Ditching Hollywood's Screenplay Format
PrevNode LinkNextHollywood's blessed screenplay format is boring, finicky, and requires a lot of time to prepare and get right.
Moreover, it is poorly documented, cannot be validated and linted by an automated program, and has issues being XML and HTML-friendly
As a hacker/action hero I'd rather my screenplays never be filmed by Hollywood studios, than waste time preparing one in its blessed format. Furthermore, since it cannot be automatically linted or validated, one often needs to revise or amend the drafts, which is even more time-consuming. Rinse and repeat.
One can imagine most young or young-at-heart screen writers who use code sharing sites and services (e.g: GitHub or GitLab), wikis, desktop or online word processors, or similar tools, will also sport the same sentiments.
As Paul Graham notes in a different context:
Hackers are lazy, in the same way that mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything extraneous.
So a lack of "original" screenplays and many unemployed screenplay readers is not surprising.
Note that even if a screenwriter has prepared such Hollywood-blessed screenplays in the past, he or she likely met enough fans, critics (either positive or negative or mixed), collaborators, etc. (see the "Earth Angel" concept or the subtext of xkcd: "11th grade") that they will adopt a similar mindset. Even though I am 1977-born (so approaching 44 in 2021) there are some time-consuming things I have done in the past which I will not repeat such as studying Electrical Engineering in the Technion, working for distrustful or micromanaging bosses, or reading Lord of the Rings or Crime and Punishment.
This is while I can spend hundreds of hours contributing text, code, and markup, voluntarily and without expecting immediate payment, to the public. And this includes my pro-bono contributions to Fedora Linux, which is backed and led by a profitable and well financed for-profit company (= Red Hat, Inc.).
I thought I invented illustrated screenplays, "by need", but recently saw the illustration on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's stage play "Richelieu" after I searched the web for his "The pen is mightier than the sword" adage.
Furthermore, a fellow writer, who was less techsavvy than I was at the time (and wished to remain ignorant of software development) told me that "[hyper-]linking is not writing". However, not only did the Hebrew Bible had hyperlinks of sorts (references to other works), but many are currently broken.
Also note that there are known spelling mistakes in the canonical text of the Hebrew Bible, so it is imperfect.
So I suggest Hollywood studios to also accept screenplays either in a subset of XHTML5 (which will be capable of being validated using an open source, easy to install, and portable linter) , or an XML-based format, either a subset of TEI or a custom format. Perhaps any self-contained XHTML5/HTML5 page or EPUB can be accepted, including ones on the public-facing web.
One can find many screenplays like that in Archive of our own, but there are likely many more.
Given many screenplays are reworked, or even improvised upon during filming, their formatting should not be too draconian and finicky, anyway.
I am quite happy with my XML-Grammar-Fiction's custom "Screenplay-Text" format, as well as its "Screenplay-XML" XML grammar, and I added more features to these grammars as I needed them ( YAGNI - "You aren't going to need it" ). Nevertheless, I'd be happy with other grammars that can be validated and linted.
It is also conceivable to write converters from subsets of other trendy lightweight markup languages (e.g : AsciiDoc, or CommonMark ) and other document formats such as Google Docs or OpenDocument, to these grammars.
Note: capable hacker and geeky screenwriters will also increasingly write crossovers, parodies and RPFs from similar reasons. See this for more info.
No true Scotsman ^W screenplay
Node LinkNextPerson A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."
Person A: "But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
( No true Scotsman )
Some have argued that we can only call texts in the Hollywood-mandated format "screenplays". However, I claim that a screenplay is a Platonic ideal with many conceivable formats. In 1990 , the screenplay "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Star Trek - The Next Generation" was written in ASCII plaintext and circulated by E-mail, and used a different format than either Hollywood's or mine.
I doubt that the "1 page = 1 minute of film" argument holds much water:
It is probably inaccurate anyway.
One can get a similar ballpark estimate by printing the XHTML5 to PDF using a custom CSS stylesheet.
Be communicative
PrevNode LinkNextJosephus: And so did my good Greek friend, Alexander, who started by writing some poems to her which I didn’t like, and told him why. So he ended up improving slowly but surely, until he wrote a truly great poem about her, and people loved it.
Josephus: Then Phoebe — that’s her name — told him, while crying, that she loved the song, but that she still is not going to marry him.
Alexis: The Bitch!
Josephus: My thoughts exactly. Anyway, he felt very down for a long while, so I decided to introduce him to my redhead cousin - her name’s Elishevah - hoping it’ll cheer him up. He ended up liking her and he wrote a hack of that song as a love song to her, and she ended up falling in love with him, and he converted to Judaism and married her, and she’s now pregnant with their first born, and he writes more songs about her. Very good ones.
( “So, who the Hell is Qoheleth?” by Shlomi Fish (= me) )
Note that I employed this strategy, in real life, with an Internet friend of mine who is a retired Finnish software developer in his 40s, who lives in a small Finnish town. He shared some poems he wrote and I and other chat participants commented what we liked or disliked about them. His poetry did improve mostly consistently and… he now has a young woman living with him. I do not know what she thinks about his poems, but he's a cool guy regardless.
If you do not like a work, please try to comment on why you think it is lacking, rather than completely dismissing it or vaguely criticising it. Some examples for such non-helpful criticism are:
"It sucks."
"You cannot write."
"It’s a waste of space."
"Try to write it as if you were there."
People are often amazed by food reviewers in the recently trendy cooking competition ("reality") shows being very pedantic and pinpointing small and large problems, but it comes with experience and "with the territory". So I applaud these reviewers.
One tip I can offer for dealing with critics who only provide vague criticism is to ask them to point out one specific issue.
Telling a contributor why you dislike their work will make reworked and future works better, and your own future job easier. Reportedly, film studios often silently dismissed screenplays that they received. I recently submitted my Sesame Street / "Harry Potter" crossover screenplay to the Sesame Workshop and received no reply.
Another different approach is the canned response. While sometimes useful, it is often indicative that the problem needs to be fixed more permanently. I also recall being given a list of reasons by a web ad service for why my site was unacceptable, and they were far too vague.
Be communicative about changing your policy
PrevNode LinkThe MPAA should publicly announce their plans to also accept screenplays in new electronic formats with accessible linters, and to instruct their screenreaders to try be more communicative. Per Saladin's Ethics, I do not propose laying off the existing screenreaders.
I feel this is the current bottleneck, but the film studios should also approve of writing commercial crossovers, parodies and RPFs.