I really don't mind any number of Cut to/Fade to Black/we see/continual capitalisation of character names/other formatting blimps (but I detest bad grammar and spelling though) as long as the script's great because all of those 'small' things are ridiculously easy to fix. They take minutes. Crafting a superb screenplay that someone is going to want to (a) read (b) option and (c) make into a movie and (d) distribute and (e) buy as end-user is a different matter.
Anyone who rejects your script because of a formatting issue, as long as it's consistent and the script's highly readable from page 1 until the very end is a bit of an idiot. Unfortunately, there are some idiots out there, so unless you know who you're submitting to or they know what your style is then maybe it's best not to offend anyone.
Time for a glass of red I think.
This is my opinion about this -- sure, if you write a great script, most other things will be overlooked.
In my time, I've gotten screenplays where it was clear that the writer had only the most passing familiarity with the basic formatting rules of screenwriting -- but it was a very good script. And it ultimately became clear why -- it was because the writer was professional writer. He was a novelist (mostly of crime thrillers) was giving screenwriting a crack, and you could tell from the writing style that you were dealing with someone who knew what he was doing, even though he didn't quite know all the rules of formatting.
The point about formatting rules, like rules of grammar, even spelling rules, is that they exist for a reason.
A lot of times, especially when conveying these so-called "rules" to beginners, the tendency is to deliver them as mere "rules of thumb" -- this is never done, this is always done, without really trying to convey why certain things are done in certain ways.
When you understand why, for instance, you should tend to stay away from things like flashbacks and fantasy sequences (which beginnings are often warned to avoid) as opposed to simply accepting it as a rule of thumb, then you avoid the sorts of arguments that always start with, "Well, so-and-so uses them, and so-and-so uses them" -- and the replies that go that it's okay when they do it because they're big successful screenwriters, as if promulgating the false idea that there are rules that beginners have to follow but which the pro's get to break.
No. There are things that are difficult to master which beginners tend to get wrong because their understanding of the craft is limited early on, but which, as they become better writers, they can master later on.
Things like "we see" are easy to get wrong. Things like flashback and fantasy sequence are easy to get wrong.
It's not that professionals are somehow given a free pass to "break the rules" -- it's that they understand the rules.
That's why my electrician knows when he needs to turn off the breaker when he's doing something with the wiring and when he doesn't. I, on the other hand, don't know well enough. If he's changing a wall socket, he doesn't bother to trip the breaker. If I'm changing a wall socket, I do trip the breaker.
That's not because he's "breaking the rules" -- it's because he knows the rules a hell of lot better than I do.
So you always have a choice when you're giving advice to beginners -- you can just say -- "always trip the breaker" -- and that's it.
You can say, "Never use 'we see.'"
But then you inevitably have to deal with the fact that they're going to see other people use it and wonder why they manage to get away with it.
And part of the reason that those people manage to "get away" with that sort of thing comes from the same source that allows them to write first rate scripts that sell.
They have mastered the full palette of professional skills that allow them to write scripts at a professional level.
They aren't "getting away" with anything, any more than a prose writer who chooses to use sentence fragments is "getting away" with something - they're simply using these particular things for an intentional effect.
They can do that because they understand how to use them.
And it seems to me best to try to convey not simply the "rule of thumb" to beginners but to at least try to make the larger rule -- the "real" rule clear in respect to these things.
NMS
