The Screenwriting Glossary
The industry runs on jargon. Here's every term your coverage scorecard uses, in plain English.
Above the Line
The creative-talent portion of a film budget — writer, director, producers, and principal cast — negotiated per project rather than priced per day.
Full definitionAct Structure
The division of a screenplay into movements — classically three acts — that shape setup, escalation, and resolution.
Full definitionADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement)
The process of re-recording an actor's dialogue in a studio after the shoot, synchronized to picture, to replace or add lines.
Full definitionAttachment
A named actor, director, or producer formally committed to a project — the currency that converts a script into a package.
Full definitionBackend Points
A participant's share of a film's profits or receipts, measured in points, where the definition of what is being shared matters more than the number.
Full definitionBacklot
A studio's outdoor sets — permanent streets, facades, and landscapes that stand in for anywhere, shootable with stage-adjacent control.
Full definitionBeat Sheet
A structural outline listing every major story beat of a screenplay in order — the skeleton writers build and executives use to diagnose.
Full definitionBelow the Line
The production side of a film budget — crew, equipment, locations, post — priced from rate cards and driven directly by what the script puts on the page.
Full definitionBlocking
The planned movement and positioning of actors within a scene, coordinated with camera placement.
Full definitionBudget Tier
The production cost class a script belongs to — micro, low, mid, or studio scale — determined by what's on the page: locations, cast size, period, VFX.
Full definitionBudget Top Sheet
The one-page summary of a film budget showing totals by major category, typically split into above-the-line and below-the-line costs.
Full definitionCall Sheet
The daily production document listing the scenes to shoot, cast and crew call times, locations, and logistics for a single shooting day.
Full definitionCasting Breakdown
The per-role character description a casting director releases to reps — the document your character work eventually gets compressed into.
Full definitionCasting Call
The public or repped notice that a production is casting specific roles — what it contains, and how the response funnel works.
Full definitionChain of Title
The documented history of ownership proving that a project's rights holder has the legal right to develop, produce, and exploit a screenplay or film.
Full definitionCharacter Arc
The internal change a character undergoes over the course of a story — a belief, fear, or want transformed by the pressure of the plot.
Full definitionChemistry Read
A late-stage audition pairing finalist actors together to test whether the screen relationship works — the last gate before offers.
Full definitionCold Open
A scene or sequence that begins a film or episode before the titles, designed to hook the audience immediately.
Full definitionColor Grading
The post-production process of adjusting color, contrast, and tone to create a film's final look and keep it consistent shot to shot.
Full definitionCompletion Bond
A guarantee to financiers that a film will be finished and delivered — or their money returned. The insurance that makes independent film finance bankable.
Full definitionComps (Comparable Films)
Produced films used as reference points to communicate a script's tone, audience, and commercial potential — 'this meets that' shorthand with financial teeth.
Full definitionCoverage Notes
The craft-dimension commentary inside a coverage report — structure, character, dialogue, pacing — and how to actually use them in a rewrite.
Full definitionCoverage Verdict
The final call on a script's coverage report — traditionally Pass, Consider, or Recommend — and what each actually means for a writer.
Full definitionDailies
The raw footage from each shooting day, reviewed by the director and key team members to check performances, coverage, and technical quality.
Full definitionDay Out of Days (DOOD)
The grid showing which cast members work which days — the scheduling document that converts cast time into money.
Full definitionDeliverables
The technical files, documents, and materials a distributor or festival requires to accept and release a finished film.
Full definitionDevelopment
The phase where a project is written, rewritten, financed on paper, and packaged — everything that happens before anyone commits to shooting.
Full definitionDirector of Photography (DP)
The head of the camera department, who leads the film's lighting and camera work and is responsible for translating the director's vision into the look of every frame.
Full definitionDistribution
How a finished film reaches audiences and earns revenue — theatrical, streaming, home entertainment, and territory-by-territory sales.
Full definitionErrors and Omissions Insurance
Insurance (often called E&O) that protects a production against claims such as copyright, trademark, defamation, or privacy infringement — typically required by distributors.
Full definitionExecutive Producer
A producer credit typically given for securing financing, bringing key elements to a project, or providing high-level oversight rather than day-to-day production.
Full definitionFilm Festival
An event that screens selected films for audiences, press, and industry — often a first public showing and a path to awards, reviews, and distribution.
Full definitionFinder's Fee
Compensation paid to the party who introduces a project to the producer or financier who ultimately moves it forward — paid by the buyer side, never by the writer.
Full definitionFirst Assistant Director (1st AD)
The person who runs the set — owning the shooting schedule, driving the day, and keeping a production on time and safe.
Full definitionFirst-Look Deal
An arrangement giving a studio, network, or financier the first opportunity to consider a producer's projects before they can be taken elsewhere.
Full definitionFoley
Everyday sound effects — footsteps, cloth movement, handled props — recorded in sync with picture in post-production.
Full definitionFountain Format
A plain-text markup standard for screenplays — human-readable, version-controllable, and the format that makes scripts machine-parseable.
Full definitionGaffer
The chief lighting technician, who heads the electric department and builds the lighting plan designed with the director of photography.
Full definitionGap Financing
A loan against a film's unsold territories — the bridge between what pre-sales cover and what the budget needs, priced for its risk.
Full definitionGreen Light
The formal decision to finance and produce a film — the moment a project moves from development into pre-production.
Full definitionInciting Incident
The event that disrupts your protagonist's status quo and sets the story in motion — the promise your screenplay makes to its audience.
Full definitionIndependent Film
Films financed outside the studio system — where the money is assembled deal by deal, and where original screenplays actually get made.
Full definitionKey Grip
The head of the grip department, responsible for rigging, camera support, and much of the equipment that shapes light on set.
Full definitionLine Producer
The producer responsible for the physical production — budgeting, scheduling, and delivering the film for the money. The person who prices your script.
Full definitionLocation Release
A signed agreement from a property owner granting a production permission to film on the property, with dates, areas, and terms.
Full definitionLocation Scout
The process — or the person — that finds, evaluates, and documents potential filming locations against a script's needs.
Full definitionLogline
A one-to-two sentence summary of a screenplay containing protagonist, goal, obstacle, and stakes — the sentence that decides whether anyone reads page one.
Full definitionLookbook
A visual document conveying a film's intended tone, style, palette, and world through curated reference images and short captions.
Full definitionMaster Shot
A shot, usually wide, that covers the action of an entire scene from beginning to end, giving the editor a complete reference for the scene.
Full definitionMidpoint
The turning point near the middle of a screenplay that changes the protagonist's relationship to the goal and reorganizes the second half of act two.
Full definitionMinimum Guarantee (MG)
An advance a distributor pays for a film's rights, recouped from that market's revenue — the number that makes distribution deals real.
Full definitionNegative Pickup
A studio's contract to buy a finished film for a fixed price on delivery — leaving production risk with the producer, and bankable in the meantime.
Full definitionOne-Sheet
A single-page selling document for a film project — logline, synopsis, comps, budget tier, and contact — designed to be forwarded.
Full definitionOption Agreement
A contract giving a producer the exclusive right — for a limited time, for a fee — to try to set up your screenplay, without buying it outright.
Full definitionPackaging
Assembling script, talent, director, and key financing elements into a single sellable unit — how independent films actually get made.
Full definitionPage-One Rewrite
A rewrite that starts over from the first page, keeping the core premise but rebuilding most of the script's structure, scenes, and dialogue.
Full definitionPickup Shots
Small additional shots filmed after the main shoot to fill gaps found in the edit, or a partial retake started midway through a scene.
Full definitionPicture Lock
The point in post-production when the edit is final and no further changes are made to the timing of shots.
Full definitionPitch Deck
A short visual document — usually 8–12 pages — that sells a script's tone, world, characters, market case, and budget before anyone commits to reading 110 pages.
Full definitionPost-Production
Everything after the shoot — editing, sound, music, VFX, color — where the captured footage becomes the finished film.
Full definitionPractical Location
A real place used as a film set — real texture at the price of real-world constraints: permits, neighbors, sound, and daylight.
Full definitionPre-Production
The weeks between green light and camera — casting, crewing, locations, scheduling, design — where a film is actually planned into existence.
Full definitionPre-Sales
Selling a film's distribution rights territory by territory before it's made — converting a package into bankable contracts.
Full definitionPrincipal Photography
The main shooting phase of a film — the most expensive weeks of the entire project, and the legal trigger for many of its contracts.
Full definitionProduction Designer
The head of the art department, responsible for the look of the film's physical world: sets, dressed locations, props, and the overall visual design.
Full definitionProduction Pack
A bundle of producer-facing documents — one-sheet, budget summary, packaging notes — that lets a script walk into a professional meeting.
Full definitionQuery Letter
A short email asking a producer, manager, or company to read a screenplay, built around the logline.
Full definitionRough Cut
An early edited version of a film in which scenes have been shaped and trimmed but timing, music, and finishing are not yet final.
Full definitionSales Agent
A company or individual that licenses an independent film's distribution rights to buyers territory by territory, often at international film markets.
Full definitionScript Breakdown
The scene-by-scene extraction of every production element a script requires — the translation layer between screenplay and schedule.
Full definitionScript Coverage
The internal report a professional reader writes about a submitted screenplay — logline, synopsis, comments, and a pass/consider/recommend verdict.
Full definitionScript Polish
A focused, late-stage pass on a screenplay that sharpens dialogue, tightens scenes, and fixes clarity without changing the structure.
Full definitionScript Supervisor
The crew member who tracks continuity, records every take, and notes deviations from the script so the editor can assemble the film as intended.
Full definitionShooting Schedule
The plan that orders a screenplay's scenes into production days, grouped for efficiency by location, cast, time of day, and complexity.
Full definitionShooting Script
The production-locked version of a screenplay — numbered scenes, locked pages, colored revisions — that every department plans against.
Full definitionShot List
A written list of every shot planned for a scene, with size, angle, movement, and action covered.
Full definitionSides
The excerpted script pages used for auditions and daily on-set reference — the few pages that matter today.
Full definitionSizzle Reel
A short, edited video that conveys a project's tone and appeal — used to pitch a film or series before it is produced.
Full definitionSlugline (Scene Heading)
The INT./EXT. line that opens every screenplay scene — location and time of day, and the raw data every schedule and budget is built from.
Full definitionSound Mix
The final stage of audio post-production, where dialogue, music, and effects are balanced and blended into the finished soundtrack.
Full definitionSoundstage
A purpose-built, soundproofed shooting space offering total control over light, sound, and weather — the studio's core asset.
Full definitionSpec Script
A screenplay written speculatively — no one commissioned it and no one has bought it yet. The calling card of every emerging writer.
Full definitionStoryboard
A sequence of drawn frames illustrating the composition and camera movement of planned shots.
Full definitionSubtext
The meaning beneath a character's words — what they want or feel but don't say directly.
Full definitionSynopsis
A one-to-two-page prose summary of your screenplay's complete story — endings included. The document executives read before deciding to read you.
Full definitionTable Read
A seated, out-loud reading of a script by actors or peers — the fastest way to hear where dialogue dies, pacing sags, and jokes land or don't.
Full definitionTax Incentive
Government programs — credits, rebates, grants — that return a percentage of qualified production spend, and increasingly decide where films shoot.
Full definitionTentpole
A studio's biggest bet — the franchise-scale release whose revenue holds up the rest of the slate, and shapes everything else that gets made.
Full definitionTreatment
A prose telling of your screenplay's story, usually 2–12 pages, written in present tense — the document that sells the movie between the logline and the script.
Full definitionTurnaround
The status of a project a studio has abandoned and made available for others to acquire — usually for its sunk development costs.
Full definitionUnit Production Manager (UPM)
The production's chief operating officer — executing the budget and schedule day to day, approving spends, and keeping the machine running.
Full definitionVoice-Over
Narration or dialogue heard over the picture, spoken by a character or narrator who isn't speaking on screen in that moment.
Full definition