Maniac Mansion moviescript

[GarageGothic]

I disagree with esper that Hollywood doesn't want descriptive passages in screenplays. As long as it's short and to the point, descriptions of how locations and characters look, how they perform the action, all these things are just as important as the dialog. What you should never do though, is do the blocking in the script, that is breaking the action into single shots and camera angles. The same thing goes for titles, unless you have something very special in mind (the scrolling text in Star Wars should probably be mentioned in the screenplay).

And if Drew Carey can't tell the difference between action and dialog, either you've used the wrong format for the screenplay, or he's just a moron

I've referred to Ted & Terry's website many times before, but I still think their columns are some of the best advice you'll ever get on screenwriting, even when you disagree with their ideas:
http://wordplayer.com/columns/welcome.html

[Mats Berglinn]

Yeah, GarageGothic, that's why I also disagree with esper. I've checked all the scripts of Star Wars so far on the site and they all mentions that the crawl text at the start. So "The Man" that esper mentioned was Hollywood. Never thought of that.

Do mean Ted & Terry as in Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the guys who wrote screenplays for Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean? I'll check out the site soon.

[GarageGothic]

Yes, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. They're craftsmen rather than artists, but no matter what you think of their work (they made crap like Small Soldiers and Godzilla as well as the two great films Mats mentioned) , they certainly put more thought into the process of screenwriting than most others.