On Writing Pt3

So, with all this in mind, I write the screenplay, and one key thing is, that while I have to give this to other people to help me make it, I'm writing it for myself, to direct.
I don't want to get into the writing of screenplays for other directors, because I have very little interest in it, and no experience. However, there is a rule I hold that I think will hold true in either situation; The screenplay is not the final film, and should be dictatorial, but it shouldn't be overly skeletal either. What it should contain, more than anything else, is ideas.

A script is obviously going to contain screen directions and dialogue, telling the reader what the actor has to do. And these things need to be thought out to the nth degree. But it's not necessarily what's going to end up on screen.
The movie isn't final until you've made the final edit and put it on screen (you could argue further, and I will at some other point).
So your script is not a final product, and even if you finish a 'final draft" that really means sweet FA as people aren't going to sit down to read a script. They go to see a movie. And the making of that movie begins with writing a script (or notes and treatment before a script) and ends when it's on a screen and being watched.
What I'm warning against is writing only what the end result should be. Telling people (possibly the future version of yourself) how they have to do things.
At the time of writing, the how shouldn't concern anyone too much, as long as what you're asking is possible. The how at this point in time is not as important as what and not nearly as important as why.

What is the plot, this should be obvious. A script should movie over this in a perfunctory fashion, giving it the attention required and no more.
What you need at a script level in abundance is why. We need the reasons for what we're seeing, the ideas behind it. Because when you have these in place, the visuals should come easily, and, it should feel dense, what the audience is watching is not some hollow, meaningless flash of video.
As long as they fit the story you're telling, you can never have too many ideas. Because if you do, you can edit them out later. The more ideas, the more meanings, the more why in a movie helps you to feel like you need to be watching it.
There are so many well made movies that I go to see, and even though there's nothing really wrong with what the maker's did, I just question why I'm watching it. I look at my watch and picking out different things in the movie, playing games with it, breaking down what I'm seeing to what I think was probably written in the script, what the actor might have been thinking and asking for on set, how the director looks like he just slapped together a scene he had no vision for from coverage, etc.
All of which distracted me from a movie that doesn't give me anything to hold on to. I have no reason to watch it.

And this is not to say that everything you do has to be an intellectual exercise. Don't drag fantastic action down and get it bogged in a quagmire of references and exposition. But just make sure there's enough support behind what you're putting up there to hold the visuals up.
Because ultimately the things the audience will latch on to are the ideas you are communicating. You can communicate a lot with exciting visuals, just make sure there's something to communicate, and the more you can, the more attention you'll receive.
And if you do have too much, then you can cut it out. That's what editing is for. Don't just transcribe a 2D visual from your head onto the page and expect to get that on screen. Because even if you succeed, the result will more often than not be lifeless. And when the more likely thing happens, and you don't achieve the exact image in your head, you're left with a movie trying to be something it's not, rather than a movie that just is. Your audience will spot this immediately. And when you don't have production value to cover flaws like that up, people will dismiss it immediately. They won't be your audience any more. They'll just be the ones telling others not to bother.
Actors and crew will be trying to reverse engineer what's on the page anyway so that they can have something to contribute, so why not make it easier on everyone. It'll help them add even more to it that way, as they'll be able to see the direction you're going in and come up with stuff to fit in with that, instead of having to waste time trying to figure it out and get up to your level.
And if you're going to direct as well, then all this thought put in will help you enormously, in having an answer for every question people will ask about the movie.

Once again, I'm not sure how much you will be able to see these tenets in my film, but they are what I've been trying to keep in mind while writing.