Definitions
- An antagonist is the villain in a story,
who stands in the way of the hero's (protagonist) achieving his/her
goal.
- back story, significant events that happen
before the action of the movie begins.
- b.g., abbreviation for "background".
- Coverage is the report made by a reader who
evaluates your screenplay, usually by filling out a form that asks standard questions
of it.
- A logline is the pithy one or two sentences
that describe the concept of a movie story, ideally in such a way as to make it
irresistible.
- Master scene is the scene in a screenplay
within which the action occurs, without visually focusing on certain
areas with camera directions and new sluglines. Thus a long complex
scene can all occur under a single slugline, such as INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY.
The "master scene approach" is used today, rather than an earlier approach
in which the writer became a de facto director by describing many
of the camera shots.
- Plot points are those scenes in the story that
reveal surprising new information, twisting the story in an unexpected
direction. Plot points are the basis of keeping the audience asking, "What
happens next?," and in the Hollywood screenplay major plot points happen
approximately one-fourth, one-half, and three-fourths through the story,
at the end of act one, at midpoint and at the end of act two respectively.
- A protagonist is the main character in a story.
- A slugline is the part of the script that
identifies the location of the scene. The vast majority of sluglines begin
with INT. or EXT.
- A release form is required by producers to protect
themselves against later law suits. It sounds like you are signing away the store -
but if you don't sign it, you don't get read. Bite your lip and sign it. Honest
producers won't burn you (at least not by stealing your script).
- A spec script is a screenplay written by a
writer "on speculation," without a previous deal with a producer. Established
screenwriters sometimes write spec scripts but usually get a deal before
they start writing, based on "pitching" an idea to a studio or producer.
- A step outline is a scene-by-scene breakdown
of your story, using only a sentence or two to describe each scene. An
excellent way to do this is with index cards, one card per scene. See example.
- A treatment is a prose telling of your story in
the present tense, with very little dialogue. See example.
SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
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