Format Is Power: How Scripts Get Taken Seriously in Hollywood

Christopher Riley is a screenwriter, director, and author with a career spanning award-winning international cinema and major studio assignments. His groundbreaking 1999 German-language courtroom thriller After the Truth earned multiple awards, and his screenwriting work includes projects for Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sean Connery’s Fountainbridge Films, Mandalay Television Pictures, and the Fox television network.

Chris is also the author of The Hollywood Standard, the definitive script format manual celebrating 20 years as a best-selling reference for screenwriters worldwide, as well as The Defining Moment: How Writers and Actors Build Characters. He has taught screenwriting at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 20 years, shaping the next generation of storytellers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:16

So glad you could join us on The Art of Film Funding, where we give independent filmmakers the tools, insight, and inspiration they need to bring powerful stories to life. Today we are thrilled to welcome a guest whose work has quietly shaped thousands of screenplays and careers over the past two decades. Christopher Riley is a screenwriter, director, and author with a career-spanning, award-winning international cinema and major studio assignments. His groundbreaking 1999 German language courtroom thriller, After the Truth, earned multiple awards, and his screenwriting work includes projects for Disney's Touchstone Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sean Connery's Fountain Bridge Films, Mandalay Television Pictures, and the Fox Television Network. As a director, Chris helmed the award-winning short No Time Off for Good Behavior, and recently made his featured directing debut with the family revenge comedy No Reception, now streaming on Amazon. Chris is also the author of The Hollywood Standard, the definitive script format manual celebrating 20 years as a best-selling reference for screenwriters worldwide, as well as the defining moment how writers and actors build characters. He's taught screenwriting at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 20 years, shaping the next generation of storytellers. And Carol, I'm turning it over to you to dive into this essential conversation with Chris Riley.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Thank you, Claire. And Chris, we're so honored to have you today.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Oh, I'm so happy to be here to get to have a conversation with you, Carol.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Good. Well, you're you've done a marvelous job because the Hollywood Standard has been a trusted industry reference for 20 years. That's fantastic. So, what originally compelled you to write a book focused purely on script format? And why did you feel that this was so urgently needed?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

When I first came into the film industry, my very first job was at Warner Brothers in their script processing department. And my job was to proofread their scripts, everything that was in development and in production at the studio, both features and television, to put scripts in proper format for the executives, uh, for the cast, for the crew. And so I accidentally learned way more about script format than any person should know. After I had worked in that department for quite a few years, I sold my first feature screenplay. And I started seeing that there was no real reference that made the information that I had learned at Warner Brothers available to my fellow screenwriters. And um, my wife suggested I write down what I know and see if it could uh get published as a book. Uh and so there were some other books that touched on screenplay format, but nothing that was comprehensive and up to date. Uh and so the Hollywood Standard ended up really filling that need. Uh, and I love getting emails from other writers uh saying thank you so much. Either this helped me finish my first script, or from working professionals saying I keep this book beside my computer as I write and uh and reference it uh as needed. Uh so it seems like there was a need. It it just happened because of my work at Warner Brothers that uh I had this knowledge that was um so specialized. Um, most people would not want me to talk to them about 40 pages worth of information about shot headings. Uh, but it worked out pretty well in a reference book.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Oh, of course, because I've I've listened to filmmakers being in this nonprofit raising money with filmmakers, say my script was rejected because the format was wrong, and they're just I don't understand that is their attitude. So it's a very important thing. People in the industry expect a lot from a writer. So many writers truly underestimate how much format affects perception. So, from your experience, how often does formatting alone influence whether a script is taken seriously or rejected outright?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

I think that the format plays a role 100% of the time, in the same way that if any of us shows up for the most important job interview of our life, if we show up in our pajamas, there's no way that doesn't affect the perception of the person we're meeting. And uh I format for the writer is as important as focus is for a cinematographer or keeping the boom out of the shot is in creating an impression of this is a this is a movie made by or a screenplay written by a professional. And so I can have the expectation that maybe this one is going to be wonderful, which is what we're always hoping when we pick up a script.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Sure, sure. I agree. I felt that way many times. So, but you describe format as the language of the industry. So can you explain why mastering this language is especially critical for independent filmmakers?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Well, independent filmmakers are uh, as all filmmakers, needing to gather a team. And that is going to include producers, directors, actors, uh, financiers. And before the film is made, the thing that represents the film, that creates the magic of the film, is the screenplay. So we have to create a professional impression that communicates our competence. Once we get to the place where the film is being made, we also want everyone on this really large team of creative collaborators to understand what is this movie we're making, what what is the scene, what's the subtext, uh, and what's the imagery? And professional industry standard format allows all of us to have a common understanding of what is the vision that we're creating. Uh, and it also allows the writer to have confidence that they have communicated in a way that's clear and professional, because otherwise, we can spend a lot of our creative energy and time fretting about how do I set up that shot? How do I actually describe that on the page so I don't embarrass myself? I don't want writers to be spending their energy on that. There are far more interesting things for screenwriters to think about, like characters and story.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Exactly. Um, one of my favorites uh about subtext is Chinatown. And that that first scene where uh Jack Nicholson is talking to someone and uh he goes to get to give, you say, You want to drink? They say yes. So he turns around to open his cabinet, and we see that he has two bottles of scotch, expensive and cheap. He pours the person the cheap scotch, okay? So character. Um so he this guy isn't worth the good scotch. And then I think it's a woman in the scene. The woman starts to cry, and her tears fall on Jack's desk. He wipes those off immediately. Like, how could you do that? He has he doesn't have a lot of feeling for other people, so we get that. He's kind of a loner, uh, and he's uh tight with money, and so difficult. I would say a difficult person. Immediately, you get that. I think that that's the writer doing an incredible job to say, here's the beginning character you're going to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

That's exactly right. So our job is to peel back the layers of characters and show you who they really are. And the the artistry, the genius of a really good screenwriter is to find ways to do that, to make that invisible character quality visible to the camera so we can photograph it and show that character to the audience in a way that allows them to understand who we're dealing with.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yes, because it's that's a feeling, you see, that's telling us the emotional feeling that this are feelings this man has, and you're into the character right away. Uh so what are the most common formatting mistakes that you see in scripts that immediately signal amateur?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I I think probably the most the most common mistake that I see with newer writers is that they overwrite. And that may mean that they use just too many words to describe a setting or a character. Uh the the form of screenwriting is all about economy of language. We do so much with so few words. Um other times writers will add way too many shot headings, and they're getting way too specific and trying to direct the movie on the page. And that ends up making the reader's job really hard because it's like they have to hack their way through a jungle to get to the actual characters and the actual story. And some newer writers will say, Well, but I plan to direct this, and I can see all the medium close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots, and I want to describe all that on the page. And I would just say, Well, why don't you look at the writing of Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo del Toro and some other writer directors and see how spare and poetic their writing is. Uh, they don't direct on the page, they understand that that's a separate stage of filmmaking. Uh and you want to trust your director, you want to trust your actors, you don't need to describe every emotion in parenthetical direction. If somebody says, I'm going to kill you, you don't need to parenthetically say angry. Um, we get that. Now, if you're playing against the obvious emotion and you instead say lovingly, I'm going to kill you, that's a useful parenthetical direction because it otherwise would be lost. Um if you can say something with three words instead of five words in a script, three words is always better. Make every word pull its weight or throw it overboard.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Well said. That is brilliant. You know, Slow Horses is one of my favorite TV shows. That is so well written. And Chris, there was a scene recently in the last uh uh set that they uh that was online where um as uh as he's talking everybody is listening carefully to what he's saying because they've been uh sequestered and they're under someone's control and they're not able to leave the room, they're all being held. And he starts talking about something that happened long ago, and then all of a sudden, the this happens, that happens, and they're all set free. And you it is so well written, and each word has a separate meaning for a different person in the room. He's giving them actions, all right? So that at one point someone throws something, somebody grabs it, they light the lighter, and uh they explode fire in someone's face, the guns disappear, they're free. You have to play that two or three times to get how brilliant that was. That it was maybe only 90 seconds of dialogue, but it it told a whole story and individually addressed the people in the room telling them what to do. I I found that was fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I love that. I want to go, I want to go watch that. The that's a great example of two things. I think one is that we want every word to mean something. And the other thing is there's subtext there. There was something, there was meaning below the surface of the words. And one of the things that's brilliant about subtext is it gives the audience something to do. It trusts the audience to work out the puzzle. We we give the audience clues and trust that they can put those clues together to understand what's really going on. When the audience is able to work out that puzzle, there's a little pleasure that goes with that. And also, we as people don't often say directly what we mean. In the case you're describing, he can't say directly what he means because he's trying to hide it from some people in the scene and reveal it to others. Uh, but we're doing that all the time. Uh, we're trying to protect ourselves from rejection so we don't directly say, hi, I find you attractive. Would you go out with me? Uh we beat around the bush and come from some oblique angle. That's interesting. And it's it is human, uh, and that's good writing.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Good writing. Yes, absolutely. So independent filmmakers often wear multiple hats. And how does clean professional formatting help a filmmaker communicate competence and credibility when they're pitching to investors?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

If if I'm an investor and I'm going to invest my money in a film, I want to know that I'm investing in someone who knows what they're doing. And uh and I certainly, so that's part of it, is just conveying the competence. Another part of it is that investor is going to read the script. And like anyone, if they stumble over what has been written because it isn't clear or it's ambiguous, and they have to page backwards, that is death. You want to always keep your reader moving forward, and you want to remove every bit of friction that can get in their way. The biggest compliments I've gotten from uh readers of my scripts, generally producers, is either I picked your script up late at night to put myself to sleep, and I ended up reading all the way through, and uh I've been waiting for the sun to come up so I could call you. I was so excited about it. Or others just saying, oh, it was such a fast, easy read. What that means is you've gotten all the friction out of the way, and you allow the reader to have the experience of living inside the movie that you're creating. Uh when when we watch a movie or read a really well-written script, we enter this kind of dreamlike state. And the last thing as a writer I want to do is wake the dreamer. I want uh so I don't want speed bumps, I don't want confusion, and professional clear format removes those those speed bumps and lets my vision really speak with uh with a strong, clear voice.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Wow, strong, clear voice is true. Well, you've worked with the studios, the networks, and uh international production. So do formatting expectations differ across markets, or is there a universal professional standard that writers need to follow?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

With small variations, uh the standard is really similar around the world. Uh in the UK, their standard sheet of paper is A4. It's a little, it's a little narrower and a little taller than our eight and a half by 11 page in the United States. Uh but scripts are scripts. When I was at Warner Brothers, I had access to our paper files of scripts going back to the silent era in the 1920s. And I could pull those scripts out, hold them in my hand, and see that the format, even 100 years ago, was the same. The only difference between a script for the silent era and today was that we've added dialogue. But otherwise, it's shot headings, paragraphs of description, and then we have dialogue, and then we have transitions, the cut-to's, the fade outs, the fade ins. It's those four elements: shot heading, direction, dialogue, transitions. And that's always been the case. And whether I'm looking at a script written by Guillermo del Toro or someone in Britain or someone in Hollywood or Austin or Atlanta, the form remains the same.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Right. And they need to adhere to that form. Well, as an educator for over 20 years, what has surprised you the most about resistant or receptive writers and how they are to learning a format as a craft rather than a technical chore? Because it is a craft.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

It really is. And um your question, talking about it potentially as a technical chore, uh, it does make me think sometimes of some writing I've seen from students that that is so technically correct, but without the artistry. Uh, and that doesn't get you there. Um, format by itself doesn't weave the magic spell. We format is the container, but we still have to put the wine in the bottle. And that's character, it's theme, it's struggle, it's connection and disconnection, uh, it's all the emotion that flows from that. If we were writing haiku poetry, the the rules of the form of haiku or the rules of the form of a sonnet are necessary to understand, but then the human artist comes to work and does something that no one else has ever done using that set of tools. I find that screenwriting does what an architect does, it knows how to build a building that won't. Fall down, but it also knows how to build a beautiful building that we can inhabit and live life in and find beauty in. So we need, we need the engineer and we need the mad scientist going on at the same time. And somehow format bridges those two things, and we can begin to use format as a tool in our artistry to paint the movie on the page. And all we have are words. We don't have performance and score and visuals. We just have words. Format helps us to create that magic on the page.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yes, you're so right. Well, your book has been called A Silent Career Saver. So do you have any stories of writers who told you that mastering the format directly changed their trajectory?

SPEAKER_00 24:04

You know, I don't have a big single dramatic story. What I have is a collection of emails that come to me steadily from writers who say, either this book helped me finally finish my first feature-length screenplay. That's really satisfying to me. Or more veteran writers who tell me I keep that book beside my computer and use it every day. Antoine Fisher telling me that he he actually keeps three copies, one beside his computer, one in his book bag, and um for his own use when he's out writing, and then a third to give away to a new writer. And and so, yeah, that's incredibly um that's that's the reward of of the book is knowing I'm helping my fellow writers.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Exactly. That's a good feeling. So, how does proper formatting actually support storytelling and pacing uh when they're reading the script?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So when we write an action sequence, we want it to read like an action sequence. And there is a way to format an action sequence on the page that allows the reader to feel like they are flipping pages really fast. This thing is flying by. There's a different way to write that action sequence where it feels like the reader is trudging through cement. And and I'm so within the Hollywood standard, I've taken the same sequence and shown it formatted both ways. Um, one way with a big block of text that's really intimidating to read, and another way with a bunch of white space on the page that just pulls you through that action sequence and allows you to experience it as this kinetic, fast-moving bit of cinema. There are other times we want to slow things down, and uh and format can allow us to do that. When we really master script format, we can use its nuances to convey pacing, emotion, uh, even performance to a degree, um, and and to some degree even score, um without referencing any of those things directly. And also we can we can create image by image, a scene or a sequence, uh, which is the way sequences appear on screen, but on the page, there are there are formatting techniques that allow us without calling out this is an extreme close-up or this is a medium two shot, um, that we we paint those images so that the reader is actually seeing a movie. And a director is far more likely to envision what we have envisioned, because we've harnessed the tools of format to, in a clear and compelling way, put our image on the page.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Right. And what we haven't talked about are the actors, see, because they're the key people here. And I my son was an actor, and so when he was, he needed to know the underlying essence, and uh and and he would be shaking his head no when he's saying, Yes, I'll do this, but you could so you got the fact he didn't want to do it, but he is doing it. So um you're every word on there has a meaning to the actor, exactly how to portray this character, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:14

That's exactly right. And we want to give actors enough to work with, and and then on the other hand, we want to leave them space to bring what they are going to bring, um, and they make their contribution. So we could write a dialogue scene and only write the words that are spoken by the actors. If we do that, we have left out any pauses that might slow the scene down and leave room for us to feel emotion and leave room for actors to act. And so there are times when we want to write in either a pause or um she bends to tie her shoe um in the midst of a line because it's giving the actor time to think, to feel. Um, and it's a way that we as a writer can put some of that performance on the page. And I think that helps actors to locate what's really going on beneath the surface with the character so that they can embody that and convey that to the audience.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Exactly. Well, my son had uh directors who he loved who loved to work with him. So they always made room for Rick to have his take. In other words, they they would get the shot they were happy with, but then they'd say, okay, Rick, we're gonna do take it again. You can do anything you want. And quite often they used the his version of a little, well, sometimes he magnified what was in the script, and they loved it. So uh, but the the thing is, you're writing for a lot of people, you're writing for the cinematographer, for the director, for the actor, and the prop guy. Everybody has to get involved with that script. It's it's the king on the set, who's doing what and why.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So there's yeah, this this is the ultimate creative group project, filmmaking. And the script is what allows every member of the team to be on the same page working together to make the single creative project, and yet it leaves room for everyone to make their own contribution. And the wise filmmaker remains open to other people's ideas and contributions because there's no way that um I, as a writer, director am going to have the best idea 100% of the time. I am not that smart. And so, but I am, I hope, wise enough to uh appropriate the best ideas of everyone around me as they're offered.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Yes, that it is a co-production. So looking back on 20 years at the Hollywood standard, what do you want writers and especially independent filmmakers to take away as the deeper lesson behind mastering format?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

I want writers to be able to bring their best ideas, their experience of what it is to live this human life to the screen, and I want their ideas to be taken seriously. I know that if they haven't mastered industry standard script format, that is going to make it harder for their creative vision to be taken seriously or to even be understood precisely. So I want to arm them with this particular tool that every professional in screenwriting needs to have so that we can hear their stories, we can see their vision. It is what we need in a world that more and more is dominated by technology. I am a big believer in humans, and it's why I come to the movies, and it's what I want to find is the human behind the story. Um, it's both the storyteller, it's the characters, it's the actors. Umat has a role to play in equipping these human storytellers to tell their best stories to all of us.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Thank you so much, Chris. Um, you shared so much wisdom, clarity, and your decades of experience with us. The Hollywood Standard is more than a formatting guide. It's a professional roadmap that helps writers and filmmakers speak the industry's language with confidence. So to our listeners, if you're writing scripts, pitching projects, or raising money for your films, this book is essential reading. Presentation matters and professionalism opens doors. So if you'd like more resources on funding or producing, then visit FromTheHeartProductions.com where you'll find film grants, fiscal sponsorship, and educational programs that are free and designed to help you succeed. So be sure to join us for our next episode of the Art of Film Funding, where we continue to bring you conversations with industry leaders who empower you to get your films funded, finished, and seen. So thank you again, Chris, for this wonderful interview.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Thank you, Carol. I've loved it.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Great. Claire, as always, thank you. And to our listeners, from our heart to yours, thank you for listening.