How to include abstract images
There is one element that I have to include, as it is integral to the script. It is a recurring image of a curved line that reveals itself as a circle to the background of a high speed train.
How can I format this properly as there is no scene heading for it?
– John C.
via IMDb
Beginning screenwriters often get too nervous about formatting, scared that one missing scene header will make their scripts un-filmable. Or worse, un-commercial.
Get over it. If you need to write your curved train tracks, just write ‘em. Images like this don’t need their own scene headers; just treat them as stand-alone sluglines, or little mini-scenes.
- A CURVED LINE
- slowly moves across the screen. We’re looking at something from a very high angle, but it’s not clear what.
- TRANSITION TO:
- EXT. SOMEWHERE ELSE
- And a scene happens.
Later in the script, when you need to finally reveal what this image actually is, you might try something like this:
- THE SAME CURVED LINE
- stretches across the screen. Now, a high-speed train enters from the bottom of the frame, running along the arc — actually the tracks of the French TGV.
- We RUSH IN closer, feeling the energy of the train as it races through mustard-yellow fields. We drop alongside the fourth car, looking in through the window to find Charlotte asleep, her head tilted against the glass.
April 13th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
Excellent question! This is exactly what the producer grilled me on, John. I don’t see how you can make a transition to a reoccurring image without a CUT TO, otherwise, with no scene heading, it looks like part of the prior scene!
April 13th, 2005 at 4:40 pm
Hey, better question. What’s the difference between recurring and reoccurring?
April 13th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Recurring is a word. Reoccurring isn’t, though I’m sure I’ve used it on occassion.
re·cur (rÄ-kûr’) intr.v., -curred, -cur·ring, -curs. To happen, come up, or show up again or repeatedly. To return to one’s attention or memory. To return in thought or discourse. To have recourse: recur to the use of force.
April 13th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Hmm, but a misspelled “reoccuring” gets corrected to “reoccurring’ on Microsoft Word, as well as AOL spell check.
April 14th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
I ran into this discussion yesterday about fish and fishes. That fish is its own plural. “There are a lot of fish.” “Those two fishes over there are conspiring to take over the ocean.”
They’re both correct. This cooky language of ours, I love it. I can’t wait until thousands of years from now when we are all united under one language of communicating to each other through slapping each other on the behind. That will definitely take the term “scene description” to a new level.
April 14th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Gary: But do you really trust either Microsoft or AOL on anything?
Americo: Dictionary.com has no mention of “reoccurring”, or “re-occurring” - just “recurring”…
Even google agrees (”recurring” has the ‘definition’ link in the top left, “reoccurring” doesn’t)
April 14th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I wasn’t trying to argue Reoccurring is a word, I just thought it was weird that both M Word and AOL corrected it to that spelling.
April 14th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Last night I thought of an example of re-occur.
“Let me know if the problem re-occurs.”
Of course, if the problem keeps coming up again and again, its recurring. So no help there.
April 14th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Hugh: Wasn’t trying to defend the word reoccurring. I know it’s incorrect. I was just siting a similar argument I had with someone last night.
I’m surprised you didn’t jump on the viability of my “ass-slapping” language.
April 14th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
reoccur, v. — intr. To occur again. Oxford English Dictionary The illustrative quotations used for “reoccur” are from 1867 and 1864.
April 15th, 2005 at 1:21 am
Ack… sorry guys - I didn’t mean to come across all arsey (okay, so that’s not in any dictionary, but it’s gotta come under “slang”) trying to correct you there…
Americo: To be honest, I only read your first paragraph! Just read back up, and it sounds like an … insteresting idea… not one I suspect would catch on, though - too much room for misunderstanding…!
April 15th, 2005 at 2:52 am
To Gary -
FORGET CUT TO!!!
You don’t need it. Everything with a new slugline - ie.
A CURVED LINE Something happens…
Is a new scene. I like to work on the basis that every new paragraph is a new shot - but I don’t put ‘CUT TO:’ between each shot, even though we do ‘cut to’ the next shot when editing the film.
Relax with all the jargon words - I say leave them all out - they only slow down the read, lengthen the script and sometimes even annoy the reader.
If I get sent a script with loads of ‘CUT TO:’s in it I do a quick search and destroy before I print it - saves paper and eye flicking.
When you are reading, you automatically read each new piece of writing as a new shot or new scene or new bit of visual information and you don’t need to be told that it is.
Imagine how distracting it would be if when watching a film every time the editor cut from one shot to another he added a loud BEEEEP sound just to make it clear that he’s done something clever?
Well, that’s just my opinion but I feel very strongly about it so am proclaiming it as fact!
April 15th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Hmm, after reading the post from “Anonymous,” I’m guessing Gary took John’s suggestion of forwarding a certain producer his comments on CUT TOs.
Must be some young hot shot, deleting scripts just because they contain a scene transition. What an idiot.
Note to producer: Hollywood has a standardized format for screenplays. CUT TOs, though waning in use, are part of that standardized format — and have been long before you tasted your mother’s teat. If everyone thoughout the history of filmmaking took your postion, we would not have the great library of classic films that still affect us today. But, hey, you know more than all those guys who came before you, huh?
CUT TOs are acceptable when used to illustrate the writer’s vision pacing and to highlight moments. If you believe otherwise, and kill good stories (unbeknownst you you) because you have a formatting stick up your ass, well, I wish you all Leprechaun 3’s in the world.
April 15th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Hey Doug,
I’m a writer!
and I guess I should make clear that when I said ’search and destroy’ I meant search for ‘CUT TO:^p’
So that the script prints without the annoying CUT TO:s.
Sure, very occassionally a CUT TO: can help make things clear - as John showed in a recent Q+A. But so many writers use them after eeevvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyy bloomin scene, before eeevvvvveeeeeerrrrrryyyyy bloomin slugline…….
aaaannnnndddddd iiiiittttttt jjjjjjuuuuuuuusssssssttttttt ssssssslllloooooowwwwwssss
(and it just slows) everything down. It makes a slower read and it wastes paper, and I have to carry more weight around with me.
For me, there’s this issue of (hopefully this will…
having lots of white space (which is nice) but it’s all
using CUT TO:s where they’re
And as a result your eye has to
and forth accccrrrroooosssss
It drives me mad!
…I love your passion though Doug. We’re in this together.
Sure I’ve read great scripts that used CUT TO:s every other line - but I felt ill and had to have a lie down after.
And you know - these things are very important to me… cos anything that puts me off someone else’s screenplay - even just for a moment - might put someone else who I want to impress off my screenplay… so I try my best to avoid them. I’m aiming to please!
April 15th, 2005 at 10:46 am
damn. All the bits in CAPS were meant to be right over the other side of the screen a la CUT TO:
!!!!!!
April 15th, 2005 at 11:19 am
My apologies for the mix up (and the typos.)
I read, “If I get sent a script with loads of ‘CUT TO’s in it I do a quick search and destroy before I print it” as, “If I find CUT TOs in a script, I destroy it before I print it.” This is also where the producer mix up entered the picture. Saw reader, not writer.
I’m just an angry little man I guess.
Yes, we agree on judicious use of CUT TOs. Judicious being the key. And to be clear for those just catching up, I wasn’t implying a good story transcends proper formatting — merely that proper formatting offers many tools for us to use as needed. They should remain close at hand, even if someone else thinks otherwise.
Sorry for the mistake, Anony.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:36 am
I know this thread completed almost 2 years ago, but since I am still finding it, I felt there should be one addition to the fish vs. fishes debate. This also holds true for words like shrimp vs. shrimps. Years ago, my Marine Biology professor explained it as such: You use fish and shrimp when you are referring to animals of the same species. When you are referring to different animals of different species, then it is appropriate to use fishes and shrimps.
Ex 1: You see a bunch of perch: “Look at all those fish!” Ex 2: You see perch and blue gill: “Look at all those fishes!”