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Excerpt from "A Radio Theatre Primer," by David Ossman, as featured in Voices in Our Heads: The NATF Guidebook and Script Collection
Nine Thoughts about Script Formatting
"Hold your thumb next to your line. That way you won't get confused and can't lose your place." Nick Danger's Rule 1. There is no one way to prepare a script for production. What all directors and actors need are script pages which are cleanly reproduced and which can be read easily, two or three in hand or on a music stand, under actual production conditions. 2. Each page of script should average one (1) minute in total air time. 3. Speeches should not continue over from one page to the next. The page can break a few lines early. 4. Double-spacing isn't necessary, but 12-point (pica) type is. I double-space between speeches, not between lines. Indent the dialogue. 5. Character names shouldn't be overly abbreviated. They should lead the eye to the character's line. 6. I like a script written so that WORDS IN ALL CAPS are NEVER READ ALOUD! 7. What about numbers? I've never liked looking at the row 1-thru-28 down the left edge. I prefer the modified Brit system. Each individual speech or direction is numbered in sequence from beginning to end. 8. I usually break my scripts into scenes - a "shooting script" - which helps me with the logistics of pre-production and gives me a more graphic look at the textures and timing of the entire play. I like new ambiences and new casts to begin on new pages. 9. Begin every script with a page listing all the characters with a brief description of each. An up-front list of music, SFX and ambiences is also very helpful to the reader. What follows is the first scene and the beginning of the second of an imaginary play, prepared in my personal word-processing style. |
"WE WERE ALL SINGING" (ONE PAGE OF A RADIO SCRIPT) 1 AMBIENCE: FADE UP A BASEBALL STADIUM, GAME IN PROGRESS 2 SOUND: DISTANT CRACK OF BAT 3 EDDIE: (SHOUTING OVER CROWD) I speak in a block of type between 4 and 5 inches wide, leaving enough white-space around the margins for notes or rewrites! 4 MUSIC: (IN AMBI) STADIUM ORGAN "CHARGE!" RIFF 5 WOMAN'S VOICE: That's right, Eddie. Let the director worry about those sound and music cues. 6 YELLING CROWD: "I agree!" "Me too!" "This helps us with our improvisation!" (CONTINUE AD LIB IMPROV, GETTING ANGRIER) 7 AMBIENCE: X-FADE YELLING CROWD WITH BAR BACKGROUND. A SUBDUED PLACE. 8 DRUNK (WOMAN): I remember . . . ! Just a minute . . . I'll find it . . . 9 SOUND: JUKE BOX BUSINESS - QUARTER DROPS 10 MUSIC: (IN AMBI) JUKE BOX RECORD STARTS - "ABBA DABBA HONEYMOON" 11 DRUNK (MAN): (SINGING ALONG) "Abba-dabba-dabba-dabba, said the monkey to the chimp . . . " 12 EDDIE: (NARRATING, VOICE OVER AMBI) We were all singing that night . . . except me. Wilmer took a chance, leaned over and asked me a question . . . 13 WILMER: (SOTTO) What if I want to emphasize something? 14 EDDIE: (A BEAT - LISTENING) Like what? 15 WILMER: Like this! See, I just read an underlined word.
Script Formats
ZPPR-SCI FI Format Notes (pdf) |