Screenplay Template: Real Scripts From Short Films

Most free screenplay templates are a page of placeholders, so you learn where the margins go but not what a good scene heading, action line or parenthetical actually says. We took the real script of SLOP, a 2:32 short film written and made by Simon Meyer of Promptr Studios, which is the starter script that the Story tab of every new Flick project opens with. This page gives you a blank screenplay template to copy, SLOP's real lines for each of the six elements, the full script as a PDF, and the way to start from the same template in Flick.

What does a blank screenplay template look like?

INT. LOCATION - DAY

What we see and hear, in the present tense. Introduce a CHARACTER (30s, one telling detail) in capitals the first time they appear.

CHARACTER
(how the line is said)
What the character says.

SECOND CHARACTER
The reply.

CUT TO:

EXT. NEXT LOCATION - NIGHT

The next scene's action.

• Save the template as a .fountain or .txt file and upload it into a script box in Flick's Story view, which lays the lines out as a screenplay page.
• In a word processor, set every line in 12 point Courier, the screenplay standard that makes one page run about a minute on screen.
• Keep scene headings, character names over dialogue and transitions in capitals, because readers scan a script page by those capitals.

Title page

A title page carries the title in the middle with "Written by" and the writer's name under it, and the contact details and draft date at the bottom, as SLOP's PDF does.

TITLE

Written by
Your Name

Your company
Your email
Draft, Month Year

What goes in each part of a screenplay template?

Scene heading

Open each scene with INT. or EXT., the place and the time, and start a new heading whenever either changes, as SLOP does when the chef carries his plate out of the kitchen.

• CONTINUOUS in place of a time of day means the scene picks up the moment the last one ends, with no time passing in between.

Action

Write action in the present tense as short sentences a camera can film, the way SLOP turns a critic's verdict into a dropped plate, a sound and a slow-motion spill.

Character

Put a character's name in capitals with an age and a detail or two the first time they appear, then in capitals above every line they speak, so a reader can cast them from one line.

Dialogue

Keep each speech short enough to answer back, so the scene moves like an argument, as SLOP's critic and chef trade one-line questions and answers about a stove and a pot.

Parenthetical

Add a parenthetical under the name where a line would be misread without it, in a few words on how it is said or what the speaker does, as with the one word that gives SLOP its title.

Transition

Save a transition such as CUT TO: for a cut that means something, as SLOP's script closes on CUT TO BLACK after the chef's smile, and let every other change of scene be a new heading.

What does a filled-in screenplay template look like?

• The one short scene sets up the whole film: who the critic is, what he did to another restaurant, and the dish he is about to judge.
• Marco's long speech carries the exposition, and Ernest answers in one to four words, which tells you more about him than any description.

Where can you download the full SLOP screenplay?

• Download the SLOP screenplay as a PDF, the same file that the Script to Film card on Flick's home attaches when you start a project from it.
• The script holds 3 scenes: the kitchen, a wordless cooking montage in the style of Wes Anderson, and the dining room where the critic calls the chef's ossobuco slop.
• Watch SLOP on Flick to see 5 pages of script play out as a 2:32 film.
• The starter in Flick leaves out the montage to stay short, so it holds 2 scenes, 4 characters, 35 speeches and 10 parentheticals.

How do you start a screenplay from this template in Flick?

1. 1Open the Story tab

   Start a new project on flick.art and open the Story tab, where SLOP's two scenes are already set out as a screenplay page under the heading Script.

2. 2Write the brief first

   Replace the line under Brief, Narrative and Creative direction with what your film is, what happens in order and how it should look, so the chat has your story to write from.

3. 3Replace the starter

   Type over SLOP's lines yourself, or ask the chat for your script, and it cuts the example scenes in the same edit that writes yours, so nothing of SLOP is left behind.

4. 4Upload or download

   Use the script box's buttons to upload a .fountain, .txt, .fdx, .pdf or .docx script into it, or to download your own script as PDF or Word.

• The headings and the lines under them come in the language you use Flick in, while SLOP's script stays in English, since the film it links to is in English.

Questions about screenplay templates

More on writing and making films in Flick