1. Scriptwriting Tips
Always start the script with the
following:
Location and Time of Day
INT = Interior location
EXT = Exterior location
All descriptions of camera
shots and character should be
aligned to the right-hand
margin
Try to be as detailed as
possible with information
about the character
All camera shots and
movement should be written
in CAPITALS
All characters and significant
props/set should also be
written in CAPTIALS
Dialogue should be centred on
the page with bracketed stage
directions as to the style of
delivery (tone of voice,
movement of actor)
Scriptwriting Examples
Example 1 – The Usual Suspects
INT. HALLWAY. NIGHT
TRACKING a pair of feet in MEDIUM SHOT as they shuffle across
the cement floor. The shoes are shabby and worn, as are the wrinkled
pants that hang too low and loose at the cuffs. The right foot is turned
slightly inward and falls with a hard limp. It is clear that the
knee does not extend fully.
The sound of a steel door opening. The bottom corner of a steel
cage comes into view. Another set of feet falls into step with
the first. Another set of feet falls into step with the first.
Another steel door and another set of feet. Another door, another
and another. Five pairs of feet walk single file down the hall.
The lame feet are in the front of the line. They come to another
steel door, this one solid and covered with dents and rivets.
CRANE UP to reveal: ROGER KINT, ‘VERBAL’ to his few friends. He
has a deeply lined face, making his thirty-odd years a good guess
at best. From his twisted left hand, we can see that he suffers
from a slight but not debilitating palsy.
Example 2 – Clerks
INT. BEDROOM. EARLY-MORNING HOURS.
A DOG sleeps on a neatly made bed. A CLOCK reads twenty to six.
TRACKING across A SHELF OF BOOKS holds such classics as Dante’s
Inferno, Beyond Good and Evil, The Catcher in the Rye and The Dark Knight
Returns. A FRAMED DIPLOMA, dusty and unkempt, hangs askew on the
wall. A PHONE sits quietly atop a bundle of
laundry. It suddenly explodes with a resounding ring – once,
twice, three times. A CLOSET DOOR swings open, and a half-clad
figure falls out. THE PHONE rings yet again, and a hand falls
upon the receiver, yanking it off the trash can, OC. THE RUMPLED
FIGURE lays with his back to the camera, phone in hand.
FIGURE:
(groggily)
Hello...What?...No, I don’t work
today...I’m playing hockey at two.

2. Example 3 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
EXT. CITY STREET - DAY
Downtown L.A. Noon on a hot summer day. On an EXTREME LONG LENS the
lunchtime crowd stacks up into a wall of humanity. In SLOW MOTION
they move in herds among the glittering rows of cars jammed bumper to
bumper. Heat ripples distort the torrent of faces. The image is
surreal, dreamy... and like a dream it begins very slowly to
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. CITY RUINS - NIGHT
Same spot as the last shot, but now it is a landscape in Hell. The
cars are stopped in rusted rows, still bumper to bumper. The
skyline of buildings beyond has been shattered by some
unimaginable force like a row of kicked-down sandcastles.
Wind blows through the desolation, keening with the sound of ten
million dead souls. It scurries the ashes into drifts, stark
white in the moonlight against the charred rubble.
A TITLE CARD FADES IN:
LOS ANGELES, July 11, 2029
ANGLE ON a heap of fire-blackened human bones. Beyond the mound is a
vast tundra of skulls and shattered concrete. The rush hour crowd
burned down in their tracks.
WE DISSOLVE TO a playground... where intense heat has half-melted the
jungle gym, the blast has warped the swing set, the merry-go-round
has sagged in the firestorm. Small skulls look accusingly from the
ash-drifts. WE HEAR the distant echo of children's voices... playing
and laughing in the sun. A silly, sing-songy rhyme as WE TRACKS
SLOWLY over seared asphalt where the faint hieroglyphs of hopscotch
lines are still visible.
CAMERA comes to rest on a burnt and rusted tricycle... next to the
tiny skull of its owner. HOLD ON THIS IMAGE as a female VOICE speaks:
VOICE
3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997.
The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war
Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new
nightmare, the war against the Machines...
A metal foot crushes the skull like china.
TILT UP, revealing a humanoid machine holding a massive battle rifle.
It looks like a CHROME SKELETON... a high-tech Death figure. It is
the endoskeleton of a Series 800 terminator. Its glowing red eyes
compassionlessly sweep the dead terrain, hunting.
The SOUNDS of ROARING TURBINES. Searchlights blaze down as a
formation of flying HK (Hunter-Killer) patrol machines passes
overhead. PAN WITH THEM toward the jagged horizon, beyond which we
see flashes, and hear the distant thunder of a pitched battle in
progress.