Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Q. Your book talks about how to use CUT TO:

I've been after Henry Holt to let me do a second edition of CRAFTY SCREENWRITING for just this sort of thing. No one uses CUT TO: any more. The occasional WIPE TO: for comic effect, or a FLASHBACK TO: and then a BACK TO:, because you really need those to stand out. SPLIT SCREEN is crucial if you're using that device. But plain old CUT TO is old hat and wastes real estate.

Sorry 'bout that!

Q. In a recent spec, I didn't include any of these kind of directions, except for a couple of 'close up on XXX' and 'ANGLES'. Is this ok or too minimalistic?

Try to avoid "We are CLOSE ON:" and "ANGLE ON". These are shooting script directions. They don't really belong in a spec or a selling draft. They don't really belong in a shooting draft, either, unless you're the showrunner and you really don't trust your director to shoot the scene the right way, in which case why the heck did you hire him?

Labels: format

8:03 PM

2 Comments:

I personally find one place that's great for a CUT TO:

Sometimes, when i move to new locations, I like the second location to open with mystery of where we are exactly. Perhaps I'll open a new location with a young girl's crying eyes, before I reveal that we're in her yard as she watches helplessly her house burning down.

CUT TO: marks that close-up of the girl's eyes as a new location quite well. I wonder how others prefer to do it.

By  writerjoel, at 11:26 PM  

In a recent spec, I didn't include any of these kind of directions, except for a couple of 'close up on XXX' and 'ANGLES'. Is this ok or too minimalistic?

By  Unknown, at 7:04 AM  

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