Chapter 19

Locking Your Script Pages

Once the script is "published" and handed out to the department heads and talent in preparation for production, the pages must be LOCKED so that any changes made after this time are easily tracked.

If any changes are made to the script after circulation, only the REVISED PAGES will be printed and distributed. The REVISED PAGES must be easily incorporated into the script without displacing or rearranging the original pages.

All of our script writing software is designed to break revised pages according to the rules listed above, and they are capable of "locking the pages" before revisions are made. Once you lock a script, if you add more material to a page than will fit on that page, the program will generate what's called an "A" page and the subsequent writing will be a "B" page, i.e. Page 110A or Page 110B.

Locking Your Scenes

In a published script, scene numbers must also remain the same. In other words, if a scene in OMITTED, though the number is retired, it remains in the script with the word OMITTED next to it. Any new scene must have a letter next to the number to indicate that it was added after the original scenes were locked.

If you add a scene to the script, the program will automatically generate an "A" scene number. Revisions will be automatically generated by script formatting software programs and marked with an asterisk in the right margin.

  1     OMITTED                                                               1*

 2     INT. MASTER SUITE - MORNING                                           2

Expensive designer sheets and comforter covers the nude, shapely body of drop
dead gorgeous JULIE COOPER, 25. Sunlight filters through portholes over the
muscled, tan body of FRANKIE JONES, 38. He pulls the comforter down and begins
kissing Julie's naked body.

                                       FRANKIE
                       Hey, Baby, rise and shine.
                       You've got to get up and outta
                       here.

                                       JULIE
                               (sleepily)
                       What? What time is it?

 2A    INT. BATHROOM - DAY                                                  2A*

The added INT. BATHROOM scene would show us what Julie is doing, while in the previously mentioned scene we only heard her O.S. as the camera remained on Frankie and the original room.