My understanding is that final draft is generally considered the industry standard in terms of programs. I haven’t actually used it myself because I don’t have a few hundred bucks to spend on software, but it’s the normal one.
Personally, I use the free version of Celtx, since I do not have much money and quite frankly need to get myself a job.
As for formatting, there’s a ton of books and stuff on that. I think the book I was using earlier this year was called The Screenwriter’s Bible, but I haven’t gotten around to looking through the entire thing yet so I can’t attest to how amazing a guide it is. I don’t really know what your best guide to that would be.
If I could throw my two cents in? We’ve used “the screenwriters bible” in my screenwriting classes and it does have the most comprehensive formatting I’ve seen. Celtx is good and yeah, final draft is expensive ( i was lucky and got it on discount). I think maybe scrivener has a screenwriting mode too, but I haven’t used that.
Probably the most important thing to remember when writing screenplay is that you don’t necessarily want to ‘direct’. You can describe, but give the actors/directors room.
