John August

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Can I go beyond DAY and NIGHT?

Formatting, QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkIs 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.

Official badasses

Awards, Follow Up

follow upMTV released its [final list](http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/02/09/watch-mtv-news-greatest-badass-panel-name-dirty-harry-the-winner/) of top-ten badasses, which included [contributions by me](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/top-10-movie-bad-asses) and a lot of other folks.

1. Dirty Harry – “Dirty Harry”
2. Ellen Ripley – “Alien/Aliens”
3. John McClane – “Die Hard”
4. Mad Max – “Mad Max”
5. Walker – “Point Blank”
6. Sarah Connor – “Terminator”
7. Pike Bishop – “The Wild Bunch”
8. Khan Noonien Singh – “Star Trek”
9. Boba Fett – “Star Wars”
10. John J. Rambo – “First Blood”

I picked 1.5 of those. I count Dirty Harry as a half, because I chose William Munny in Unforgiven, or “really, any Eastwood character.”

I went out of my way to pick characters others might not, so I’m not surprised I didn’t match up better to the final list. I never really understood the Boba Fett-ishization, and while I like John McClane, “badass” isn’t the primary descriptor I’d assign to him. I’m happy to see Sarah Connor included on the list, however. And it’s strange the degree to which Mad Max has disappeared from my film memory bank.

Slumdog Coincidentalist

Follow Up, QandA

A reader writes in requesting a reexamination of my post [“The Perils of Coincidence”](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/perils-of-coincidence) in light of an acclaimed movie which is already a screenwriting award contender:

questionmarkThis weekend, I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a story that is succinctly described by the equation: “I knew the answer to this obscure question because this farfetched event happened to me once. And repeat.”

Is coincidence good now?

— Andre Gayle
London

I would argue that Jamal’s knowing the right answers falls into my category of a Premise Coincidence, much the same way that in Die Hard, John McClane just happens to be in the building when the villains attack, or in the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker just happens to get bitten by the radioactive spider.

In each of these cases, the coincidence is the reason why the story is happening.

But I can see why Andre is bristling. In my original post, I single out luck and chance as being particularly flimsy pegs upon which to hang a story, and there are a couple of answers in Slumdog that seem arbitrary or tangential (the cricketeer comes to mind). ((A reader points out that the cricket question is actually an answer that’s handled mostly in the present-day story.)) However, the overall flashback structure sets a rule and sticks by it: every time we jump back, we’ll see how he got the answer.

I addressed this in my original post, calling it correlation:

> Rather than ask an audience to swallow a bunch of little implausibilities, try bundling them together.

> In Heroes, imagine if each character had a completely unique origin story: Claire got her powers from a shaman; Sylar is an alien; Peter has a magic ring. You’d get frustrated pretty quickly, because a lot of screen time would go towards explaining why and how. Instead, the creators wisely decided the characters all had some mysterious gene mutation activated by an environmental change. The audience is willing to make that one big leap, because they’re not asked to make similar leaps each time a new character is introduced.

In fact, the biggest coincidence in Slumdog would have to be that the answers Jamal needs just happen to be found chronologically in his life story. That’s something you buy or you don’t. It didn’t bother me.

How do I show simultaneity?

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkMy script involves a “spirit” or “ghost” character. He can appear to people on a whim, and he says typical meta-clever, wise stuff. The thing is, he’s beyond all time and space, so, for example, he can be in two places at once.

I want to create a scene where this spirit character is talking to two different characters at the same time, but in different places. In other words, the spirit is talking to both Alan in Cleveland and Betsy in Los Angeles, but it occurs at 2:00PM at the same time (ignoring the time zone changes). What would be the most effective way to do that?

— Kevin
Neptune, NJ

You’re confusing what happens inside the world of the movie with what the audience experiences. When we’re watching a movie, or reading a script, we don’t know or care what the clock says — unless you tell us that it is important.

If for story purposes two scenes need to be happening simultaneously, you’ll generally be cutting between them. Max runs up the stairs while Lisa sits down at her desk. Max reaches the fourth floor while Lisa wakes her computer. Max reaches Lisa’s door just as she’s about to open the email message. That’s six short scenes which play together as a sequence.

Alternately, you might sync up time after the fact by replaying a moment or giving some other signal to the audience about a shift in time. GO does this twice, repeating the scene in the break room to let the story fork in different directions. ((Go also features two sides of a phone conversation separated by half a movie, but it’s not crucial to line up those moments.))

Split-screen is another possibility, though on the page you’d almost certainly write it as typical cross-cutting.