How to Format a Screenplay Title Page

What goes on a screenplay title page

The title page is the only page of your script that is not the script. It exists so a reader can tell what they are holding and how to reach the person who wrote it. Everything on it serves one of those two purposes, which is why the standard screenplay title page format is almost empty.

• The title, in ALL CAPS, centered, roughly a third of the way down the page. Some writers underline it or wrap it in quotation marks; plain caps is the cleanest and the most common.
• The credit line, centered two blank lines below the title: Written by for an original, Screenplay by when a separate Story by credit exists.
• Your name, centered one blank line below the credit line, in normal case.
• Contact details in the bottom left or bottom right corner, flush to the margin: name, email, phone. If you are represented, your representative's contact goes here instead of yours.
• A source line, only if the script is an adaptation: Based on the novel by and the author's name, centered beneath your name.

Set in the same 12-point Courier as the rest of the script, on the same US Letter page with the same margins. A text mockup of a standard spec title page, with the page width shown as it would print:

                            THE LAST FERRY


                              Written by

                               Mara Voss





















Mara Voss
[email protected]
(555) 555-0100

That is the whole page. No page number, because the title page is not page one; numbering starts on the first page of script, as the screenplay margins and font standard describes. No images, no logo, no tagline. A reader who opens a script and finds a bare title page relaxes a little, because it looks like every other script they have read this month.

Where each element sits on the cover page

The exact vertical position of the title is a convention rather than a measurement, and every screenwriting application places it a little differently. The accepted zone is between a third and halfway down the page, so the title block sits in the upper-middle with plenty of air around it. The contact block goes in the bottom corner, inside the normal 1-inch bottom margin and flush with whichever side margin you choose.

Bottom left is the older US convention and bottom right is at least as common now; neither will raise an eyebrow. What matters is that the contact block is in a corner, not centered under your name, and that it contains details that work. A script that lands on the right desk with a dead email address is a script that never gets the call.

Credit lines have a grammar that producers and guild readers take seriously. Written by is the credit for a writer who created both story and screenplay. Two writers who worked as a team are joined with an ampersand, Written by Mara Voss & Daniel Reyes; two writers who worked separately, one after the other, are joined with the word and. On a spec you are usually the only name, but if you have a co-writer, get the ampersand right, because it is the difference between a team and a rewrite.

What NOT to put on a spec script title page

Almost every title page mistake is an addition. The instinct to protect, date or sell the script on its cover works against you, because each extra line tells the reader something you did not intend.

1. Draft numbers and dates. Third Draft, March 2026 tells a reader the script has been around, and that this version may not be the last. A spec is always the only draft. Production drafts carry dates because revisions must be tracked; that is the world of the shooting script, not the spec.
2. Copyright notices. Your script is protected the moment it is fixed in a file; the notice adds nothing legally and reads as suspicion of the person you are asking to read it. Registering with the US Copyright Office or the WGA is sensible, and how to copyright a screenplay covers both, but the registration number stays off the page.
3. WGA registration numbers. Same reasoning. Keep the certificate; do not print the number.
4. A logline or synopsis. The logline belongs in the query letter and the pitch, not on the cover. A reader who wanted the summary first would have asked for it.
5. Genre, page count or runtime. The reader will count. Telling them is either redundant or, if the number is wrong, damaging.
6. Artwork, fonts and colour. A poster mock-up, a title in a display font, a red title on black. Every one of these says the writer is thinking about the film they have not sold instead of the script they are trying to sell.
7. A page number. The title page is unnumbered, always.

One legitimate exception: if a competition, fellowship or production company gives you title page instructions, follow them exactly, even when they contradict this list. Many contests require that the writer's name be removed entirely for blind judging. Their rules win over the convention every time.

TV pilot title pages

A television script needs to identify both the series and the episode, so the title page carries one more block than a feature. The series title goes where a feature title goes. Beneath it, the episode identifier: for a pilot, the word Pilot in quotation marks, or the episode title in quotation marks if the pilot has one. Then the credit line and the name as usual.

                              NORTH POINT

                                "Pilot"


                              Written by

                              Daniel Reyes




















Daniel Reyes
[email protected]
(555) 555-0199

If you have written a pilot and a second episode, each gets its own title page, and the episode line changes: "Pilot" on one, "Episode 2: The Tide" or simply the episode title on the other. Do not add Season 1, Episode 101 or a production code on a spec pilot; those are production numbering, assigned by a studio after the show exists. The rest of what a pilot needs, from cold opens to act breaks, is in how to write a TV pilot.

Some writers add a line beneath the credit for a pilot: Created by above Written by. On a spec pilot you created and wrote, that is redundant. Written by is enough; the reader understands that the person who wrote a spec pilot created the show.

Adaptations, shared credits and other special cases

Adaptation. The source goes on its own line under your name: Based on the novel "Winter Harbour" by Elena Marsh. If the rights are not yours, some writers add nothing and mention it in the query; others add the line anyway because a reader will want to know. Either way, do not pretend an adaptation is an original.

Story by and Screenplay by. When one person supplied the story and another wrote the script, the credits split: Screenplay by your name, then Story by the other name beneath it. This matters in guild territory and it matters to the reader, who will assume the screenplay writer is the person to call.

Pen names. The name on the title page is the name you want on the film. The contact block can carry your legal name if it differs, but do not put both names in the credit line.

Second title pages. Some writers include a page after the title page with a quotation, a dedication or a cast list. A dedication is harmless; a cast wish list marks the script as amateur, and a quotation is a taste risk that gains nothing. Leave them out on a spec.

If you write in an application that generates the title page for you, check that it matches this layout before you export. Zen Writer's PDF export builds the title page from the script's metadata, so the title, credit and contact details are placed correctly without a separate document; the free industry title page generator does the same job in a browser if your script lives somewhere else.

Title page mistakes that mark a draft as amateur

Readers see title pages before they see a word of dialogue, so the mistakes here are the first mistakes they see. In rough order of how often they turn up:

• A copyright symbol, a WGA number, or both.
• A date or a draft number.
• A title in a display font, a colour, or an image.
• A logline or a paragraph of synopsis.
• Contact details centered beneath the name instead of in a corner, or missing altogether.
• The title in normal case, or the writer's name in caps.
• A page number, or the title page counted as page one.
• by alone, or An original screenplay by, in place of Written by.

Every one of them is fixable in a minute. The reason they matter is that they are visible in the first second, and the reader is forming a guess about how much they can trust the pages that follow. A clean cover page buys you the benefit of the doubt through the first ten pages, and the first ten pages are where scripts are usually decided. From here, the rest of the screenplay formatting conventions take over; if you are still drafting, Zen Writer handles all of them as you type, and the title page is one export away.

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