What is a Screenplay?

this video is part of our screenwriting foundations course to get the full course go to bloopanimation. com screenwriting foundations so what is a screenplay is a written document that tells the story of a movie it's a blueprint for a film that guides everyone involved in the filmmaking process from the director to the actors to the production crew it's a highly technical document that follows a specific format and includes detailed descriptions of the setting the characters the dialogue and the action it's a unique form of writing that requires a different approach than other forms of Storytelling if this is your first encounter with a screenplay take the time to get used to it read a few scripts to get the hang of the flow you'll quickly see how different it is from any other writing form you've encountered like a novel a poem or short stories which brings us to the following Point understanding what a screenplay isn't as screenplay is not a novel or a short story and unlike them it's not meant to be read for its literary value but rather to be used as a tool to create a visual experience on the screen this means that while a screenplay can show us external actions and reactions it cannot show us a character's internal thoughts or emotions unless they are externalized in a visual or auditory way as a screenwriter it's important to focus on creating images that can be captured by the director the actors cinematographer or the sound team this is done by describing the environment characters and their actions in a way that could be translated to the screen internal moods attitudes and thoughts must be conveyed through Visual or auditory cues that can be filmed for example let's say we have a character named Sarah who is feeling sad as a writer you could simply write Sarah is feeling sad but this doesn't give the film crew any information on how to visually convey this emotion instead you can write something like Sarah stares out the window raindrops trailing down the glass she clutches a crumpled photo in her hand and stares into space she sighs heavily and turns away from the window this description provides a clear Visual and auditory cue on how to convey Sarah's sadness on the screen if we were to write Sarah feel sad there wouldn't be enough to work with the same goes for thoughts or memories a screenwriter can't write Sarah stares out the window thinking about her lost love because there's no way for the viewers to know what she's thinking about these are samples of stuff you can get away with in books but not in scripts this mind shift is one of the biggest challenges for new screenwriters as they tend to enjoy the writing a little too much and slip into Pros in their script the single goal of a screenplay is to create a story that persuades the right people that it's worth turning into a film anything else added that does not support this goal only gets in the way of the product