Stand out. Be different.
Danny Stack has recently been reading a lot of scripts for the Red Planet screenwriting competition.
And he's noticed that a lot of them start the same way.
So if you want to stand out from the pack, go read his list of common ways to begin a spec script.
And then do something different with yours.
Comments
Interesting list from Danny, but it did make me smile as I read his list of Don't Do's.
One of the first scripts I ever wrote started off with a character in bed, moved rapidly to flashbacks, moved to the death of a character/post death trauma, had a chase sequence, had a dream sequence, and had a voice over. Literally all in the first ten pages.
It never actually got made, but it was attractive enough to be optioned by three major British broadcasters over two years, and at least one of those deals only fell apart over budget issues.
Worth adding a caveat to Danny's post: there's nothing absolute about writing...
I don't think Danny was listing Don't Do's, more what regularly crops up, and done badly...
Hi, I entered the Red Planet competition and got the format wrong due to conflicting advice - it was my first script attempt and I thought it was only one scene per page. At least I didn't fall for one of Danny's opening Don't Do's. I had a sociopath with a dead body falling out of the back of his van. Or was that example lower down on the no-no list......
Some older types of script format begin each scene on a new page - for example the EastEnders scripts in our Script Archive - so that probably wouldn't have counted against you.