I started a script on Page 1 with a flashback to when my character, David, was only 12 years old. The flashback was a page-and-a-half long, and then for the rest of the script he was in his 40's. But then mid-way through Act 2 I did ANOTHER flashback (also a page-and-a-half) to when he was in college. All together, we will see him at three different ages of his lifetime.
Now ... when the credits roll on the screen at the movie's ending, there will be three different credits for three different actors who will play David. So as I wrote the script, I gave them the following names:
YOUNG DAVID
COLLEGE-AGED DAVID
DAVID
These three names might or might not get used in the ending credits. But part of me keeps an eye on the over all common sense of the ending credits when I find myself in odd situations like this and in need of naming my characters in ways that ultimately lend to greater clarity.
So I started Page 1 with my flashback and wrote:
EXT. TOKYO STREETS - THIRTY YEARS AGO - NIGHT
The shops all sit empty and personless. But then, a boy, YOUNG DAVID, 12, runs down the street and into an alley.
Please note that I used all capital letters and included how old he was. This was the "introduction" of a character. And then after that introduction, I called him "Young David" (all in lower-case) for the duration of that page-and-a-half.
Then by Page 2 we were back to the present. So I did a new slug line:
INT. TOWN HALL - PRESENT DAY - NIGHT
And then when I introduced the adult and preset-day version of David, he was just plain old DAVID, 42. Again, please note that I used all capitals and once again I specified his age, because this was ALSO an "introduction" of a character. Now yes--it's the SAME character, but he will be played by an entirely different actor. So he gets "the full treatment" of a formal introduction.
And then after that, for the rest of the script he was "David" in lowercase letters.
Then later, when I did that other flashback, my new slug line said:
INT. JUNGLE HUT - TWENTY YEARS AGO - DAY
And then I described "a young man, COLLEGE-AGED DAVID, 22, lies asleep on a cot." And once again, I used capitals for his name, and I included his age, because this was yet another "introduction" where an entirely different actor needs to play him.
And then for the duration of that page-and-a-half, he is called "College-Aged David" once again in lowercase letters.
Now, the way I've written it here (your milleage may vary) is only for the READER to discern who is who, not for the audience of the completed film to discern. And hopefully one of those readers is (oh, let's say) Stephen Spielberg or Ron Howard. If I can get one of their briliant minds to "see" what I am writing, it's up to him (whichever one of them chooses to direct) to go so far as to MAYBE include a caption on the screen that actually and literally SAYS "THIRTY YEARS AGO." I'm not going to include that in my script (other writers WILL include it in the script to spell out that a caption needs to happen, and that's perfectly fine, I just chose not to.) It's not my job (as writer) to make it clear to the AUDIENCE. It's my job to make it clear to the READER. Its the director's job to make to clear to the audience. Please permit me to make one caveat here: there's no excuse for me to be LAZY in how I write. I still have to write in a cinematic style as opposed to a novel/novella/prose style. But what I am saying is, the reader has to take probably an entire hour or even two hours of his day (depending on how fast of a reader he is) to read my script. I need to make it an effortless read. He can't be stumbling along and guessing at what the heck I am trying to show him. He needs to be able to SEE the movie in his head. So I need to write in a way that lends itself to SEEING.
