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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26690
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Well, the first one is certainly a "screenplay", and is the accepted standard for film and television (though sometimes television scripts are differentiated with "teleplay").

The second one looks like a script for a play. I believe "stage play" is a fairly established term for contrasting the two, and that "play script" and "theatre script" are also reasonable terms to use.

I believe the reason screenplays differ from stage plays is because they developed separately. Screenplays were not originally like stage plays at all. Early films were silent, and contained mostly action, whereas plays (since most actions are difficult to see) usually place a lot more emphasis on speech.

Screenplays grew out of the unique requirements of film, and over time accumulated more features which made them more similar to stage plays. Nonetheless, subtle differences remain because the formats are different, and have subtly different requirements.

> Question about format #2: Should the paragraphs have a hanging indent, or should the character names live alone in a column on the left, all by themselves?

I've actually seen both, so I'm not sure. I think the latter is more common, and generally more accepted these days. I'd suggest looking at some (recent) stage plays and seeing what they do.

Original score: 4