BigBeaner wrote:You should learn how to use the standardized format because you will be considered an amateur by your actors or any other person.
But I am an amateur and make no apologizes for that. In fact I'm proud of it. The root word of amateur is "amour", to love.
BigBeaner wrote:Most important reason to learn the "right way" is because you'll never know who you'll meet by chance and they might ask you to send them your script.
I might win the lottery too. In fact I think my chances of winning the lottery are better. I had hoped that I had made it clear in my original post that I do not subscribe to the fantasy that someday I'll make it in Hollywood. If that extremely unlikely event does occur it doesn't really take that long to reformat a 100 page script, about one evening's work.
BigBeaner wrote:You might not send it to Hollywood but what if sometime soon you'll be seeking investors.
If I do seek investors soon it will be with a real estate deal, not a script.
BigBeaner wrote:It's a complete craft on its own and you should take a small amount of time to learn.
You seem to think that I have not done that. I have. My views do not stem from an ignorance of script format.
BigBeaner wrote:I don't understand the need to start each new scene on its own new page. Sounds wasteful. What about a scene that is only 2-3 sentences?
What about a scene that's one page long? If you start each scene at the top of a page then the entire scene is on one sheet. A scene that's two pages long has one page break and takes two sheets. On the other hand a scene that's two pages and starts half way down the page has two page breaks and takes three sheets. If each scene starts at the top of a page then I can take that scene out of my three ring binder and have only the information about that scene in hand. The tail of the previous scene and the head of the subsequent scene will not be there to distract me. And if a scene is only 2-3 sentences long, that's OK. Paper is not that expensive.
BigBeaner wrote:I find it funny that you find it a pain to indent dialog. Indentation helps facilitate the ease and visualization of a screenplay. Get one of the free programs or bittorrent, this is what those screenplay programs do automatically.
But the "automatically" comes at a price. I'm locked into the format. I cannot deviate, even in so little a thing as putting an extra blank line between dialog. Indenting with Word is a pain because I have to take my hand off the keyboard to use the mouse to "increase/decrease indentation." Italics and bold can be set/reset from the keyboard.
BigBeaner wrote:I just find it odd you felt compelled to tell the whole world about your own format.
I'm not so much trying to tell the world as I am trying to get some sort of discussion going on this forum. Few enough topics are discussed here whereas there's always something new on the small gauge forum.
BigBeaner wrote:I feel if this was not the best way to present a script, we would not be using it.
I think the real real reason "we" are using it is pure inertia, A.K.A. "we've always done it this way." Inertia is the reason we can't solve a lot of problems, like global warming and dependence of fossil fuels. Politicians and industry do not want to do anything different until they absolutely have to. -- Inertia! A 100 mile per gallon car is possible with existing technology. It requires only the will to build it but the auto makers would rather build SUVs. -- Inertia!
Script readers want a format that evolved on a typewriter, not a word processor. -- Formatting programs are designed to help make a script look like it was written on a typewriter. Inertia!
BigBeaner wrote:Can you post an example of one of your scripts, I feel that would be tremendously better seeing it than talking about it.
Would posting it here preserve the format? If not then nothing would be gained from me doing that.