As an actor, I have to say that I find putting the character name in the center is ridiculous.

It's pretty much standard in all of the screenplays I've ever seen. It's also a convention that a page maps to about a minute of film time. Remember, in filming the 1 to 3 minutes of actually usable footage per day of a typical Hollywood film that means one to three pages of a screenplay being consumed.

Whoever established that format was not an actor. Or not one I care to work with! In fact, it seems that format is more important than content. What a world.

The format developed over the years and during the the studio period in US film productions. I'm pretty sure it was a long and slow process and not just anybody is responsible for it. The major advantage of the screenplay format is there is plenty of white space to utilize for additions and director's notes. In fact, screenplays change a lot during the filming of a movie. Plays not as much (except for new ones).

In fact, another convention of screenplays is that any changes made are printed on differently colored paper (more of a teleplay convention), so people know at a glance when something has been added. Those additions get added to the scripts in the morning and often change the physical page count.


It is indeed quite a world.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.