General Script Notes

1. Character names should only be in ALL CAPS the first time we see them. I guess some people always put them in caps. I dunno if we should include this in our style sheet, but whatever we do we should be consistent in a given script.

2. Make everything active. Don't put "is being" or "is doing", just say whatever it is they're actually doing.

Even more, tell us about what we're seeing. For example:
"Kelly is being guarded by an alien."
should be:
GROK, a big ugly alien, with a thermal BLASTER in one hand and a bottle of MILK in the other, sneers at Kelly; who struggles fruitlessly against the ROPES binding his hands behind his back.

3. I think we ought to standardize the way we deal with scene headings.
INT. - EVIL SHRINE - NEAR OBELISK - NIGHT
Final Draft likes "INT." with the period. And one dash (-) between each element. Really, I'd like to avoid the second part of the scene place ("NEAR OBELISK" in this example) because that'll make it easier to spit out reports and such.

Project Standards

Every idea at the "let's write something down" stage, whether it is a treatment or a script or even just a story, will have a job number assigned to it.
Since we have to have only one person doling out job numbers, in order to prevent duplicates, that person will be me.
A job number will have four digits. "0701" is the first job of 2007. We can only have 100 script/treatment/stories per year, and we'll be out of business by the year 2100.

Here's an example the file name of a script in Final Draft format:

0701 v1.27 Angry Planet.fdr

Notice that the name of the movie ("Angry Planet") can be changed without affecting the alphabetical order of the project. Also note that every time a script is "handed off" to another writer, or any time anyone makes a change to a script, the "v" number is incremented. Here's an example of the above project when someone has made a change and changed the name:

0701 v1.28 Happy Planet.fdr

The job number (0701) will follow this movie until the very end of its life. "0701" will end up on slates and on contracts in order to identify the movie.

Pandora Machine Logo

A naked woman enters a room with a small pool (light dancing everywhere) and a box.

She kneels and opens the box -- her ARM is a ROBOT ARM -- and removes a big GUN with LASERS.

She sweeps the gun across the lens of the camera. BANG!

Titles: Pandora Machine

Our Manifesto

Good acting. Good stories. Robots.

We're going to make genre films. Scripts will be pre-approved by our rep.

The stories will be strong. The acting will be good. There will be action and nudity and, of course, robots.

And they better sound good or it'll be really embarrassing for me.

Pandora Machine

Pandora Machine is a production company which produces genre features.
I'm your host, Andrew Bellware.