In my daily life, I’ve had the opportunity to read a lot of scripts. When I say scripts, I’m referring to produced TV and movie scripts in the various versions that are distributed through the process of shooting TV or film. Not every aspiring script writer gets to see this. Being part of a production crew gives a lot of insight into what makes a script work. The big difference between books and scripts is that a script has to come to life. It’s limited by real life in a way that books are. So here are the mistakes I see the most from aspiring script writers.
#1: There’s Too Much Direction
This is by far the #1 thing I see people do wrong when they approach script writing: writers who essentially want to be directors. Let go of the idea that you will have any control beyond the dialogue you put on the page. Novelists are used to controlling every detail of a book, so it can be a tough transition to a process of what is a small part of a total production.
Do not include camera angles. Do not get too specific about what a character looks like. Do not describe the setting with details that are not important. This is not your job as a screenwriter.
Writing a screenplay is laying down the blueprint for a story. In the house that is this story, it’s fun to imagine what the decor will look like and what kind of countertops to order, but you have to understand that it is not your job. Someone else will be hired to make those decisions.
Do not include camera angles. Do not get too specific about what a character looks like. Do not describe the setting with details that are not important. This is not your job as a screenwriter.
There are entire teams of people dedicated to deciding what characters should wear, how sets should look, what color to paint the walls, how the actors should interpret lines, and where the camera should go. Please, please, please do not try to do their jobs for them. They are generally very good at their specialties and face real life obstacles. Some camera angles are chosen because of where the sun is in the sky or because there is a wall in the way or any number of things that influence these decisions.
The art of script writing is very much the art of not getting too attached. The best screenwriter is a flexible one.
#2: It’s Too Expensive
On the lines of the realities of shooting, things cost money. There are different ways to approach this problem. Your sci-fi western shoot-out extravaganza with the climactic battle in the opera house may be really good for screenwriting contests, but the odds of a first-time writer selling that blockbuster are very low.
Keeping cost in mind is even more important if you intend to shoot a script yourself, whether it be short film, web series, or full-length indie film. You could do it! There are grants for this kind of work!
It’s important to keep in mind the kinds of things that drive up cost of shooting.
Crowd Scenes
Parties are expense. Writing the word ‘party’ on a page can double the price of that shooting day in a second. It isn’t just a matter of finding and compensating background actors to play the party goers or baseball game attendees. As soon as you have that many people on camera, you need more people in hair and make-up and wardrobe, you need wranglers to be dedicated to making sure your background are where they need to be, and you need extra prop people to keep track of purses and drinks and food.
That’s before even taking into account party decorations or renting a venue to stage a party scene.
Special Effects and Stunts
Anything requiring special effects and stunts is instantly more expensive. The first basic issue is that they take twice as long to shoot, which means the crew isn’t able to do as many scenes in a day as normally possible.
Why does it take so long? Stunt doubles of course! As soon as a double is brought in, basically everything has to be shot twice. Once with the performer, doing as much of the scene as possible, and once with the stunt performer. Plus the extra time needed for the stunt coordinator to work through the scene safely for everyone involved. Some of this might be rehearsed (fight choreography, major stunts), but even basic things like falling off a horse or driving a car may require a stunt person for liability reasons. Production does not want anything to happen to their cast. An actor injury could mean massive rescheduling for the shoot, or cancellation altogether.
Too Many Sets
A lot of sets are a quick way to drive up cost. Even for a show with many sets in one building, moving from set to set can take upwards of 40 minutes to move all of the gear. If you have 6 sets to shoot in a day, half the shooting day has gone into moving equipment place to place. It’s not very time efficient to write a set into a single short scene, especially if that scene can easily happen somewhere else.
Big productions don’t have to worry about this as much as others. A small production on a tight shooting schedule will be put under a lot of stress by shooting small portions of the script across many different locations.
#3: It’s the Wrong Length
When talking about commercial film and television, there are two big factors that go into length: what an audience is trained to expect and where those pesky commercials go.
Most movie-goers have seen enough films to subconsciously know when major events should happen. Not every film follows a script act structure, but it’s better to follow the rules before you break them. There is too much money on the line for the movie biz to take risks on a new writer who doesn’t follow the rules. There’s always time to break the mold when you have experience to back it up—or take on a producer role and make that baby yourself.
TV is even more strict. Both half-hour and hour-long TV have a very strict act structure that follows the flow of commercial breaks. The ‘cold open’ or ‘teaser’ before the title sequence can only be so long. Plant cliff hangers at the end of act 2. That is the kind of planning TV writers must do
The rule is that every page equals about a minute of screentime. Look up the standard lengths of your medium of choice and follow closely to those guidelines.
#4: Character Names Don’t Work
Introducing characters on screen can be tricky. The audience wants to know the names of the characters. Unfortunately, there is rarely an omniscient narrator to give out those names.
And when those names are spoken on screen, it’s so important that they be clear when established. The best names for onscreen characters are ones that can be easily understood and not easily confused with other characters.
Naming the hero and heroine Izzy and Isaac is going to confuse watchers. They’re also going make certain crew members miserable.
Avoid names that start with the same letter or that sound similar whenever you can. Onscreen, short names with only one or two syllables are king.
Avoid names that start with the same letter or that sound similar whenever you can. Onscreen, short names with only one or two syllables are king. There are exceptions to the rule, but if you’re not working with existing intellectual property, why not choose names for their clarity and ability to be heard and recognized?
#5: The Formatting is Incorrect
This might be the most important, but I also think it is the most harped on, but I’ll touch on why the format matters so much in screenwriting.
This goes back to the one page = one minute equation. That equation is so important for estimating script length. We’ve already gone over why how long a script is imperative to this style of writing. Without that strict standard script format, the page to time translation doesn’t work. Without that rough, but usually accurate estimation, you could be stuck reading out every scene to ensure that it feels properly between commercial break to commercial break.
There is a lot of software out there designed to help screenwriters format. Celtx is available for free and is popular with independent and student filmmakers. Scrivener, a popular software with novelists and other writers, also has a script function. I have personally used Final Draft and found it fairly intuitive, which is one of my main needs from any software I’m new to.
For years, especially in school, I just used a template in MS Word using styles to make transitioning between headings a breeze. I’m making that same template available to you! The form below will get you my Word template with styles for sluglines, dialogue, characters, and more with some helpful hints for your screenwriting.
Screenwriting can be a lot of fun, as long as there’s an understanding in the role it plays in the final product. The best thing about bringing words to the screen is the collaboration between people to make it work! So never forget to leave the space for that collaboration.
