An excerpt from my script review for Spotlight which will be available 03/07/16:
5.) Format
The one thing this script proves to me, is regardless of every industry rule, technique, or requirement, if your story’s good enough (or important enough to Hollywood), people will read it regardless of how it’s written.
(I cannot stress enough how this is the exception, not the rule.)
Okay, so we’re at 140 pages. Easily 20 pages too long on a good day.
On top of that, and probably knowing they’re running long, we get instance after instance of side by side dialogue. A trick that should be used sparingly at best.
But space was saved when implementing it, especially when we choke on half a page…
See page 91. Unfortunately the format doesn’t carry over.
It’s great that you want your dialogue to be quick and punchy, but you can’t do that and forsake whitespace.
It leads to confusion, or worse, readers skipping entire entries. (Admittedly I skimmed all side by side’s after page 43, because most of the lines were two characters saying boring and unimportant things.)
Lastly, this was labeled a FYC draft. Seems to me, if I’m sending a script to ANY awards committee, I’d make sure to proofread the hell out of it. (Maybe even get someone else to give it the once over just in case.)
This script was littered with simple typos that made me feel like the writers threw the draft together the night before it was due.
Want more helpful screenwriting tips and movie/script reviews? Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
And be sure to check out our Notes Service, where I give my detailed thoughts and suggestions on your script.
