John August

QandA

Intercutting

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkFollowing up on an earlier question: Maybe I’m foolish for asking this.

For location changes I have been using scene headings, so that in a phone conversation I will have:

INT. MARIA’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

Maria paces the room, phone glued to her ear.

MARIA

I can’t believe you’d do that!

INT. SEAN’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

SEAN

Do what?

INT. MARIA’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

MARIA

That!

Is it correct to assume that by using slug lines, I could avoid the scene headings? If I were to do it that way, would I use a slug line that is essentially identical to my scene headings but without the “INT.”? or “EXT.”?

— Brock

This type of scene happens all the time. Think about 24. If you put in a new slugline every time you changed speakers on a phone call, the script would be 180 pages.

Behold, the magic that is “INTERCUT.” Instead of your second “INT. MARIA’S KITCHEN”, just have a slug that says INTERCUT or INTERCUT MARIA / SEAN. Then you don’t have to keep doing the location sluglines. They’re really in one scene, even though it’s split between two places. It’s much easier for the reader to follow.

Your scene would end up looking like this:

INT. MARIA’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

Maria paces the room, phone glued to her ear.

MARIA

I can’t believe you’d do that!

INT. SEAN’S KITCHEN – NIGHT

SEAN

Do what?

INTERCUT MARIA/SEAN

MARIA

Mention my genital warts at a cocktail party!

SEAN

The guy was a doctor!

MARIA

He was a Ph. D! In philosophy!

SEAN

Rhetoric, actually.

MARIA

What’s the difference!

SEAN

There’s overlap, but rhetoric is a pretty narrow specialty.

Maria SLAMS DOWN the phone. We stay on her side of the scene. A beat, then she lets loose with a long-delayed, primal SCREAM.

The dog looks up at her with big, droopy eyes.

CUT TO:

EXT. SOMEWHERE ELSE – DAY

Next scene…

Why do you answer some questions, but not others

QandA

questionmarkWhy do you answer some questions, and not others? (Such as, well, mine!) And why do you answer some questions moments after they appear, while other ones take weeks?

— Various Readers

My assistant Chad transcribes all the questions on three-by-five note cards, then shuffles them exactly three times. I take the stack and begin spinning clockwise for approximately twenty-two seconds, at which point I throw all the cards in the air. The question that ends up closest to me — without actually touching me — gets answered.

Actually, it’s not nearly so elaborate. Whenever an interesting question comes in, either from ask@dev.johnaugust.com, Ask a Writer on IMDb, or as a comment on a previous post, I flag it as a potential question to answer later. Sometimes, “later” translates as “right now,” but usually there’s a delay of at least a week. Sometimes more. Sometimes never.

There’s no malice or forethought. I simply answer whatever question I find most interesting at the moment. These questions tend to fall into two categories:

The biggest backlog of unanswered questions is “career advice”-type questions. Some of them are really interesting. One reader wrote a script that attracted the interest of a C-list actor a few years ago. Now that same actor is A-list. How should the writer re-approach him?

Good question! I don’t know. And that’s why I haven’t tried to answer it yet.

I really do read every question that gets sent in. Here’s my criteria for whether something goes in the “consider” or the “pass” pile:

  1. Does the writer have a grasp of spelling, grammar and punctuation? If not, they need more help than I can give them.
  2. Have I answered this question, or one very much like it, before? If so, they should just look at the previous answer.
  3. Would a decent percentage of site visitors be interested in the answer? Some questions can be so specific that it’s unlikely anyone else would care.

There are currently 21 questions flagged to be answered. Realistically, I’ll never get to all of them, because new questions will come in that catch my attention. That, and the whole screenwriting career I do on the side.

Sensible sluglines

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkThank you for keeping your site up to date and offering so many great resources, not the least of which: your scripts. I have read your scripts, Rawson Thurber’s Dodgeball, and many others.

I have a question on the usage of slug lines and pacing.

A quick example:

TOM

carefully turns the dial a tad.

THE MACHINE

Hums, LIGHTS UP!

TOM

grins and turns the

REMOTE to the maximum level.

I am afraid I am overusing this technique, but would like your
professional opinion.

–Brandon Walowitz
Los Angeles

Yes, you’re overdoing it, at least to my taste. I suspect you could find successful screenwriters who write very much the way you describe, but to me it feels like padding.

Just as you wouldn’t want to read a solid page of 12-pt Courier, you don’t want to read a series of short sluglines. There’s no flow. Think of these short sluglines as punctuation, little guides to help you make your way down the page.

Some suggestions:

  • Use a slug only if we’re going to be looking at something new to the scene, or if we’re cross-cutting between simultaneous action. In your example, “TOM” is the same guy both times, and “THE MACHINE” is probably already established in the scene.

  • After a slug, I usually start the next line lower-case, particularly if it’s the continuation of a sentence.

  • Try to have at least three “normal” lines between slugs.

  • Avoid mixing slugs and dialogue. It gets messy on the page.

Happy Easter from Beijing

News, Writing Process

I’m in China for a week of sight-seeing, research for one those Someday Scripts I hope to eventually write. The project is very much Old World, so most of my time has been spent tromping around the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, getting a feel for the architecture and details that you don’t really find in a book.

While the historical landmarks have been everything I hoped for, the real surprise has been modern China. It doesn’t feel anything like the Orwellian state I read about in high school. All the Business Week articles about China’s rush into a market economy understate the degree to which it already feels First World. People have cooler cell phones. They own their own apartments. Beijing feels like it could host the Olympics next year — although they have until 2008 to finish the new subways and all the other improvements underway.

I’ve been to St. Petersburg, which has a similar beautiful-buildings-to-ugly-cinderblocks ratio, but the mood couldn’t be more different. Beijing feels like it’s on a massive sugar rush, and the people in the park seem genuinely happy. It’s like Los Angeles, with more smog and darker hair. That doesn’t sound like a rave, but it’s actually pretty cool.

My advice is to come before the Olympics, when everyone will see how world-ready it is. Mandarin is notoriously difficult to master, but it’s pretty easy to pick up basic traveller pidgin: hello, excuse me, where is.., is it here?. As I overheard one expat Texan say over cocktails: “It’s easier to speak than to understand.” A great double-entendre, which in this case is true.