What the eff?

So I was happily writing an article about common mistakes people make on the first page of their script, when I recalled a suggestion by William M. Akers, that I’d previously written about.

In his great book, “Your Screenplay Sucks! 100 ways to make it great,” he advises the following (on page 203):

… take a gander at the fact that FADE IN: has one space underneath it. If you’re like me and you have two spaces above every slugline (or “Scene Heading” in Final Draft) then you’ll need to adjust the very first slugline so FADE IN: only has one space below it.

Good advice right? Ever since reading his book, it’s bothered me whenever I’ve seen the double line spacing after FADE IN:

But here’s the problem… I can’t find any real world examples of this rule having been implemented! NOT A SINGLE ONE. At least not from professional or production scripts, or spec scripts that later sold.

Instead what I found after going through my script library was:

• When scripts have two line spaces above the scene headings, there are two line spaces after FADE IN:
• When scripts have one line space above scene headings, there is one line space after FADE IN:

Sorta logical really. Hmm…

What do the screenplay formatting guides say?

Here’s what I checked:

- The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier

- The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley

Curiously, neither formatting guide offers any insight into the line spacing that should come after a TRANSITION. And definitely nothing prescriptive of a single line space after FADE IN: (At least nothing I could find.)

To top it off

You’d think if there were an industry standard for such a thing, the screenwriting program, Final Draft, would automatically correct the error for all of the transitions. But alas it does not.

What do you do?

I want to hear from you. Do you follow William Akers’ rule (i.e. one line space after FADE IN: even though you have two line spaces above your scene headings)? Can you cite a non-amateur script example of Akers’ rule being followed?

Mr. Akers — if you happen by this site, I’d love it if you could send me an email to discuss, or post a comment below, to explain the discrepancy.

Does anyone else obsess over these kinds of details like I do?… On a Friday night… [cough]

One of My Pet Peeves

I don’t know why, but I’d say over 75% of the amateur scripts I read spell iPod in some bizarre way.

Some examples:

• I-Pod
• I Pod
• IPOD
• ipod
• Ipod
• I-pod

I’d be curious to hear from other readers about their experiences. But for me, this mistake pops up with alarming regularity. And whenever I see it, it yanks me out of the script.

My mind starts to wander…

I bet they don’t have an iPod themselves…

What else are they simply winging?

Is this symptomatic of other sloppy errors I’m going to find?

Mind wandering = bad

It’s definitely not the end of the road for a positive review, but it is a bump in the road. The more bumps you have, the less enjoyable the journey.

So please, no more crazy spellings of iPod or iPad!

The one possible exception is inside of dialogue — where you need to spell out odd terms or acronyms to ensure they’re read correctly by those who may not be familiar with the term. Even though I still don’t think it’s necessary, you could make a case for the following use:

Perhaps when the iPod was first introduced, it could have been worth it to clarify the pronunciation by capitalizing the first letter, etc.  But these day, I don’t think it’s necessary.

And it’s absolutely not necessary in your action lines. So I’m officially banishing all future iPod misspellings with a Harry Potter spell — Typo-iPodio!

What are some of your pet peeves when reading a script?

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Triple or Double-Spacing?

I recently found myself in a bit of a quandary. After countless hours cutting and tweaking, my finished script weighed in at 111 pages. I had really wanted to come in under 110 pages (as spec script lengths are trending shorter and shorter these days).

As a big fan of whitespace, I always triple-space my master scene headings (i.e. I leave two blank spaces above them). But what if I simply double-spaced them (i.e. leave just one blank space above)? How many pages could I save?

The answer: 2

After switching from triple-spacing to double-spacing I was at 109 pages. Woohoo! But not so fast. The new spacing made me feel a little claustrophobic. Was it simply because I was so used to triple-spacing?

What do most scripts use?

I decided to spend a couple hours going through 171 spec scripts, and pre-shooting drafts, in my collection to get a sense of what was considered “standard.” It’s by no means exhaustive, but I’d say the sample is large enough to provide a fairly accurate assessment.

Here are the results:

Triple Spaced: 86 (50%)

Double Spaced: 72 (42%)

Other (used transitions between scenes): 13 (8%)

Somewhat surprising results! Nearly half of the scripts I went through were double-spaced.

Perhaps even more surprising is that nearly 10% of the scripts used CUT TO: (or other transitions) to separate each scene.

All of these scripts were what I would consider “professional.” That is, they were either written by pros, or were on the Black List, etc. No production or shooting scripts were reviewed.

Some Notes

• I definitely noticed a trend towards triple-spacing in recent years
• It got to the point where I could fairly accurately predict whether or not a script was double or triple-spaced, based on the page count. For example, if the script was over 115 pages, odds are it used double-spacing (to cut down on the number of pages).
• Many scripts that felt light and breezy while I was reading them, actually used double-spacing. So it seems the spacing between the shot headings didn’t matter to me (or make an impression) as much as the overall whitespace.
• More bold and underlined scene headings popped up in recent years. Of the scripts reviewed, 11 used bold for headings, and 5 used underlines.
• The most attractive script to look at was RABBIT HOLE (see above image). It used underlines for scene headings and bold for character introductions. I think we’ll start to see more scripts utilize this approach in the future. It looks great, and made the script easier to read and process. (The spacing between shot headings was inconsistent, however.)

In the end, I decided to leave the triple-spacing in my script and hold fast at 111 pages. But it was nice to see that double-spacing was a very viable option (especially if you’ve been diligent about limiting the number of action lines per paragraph to provide ample whitespace).

Is this kinda stuff interesting to you guys?

What’s your take? Slightly longer, yet more whitespace? Or are certain page counts psychologically more important? Let me know!

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What the heck is Pre-lap?

I had a good discussion with some of my screenwriting friends last week about using “PRE-LAP” in a script. Since many hadn’t heard the term before, I thought I’d cover it on my blog for those who may be unfamiliar with it.

John August has an excellent post on the subject, on which he succinctly defines pre-lapping as follows:

Pre-lapping is when dialogue begins before we’ve cut to the scene in which it’s spoken.

Here’s an example of how it might be used in a script:

Is it safe?

Notice how the impact of the scene(s) is dependent on the pre-lap setup? In my opinion that’s the only safe time to use it. Safe, meaning that readers should understand why you used it.

Pre-lap gets a bad rap (some readers hate it) because many writers use it simply as a  stylistic choice that would be better left up to the editor of the movie.

For example, it may not be wise to use PRE-LAP for a line of dialogue spoken over a quick establishing shot, even though you see it all the time in movies and television. The editor makes that call.

In the above example, I could have used: WIFE (PRE-LAP) instead of WIFE’S VOICE (PRE-LAP). But using the latter approach is more immediately clear that we’re not seeing the character speak the line.

Here’s another example of how PRE-LAP might be used effectively:

The main point I wanted to get across with the above example is how there was a juxtaposition of the action of the first scene with the dialogue of the second scene. It provides an ironic impact to the sequence.

Bottom line: If you’re going to use PRE-LAP, it has to provide an extra punch to the scene(s) that isn’t merely stylistic.

Some final thoughts

PRE-LAP is sometimes written PRELAP (without the hyphen).

Some people, like Christopher Riley in his book, The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style, advocate only using V.O. (Voice Over) and not using PRE-LAP at all. And this Wikipedia page uses O.S. (Off Screen) in conjunction with PRELAP.

In my opinion, using PRE-LAP, when appropriate, easily avoids the confusion associated with O.S. (So she’s there in the scene?), or V.O. (So she’s narrating?), and is intuitive enough that new readers unfamiliar with the term will get it.

As writers we’re taught to use the perfect word for the given situation. In these instances, I say PRE-LAP is it.

What do you think about PRE-LAP? Do you use it? Would you use it?

Any time you have dialogue that spells out a word, acronym, or initials, there are a couple of rules to follow.

1) Make sure letters are capitalized.

INCORRECT Usage:

CORRECT Usage:

2) Make sure letters are separated by either periods (.) or dashes (-).

INCORRECT Usage:

CORRECT Usage:

Sources:

• The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley
• The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier

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