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    Posted: 16 Feb 2026 at 12:27am
Good evening all, and I hope uou're enjoying the competition so far. 

I have a formatting question. My outline has brought me to a screenplay that is going to consist largely of a "movie within a movie." There will be a short intro in "real time" then an instructional film will be shown. Occasionally we will cut to reactions of people in "Real time."

Anyway, how should I format that? Sluglines with "-ON SCREEN," some
Notation on character names in dialog, or what? 

I reviewed the screenplay for Tropic Thunder which starts out that way. But I wanted to shout out to you all to lean on your expertise what might work best. Based on my outline there will probably be a page and a half of "intro" in "real time" and 5-6 pages of the movie within the movie followed by a coupme of pages of conclusion.  

Thanks in advance for any advice. Good luck!
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It will always depend on how it reads and flows. Clarity and flow is priority, so tweak as required to make it clear and clean. 

Without reading the script, I think I'd go: 

INT. OFFICE/ GYMNASIUM - INTERCUT - DAY
Characters in the office watch the INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO set in a GYMNASIUM on a TV SCREEN on wheels.  

ON SCREEN host addresses the viewer directly. 

HOST
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. 

Characters in the office react. 
JIM
This guy again. 

And so on, only adding 'ON SCREEN...' and 'IN OFFICE...' at the beginning of actions for clarity as needed. 

The pros of this setup is that you establish up front what the situation is, but then after that you let the scene flow and keep the page clean without interrupting the scene with headings. 

HOST (V.O.) tag will also be needed if you want to visually show the real time characters while hearing TV person. 
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Originally posted by beckyrcollins beckyrcollins wrote:

It will always depend on how it reads and flows. Clarity and flow is priority, so tweak as required to make it clear and clean. 

Without reading the script, I think I'd go: 

INT. OFFICE/ GYMNASIUM - INTERCUT - DAY
Characters in the office watch the INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO set in a GYMNASIUM on a TV SCREEN on wheels.  

ON SCREEN host addresses the viewer directly. 

HOST
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. 

Characters in the office react. 
JIM
This guy again. 

And so on, only adding 'ON SCREEN...' and 'IN OFFICE...' at the beginning of actions for clarity as needed. 

The pros of this setup is that you establish up front what the situation is, but then after that you let the scene flow and keep the page clean without interrupting the scene with headings. 

HOST (V.O.) tag will also be needed if you want to visually show the real time characters while hearing TV person. 

Thanks for taking the time. It was reassuring to get a second opinion!
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This jogged a memory of The Nice Guys which has an instructional video play for some school kids at the beginning of the movie/script. Shane Black formats it like this:

INT. GRADE SCHOOL CLASSROOM - LIGHTS DIMMED

A roomfull of sullen, vacant-eyed kids (mean age of, say 13) sit watching an ancient EDUCATIONAL FILM. Subject: GRAMMAR.

ONSCREEN - A young boy holds up a white beach towel:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Bart has a PLAIN towel.

The word "adjective!" appears on screen. DING...! and then Bart is replaced with a little girl clutching a YELLOW TOWEL:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Sarah has a BRIGHT towel.

DING...! Another kid, another towel. This one's multi-colored:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Jonathan has a GAY towel.

The classroom erupts in LAUGHTER... Apparently this is the funniest thing ever. One kid actually falls out of his seat.

--

So he basically uses ON SCREEN for the slugline, and (ON FILM) for the dialogue, but doesn't use any specific action to indicate we're flipped back to the classroom away from the video.

I hope that's helpful!
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Originally posted by nickwascreative nickwascreative wrote:

This jogged a memory of The Nice Guys which has an instructional video play for some school kids at the beginning of the movie/script. Shane Black formats it like this:

INT. GRADE SCHOOL CLASSROOM - LIGHTS DIMMED

A roomfull of sullen, vacant-eyed kids (mean age of, say 13) sit watching an ancient EDUCATIONAL FILM. Subject: GRAMMAR.

ONSCREEN - A young boy holds up a white beach towel:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Bart has a PLAIN towel.

The word "adjective!" appears on screen. DING...! and then Bart is replaced with a little girl clutching a YELLOW TOWEL:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Sarah has a BRIGHT towel.

DING...! Another kid, another towel. This one's multi-colored:

NARRATOR (ON FILM)
Jonathan has a GAY towel.

The classroom erupts in LAUGHTER... Apparently this is the funniest thing ever. One kid actually falls out of his seat.

--

So he basically uses ON SCREEN for the slugline, and (ON FILM) for the dialogue, but doesn't use any specific action to indicate we're flipped back to the classroom away from the video.

I hope that's helpful!

Oh SNAP! Thanks. That was a great formatting suggestion. Particularly given the page limit. Helps eliminate extra sluglines and line spaces. 

Thanks! Good luck if you are writing this week!
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Hi Y'all.

So. I've spent a ton of time this week researching this formatting stuff. I've also been researching and writing. And I don't know that anyone is actually paying any attention to this. but I did want to share my final formatting strategy with much respect to "beckyrcollins" and "nickwascreative" for weighing in. 

My research left me with the conclusion that "whatever you do, it should be freakin' consistent!"

So, without revealing anything specific about the story, I want to share, for a moment, the strategy I used to format this screenplay which has 6/10ths of the script as a movie-within-a-movie.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM - LIGHTS DIMMED

X character starts film,

ON SCREEN blah blah blah happens action line

CHARLIE BROWN
Dialog. Dialog. Dialog

IN HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM,  students react to the content of the movie...action line

CHARACTER NAME
Oh, my gosh! What a terrible movie!

ON SCREEN, terrible movie continues...action line

CHARLIE BROWN
blah blah blah dialog

Charlie watches Snoopy climb onto his house...action line.

IN HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM, students laugh.

etc. etc. etc.

(for a big break, I introduce a slugline)

INT. HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM -LIGHTS DIMMED

A student bolts out of their desk and rushes for the door.

That is the way I formatted it. I have shared it with one external reader and she says the screenplay flows enough that she understands the intercuts between the classroom and the on-screen film.

Anyway. Thanks in advance for any sharing/comments. I wish you all well.
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I ended up doing something similar funnily enough! More like a montage though rather than a continuous scene. Honestly when it comes to formatting, as long as it's consistent, clean, understandable and doesn't undermine the expected screenplay format, it's probably fine.

SERIES OF SHOTS: 
- ON SCREEN action
- character reaction
- ON SCREEN action
- character reaction
END OF SERIES OF SHOTS. 
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Originally posted by beckyrcollins beckyrcollins wrote:

I ended up doing something similar funnily enough! More like a montage though rather than a continuous scene. Honestly when it comes to formatting, as long as it's consistent, clean, understandable and doesn't undermine the expected screenplay format, it's probably fine.

SERIES OF SHOTS: 
- ON SCREEN action
- character reaction
- ON SCREEN action
- character reaction
END OF SERIES OF SHOTS. 

Hi! Thanks for the assurances. Yeah. I went through it a few times going back and forth with structure. Let a friend read it and she said she understood the movie-within-a-movie sequence clearly, so I went with that. I had to submit today since tomorrow I'm out of pocket.

Good luck with yours!
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