Screenplay Format: The Complete Guide, With Examples

What is screenplay format?

Screenplay format is the fixed page layout every film and television script is written in: 12-point Courier, a 1.5-inch left margin, and six elements — scene heading, action, character, dialogue, parenthetical and transition — each with its own indent. It exists so that a page reads, and times, the same way for everyone who touches the script.

That second half matters. A reader decides how professional a script is from the first page, but the format's real job comes later: in production, page counts are measured in eighths of a page, and those eighths become the shooting schedule. A script with drifting margins schedules wrongly.

The page

• Font: 12-point Courier (or Courier Prime / Courier Final Draft).
• Paper: US Letter in the US; A4 is common elsewhere and reads the same.
• Margins: 1.5 inches on the left for binding, about 1 inch top, right and bottom.
• Page numbers: top right, from page 2. The title page is not numbered.
• Length rule: one page is roughly one minute of screen time. It is a rule of thumb, not a law — a page of fight choreography plays faster than a page of argument.

The six elements

1. Scene heading

The scene heading (also called a slugline) tells the reader where and when the scene happens:

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT

INT. for interior, EXT. for exterior, INT./EXT. for scenes that cross between — a car, a doorway. The location is as specific as the story needs ("INT. MAYA'S KITCHEN"), and the time of day is usually DAY or NIGHT; use DAWN, DUSK or CONTINUOUS only when it matters. See the scene heading glossary entry for the production side.

2. Action

Action lines describe what we see and hear, in the present tense, across the full width of the page. Keep paragraphs to three or four lines; white space is how a reader feels pace. Introduce a character in capitals the first time they appear, with an age if it matters: MAYA (30s) wipes the counter twice.

3. Character name

The name of the speaker, in capitals, indented to about 3.7 inches from the page edge. Extensions sit beside the name in brackets:

• (V.O.) — voice-over: narration, or a voice heard through a phone or radio.
• (O.S.) — off-screen: the speaker is in the scene but not in view.
• (CONT'D) — the same character keeps talking after an action line.

4. Dialogue

The words spoken, in a narrower column beneath the name. No quotation marks. Write how people talk — fragments, interruptions — and let a dash at the end of a line show someone being cut off.

5. Parenthetical

A short direction between the name and the line — (quietly), (to Ravi). Use them rarely; if every line needs one, the dialogue is not doing its job. More in the parenthetical entry.

6. Transition

Right-aligned editing instructions such as CUT TO: or DISSOLVE TO:. Modern specs use them sparingly — a new scene heading already implies a cut. Save them for the moments where the transition itself means something.

An example page

INT. MAYA'S KITCHEN - NIGHT

Rain against the window. MAYA (30s) wipes the counter
twice, then a third time.

The back door opens. RAVI (40s), soaked, stops at the
threshold.

                    MAYA
          You're late.

                    RAVI
          (not moving)
          The bridge was closed.

                    MAYA
          It's been closed since Tuesday.

She keeps wiping.

                                              CUT TO:

The same page in Fountain

Fountain is a plain-text way of writing screenplays: you type ordinary text and a screenplay app lays it out in the format above. The page above is typed like this:

INT. MAYA'S KITCHEN - NIGHT

Rain against the window. MAYA (30s) wipes the counter twice, then a third time.

The back door opens. RAVI (40s), soaked, stops at the threshold.

MAYA
You're late.

RAVI
(not moving)
The bridge was closed.

MAYA
It's been closed since Tuesday.

She keeps wiping.

CUT TO:

A line in capitals that starts with INT. or EXT. becomes a scene heading; a name in capitals followed by a line becomes dialogue; a line ending in TO: becomes a transition. That is most of it — the full rules are in Fountain Format Explained.

Spec script or shooting script?

A spec script is the version you send out: no scene numbers, no camera directions, minimal transitions. A shooting script is the production version: scene numbers down both margins, and once the script is locked, revisions printed on coloured pages so everyone knows which draft they hold. Writing a spec with camera angles in it is the most common sign of a first script.

Getting the format without fighting it

Every margin above can be set by hand in a word processor, and plenty of writers start that way. The cost shows up later: indents drift, page counts stop meaning a minute, and a production can no longer schedule from the pages.

Screenwriting software applies the format as you type. ScenePaper's Writers' Room is one option — it writes Fountain, formats as you go, and is free — and if you want a ready layout to start from, the screenplay template shows every element on one page.