By Kate Trgovac
As an emerging screenwriter, I regularly look for inspiration for my next project. These days, I’ve been reading a lot of film and television scripts. Screenwriting has its own formatting standards; reading scripts is a great education in that standard. Plus, I love seeing how screenwriters actually wrote the scene that shows up in a finished production. This is also a good education in how writers and directors work – seeing what’s on the page then watching what’s on screen – and how that differs between TV and film production.
When I’m looking for a script (aside from just Googling “name script PDF”), I try one of these sites:
- Deadline’s article series “It Starts on the Page” profiles TV scripts from the TV awards season. It’s a new series, so I’m not sure how long it will be up. Check it out soon. One of my favs – the pilot of Bridgerton!
- The Daily Script’s Movie Script Archive is choc-a-block with film scripts. Lot of good older scripts here.
- The BBC Writersroom has an online script library where they put up TV, Film and Radio scripts that they have produced. So good. If only the CBC would do something similar!
- The TV Writing archive is my absolute fav source for scripts. It has lots of pilots from current and past seasons, some animation scripts plus bibles and pitch docs from several shows. So much good content here!
Thanks Kate. You always have the best resources. Reading scripts is so valuable.