I was just wondering if anyone knowledgable in the area of film would have any reccomendations on good books about screenwriting. I’m not talking about coming up with a general idea or theme…I have plenty of ideas floating around in my head and I have a general idea of how to commit them to pen and paper, but I just want to know books that lay down some of the ground rules about writing a good screenplay and formatting it, etc.
The Screenwriter’s Handbook by Syd Field
[quote]The Screenwriter’s Handbook by Syd Field[/quote]
I got that book as a gift last year. Pretty ok.
a) Die Kunst des Drehbuchlesens from Oliver Schütte = The art of READING a script. It is not about writing, but about readind and understanding a script.
I found it good to read more about this. A good movies demands a good script and this book helps to think about the fact, if a script is good in that way, that it makes it possible to make a good movie out of the script (forgive my horrible english 
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b) Schreiben für den Film / Das Drehbuch als eine andere Art des Erzählens by Jochen Brunow = Writing for the film ( The script as a kind of storytelling
In this book there are some essays of different authors, some of them are really scriptwriter, some of them write reviews are stuff like that.
c) Schritt für Schritt zum erfolgreichen Drehbuch by Ch. Keane = How to write a selling Screenplay… hehehe…
it includes a whole script which I found good.
d) Drehbuchschreiben für Fernseh und Film by Syd Field = Screenplay, The Foundation of Screenwriting
That´s all I have.