Editing Screenplay (section)

=={{anchor|History}}History==
In the early [[silent era]], before the turn of the 20th century, "scripts" for films in the United States were usually a synopsis of a film of around one paragraph and sometimes as short as one sentence.<ref name="Gay">Andrew Kenneth Gay. [https://www.screenplayology.com/content-sections/screenplay-style-use/1-1/ "History of scripting and the screenplay"] at Screenplayology: An Online Center for Screenplay Studies. Retrieved 15 December 2021.</ref>  Shortly thereafter, as films grew in length and complexity, film '''[[scenario]]s''' (also called "treatments" or "synopses"<ref name="Maras">Steven Maras. ''Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice.'' Wallflower Press, 2009. {{ISBN|9781905674824}}</ref>{{rp|92}}) were written to provide narrative coherence that had previously been improvised.<ref name="Gay"/>  Films such as ''[[A Trip to the Moon]]'' (1902) and ''[[The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)|The Great Train Robbery]]'' (1903) had scenarios consisting respectively of a list of scene headings or scene headings with a detailed explication of the action in each scene.<ref name="Gay"/>  At this time, scripts had yet to include individual shots or dialogue.<ref name="Gay"/>

These scenario scripts evolved into '''continuity scripts''', which listed a number of shots within each scene, thus providing [[continuity (fiction)|continuity]] to streamline the filmmaking process.<ref name="Gay"/>  While some productions, notably [[D. W. Griffith]]'s ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' (1915), were made without a script, preapproved "'''continuities'''" allowed the increasingly powerful studio executives to more accurately budget for film productions.<ref name="Gay"/>  Movie industry revolutionary [[Thomas H. Ince]], a screenwriter himself, invented [[movie production]] by introducing an "[[assembly line]]" system of filmmaking that utilized far more detailed written materials, clearly dedicated to "separating conception from execution".<ref name="Gay"/>  Film researcher Andrew Kenneth Gay posits that, "The process of scripting for the screen did not so much emerge naturally from other literary forms such as the play script, the novel, or poetry nor to meet the artistic needs of filmmakers but developed primarily to address the manufacturing needs of industrial production."<ref name="Gay"/>

With the advent of [[sound film]], dialogue quickly dominated scripts, with what had been specific instructions for the filmmaker initially regressed to a list of master shots.<ref name="Gay"/>  However, screenwriters soon began to add the shot-by-shot details that characterized continuities of the films of the later silent era.<ref name="Gay"/>  ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'' (1942), is written in this style, with detailed technical instructions interwoven with dialogue.<ref name="Gay"/>  The first use of the term "screenplay" dates to this era;<ref name="Maras"/>{{rp|86}} the term "screen play" (two words) was used as early as 1916 in the silent era to refer to the film itself, i.e. a play shown on a screen.<ref name="Maras"/>{{rp|82}}<ref name="Gay"/>

With the [[end of the studio system]] in the 1950s and 1960s, these continuities were gradually split into a '''[[master-scene script]]''', which includes all dialogue but only rudimentary scene descriptions and a '''[[shooting script]]''' devised by the director after a film is approved for production.<ref name="Gay"/>  While [[studio era]] productions required the explicit visual continuity and strict adherence to a budget that continuity scripts afforded, the master-scene script was more readable, which is of importance to an independent producer seeking financing for a project.<ref name="Gay"/>  By the production of ''[[Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]'' (1974), this change was complete.<ref name="Gay"/>  Andrew Kenneth Gay argues that this shift has raised the status of directors as [[auteur]]s and lowered the profile of screenwriters.<ref name="Gay"/>  However, he also notes that since the screenplay is no longer a technical document, screenwriting is more of a literary endeavour.<ref name="Gay"/>