Screenwriting : Bilingual Screenplay by Randy Steinlauf

Randy Steinlauf

Bilingual Screenplay

I have an idea for a story that, by its very construction, will require the characters to speak in English while the protagonist speaks in French. I am fluent in both languages and could easily write it as I visualize it, but obviously the readers will almost certainly be only English speakers. So, my question is this: is the proper way to render the screenplay to write everything in English and simply add a parenthetical each time the protagonist speaks under his dialogue? Like this: (subtitled; in French).

CJ Walley

Yeah, you got it. You can just simplify it down to (in French) and let the producers/distributors decide on how they would handle any subtitling or dubbing.

Randy Steinlauf

Thanks. Yeah, it would have to subtitled or the construct wouldn’t work.

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