Finding Soul in Screenplays

while back I wrote about how there seemed to be a lack of poetry/soul/beauty in screenplays - dialogue aside. As I spend more time writing and editing my screenplay, though, I'm finding places for soul.

First, where the scene is set. It's easy to go back to the same three or four sets, but a shift in setting can color an entire scene.

Second, the description of that new setting adds even more texture to the image.

Third, if the dialogue presents the foreground activity of a scene, slugs of description between lines can color the background. What I like about this is that it doesn't take away from the main action the first time you watch a scene, but when you watch it a second time it can add to the scene.

These are the areas I've been concentrating on lately as I finish up the screenplay for class.

Perhaps the best way to describe it is that writing fiction is like painting a large mural with long brush strokes while writing a screenplay is like painting with shorter, more poignant strokes. There's art in both, but they're painted in different ways for different audiences and media.