Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Good, but misleading for uncomissioned writers

Customer Rating:

This book is full of authoritative information for screenplay formatting - however there is one major problem. The author makes no real distinction between what is required for spec scripts and scripts already in production. The majority of the book lists the correct way to format shots (wide shots, close ups etc) but these should not be included in spec scripts. A great deal of the information provided is aimed at production script format. Ideally, the book should have been divided into two sections, but unfortunately the organization of the book will likely lead novice writers to include unnecessary direction information and thus format their scripts incorrectly - a great (and surprising) shame for such an otherwise useful book.

Very good	Customer Rating:
I only disagreed with the format used for montages. You don't need alphabetized bullets for each montage sequence. Readers aren't that dumb. Otherwise I refer to it constantly.

A serious must-have for any screenwriter, novice or pro	Customer Rating:
Great reference book for the screenwriter. I've written a couple of screenplays, and thankfully I got this book. It let me go back and fix all the little formatting things that probably tagged me as an amateur. This book is seriously detailed mechanics.

The format bible	Customer Rating:
John August put me onto this book. He said it pretty much covered every question he gets asked about screenwriting format issues. And he's right. Even if you've already written enough screenplays to think you have format down, I guarantee you'll find this a handy reference. It's precise, concise and easy to understand. A good book to have on your desk.

Indispensible

Customer Rating:

I'm a working screenwriter with two produced films under my belt and several more in development, but I still refer to this book on a constant basis. No matter what kind of formatting question I have, this book has the answer. I don't think I've been stumped yet. Case in point: Today I was writing a scene where I wanted to smash cut to some footage from a character's amateur documentary with a minimal break in the pacing. I didn't know how to do it. So on a long shot, I scanned the index of this book and found "home video" addressed on p. 22. Sure enough, Christopher had the answer for me. (You just put "Home Video" in parentheses at the end of the slug line.) So thanks Chris for getting us all of us on the same page. Now if only you could do the same thing for comic book scripts!