Congratulations! You’ve just completed the first draft of your screenplay and you’re ready to go out into the world with hopes of turning it into a visionary cinematic experience. But wait! You just realized the story would work better as a stage play - you don’t want to have to write the entire script over in stageplay format, so what do you do? You apply one of the many pre-stored Final Draft templates that are formatted to industry standards! Here’s how...
A Final Draft template is a reusable document that contains all of the attributes of the script type that you wish to write. In this example, we’re converting a feature-length screenplay to a stageplay template, but this process can be used to apply any template to a script. First, you want to have your completed screenplay open in Final Draft.
Once it’s open and you’re sure of the template you wish to apply, go to Format > Elements > Apply a Template. From the drop-down menu, choose the template you wish to apply (Stageplay in this example) and click OK to get back to your document.
Final Draft will automatically apply and format the script to the desired template and voila! The script is no longer a feature-screenplay, but a stageplay formatted to the industry standard.
Final Draft also offers a free online template library that includes brand-new templates for today’s TV series. To access these templates click HERE.