Screenwriting : Language Question by Amelia Fergusson

Thank you so much Oliver!

I have recently written a bilingual script. Most of the action was in English, but the main character was Russian who came to London. So he spoke with his Mother and sister in Russian in couple of scenes. As I was told by my cunsultants, if it is just one phrase - write in parathenticals the language and after that write the text in English. If there is the whole scene in another that English language - you can write in action - Both speak in Spanish. And after that write dialogue in English. There can also be another case - if a character speaks another language, which other characters around him do not understand and it is part of the story, so the audience also does not understand him/her - you can write the line/s in another language, because in this case the reader also do not need to understand.

Having done this a number of times, I agree with Oliver. Sometimes, if the Spanish words are used for emphasis and are commonly known, they can be written in Spanish. It is important for the style to be consistent. Thus, Oliver's suggestion is likely more clear. If you are planning to pitch Spanish-speaking companies for a foreign film, you can write in the country's native language, but that limits pitching English-speaking companies and a heap of festivals. Should you use foreign words with specialized characters (é for instance), they can be added to Final Draft and Movie Magic using the symbols set or ASCII characters. Movie Magic has a means to insert some of the characters without going outside of the program.

It all depends on how you want it presented on screen, do you want it subtitled or not? If you want English subtitles then you'll need to specify that in the parenthetical but there may be times when you just want short dialogue in Spanish without the subs, in that case you wouldn't specify subs in the parenthetical.

Thanks for all the helpful information guys. It means a lot :-)