What is screenplay ?
Well, for one thing, a screenplay is not a novel, the story line, usually takes place inside the head of the main character. We see the story line unfolds through the eyes of the character, through his/her point of view. The character and reader go through the action together, sharing in the drama and emotion of the story. We know how they act, feel, react, and figure things out. In the novel the action takes place inside the character’s head, within the mindscape of dramatic action.
A play is different. The action, or story line, occurs onstage, under the proscenium arch, and the audience becomes the fourth wall, eavesdropping on the lives of the characters, what they think and feel and say. They talk about their hopes and dreams, past and future plans, discuss their needs and desires, fears and conflicts. In this case, the action of the play occurs within the language of dramatic action; it is spoken in words that describes feelings, actions, and emotions.
A screenplay is different. Movie is different. Film is a visual medium that dramatizes a basic story line; it deals in pictures, images, bits and pieces of film. We see a clock ticking, a window open, a person in the distances leaning over a balcony, smoking, a dog barking. “Just making pictures.” So, the nature of the screenplay deals in pictures, and if we wanted to define it, we could say that a screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure.
Screenplays have a basic structure that creates the form of a screenplay because it holds all the individual elements, or pieces, of the story line in place. If we wanted tp take a screenplay and hang it on the wall like a painting, this is what it would look like :
ACT 1 IS THE SET-UP
In this unit of dramatic action, act 1, the screenwriter sets up the story, establishes character, launches the dramatic premise (what story is about), illustrates the situation (the circumstances surrounding the action), and creates the relationships between the main character and other characters who inhabit the landscape of his or her world. As a writer you’ve only gotten minutes to establish this, either consciously or unconsciously, whether they do or don’t like the movie by that time. If they don’t know what’s going on and the opening is vague or boring, their concentration and focus will falter and start wandering.
ACT 2 IS CONFRONTATION
Act 2 is a unit of dramatic action approximately sixty pages long, and goes from the the end of Act 1, anywhere from pages 20 to 30 to the end of the of Act 2, approximately pages 85 to 90, and is held together with the dramatic context known as Confrontation. During this second act the main character encounters obstaccle after obstacle that keeps him/her away from achieving his/her dramatic need, which is defined as what charcter wants to win, gain, get, or achieve during the course of the screenplay. If yo know your character’s dramatic need, you can create obstacles to it and then your story becomes your character, overcoming obstacle after obstacle to achieve his/her dramatic need.
Remember, all drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.
ACT 3 IS RESOLUTION
Act 3 is a unit of dramatic action approximately twenty to thirty pages long and goes from the end of Act 2 to the end of the screenplay, It is held together with the dramatic context known as Resolution. I think it’s important to remember that resolution does not mean ending; resolution means solution. What is the solution of your screenplay? Does your main character live or die? succeed or fail? win the race or not? Return home safely or not? Act 3 is that unit of action that resolves the story. It is not the ending; the ending is that specific scene or shot or sequence that ends the script.
PLOT POINT
A plot point is defined as any incident, episode, or event that hooks into action and spins it around in another direction – in this case, Pot point 1 moves the action forward into Act 2 and Plot point 2 moves the action into Act 3. Plont points serve an essential purpose in the screenplay; they are a major story progression and keep the story line anchored in place.