Lesson 5 should be in your inbox in less than 90 seconds.
New writers stress out over format more than they need to. It's true, there are people who are sticklers about it, but I am convinced it is because it is something that seems actually tangible in an industry where few things are.
It's a topic they can claim expertise on and even bully others with.
But in the end, the rule from Lesson 4 always applies. It just has to look and read like a screenplay.
After I had sold my first screenplay, I was working on another project with a producer. I was still very much learning how to do this.
I had just read "Adventures in the Screen Trade" by William Goldman where he talks about how he decided to abandon all usual format for his spec script for BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and just do what he thought was best.
This is a sample here below:
An excerpt from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid by William Goldman.
Goldman felt that traditional screenplay format was too limiting and didn't allow him to create the visuals and tempo he wanted.
Which is 100% true. It doesn't.
So he just did it his way.
And it's glorious. It's long. It's 186 pages long, but it reads in like 70 minutes!
It's a tour de force and it was the largest script sale in history in the '60s.
Especially in the action scenes. The cutting back and forth. THIS PERSON back to THIS PERSON cutting to THE GUN — all the stuff you see above.
The producer read the next draft and was like, "What the hell is this?"
"That's how William Goldman does it!" I said. Like it was some kind of mic drop.