Drafting the Short Screenplay...

Writing the Short Film

Conceiving Our Story

Determining the Structure

Discovering/Crafting Images

Writing Scenes

Tips for Writing Scenes

Formatting

Exercises

Step Outline

Drafting the Short Screenplay: Exercises

Here are a few exercises that will help you to write your screenplay.

1. Take the story you've been working on in the exercises above, and write a step outline. If you don't have a story, you can still do this exercise. Simply take a short story or a newspaper clipping and think about the visual scenes necessary to translate this story into images.

2. In order to practice making the internal visible, choose a character from your story and then write a brief internal monologue for that character. Then think of ways that you might make this monologue visual.

3. Try writing a scene, using the proper screenwriting format. Then ask yourself: Did I call shots, or did I write shots? Do I have unnecessary exposition, and if so, how can I eliminate it? How are my verbs? Adjectives? Adverbs?

4. Go ahead and write a first draft of your screenplay. You're ready!