The Playwright vs. The Screenwriter

What is the major difference between a playwright and a screenwriter?

The playwright's strength is in dialogue while the screenwriter's strength is in the action. In a play there are not many props, most of what the audience knows it told or revealed to them through speeches. In film it's the opposite, we watch the interactions between character and through their actions and reactions learn about the character.

Screenwriting began on the stage. The Three Act structure of screenwriting is based upon a strategy used by playwright Eugene Scribe. I'll paraphrase D.B. Gilles's The Portable Film School list of Scribes "Five-Act Play"

• Act one: the characters are introduced as well as the situation through conversation or dialogue. A conflict is revealed.
• Act two and three: the action and tension. Drawing the audience into the story, so that they feel invested in the well being of the hero
• Act four: "the stage is generally filled with people" Giles writes and "a scandal or quarrel" is about to happen. You could call this the climax.
• Act five: this is when the happy ending should occur, but if it's a tragedy then at least the audience gets closure. Everything should be clear and logical. 

If you want to see what I mean by the dialogue driven structure of plays click here  shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html It's funny that people can sit through this in a play, but would not stand for it in a film. Of course plays are shorter but even ten minutes of talking on screen is hard to sit through. 

Now the Three Act format of a screenplay breaks down like this. Every page is roughly one minute on the screen. So most feature length films have screenplays that are 120 pages long. Giles notes that now days the length has been shortened to 110 pages. Personally I prefer the extra pages so that stories can breath. I'll write more about that in the next post.  

• Act one: 1-30 pages. This is laying the foundation. We meet the protagonist and maybe even the antagonist. The audience begins to get a sense of the character's personality and some sense of what the major conflict will be.
• Act two: 30-82 pages (110 pages) or 30-90 pages (120 pages). The action part, difficulties arise. The hero's principles are tested. Sometimes something really bad happens and the hero questions everything he's done and why he's doing it.
• Act three: 82-110 or 90-120. The resolution. Does the hero get what he wants? Does he fail, but find new meaning in something else? It depends on the screenwriter, but the film should slow down and come to a logical end. Abrupt ends are awkward and ambiguous ones are annoying.