“SCENE B” is centered, bolded and underlined at the beginning of a new scene. This means that all description is in CAPITAL letters, all dialogue is double-spaced and new scenes are lettered rather than numbered, e.g. The scripts use traditional multi-cam formatting.
With Fellowship Season ‘22 upon us, here is another post in what has become a mainstay series for the WGF Library: our TV Spec Script Formatting Primers.īroken in to acts? Yes, a cold open + four actsĬall Me Kat is a multi-cam sitcom. TOBIN FAMILY HOME – ESTABLISHING – DAWN” to “ EXT. In animated shows like these, sometimes the writers include an establishing scene heading to show the exterior of a location before we go inside, e.g. The act headings are bolded in the same way as the scene headings. Act four tends to be shortest, around 5-8 pages.Īct breaks are formatted: ACT ONE / END OF ACT ONE, then at the end of the act four: END OF EPISODE. Acts one, two and three fall into the 8-18 page range. If we’re seeing news footage or a flashback, this is specified in brackets at the end of the scene heading. The scene headings use brackets instead of parentheticals. The description includes lots of visual gags – and is often as funny as the spoken dialogue. Sometimes real, historic speeches are used. RONALD REAGAN (RADIO) (V.O.) or DAN RATHER (TV). When dialogue emanates from the TV or radio, the writers put (TV) or (RADIO) (V.O.) next to the speaker’s name in parentheses, e.g. When archival footage is shown on screen, the scripts specify (ARCHIVAL) in parentheses and bold in the scene heading… or in the description.Īny archival video or audio (both in description and dialogue) is italicized. The show utilizes lots of archival footage. This cue usually occurs about 3-15 pages into the script (usually close to 4 pages in) and is formatted: MAIN TITLE in all CAPS, centered, bolded and underlined.
If you have further, more specific questions about the shows covered in this (or any other) formatting post, please e-mail us at and we can help clarify or provide more info.Īverage scene count: varies - as low as 20 as high as 86įor All Mankind scripts are not broken into acts, but most scripts have a main title cue.
These primers are meant to supply the notes you’d take if you came to read scripts in-person.Īs always, we aren’t able to send out scripts in full as we are not the copyright holders, but we hope this primer jump-starts your research and writing. If you feel stymied by our in-person closure (or live outside LA), this blog series is for you.
You might be frustrated you can’t come in and look at them. If you’re applying to a fellowship or taking a TV writing class or just trying to learn the mechanics of TV writing as you build your portfolio, we likely have scripts you want to look at in the library for your research-scripts that you can’t find anywhere else.