Script & Screenplay Writing

IB MYP Year 5 · Language & Literature · Unit 1: Creative Writing | Subtopic: Script & Screenplay Writing

📋 What You Will Learn

• Identify and correctly apply scene headings (INT./EXT., location, time of day) and explain their dual function for reader and crew

• Write precise action/description lines in present tense that communicate only what can be seen or heard on screen

• Format character cues, dialogue, and parentheticals according to industry convention, and use parentheticals sparingly and purposefully

• Deploy transitions (CUT TO:, FADE IN:, MATCH CUT TO:) and basic camera directions (V.O., O.S., POV) with understanding of when each is appropriate

• Convey character, emotion, and subtext through dialogue and stage/scene directions — making the page do what prose does without prose's freedoms

• Produce a correctly formatted short screenplay excerpt and analyse your own craft choices against MYP Criteria C (Producing text) and D (Using language)

🔍 Guiding Question When a screenwriter cannot tell us what a character is thinking or feeling — only what we see and hear — what formal techniques make an audience feel the interior life of a person on screen?

🌍 Why This Matters Screenwriting is one of the most widely read — and least taught — literary forms. Every film you have watched began as a script: a document of roughly 90–120 pages that tells a story entirely through images and sound. Understanding how a script works trains you to read any narrative with greater precision, whether you are analysing a film adaptation for Criterion A or producing your own screenplay for Criterion C. The global creative industries are also a rapidly growing career sector; the IB's Global Context Identities & Relationships asks how individuals express themselves within creative communities — and the script is exactly that: a personal voice filtered through a highly disciplined, collaborative form.

1 · What Is a Script? The Blueprint Analogy

📖 Definition — Screenplay / Script A screenplay (or script ) is a written document that describes a film or television drama in terms of what can be seen and heard — scene by scene, shot by shot. It is not a finished product but a blueprint : a precise set of instructions from which directors, actors, designers, and editors build the work.

The fundamental discipline of screenplay writing — and what makes it so demanding — is its restriction . Prose fiction can enter a character's mind: "Montag felt the city rushing past, the heat of it pressing against his neck like a premonition." A screenplay cannot. If it cannot be filmed, it cannot be written. A character's loneliness must be shown through an empty seat, a glance that slides away, a hand that reaches for something and then stops. This forces the screenwriter to think in images and action , which is one reason studying the form sharpens your literary analysis of any text.

Drama, as the MYP reminds us, is one of the four literary forms. Where a stage play specifies what happens in a theatre, a screenplay specifies what happens through a camera. Both depend on dialogue and stage/scene directions as the sole carriers of meaning.

🔗 Analogy — The Architect's Plan Think of a screenplay the way you think of an architect's blueprint. The blueprint is not the building — it is a set of precise instructions that make the building possible. A good blueprint is utterly specific about structure, yet leaves room for a craftsperson's skill. A good screenplay is the same: it specifies what must be seen and heard, while leaving room for a director's eye and an actor's performance.

2 · Scene Headings — Anchoring Time and Space

📖 Definition — Scene Heading (Slug Line) A scene heading (also called a slug line ) opens every new scene. It tells the reader three things: INT. or EXT. (interior or exterior), the location (specific place), and the time of day . It is always written in UPPER CASE and sits flush with the left margin.

The three elements of a scene heading