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How to include abstract images

April 13, 2005 Formatting, QandA

questionmarkThere 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](http://indie.imdb.com/Indie/Ask/)

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.

Related Posts

  1. Using CUT TO:
  2. Transitions
  3. Writing on the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle

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