Beneath the Surface by Sandra Edwards - Drama, Comedy - Thomas J. Elderman is a garbage collector, working for the city  New York. Even though he is a high school graduate with two years of college, he prefers to work as a garbage collector because the pay is better than that for office jobs that are available to him. His goal, however, is to be President of the United States. He wants to show the workd that a black man can be President and do just as good a job as a white man. He does not want fame or fortune, instead he wants to improve the quality of life for all people living under the flag of the United States. 103 pages - doc, format

Sandra,

Real quick. I'll be honest. I loathe reading scripts not in script format. Might I suggest celtx.com.  There you can download their free program. Completely free, not a trial edition.

Thank you, Sir.  I will definitely look into celtx.com pronto.  

Ahmmmm....when I get to celtx.com what do I do?  I'm not computer savvy so please forgive me.

Go to:

http://www.celtx.com/download.html

Then just click on the "download" option beneath your operating system.

Formatting aside, the main problem I can see with this is that it's over-written. Which is shame as there looks like an interesting story beneath it.

Blocks of description shouldn't be more than 4/5 lines long - and they need to be written as immediately as possible: "He stands" rather than "He's standing".

You need to make it punchy.

Quoted Text EXT. STREET - MORNING

Too vague. Probably be better as:

Quoted Text EXT. ALLEY - MORNING The back end of a chain of retail shops.

Something like that.

Quoted Text Thomas J. Elderman alights from the passenger side

The first time a character is mentioned needs to be CAPITALISED. Also, some indication of age, maybe even general characteristics, would be nice to help the reader visualise him properly.

Quoted Text ...thinking about being the president of the United States. It is not that he wants to be rich and famous. He just wants to show those white folks that a black man could be the president of the United States and do just as good a job as the white man. Deep in thought, he does not realize how quiet it is in the alley.

How exactly is the actor or director supposed to show this on screen?

All of that should just be:

Quoted Text He holds the empty can over his head, lost in thought.

Also...

Quoted Text This is an unfamiliar sight, as white folks never venture into this part of Harlem.  James wonders how they got past the guys on Dead Man's corner, the most feared area in Harlem.

...is just as unfilmable. Maybe:

Quoted Text Three white guys sit at the bar, clearly out of place in a sea of black faces.

Plus, lose the () before every piece of dialogue. They should only be for tone, not action. And unless it's crucial to the plot, leave the tone up to the director and actors to decide.

Wow!!!  Thanks.  I do have a lot of work to do, huh.

Also thanks for the info on celtx.  I already did the download, now what?

Quoted Text Do I have to re-type the whole script?

You can probably copy and paste it into Celtx - then just highlight the bit you want to format and select the relevant option. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but the more you use it the more second-nature it becomes.  

If you still can't find the setup file then you might want to try a search for any files with the word celtx in them (the search option should be in the start menu somewhere). If that doesn't work then try downloading it again.

Thanks.  Since I just can't get the hang of it, I think I'll just leave the script as is.   If it has potential, producers will not mind the format, me thinks.


Okay.  I copied and pasted.  What next?

Thank for all the help, James Carlette.

Quoted from laurence If it has potential, producers will not mind the format, me thinks.

Me thinks you are wrong.  Producers won't read a script unless it's properly formatted.  They'll put it down before they can see the potential.


Phil

Too bad.  I'm sure they're missing out on some box office numbers if they're so picky.  Oh, well....

Not having a properly formatted script is a sign of an amateur.  Sure, there might a pearl somewhere in the slush pile that isn't properly formatted, but is it worth reading through the other 1000 poorly formatted scripts to find it?

Look at it this way:  Formatting is the easiest part of scriptwriting.  If you can't do that, how are you suppose to do the difficult things, like characterization and story?


Phil

The only bit you really need to worry about is the box with 'Scene Heading' in it - just to the right of where it says 'PROJECT LIBRARY'.

Once you've got the formatting sorted you can use the 'Web Services' button at the top right to join Celtx online (for free), which will get the 'Typeset' option working and allow you to save your script as a PDF.

You might find this useful as well:

http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/format.html

Thanks again, James C.  I'll keep on trying until I get it straight.

Hey, we are not all born professsionals, Phil.  I'm sure your first script was not formatted.  First an amateur, then a professional.  A baby learns to crawl, and then to walk.

Quoted from laurence Hey, we are not all born professsionals, Phil.  I'm sure your first script was not formatted.  First an amateur, then a professional.  A baby learns to crawl, and then to walk.

That's what great about this site; you learn from it.


Phil

Yeah, I'm learning tons from all.  Thanks!!!


But since producers/film makers will not read my script because it's not formatted, I guess I wasted my time posting it here, huh.  I still can't get this celt...whatever to format my script.  Oh well........