Including an important symbol
I’m writing a film about a cop whose investigation leads him into the occult, and there’s a particular (real) symbol that crops up several times. It’s more than just a Star of David: in fact, it incorporates several familiar symbols, and also some Hebrew words… anyway, it’s complex. I’ve written the scene where someone in the know walks Our Hero through the symbology, but I want to make sure that my readers really know what it looks like.
Is it appropriate to include an illustration or figure of the symbol at the end of the screenplay? I’ve seen some scripts that have pronunciation guides at the back, so how is this any different?
– Sean Wolfson
You can probably get away with it.
My advice: think about it like a book. In the best-selling novel version of your script, would the author have included the drawing? If so, do it. But only once, and only if it’s really that important.
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November 14th, 2008 at 11:05 am
yeah, ditto on your answer. I actually just read one of the Nicholls Fellowship finalist screenplays last week, and and there was a little logo drawing in one scene, to illustrate the image for us readers to understand. I thought, “wow, if this was in a Nicholls finalist screenplay, then it must be OK to get away with it.”
November 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Did it. Sold it.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Actually I had the emblem of my bounty hunters “Bounty Mercinariate” embossed on a bunch of script covers before they went out cause i was too chicken to put it in pages.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am
i’ll take the contrarian stance and say… “when in doubt, don’t.” for two reasons: 1) yeah, good material can transcend any “deviation from the norm,” but if you do include it, some stickler for a reader might assume you don’t know better and still count it against you. 2) it sounds really interesting based on the way you’ve described it in this post! and you didn’t even need to include a picture of it. if that’s how it’s described by the characters, then I think you’re golden…
November 17th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
PEOPLE!
Good writing, is good writing, is good writing. You think anyone is going to throw away a killer script because it contains the drawing of a symbol in it? C’mon!
I remember this one guy wrote in and asked, “I have a scene that takes place in an open-air football stadium. I’m worried about whether the scene heading should be EXT or INT.”
Um, yeah, because that’s gonna be the final straw, my friend.
As writers, how about we concentrate on making sure our characters aren’t eating shit right out of the gate.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:24 am
My comments were totally illegitimate – (Seriously) lend no weight to them at all… because of Eric’s point. — I just realized after reading Eric’s thing that: When I included an image with my screenplay – I was NOT in the naked spec market. I had full/unfair knowledge of who was going to be reading it. And they had full knowledge of my eccentricities… I was sailin free – with the knowledge that I would be taken seriously, and knowing me… I’m pretty damn sure, If I had been submitting blind into a slushpile – there’s no way I would have included it.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:08 am
As a director I read a lot of scripts. I have eight in front of me right now.
I occasionally see scripts with images, news clippings, maps, illustrations, even the occasional sacrilegious deviation from the courier typeface. Though I can’t think of an example of an image in the context of a the scripted page per-se, I imagine they exist. In my experience any reference, or ancillary materials are included after the title page, and before page one of the script, not at the end as suggested above. Sometimes these materials don’t make sense, they are unexplained, out of context, and I merely assume that all will be revealed when the time comes.
Keep in mind, these are scripts that have not only gone through readers, and agents, and studio execs… they are scripts that have been bought or optioned and are out in the world looking for a director.
In general my reaction to this kind of preamble is the same, unfazed I turn to the start of the script and begin reading.
If I finish a script and the story is compelling enough that I care that it’s a true story, I will go back and read the news clipping. If I’m reading and feel I need to know which obscure or fictional country shares a border with another, I will go back and reference the map. If, as in the question above, the symbolism of a referenced image is of particular importance, and would take an eighth of a page to only partially describe what a character or the audience will perceive in the blink of an eye, I would rather see it for myself than have a scene grind to a halt. Particularly if it’s an image that is likely going to be included in the final film, and the one-sheet, and the dvd cover. If it’s something that exists in the real world, that’s of critical importance to the plot, that was perhaps the seed that compelled the writer to craft the story in the first place… then show me.
On a tangental note, I know one writer who often, possibly always, includes a short but thought provoking quotation at the start of his screenplays to help set the tone. I have never discussed this with the writer, but it has proved to be one of the most successful methods I have encountered for cleansing the pallet and helping me as a reader shut out the thoughts that might otherwise have me reading page one with a less than focussed mind.
I find all of these things far less distracting than typos and spelling errors.