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How do you right a script?

I have had an idea for a film and have planned it out got together some good ideas and am still in the research stage - how do i go from there to actually produce a script? it seems a bit daunting.

8 months ago
Thanks Kevin - that was appaling of me - thats the problem with being dyslexic, sometimes you make mistakes which you don't pick up until your face is already red.

There's lots of guidebooks on how to write a script -- but not all screenwriters follow them. You're already doing the basics: planning our your narrative and researching it. There's lots of ways to get to a fully polished script -- you could write your idea out as a short story (this is like "doing a treatment"). You could do photographic or drawn storyboards (like a comic) sketching each scene. You could invite some actors to improvise scenes and videotape them as source material.

Take a look at the published screenplays or script books (these are two different things) for a show or movie that you really like: I think that the Buffy script books are awesome. These will give you some idea of what a script "should" look like.

You can also buy software such as Final Draft which will help you set out your screenplay in a way that producers will understand. It won't write it for you, but it may help you organise your thoughts.

Remember that most writers will draft and redraft up to 20 times, so don't worry about getting it "right" on the first try! Just get it down on paper -- and keep print outs or save versions of each draft, as you may want to go back to something. Good luck!