3 Screenplays in Search of a Lens

Kevin Williamson Screenwriter — Scream. If you're looking for a tool to help you nurture your idea for a movie into an actual shooting script I recommend this program without hesitation.

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Sean Kennelly Creative Screenwriting. We've all heard the warning against overwriting our screenplays by including too much camera direction or too many slug lines.

We worry about getting it wrong, because we're professionals. Or at least we want our scripts to make us look that way. A little knowledge about how the pros use shot headings will go a long way toward equipping us to make a professional impression with every page we write. More than that, it will empower us to harness the power of shot headings to propel readers through pages that would otherwise bog down - or might not get read at all.

During my years managing the script processing department at Warner Bros. Here's some insider know-how that will give you the ability to use shot headings to your advantage. It comes from my book The Hollywood Standard: Also called scene headings and slug lines , shot headings can provide a wide variety of information about a given scene or shot.

They can be short and sweet: BOB Or long and complicated: Too many shot headings clutter a screenplay and can make a writer appear amateurish. Too few shot headings leave the reader confused and create headaches when production approaches. In general, insert a new shot heading only when necessary. Three rules of thumb provide guidance here: Insert a shot heading when there is a change in location or time.

We would need a new shot heading along these lines: Now let's say we're in the Oval Office, then we cut to another scene in the same location, but it's 90 minutes later. We need a new shot heading, something like this: Writers sometimes get into trouble when a character moves from one location to another. The following is incorrect: He climbs painfully to the ground and looks up at the stars. We're missing a shot heading that accounts for Josiah's movement from an interior location to an exterior one, which may be shot at a completely different time and place.

The sequence should be set up like this: Add shot headings when necessary for the visual telling of the story. Among the screenwriter's tasks is creating the visual experience of the screen story in the imagination of the reader.

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Shot headings are one of the essential tools for accomplishing this task. If visual attention must be focused very specifically on a small object or detail, an extreme close shot serves precisely that purpose and is appropriate and justified. At other times, say in an ordinary dialogue scene between two characters, it might not be necessary to call attention to any particular visual detail and only the initial master shot heading is required. Add shot headings of the more visually specific sort only when you have a compelling visual reason for doing so.

Add shot headings when logic requires it.

Sometimes plain logic requires a new shot heading. Don't add a shot heading where there is no new shot.

Andrew Horton is the Jeanne H. His many books include Laughing Out Loud: Foreword by Bernard Gordon Acknowledgments Introduction: Have Laptop and Passport, Will Travel: Personal Takes on Worldwide Screenwriting Chapter 2. After Naked Men and Wedding Bells: Conclusions, New Beginnings Appendix 1. Print Resources Appendix 2. The Internet and Screenwriting: Americans Reaching Out Appendix 4. Hooking into Hollywood and Beyond from Overseas Appendix 5.

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2. How to decide when to create a new shot heading;
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4. 1. Insert a shot heading when there is a change in location or time..
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