[wtallis]

> Screenplay is a tool, a blueprint that serves various departments throughout pre-production, production and post-production. That blueprint is also in flux as others are using it. I guess, well I believe one could modernise the whole screenplay pipeline. Trouble is you would have to make a significant advance in order for people to start using it. Every dept. except acting/blocking could start using new system(s) right away. Acting and blocking would still prefer paper.

I think the key insight that's missing is that the content of the screenplay is separate from the presentation. It sounds like there's no reason why a screenplay couldn't be edited as plain text in a font more readable than Courier with changes tracked by an off the shelf version control system. The editor shouldn't have to pay heed to concerns of pagination or paper coloring or version numbering, because all of that can be rather trivially automated by inspecting the version history and rendering a printable PDF as needed. Some actors may prefer looking at an archaic presentation of the information, but that requirement doesn't need to influence how anybody else interacts with the information.

[Keyframe]

I have to provide some more insight.

Regarding font - Courier 12pt is standard monospace used. People have (and do, but not often) use different monotypes. Using a monotype with certain margins and along with several other rules yields you a consistent overview of the script where the result of using all of that is approximately 1 minute of screen time per one page of script. That's why it's used. Non-mono font wouldn't yield same results.

Further on, people do not interact with scripts on paper anymore. You do print yourself a copy if you prefer to read it like that. Also, actors (and some people on set) do have a physical copies due to the nature of table reads (I've seen tablets on table reads), and blocking (moving around the set with script in hand, rehearsing).

In reality, no one has to even think about it. Reason is because there is one (or select few) producer and multiple consumers of the script. One persons job is to make sure everyone has the latest revision that they base their work on and that's it. It would be an issue if everyone had commit rights, but they don't. They just checkout latest commit and have the person that checks it out for them! Sounds dire, but is actually painless.

[wtallis]

> Regarding font - Courier 12pt is standard monospace used. People have (and do, but not often) use different monotypes. Using a monotype with certain margins and along with several other rules yields you a consistent overview of the script where the result of using all of that is approximately 1 minute of screen time per one page of script. That's why it's used. Non-mono font wouldn't yield same results.

I'm certain that an automated word count could easily provide a more accurate heuristic and free up the graphical presentation to be more readable. This heuristic is exactly the kind of narrow-minded unwillingness to consider modern solutions that is so appalling. And the conventions were obviously not constructed for this purpose; they're relics of long-gone technological limitations and the 1 minute per page rule of thumb was probably not formulated based on a thorough measurement.

[skepticaldrunk]

I would say "appalling" is a bit of a strong term for an industry that you're not involved in that doesn't perform a particularly critical function in society. To relay a saying often expressed on set, "We're not curing cancer."

I'll relay another joke from set:

A new Assistant Director comes on to help the second unit on Gone with the Wind. He finds the script supervisor.

AD: How much are we shooting today?

SS: One eighth of a page.

AD: You're kidding! We'll be home in an hour.

SS: I don't think so.

AD: What do you mean? What are we shooting?

SS: Atlanta burns.

The point is that it's an inherently fuzzy process, and heuristics work a lot of the time, but nobody cares about a system that works a lot of the time.

If you design something better, I'll be glad to use it (hell, I'll help you design it), but please don't be so quick to judge. It's a business of edge cases, and it's been built as such.

If it makes you feel any better, a lot of multicam shows and studio shows have switched over to all digital script distribution that's automatically distributed. But there is absolutely no replacement for a paper script for a lot of really compelling reasons.

[smallnamespace]

> And the conventions were obviously not constructed for this purpose; they're relics of long-gone technological limitations

That's true of every single system that evolves organically, including software engineering. Or do you think all the cruft that accrues in every programming language is due to rational design?

The question isn't whether some new convention would be better, it's whether the benefit would outweigh the transition cost of either getting everyone to adopt it all at once or having crossed wires as people use different conventions at the same time.

[wtallis]

Technical cruft usually only sticks around because cleaning it up would either be a monumental effort, or changing it would break other things that would be too much work to update. Either way, there are meaningful trade-offs that justify keeping around flawed systems.

Switching to a more readable font is a change that is trivially implemented now that nobody actually uses mechanical typewriters, and it would break nothing. Using a more readable font doesn't force you to include any more lines of text per page, so the dubious heuristic about page count and screen time wouldn't necessarily even be a casualty. There are no other substantive reasons to reject improvements to readability.

I certainly understand that there will be oddities of the film production process that are not worth fixing. But people who go out of their way to defend the pointless use of bad typography on printed documents that are meant to be read are in no position to be making credible arguments in defense of the less obvious flaws in their standard practices.

[smallnamespace]

> There are no other substantive reasons to reject improvements to readability.

Inertia and information signalling are substantive reasons in an industry that is governed by convention and lots of networking.

Using a different font is a signal to the reader that you are ignorant of industry conventions, and hence less likely to have written a script that will follow acceptable norms--or perhaps worse, that you're a special snowflake who is willing to distract the reader from the content of the screenplay in favor of fiddling with form.

This is the same reason why most people don't make stunningly bold typographic choices when writing a resume -- they're not in a position of power, and they're either not confident enough in their own taste or the reader's taste to take any risks. Guides for aspiring scriptwriters basically suggest that you stick to the 'standard format' and not deviate from it [1].

Certainly, if you were writing and submitting scripts, feel free to implement your own suggestions.

[1] https://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-gui...

> Using a more readable font doesn't force you to include any more lines of text per page, so the dubious heuristic about page count and screen time wouldn't necessarily even be a casualty

So the heuristic would be a casualty, unless you jumped through hoops to make sure it still worked. Does this still sound like a cost-less switch to you?

[wtallis]

> So the heuristic would be a casualty, unless you jumped through hoops to make sure it still worked. Does this still sound like a cost-less switch to you?

Unless somebody has actually done an analysis of how well script page count correlates to screen time with both fixed width and proportional fonts, the most you can assert is that the heuristic of unquantified accuracy might require adjustment. Conventional wisdom that hasn't been subjected to rigorous analysis shouldn't be presumed to be precise. The film industry certainly hasn't given itself much opportunity to accidentally discover it if proportional fonts turn out to yield a better estimator.

The typographic conventions for scripts were not constructed with the purpose of being used for this kind of estimation, thus it would be completely unsurprising if a study were to find it to be 30% off on average; the rule of thumb itself is the product of at least some rounding already. And there's no reason to believe that a re-calibrated heuristic based on more readable typography would need to have higher variance than one based on typewriters, either.

Computing the typewriter page count of a document is such a simple task that the feature could be added to any relevant piece of software in an afternoon. It would make sense to do so even if you're still going to print it out with typewriter formatting, because glancing at a footnote with those statistics is easier for a person to accomplish than counting physical pages.

[skepticaldrunk]

> But people who go out of their way to defend the pointless use of bad typography on printed documents that are meant to be read are in no position to be making credible arguments in defense of the less obvious flaws in their standard practices.

Screenplays are not meant to be read, they're meant to be understood and produced. Your argument is akin to saying that blueprints are too complicated for the average person, therefore they should be changed. They're not meant to be understood by the average person, they're meant to be understood by industry professionals. Just because you find it less than readable doesn't make it so. Those of us who know what we're doing with it think it's just fine.

I'm sorry you don't find them easily readable, but they're really not meant for you.

[wtallis]

> Screenplays are not meant to be read, they're meant to be understood and produced.

That's nonsensical, unless you mean that they're meant to be mechanically analyzed—page counts, etc. that are obviously easier to accomplish without first printing them out. Even if they are not typically read in the manner of a novel, they're still intended solely for being read by human eyeballs, and for that purpose the typography is obviously deficient in ways that can be improved with no downside.

Repeatedly pointing out that the current system manages to work is not a refutation of the claim that it can be improved. Why are you so unwilling to admit even the most superficial of flaws in your industry's standard practices?

[TeMPOraL]

This. One only has to learn a bit of history of computing in the 60s and 70s to discover just how much crap we have to deal with because of tradition and popularity. We've taken lots of bad turns over the years - and that's beside the fact that today, most of the new things are simple rehashes of the old things that people don't care to read up about anymore.

[coldtea]

>I'm certain that an automated word count could easily provide a more accurate heuristic and free up the graphical presentation to be more readable.

It would also be a recipe for misunderstandings and errors, while showing this information directly in the formatting of the output is instantly recognizable by all, even when printed out.

Clever-er isn't always smart, reminds me of the (not true, but used as a metaphor here) story of the US spending millions to make a pen that can write in space, upside down etc, whereas the russians just used a pencil.

[Keyframe]

If you have better ideas / solutions, I'm sure people will listen. I can provide you with an experience for a (any future) production from start to finish that you can observe.

Sometimes it's the companies that dictate standards. FD is notorious slow mover, yet it's 'an industry standard. I worked on one script with another writer. At that stage it was only two of us drafting the idea and I had a need to see what has changed in a script since I sent him my last version and vice versa. I mailed the dev of Fade In if he could just include a diff (yes, our beloved diff) somehow inside of Fade In. A day or two later it was in. I use it now constantly. Same ol' diff we're used to, kind of looks same as on github as well. Red and green lines and all.

This is an industry with lots of resources and a keen eye on new technologies. If you come up with something that optimises anything in workflow, it will come to open hands.

[TeMPOraL]

If the industry is open for suggestions, then I have a question: how can one make people who design futuristic displays and hacking scenes stop including webpage source as scrolling code examples? Freeze-framing a scene to see HTML+jQuery must be well on its way to become a Hollywood trope at this point! Maybe a library of categorized, MIT-licensed (or something) code samples would be of help? E.g. these snippets look like hacking, these look like future robot AI code, etc.

[skepticaldrunk]

This is actually a really good idea, but it will require industry to step in and provide it. The number of films and shows that get it right are almost nil, but there aren't any consequences when they screw it up. The phone companies stepped in with 555 numbers when they got complaints from customers about people dialing numbers that appeared in films. But with no consequence for showing crappy or nonsensical code, either the writers/video playback guys are going to have to get better (this will happen with increased technical literacy over time, but will be pushed by increased audience technical literacy), or (the software) industry is going to have to step in with its own solutions.

If you want to make it happen right away, make a royalty free stock footage archive in 4k of various snippets of code with metadata on what it's for. Less work=more adoption.

[SolaceQuantum]

I'm incredibly confused at calling courier not a suitable font for reading. Screenplays are meant to be read and understood quickly and the monospace font allows for that more easily than any other font. In fact. Courier has been the staple of editors in publishing houses anywhere from short stories to epic novels. Times New Roman is getting to the levels of "acceptable" but that's mostly all that is allowed or else you're unprofessional and don't understand the industry.

[Keyframe]

I forgot, regarding editing/writing screenplays themselves in other ways. There's Fountain http://fountain.io/ but it's still not widespread.