks for the comment.
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Hehe, thank you very much!
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i write The End on my screenplays...thug life
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Fascinating stuff, and the first rule was pretty telling, haha. 
...Because that doesn't translate to the camera, of course. Some time back, I tried to write a few scripts or screenplays, but nah -- it's probably not for me.
And, because I feel like a jacko' if I just check out the DD a DD-getter has gotten, I checked out some of your texts. I really liked Five Dollars, and the perspective it's told through -- I did get a bit confused though, since it seems like the uncle gives the dollar after he dies. (It's also possible that I just misunderstood or misread somewhere.)
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Yes -- very few crew members are interested in the craft of the screenplay. They only want to see what they can use, otherwise it's just a waste of space/time. Not to mention one page of screenplay is meant to equal one minute of screen time, and that gets all skewed if you write in "unfilmables".
Thanks very much!
I wrote that story quite quickly -- but the uncle is just injured in the hospital, not dead.
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Oh, I didn't know about the time/page thing. Interesting! (Also, do you know if the method of writing a screenplay matters so much if you're writing it for radio? There it's just dialogue and occassionally FX, after all, no interiors or exteriors, times of day or other headers to worry about.)
Ahh, I see. Jumped to the worst conclusion, I s'pose.
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Yeah, I should really throw that in the tutorial. It's quite an important tidbit.
I actually don't know too much about radio-plays. Final Draft might have a template for them. I imagine you would just write them as dialogue as well.
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Alright, thanks for the help!
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this is awesome. I love you.
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This is the best how-to/learning experience ever! If my teachers talked like that I might actually listen lol. But all jokes aside I have no problem with the way you put it, blunt, to the point and still kept my interest, thing is I have no aspirations to become a screenwriter but this was fucking great, It's actually the first literary-type deviation I entirely read till now.
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Thanks so much! I'm glad it caught your attention.
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No problem man, just continue to enlighten us with your work XD
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Thats pretty cool and helpfull! Thanks for doing this! When I started to read the first fucking rules it reminds me of Fight Club... xD
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I would be lying if I said I didn't have that in the back of my mind when I wrote it.
Thank you!
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Haha, that's cool.
You're welcome!
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This is great! I'm studying film and animation and we just learned how to write a screenplay. This helps so much!!! 
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Thank you!
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haha... actually my professor just said "Go here and write" -_-
So this really helped!
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Oh my god, I've been looking for things like this for days now and then I randomly click on this here and I'm like WOW DUDE THANK YOU SO MUCH! <3
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Congrats on the DD, Snappy. I'm taking an introductory screenplay class right now to finish out my last few elective credits and this piece was already more useful in ten minutes than the last four weeks of that class.
Plus, if you're not using a how-to guide as a opportunity to be short with people, you're not doing it right. Let me be the first to warmly welcome your inner asshole.
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Thanks, man! Good to see you poking around. How have things been?
My friend was taking a screenwriting course at her art school and it blew my mind that they just DID NOT BOTHER teaching them format at all. Like it was below them or something.
My inner asshole thanks you as well.
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Things have been pretty good. I've been publishing a few things here and there and I'm finally going to be getting my BA at the end of the year.
How about you? What's this I hear about you doing the screenplay for an Orson Wells remake? Sounds fucking awesome.
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That sounds like things have been going swimmingly! What have you published?
Yeah, that is happening. For awhile, I was leading a very boring existence, because I just had to wait endlessly for them to find a director (and I was too afraid if I found another job in the meantime, they'd sign one on, because that's how things work). Now life is pretty much chaos while I try to get these edits underway, while attempting to make this into a decent film people won't hate me for.
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Just a couple of flash fiction pieces. I've got them linked on my profile, though--I'd love to hear what you think.
But this whole screenwriter thing--this sounds awesome. Best luck with your edits. Though, I can't say I'm too worried on account of your work always turning out fucking terrific.
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This is extremely useful for editing screenplays, using it for my next one. Thank you!
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Glad you can use it! Thanks.
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Ha! You would think I would have researched this shit by now! Well, thanks for the enlightenment! Gonna make my animating/graphic noveling days a shit ton easier! (No seriously, you have no clue how helpful this is.)
But I gotta couple questions here; You say that you should stick with DAY and NIGHT because the others are "the expensive shots." Does this mean you always have ta sacrifice image for economics? What about more detailed settings? Such as if you want the entire scene shot with red lighting or a specific prop needs to be in the scene for dramatic effect? How far can you go with details?
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That's my thought when I see most people who have written screenplays, that, erm, haven't been formatted. There are other good resources out there, but the one I learned from (which they late gave us in class) is a bit dated, and I haven't done too much poking around since.
It depends what kind of situation you're in. If you're working with say, your buddies, or a low-budget indie company, they aren't going to have the time or resources to set up a shot for SUNRISE, because if they don't get it the first time, or something goes wrong, they'll have to go back the next day. Also, you may indicate Sunrise, but you might be okay as long as the sky looks dusky -- well, crew people are paid to do everything verbatim as the script says, so they won't take liberties on their own. Specific props are fine, as long as you can get a hold of them -- for example, I wanted a dock with lots of boats parked by homes, but my development guy nixed that for cost... but then, my director wants a clock tower, so I guess we're getting a clock tower. Director rules.
Thanks for the comment!
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This is brilliant. Thanks for doing this.
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