I think most of you, like me, will have seen this before but it's always worth referring to during the creation of your script.


Checklist A: Concept & Plot

#1. Imagine the trailer. Is the concept marketable?

#2. Is the premise naturally intriguing -- or just average, demanding perfect execution?

#3. Who is the target audience? Would your parents go see it?

#4. Does your story deal with the most important events in the lives of your characters?

#5. If you're writing about a fantasy-come-true, turn it quickly into a nightmare-that-won't-end.

#6. Does the screenplay create questions: will he find out the truth? Did she do it? Will they fall in love? Has a strong 'need to know' hook been built into the story?

#7. Is the concept original?

#8. Is there a goal? Is there pacing? Does it build?

#9. Begin with a punch, end with a flurry.

#10. It is funny, scary, or thrilling? All three?

#11. What does the story have that the audience can't get from real life?

#12. What's at stake? Life and death situations are the most dramatic. Does the concept create the potential for the characters lives to be changed?

#13. What are the obstacles? Is there a sufficient challenge for our heroes?

#14. What is the screenplay trying to say, and is it worth trying to say it?

#15. Does the story transport the audience?

#16. Is the screenplay predictable? There should be surprises and reversals within the major plot, and also within individual scenes.

#17. Once the parameters of the film's reality are established, they must not be violated. Limitations call for interesting solutions.

#18. Is there a decisive, inevitable, set-up ending that is nonetheless unexpected? (This is not easy to do!)

#19. Is it believable? Realistic?

#20. Is there a strong emotion -- heart -- at the center of the story? Avoid mean-spirited storylines.



Checklist B: Technical Execution

#21. Is it properly formatted?

#22. Proper spelling and punctuation. Sentence fragments okay.

#23. Is there a discernible three-act structure?

#24. Are all scenes needed? No scenes off the spine, they will die on screen.

#25. Screenplay descriptions should direct the reader's mind's eye, not the director's camera.

#26. Begin the screenplay as far into the story as possible.

#27. Begin a scene as late as possible, end it as early as possible. A screenplay is like a piece of string that you can cut up and tie together -- the trick is to tell the entire story using as little string as possible.

#28. In other words: Use cuts.

#29. Visual, Aural, Verbal -- in that order. The expression of someone who has just been shot is best; the sound of the bullet slamming into him is second best; the person saying, "I've been shot" is only third best.

#30. What is the hook, the inciting incident? You've got ten pages (or ten minutes) to grab an audience.

#31. Allude to the essential points two or even three times. Or hit the key point very hard. Don't be obtuse.

#32. Repetition of locale. It helps to establish the atmosphere of film, and allows audience to 'get comfortable.' Saves money during production.

#33. Repetition and echoes can be used to tag secondary characters. Dangerous technique to use with leads.

#34. Not all scenes have to run five pages of dialogue and/or action. In a good screenplay, there are lots of two-inch scenes. Sequences build pace.

#35. Small details add reality. Has the subject matter been thoroughly researched?

#36. Every single line must either advance the plot, get a laugh, reveal a character trait, or do a combination of two -- or in the best case, all three -- at once.

#37. No false plot points; no backtracking. It's dangerous to mislead an audience; they will feel cheated if important actions are taken based on information that has not been provided, or turns out to be false.

#38. Silent solution; tell your story with pictures.

#39. No more than 125 pages, no less than 110... or the first impression will be of a script that 'needs to be cut' or 'needs to be fleshed out.'

#40. Don't number the scenes of a selling script. MOREs and CONTINUEDs are optional.


Checklist C: Characters

#41. Are the parts castable? Does the film have roles that stars will want to play?

#42. Action and humor should emanate from the characters, and not just thrown in for the sake of a laugh. Comedy which violates the integrity of the characters or oversteps the reality-world of the film may get a laugh, but it will ultimately unravel the picture. Don't break the fourth wall, no matter how tempting.

#43. Audiences want to see characters who care deeply about something -- especially other characters.

#44. Is there one scene where the emotional conflict of the main character comes to a crisis point?

#45. A character's entrance should be indicative of the character's traits. First impression of a character is most important.

#46. Lead characters must be sympathetic -- people we care about and want to root for.

#47. What are the characters wants and needs? What is the lead character's dramatic need? Needs should be strong, definite -- and clearly communicated to the audience.

#48. What does the audience want for the characters? It's all right to be either for or against a particular character -- the only unacceptable emotion is indifference.

#49. Concerning characters and action: a person is what he does, not necessarily what he says.

#50. On character faults: characters should be 'this but also that;' complex. Characters with doubts and faults are more believable, and more interesting. Heroes who have done wrong and villains with noble motives are better than characters who are straight black and white.

#51. Characters can be understood in terms of, 'what is their greatest fear?' Gittes, in CHINATOWN was afraid of being played for the fool. In SPLASH the Tom Hanks character was afraid he could never fall in love. In BODY HEAT Racine was afraid he'd never make his big score.

#52. Character traits should be independent of the character's role. A banker who fiddles with his gold watch is memorable, but cliche; a banker who breeds dogs is a somehow more acceptable detail.

#53. Character conflicts should be both internal and external. Characters should struggle with themselves, and with others.

#54. Character 'points of view' need to be distinctive within an individual screenplay. Characters should not all think the same. Each character needs to have a definite point of view in order to act, and not just react.

#55. Distinguish characters by their speech patterns: word choice, sentence patterns; revealed background, level of intelligence.

#56. 'Character superior' sequences (where the character acts on information the audience does not have) usually don't work for very long -- the audience gets lost. On the other hand, when the audience is in a 'superior' position -- the audience knows something that the characters do not -- it almost always works. (NOTE: This does not mean the audience should be able to predict the plot!)

#57. Run each character through as many emotions as possible -- love, hate, laugh, cry, revenge.

#58. Characters must change. What is the character's arc?

#59. The reality of the screenplay world is defined by what the reader knows of it, and the reader gains that knowledge from the characters. Unrealistic character actions imply an unrealistic world; fully-designed characters convey the sense of a realistic world.

#60. Is the lead involved with the story throughout? Does he control the outcome of the story?

That was good. Thanks.

That's an excellent list. This one would be good to sticky, so there is some basic guideline when it comes to reading and reviewing scripts. Get rid of the "It rocked" or "I didn't like it" reviews that are nothing more than single line blurbs.

I don't think it's so necessary as a "script reader's checklist" (I won't go through all the questions before writing a review), but it's a great way of checking my script as I'm writing it.

But what one should ask as you skip questions is "why are you skipping them?" Because you don't know the answer, don't need the answer, or don't want to know the answer? None of which are valid reasons for not answering the questions.

I would skip the first step because as a writer it's not my job to imagine the selling of the screenplay but just to write something people want to read. Producers and those guys market the work, I don't honestly care.

Most of the steps are common sense which makes them useless but I see some of them actually working to help.

Everything is marketable when you hire the right people to market it... They were able to market a dick and fart joke film and Pauly Shore so I can almost imagine anything being able to sell with the right people in charge.

Actually the first step is quite a common starting place. In the Workbook section of the screenwriter's bible, it suggest imagining the idea as a completed film, thinking about the trailer, the poster, and generally considering whether you see your film idea in the mainstream and how it would stand up against the hundreds of others that are out there. Let's face it, some ideas don't. If you're writing for yourself, that's fine and no one has to market it. But if you, the writer, can't imagine your film alongside the others, it's a sure sign that your idea needs some tweaking.

Even though we don't handle the official marketing and sales of the idea to the public, it is still our job to write something that can be marketed very easily because you need to market it via query to the agent or producer of the eventual film. The dick and fart films have a particular audience and those films were written for that audience. If you write a dick and fart film, how does it stand up next to the others that have come before? Better or worse? Did you rehash it? Does your conceptual poster match the one you just saw?

I don't see step one as a throwaway, but a very real thing to think about before you consider that your idea will make a good movie. Just because the idea might not make a good movie, it doesn't mean that another medium wouldn't be better for it.

I see most scripts I read as indy films minus yours because it's to epic to be made for that little but still I see them alongside Sideways and other indy films but not against blockbusters even bad ones.

If you seen something original or Star Wars 8 you'd probably walk into Star Wars because this other film is an unknown.

I think if you care to much about all the extra crap you write something that isn't yours and really makes you look bad as a writer when always have to have something mainstream.

I think my ideas as scripts or films could stand up beside the other films in their genre but not blockbusters but I'm being honest some people think they have the greatest idea ever... I picture it as a sleeper hit ha-ha but seriously that's how I feel about most unproduced scripts minus yours.

So call me unprofessional but I think more about the people than I do about it being filmed before I write it. I'm not writing for Hollywood, I'm writing for people... It's that simple.

It's not a throw-away but it certainly isn't that big of a deal unless you're writing the idea specifically for a big company.

a great checklist indeed. it will help me in the future as i write my scripts from here on out.

They all seem helpful, but number 39 just doesn;t seem to ring true.

Number 39 is just as valid as the rest of them.

Quoted from -Ben- They all seem helpful, but number 39 just doesn;t seem to ring true.

Maybe because your longest script is a whopping 15 pages

Well, maybe his next one will be 20. You gotta start somewhere.

Quoted Text Maybe because your longest script is a whopping 15 pages

Actually, i have trouble writing feature length..but something is in the works...maybe..

Everyone has trouble but some think to much about the actual script and do not spend enough time writing it or you write yourself to a stand still. And when you do this you can't get any help as it is not considered an unfinished script and people tend to bitch if you post an incomplete script or even if you post a link in Work In Progress and ask people to read it to help out... Who knows if that would work but I just think people would bitch again.