This isn’t quite true. Generally, it’s frowned upon for a screenwriter to give camera directions, and part of the art of screenwriting is describing the visuals in such a way that it suggests camera placement and camera movement without actually dictating those things.
But the broader point is correct, that the work of the screenplay is to express the actions and paint the visual landscape of the film. In most screen plays dialogue is the least of the words that are on the page, which is the inverse of what play scripts tend to do.
Ideally, when you read a screenplay, you have a very clear sense of how the film will look in move, roughly in the amount of time, but it will take for the film to achieve that. |
