Story Telling Unit - Writing a Screenplay introduction

I had my first session with Steve Coombes who introduced us to screenplay writing. we looked at a first draft screenplay from the feature film 'American Beauty' and then compared it to the final draft.

Interestingly the final screenplay was a lot more stripped back in detail than the initial draft. It was showing the audience rather then telling them. This ties into 2 of the five rules of writing a screenplay. 

1. Only tell what needs to be known

2. Show don't tell

3. Set up, Distraction, Punch line

4. Know your ending

5. Count your moments

I learnt so much from this session that less is more and quality can outweigh quantity. This is the first time I've properly looked at a screenplay so I have a lot to learn from it but I got an overall sense of the structure and content thats intended for one.