Screenplay, script

The screenplay of a film is not literature. A screenplay is a plan to shooting the film. The more detailed the plan, the more effectively the production itself, or the shooting, can be realized.

The screenplay is written in stages. Screenplay can be based on a story, novel or short story, vision, another film, historic event etc. Writing the screenplay is usually done through the following phases:

1. synopsis
2. (draft)
3. treatment,
4. or a list of scenes
5. actual screenplay
6. n amount of versions of the screenplay

After that can also follow

5. storyboard
6. shooting script (director's script)
7. editor's script

A screenplay is usually of about 90--120 pages long. One page corresponds to one minute of the film running time. Thus a 120-page screenplay corresponds to a 120 minute, or two-hour film.

It is quite common to write three acts to a film, corresponding to the Aristotelian requirement of drama structure, meaning that drama has to have a beginning, middle and the end.

The pages for the acts in relation to the entire screenplay are approximately:

1. act, pages 1--30
2. act, pages 31--90
3. act, pages 90--120

Thus the first act is about 1/4, the second act about 2/4 and the third act about 1/4 of the entire running time of the film.

Cf. Breakdown

CinemaSense Filmliterature

Cinemasense THE RULES OF SCRIPTWRITING

Wikipedia [Screenplay - Wikipedia]

Master Class [What is a Screenplay — The Ultimate Guide for Screenwriters (studiobinder.com)]

Drew's Script-O-Rama
[http://www.script-o-rama.com/]

Scripts by SGA [www.wga.org]

The Scripts of Star Wars
[https://medium.com/@Oozer3993/the-scripts-of-star-wars-56b030095dc]

Script Reader Pro [50 Best Screenplays To Read And Download In Every Genre (scriptreaderpro.com)]