Anyone who reads it (hopefully a hotshot producer) should learn enough that they start to feel a connection with your characters, and want to see what happens to them. It should also introduce your characters and the general vibe of the story. Your synopsis should give a good picture of your story, including the important ‘beats’ (events) and plot twists. Most importantly, your treatment needs to include your name and contact details. A treatment is a useful thing to show to producers – they might read it to decide whether they want to invest time in reading your entire script. It’s a slightly beefier summary that includes your script’s title, the logline, a list of your main characters, and a mini synopsis. Once your logline’s in the bag, it’s time to write your treatment. If you nail that, you'll be well on your way to taking your feature film to Hollywood. Importantly, you need to show the audience what’s happening, not tell them. Your job is to translate pictures and sounds into words. But it’ll generally start with the hard work and brainpower of one person – in this case, you.īecause films and TV shows are audiovisual mediums, budding scriptwriters need to include all the audio (heard) and visual (seen) parts of a story. It’s usually a team effort, going through oodles of revisions and rewrites, not to mention being nipped ‘n’ tucked by producers, directors, and actors.

Or it can be based on a true story, or something that someone else wrote – like a novel, theatre production, or newspaper article.Ī movie script details all the parts – audio, visual, behaviour, dialogue – that you need to tell a visual story, in a movie or on TV. Well, it can be an original story, straight from your brain. The script for Citizen Kane took 4 drafts to reach the 'final' stage, and then 3 drafts beyond that, this copy being one of the third revised final drafts, and the last in the process.If this is your first time creating movie magic, you might be wondering what a script actually is.

Also, no writing credit appears on the cover or title page. An unusual feature: the pages for the 'News Digest' sequence near the beginning of the film are bound recto-verso, like a traditional book, rather than recto-recto, as normal scripts (and indeed, the rest of this script) appear. The blue revision pages bound in near the end of the script are dated July 19, 1940, and comprise the Everglades picnic scene. Provenance: Serendipity Books the Richard Manney Collection.Ī good copy of the greatest script in cinema history. copy #124' and also noting changes through July 19, 1940, mild toning and staining to leaves, mild dampstaining to lower wrap, stain (spilled white-out?) to upper wrap.

Mimeographed Manuscript, 156 pp, with RKO Radio Pictures Stenographic Department title page marked ' 3rd Revised Final 7/16/40,' in blue RKO wraps additionally stamped '3rd Revised Final.

Final draft 10 image on title page