I have no idea where this document originally came from.  It's a screenplay that teaches "Industry Standard".  It's not attributed to any one or any particular source of information so you'll have to take the accuracy with a grain of salt.  Though maybe a bit antiquated, it seems accurate enough to me for describing the conventional approach to screenplay formatting, at least how I learned it.  

But I think possibly it was written to assist people for formatting for the Nicholl competition and that the information was taken from the book they provide of their guidelines - which many people consider industry standard.   Then, possibly, more was added on later in the form of notes.  Of course, I have no clue as to the history of this document so that's just a guess.

It's called "Screenplay of SS"  (of all things) which was what caught my attention.  I have no idea what the SS stands for.  It's short and you should enjoy the read.  Plus, maybe, instead of having long drawn out arguments with people about format,  you can just point them at this document.  

You can download the document here  

This was written in September, 2004, so it's pretty ancient.

It does give pretty good info for the most part.

The SS is probably for script sample.

You can go here:

http://www.oscars.org/awards/nicholl/resources.html

This is the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) website. Click on the link Screenplay Format Sample and you’ll find the same document with a file name which includes the words script sample.

Hope this helps.


Breanne

Ah!  Script Sample.

Thanks Breanne.  I thought you would probably know if it had anything to do with Nicholl.  

And now we know of the documents heritage.