Action Line

Present-tense description of what the camera sees and the audience hears — the screenplay's prose.

Action lines (also called description or direction) carry everything that isn't dialogue: movement, imagery, sound. Always present tense, always filmable — 'Jane remembers her sister' can't be photographed; 'Jane stops at the photo on the mantle' can.

The craft is compression and rhythm. Short paragraphs read fast, and readers feel pace through white space before they register a single word.

Go deeper: Screenplay Formatting Basics