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Can I go beyond DAY and NIGHT?

questionmark Is there a hard and fast rule for first time screenwriters correctly writing their slug lines? I understand that it is for the production people to know WHERE and WHEN to shoot the scene. But I’ve also been told on the boards of quite a few screenwriting forums by supposed professionals, that it is NOT part of your story and so you only ever write DAY or NIGHT.

I’m told that if you want readers to know it’s foggy or stormy you tell them as “part of the story” in the action lines below. Yet in many of the spec scripts I’ve seen online, writers use CONTINUOUS, SAME, LATER etc in their slugs. Is it only solicited writers who’ve already been green lighted for production that have the privilege of writing beyond the binary of DAY or NIGHT? I find that hard to believe this when software like Final Draft allows you to be more expressive in your slugs, and still, I’m continually told otherwise.

It would be much appreciated if you could clear up this issue that has confused, infuriated and made me less confident in my writing now for far too long. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

– Tim
Ischia, Italy

Sluglines are there to help production, but they also help readers. If venturing slightly beyond the confines of DAY or NIGHT makes the read easier, do it.

All of the following are legit:

INT. HOUSE – DAY

INT. CABIN – NIGHT

EXT. FOREST – DAWN

EXT. SPACE

EXT. PARKING LOT – NIGHT [RAINING]

INT. BOWLING ALLEY – NIGHT [FLASHBACK]

The first two are obvious and standard.

DAWN is okay, as long as there really is a reason the scene needs to be taking place close to sunrise, rather than just general DAY. For example, if you were following characters through a string of harrowing night scenes, and they bunkered down in an abandoned railway car, it might be important to really note when it’s dawn again. Same case for DUSK or SUNSET. In a vampire movie, that could be crucial.

Space has no day or night. Generally in science fiction there is a sense of what “day” and “night” feel like, however. So feel free to use it on a spaceship, for example, to indicate the daily routines.

I use brackets at the end of a slugline to highlight special conditions. Rain is a big deal, both for story and production purposes. And flagging a scene as a flashback helps both readers and assistant directors.

February 20, 2009 @ 5:38 pm | Comments (18)
Filed under: Formatting, QandA, Words on the page

18 Responses to “Can I go beyond DAY and NIGHT?”

Chris
February 20th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I can’t imagine how hard it was for the writer of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
12916studios
February 20th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I have a question (and forgive the long preface)…

In my script, there are times when I have “Days and Nights” in the form of a montage (without explicitly using the word), in which I lay out line by line what the characters are doing. Then there are instances in which there are just quick flashes of two characters doing things, in which nothing more than a few words per sentence are needed (e.g. “X and Y return to the hotel room. Have sex. Shower together. But as time progresses X is into it less and less. They fall asleep together.)

Is it okay to simple denote something (in bold) like that as “FLASHES”, such as…

INT. HOTEL ROOM – DAYS AND NIGHTS – FLASHES

…for the sake of simplicity? It’s a bit of a hassle to lay out a montage every time something like that happens, as these scenes take place quite frequently in my script in order to succinctly show character change over the vast periods of time I must cover.

The first time this happens, I use “FLASHES” in both the scene heading, and the action, just for clarification, and from there on out simply use it in headings.

So, is doing that fine, or should I really label it as a montage every time?
Avixai
February 20th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
In his screenplay for Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card used DIM and LIT to differentiate within a space vessel’s nychthemeron. I found it logical and handy, without straying too much off the standard.

By the way, John, you haven’t addressed the issue of LATER. Is it legitimate or is it a leading cause of AD ulcer?
Racicot
February 20th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Good question.

Can we leave out Night & Day if, instead of secondary slugs, we use:

EXT. HIGHWAY – NIGHT

A Hummer crawls to a stop.

INT. HUMMER

JOHN and DEBRA convulse in SOBS.
Synthian
February 21st, 2009 at 12:26 am
<—- See? — Hummers make people cry.

I’ve asked John in the past about following a SLUG with a MINI-SLUG such as:

EXT. JUNGLE – NIGHT

A TATTOO

of a snake. On the arm of...

General Byson.

And he said it wasn’t a crime essentially.

But my need to abuse the format persists… so I’d like to take it a step further…

What would you say if I start out a sequence with a mini-slug… and then open up to the location afterward??? Like so:

SNOWY WALKWAY

The newly orphaned Children... Moira, Emery, and the Twins... are marching in a line through the iron gates of a compound with all the enticements of a prison. -- The GATES CLANG SHUT behind them while a militant MOTHER SUPERIOR and GROUNDSKEEPER gaze up at their iron lettering from behind...

EXT. OUR LADY OF MERCY HOME FOR UNWANTED CHILDREN -- NIGHT

The UNWANTED is actually underlined on the gate as well.

MOTHER SUPERIOR

Best not to let ‘em forget.

I love it when I see it. Its visceral. So I do it. And I’m pretty sure people accept it because I have cool eyebrows and not for any actual reason at all.

So how much of a Slugline Limbaugh does that really make me?

MR. EDISON

Anyone??? ...Bueller?
Sarah
February 21st, 2009 at 2:08 am
What about [DRIVING] if a scene is set in a car and the exterior isn’t really important? Can / Should you use it?
Tim
February 21st, 2009 at 3:54 am
Thanks John!

Huge help, I feel so relieved now.

Does this mean, CONTINUOUS, LATER, SAME etc are marks of shooting scripts only?
Henning Makholm
February 21st, 2009 at 4:41 am
Racicot: What for? It cannot hurt to remind the production people explicitly that this shot should not be lumped too blindly together with all of the DAY interior shots of the Hummer, can it?
carol
February 21st, 2009 at 7:26 am
Hmmm… how about, if you have a screenplay that takes place in just one day?

Sure, for ninety-five percent of the scenes you can use the typical “DAY” at the end of the slugline, but is it okay to use LATE AFTERNOON for the scenes at the end of ACT THREE? Simply because, the “sun” would not be overhead sunshine, but the horizontal sun of five o’clock (I’m talking about EXT “outside” scenes). Wouldn’t the production crew need to know pages 80-95 of the script shouldn’t have “overhead” sun?
John
February 21st, 2009 at 10:14 am
@Sarah:

Yes, I use [DRIVING].

@Tim:

I rarely use CONTINUOUS or SAME; it’s generally clear enough in context. But if there’s a specific wy it might not be clear — and it really is important — then, sure.

I’m not consistent, but I’ll use LATER (or some variation) if we’re staying in the same location, but time has passed. Generally in parentheses, rather than brackets, as it’s modifying the time-of-day part, and not really a new thing like [RAINING].

EXT. FOREST ROAD – DAY

Sam is pacing, much to Mary’s annoyance.

MARY

Stop that! They’ll be back any moment.

TRANSITION TO:

EXT. FOREST ROAD – DAY (HOURS LATER)

Now Mary is pacing. Sam is lying on the roof of the car, bored out of his mind.
Paula
February 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am
@12916Studios,

My 2 cents is that I wouldn’t use “FLASHES.” It distracts me from your story because instead of thinking about your story, I’m thinking, “What are flashes?” Writing each event as an action line and starting a new paragraph for each new event is enough to suggest that it’s a series of events rather than one big event. I agree with you that using Montage can be a bore and it isn’t really necessary unless it is. It sounds like you want it to feel more integrated into your story than the kind of montage that feels like a narrative cheat. In general, if it reads well, you have a lot of latitude.

John’s advice is always great, but take even that as a suggestion as many of his peers at the top of our industry follow different conventions than he does, and it all works as long as it works. For example, I too favor putting Flashback in the slugline as John mentions in this post, but I also love the way Tony Gilroy worked with Flashback in The Bourne Supremacy screenplay. Here’s an example:
```
        SUDDENLY
```
```
    FLASHBACK! -- a shard -- pieces -- lightning flash of 
    images GETTING IN THE BACK SEAT OF THE CAR -- rolling 
    BRANDENBURG BERLIN -- A MIRROR -- THE TELEVISION TOWER -- 

    THE DRIVER looks back.  We see him.  (We'll know him later 
    as Jarda.)  Then -- A STEEL CASE on the backseat.  Inside a 
    SYRINGE, A DARK VIAL, PISTOL.  As we lay hands on them -- 

    BACK TO:  

    BOURNE out of it -- jolted! -- almost losing control of the 
    car for a second -- jerking back into his lane, -- 
    recognition -- toughing it out -- Steady as she goes -- 

    Catching his rhythm again.  Accelerating and --- 
```
This is ideally suited for the way flashbacks work in the Bourne movies, whereas the slugline approach might work better in a story where the flashbacks are full scenes set in the past. Lots of ways to skin a cat.
tcampbell
February 21st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
As a working 1st Assistant Director, I have a pet peeve against CONTINUOUS and LATER in the slug line. Because the scenes are going to be pulled out of story order for scheduling, it is difficult to track CONTINUOUS or LATER. I often have to stop myself from facetiously asking the writer “What time of day is CONTINUOUS?” Instead, I usually create the initial production draft, changing CONTINUOUS and LATER to DAY or NIGHT where appropriate.

Oh, and in the low budget world (where I spend most of my time), there is no DAWN or DUSK. Either the sun’s up or the sun’s down. Only Tony Scott gets to shoot his entire movie at DUSK.

If you didn’t crack a smile at that last bit, it’s because it’s AD humor and not everyone can appreciate it. Just shoot the rehearsal.
Grumpy
February 21st, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Tony Gilroy mentioned on the DVD commentary for Michael Clayton that adding “DAWN” to the slug for the crucial horse farm sequence complicated the production immensely. Of course, he had only himself to blame.
Al X
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
@Grumpy: I’m curious why adding DAWN would complicate production. It would have been weird had it not looked like dawn in that scene.
Paula
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
@ tcampbell: Thanks for that explanation. Very helpful.

@Grumpy: What did he say, exactly? I’m with Al X that it had to be dawn for so many rock solid story reasons. Obviously, that presents a challenge for the production, since dawn only lasts so long, but was he really saying he would have set it at another time, or just that it was hard to realize that vision?
tcampbell
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Al X: Actually dawn only lasts for about twenty minutes. It takes several hours to complete a scene. And that particular scene in MICHAEL CLAYTON is made more complicated by the horses and the car exploding. It was probably shot in two days.
Paula
February 24th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
tcampbell,

That’s interesting about dawn lasting only 20 minutes and the probability of that being a 2-day shoot. Great to know.
tcampbell
February 24th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
2 days. If it’s got to be DAWN, that’s what I would propose. Day #1 – the wide shot, drive up. Shots with the horses. And Clooney’s CU, reaction to the explosion. Day #2 – the car interiors, including the ride up. And the SFX, car explosion. There would probably need to be a third day at the location for clean up.