Hold your place in line, screenwriter! Sign up for the free Private Beta List right here , without leaving this page. Courier is what is known as a monospaced font, meaning that every letter is given an equal amount of horizontal spacing. Most fonts you see are called proportional fonts, where the letters only take up as much space as they need; this is often considered more esthetically pleasing and easier to read. While not the most attractive font, Courier is very predictable.
A page is about 55 lines, which equates to about a minute of screen time. If we were to use a proportional font, the mixture of spacing would make that rule less accurate. So, get used to writing with it. The Courier Font has a number of variations. While several variations of Courier 12 are accepted as industry standard, it is worth remembering that they are the variations, so they do not set the standard.
Use them with caution. Perhaps you can guess from the name that Courier Final Draft is attached to the screenwriting software Final Draft. When you download the screenwriting software, the font is supplied with it. As this software sets the industry standard for the correct formatting of scripts, it is a well established and trusted font.
Courier Final Draft allows for fifty-five lines on each page. This is aimed to align itself with the screenwriting rule that a screenplay page should roughly equate to one minute of screen time. With close attention to details like this, it is a useful and popular variation of the Courier 12 font. As we have briefly mentioned, a rule of thumb for a screenplay equates one page to one minute of screen time.
Without the correct font, screenwriters may struggle to accurately adhere to this guideline. A script reader has to sift through a huge amount of scripts. Being so immersed in the discipline, script readers spot errors very quickly. Make sure you avoid that pitfall of standing out for the wrong reasons.
Formatting a script correctly is a challenge for any screenwriter. Luckily, there are many paid and free screenwriting software options which cover a lot of the heavy lifting for us.
Using these to your advantage will help you avoid the pitfall of producing an unprofessionally formatted script. Executives and agents deal only in industry standard work.
Anything below that standard will immediately be outed as unprofessional. Make sure your script stands out because of its originality and its skill, rather than because it looks like a poor attempt at replicating the industry standard format.
However, this will alter the structure and shape of your script once you reformat it back into the industry standard size. Our advice is to zoom in on the screen instead of making the font larger. Well, Microsoft Word does not have Courier Using it, then, is admitting that you are diverting from the industry standard. I needed to know what London neighborhood this specific character would live in. So thank you very much for weighing in on that.
John: Excellent. Well, you can help us out on the podcast today because we have a lot to talk through. I want to talk about the experience you and I have had which is a little unusual which is writing with and for an actor, when you know who is going to be in that role and that person is helping you work on the script.
John: I also want to talk about translating action on the page to the screen, which is something that you and I have had a lot of experience with and you have had really firsthand experience with both the first and second Venom. So really going from what three pages look like in your script to what the experience is of shooting those pages and producing those.
And in our bonus segment for premium members I want to talk about visas for international writers. And Kelly Marcel has experience on that, too. John: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Unlike the people who want to listen to the back episodes, we have one episode where you and Craig and I were playing this roleplaying game where my character ended up being killed.
John: We were. I think the ideal amount of alcohol for a Scriptnotes recording is like one to 1. More than that was consumed during the recording of that episode. John: But first we actually have some news to talk about. Basically the movies that were supposed to go to the big screens but actually showed up on streaming services, how they really did. And the answer is they seemed to do pretty well. They actually outperformed a lot of the series that were there. Kelly: Yeah. And I kind of admire for it.
And there are just some movies that you have to see in a room, on a big screen, with a bucket of warm popcorn on your lap. And, you know, he is such a cinephile and a true movie lover that I think he believes in that religiously. And so actually with Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage he has always said it will be a theatrical release. But I kind of love him for really, really, really holding firm on allowing audiences to see this in the theater. But with Cruella that was both a day-and-date.
And so you had the chance to do both. And you were saying you actually got to see it on a big screen in New Orleans because you got yourself a theater for it. Kelly: We did. And Cruella is actually one of those movies that did well streaming.
And so who knows. But I definitely wanted people that I knew to see it on a big screen. And I wanted to see it on a big screen, too.
And there is this incredible little one screen movie theater in New Orleans called the Prytania Theater which is actually the oldest operating theater in New Orleans that dates back to It was the first theater to come back after Katrina.
And the only theater that they had for a while. And it had been badly hit, you know, during the pandemic because it had had to close as did everything. So, I rented it out for an evening and invited all of — this was during a period where everything was open and high vaccination rates, etc. Invited all of our friends, 50 of them, to come and see the movie on a big screen. And it was so lovely and magical to get to experience it that way in this small theater in this little part of town.
John: Yeah. And I got to see Free Guy on a big screen, too, which was all terrific. And yet data like this coming out of this report shows that the studios are making some good money, or at least getting good viewership when they put stuff on streaming. Kelly: Is it 45 days after the theatrical release that it goes to streaming? Because I thought it was a much shorter window now between the theatrical release and then putting it on streaming.
The paid streaming. Really it comes down to box office bonuses which you and I would probably have in our contract as well, but hers are a lot bigger. John: And so I say the premium video on demand is good for a WGA residual, sort of that automatically calculated thing. But her argument is that by releasing it on streaming and theatrically it lowered how much it could make theatrically and therefore she should be compensated for the money she lost out of that.
Kelly: Right. John: Those negotiations are going to be tough. And it really comes back down to knowing how many people saw this movie which the studios and streamers have been loath to sort of share. And this report that came out in Variety Premium talks through basically another way to get at those numbers which is doing kind of like what Nielsen does. And through that they can see that, oh, Raya and the Last Dragon was a big hit in terms of viewership.
John: Or that Luca was a huge hit for viewership, which is not surprising. These are the animated movies that would generally be big family drivers of viewership.
And so my hope, I guess, is that we see more content being needed to go into theaters. And my hope for that would be smaller indie movies going into these slots and us kind of trying to claw that back a bit.
John: It would be fantastic if some of these smaller movies that kind of can only now get a streaming release can find some big screen time, just because there are available screens for it. There were actually screens that they could show these on. And so the movies that would have otherwise never made out to other than New York and Los Angeles could actually make it out to deeper markets.
Because if they were able to show how much people were watching these things you and me and Ryan Reynolds and Tom Hardy would be insisting on a bigger cut of that. Because you and I have definitely come into movies for rewrite situations where a script was written and then a star is attached and we have to sort of tailor the part towards that star.
So I thought we might spend a few minutes talking through the pros and cons and best practices for writers who find themselves in that situation. For you Tom Hardy was a friend from way back, from way back in London days, right? What is that relationship like? What is that discussion like? Because he obviously knows a lot about the character, but you know a lot about the character and you know a lot about writing.
So how we came together is he was setting up a theater company in London. He asked me to come and write for that theater company. So we know it very well. We worked on Bronson together. We worked on Mad Max together. So when it came to Venom 1, having worked with him before I knew coming in that he would have a lot of ideas and that he would have creative input, which he does. And, you know, Venom 1 was kind of a scramble and there was a preexisting script and we were rewriting on set.
And we were kind of like making that movie as we made that movie. And kind of finding out what it was along the way. So when it came to Venom 2 we really knew that it had this very strange tone, sort of this balance between comedy, kind of horror, and typical Marvel action.
And we kind of knew as well what the audience had loved about Venom 1. And so we very much wanted to double down on those things. So, poor guy was doing some very, very late nights. And as we started to break the story together it became obvious that this was half his story and he needed a Story by credit. And so we immediately kind of made sure that he would have that credit, which is unusual for actors.
Although I think Ryan has one, right? John: He does. And so he actually had a writing credit on Deadpool stuff before then. So Drew Barrymore was attached to star and to produce. And with that, you know, she had a clear sense of the tone we were going for and really the initial conversations were all about tone and what it should feel like. The tone of it would have been really different. Having a director onboard obviously early on is also a similar kind of experience because you know what they are aiming for in terms of the movie they want to shoot and in terms of what they actually feel like they can deliver.
Kelly: Yeah, that can get very confusing. I think we were very lucky on Venom 2 because we sort of had the freedom to write the script first before we had attached a director. So when Andy Serkis came onboard he came onboard with a full script. But it can be like that. And that balance between there can be really challenging. Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. John: Yes. Kelly: Completely different personality, which by the way, this is one of the pros of working particularly with this actor is that when I write a scene Tom is literally there on FaceTime performing it back to me, as both Venom and Eddie.
He does both voices and he plays against himself. But it means that I immediately know if those lines are working. Why not go to work and actually have a great day because you got to do something so crazy and amazing? Because — and this is not necessarily about, well it can be about their involvement in the writing, but also one of the blessings of big stars is that people want to make movies with big stars.
And having him invested in the writing of it probably pushes it further ahead. So many friend of mine, directors, big directors and big writers who have big stars attached to their movies and have had them attached to their movies for years. And their movies keep getting pushed and pushed and pushed because these people are very much in demand. Dominguez 8 years ago. Courier New brother..
I always use it.. Janet Scott 8 years ago. Thank you for posting that Vincent, I was not aware of that I use Final Draft. Lina Jones 1. Frank A Rybicki 2. Courier Final Draft is the standard for film scripts. Courier New gives a false page count. Lina Jones 8 years ago. Bennett 8 years ago. Other topics in Screenwriting:. Check out Trending Discussions.
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