Alternate Play Formating

Video Transcript

In this clip we're going to cover alternate play format. Now if you're doing any kind of submission you want to make sure you're submitting on the official play format, but this is something where when you see a play like this that's been published, it's an easier, more user-friendly form for actors, I think. So the time you would use this alternate play form is I think if you're doing writing scenes for actors, or if you already have a set venue you know you're going to do, you're not submitting it for consideration. It's going directly from your word processor to your printer to the actors holding the script. You can use white paper, 8x11, standard courier 12. Now you'll key in the title along the top, 4 inches from the left and center it. Then you can key in "setting" and "at rise" against the left margin. The dialog runs all the way across the page from margin to margin. The action will be in parenthesis. All lines of the dialog are single-spaced, even as you see in this long monologue here. To show you another example, this is Times New Roman. I always find it prints a lot better on my printer; it prints darker, it's very easy to read. Now here's a sample of Microsoft Sans Serif, which is also darker. What I did here was in looking over the play, I plopped down a little space and decided to add in a direction. I have the Host hinting to Blaze, the musician, to buy a lottery ticket. So instead of Blaze just coming up with the next line, I want to emphasize it by saying, I'll have in parentheses "Blaze pauses, getting a profound idea," and then he says, "You got any chocolate cupcakes?" So it just punches up the comedy there. The final sample is Microsoft Sans Serif. As you can see it really saves a lot of room because we have no space between the lines of dialog. A little bit tougher to read but if you do want to really save a lot of paper, that is another option as well. So if you're submitting a play, be sure to use official play format. But if you're writing something that's going directly into the actors' hands, consider something that saves a little paper and there's not so much flipping of the pages on stage. But I think it's important that you know your alternatives and we can check out a few samples of an alternative script format.

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