Body Swapping and Dialogue Tags

I would check out Freaky Friday and see how they handled it or any of the other body switchers. Also check out The Faculty for alien take overs.

JIM
(as Ben)
blah blah blah

BEN
(as Jim)
Blah Blah Blah

You might also try to find a copy of the Face/Off script. Not quite body switching but they may have used similar tags.

The only other ones I can think of are 18 Again and Vice Versa.

Putting a parentical under every dialog tag for 1/3rd of the film would be annoying.

Here is a script which uses an alternative method: http://www.thewriterstale.com/pdfs/Doctor%20Who%204%20Ep.10%20-%20Shooting%20Script%20-%20Midnight%20-%2027.11.07.pdf

(And it has a hell of a lot of simultanous dialog as well !)

Basically it doesn't differentiate between 'Person A' & 'Person A's body possessed by Person B'.

If you think the script is confusing .. it pretty well communicates what happened in the episode .. that was annoyingly unresolved and confusing as well.

Mac

Mac H. said:

Putting a parentical under every dialog tag for 1/3rd of the film would be annoying.

Here is a script which uses an alternative method: http://www.thewriterstale.com/pdfs/Doctor%20Who%204%20Ep.10%20-%20Shooting%20Script%20-%20Midnight%20-%2027.11.07.pdf

(And it has a hell of a lot of simultanous dialog as well !)

Basically it doesn't differentiate between 'Person A' & 'Person A's body possessed by Person B'.

If you think the script is confusing .. it pretty well communicates what happened in the episode .. that was annoyingly unresolved and confusing as well.

Mac

Click to expand...

I think it was better than many other scripts by the same writer.

At the risk of continuing the thread derailment, all the incredibly good episodes were written by Steven Moffat.

(I'm thinking mainly of 'Blink' and 'Silence in the Library'. 'Blink' had the most inane villians in Sci-fi history yet was still incredibly, incredibly good. Not an easy feat.)

Does anyone have any Steven Moffat scripts to share?

[\end of derail]

Mac

I'd like to go on the record as saying body switching comedies are evil. Unless Charlie Kaufman is writing it.
So yeah, Being John Malkovich would be a good one to start with. Also most great thrillers will start with the character introduced with one name, but over the course of the story the character's real identity is revealed. Didn't Tropic Thunder have a twist like that? (Don't tell me, I haven't rented it yet!)

Hill's suggestion is great if it's not for too terribly long.

But if it's like Face/Off where they switch for half the movie, I would just note they they have switched.

Ben will now be known as Marcy, because he is in Marcy's body and Marcy will now be known as Ben.

The reason I'd switch it this way (versus keep Ben as Ben even though he's in Marcy's body, because he's still Ben inside) is because other characters will be calling him Marcy, will be seeing him as Marcy and he will be played by the actress playing Marcy.

But again, if it's just a short period of time, then just note that Ben is in Marcy's body then that Ben looks in the mirror or whatever and he looks like himself again.

That all sounds really confusing, I hope it makes some sense.

I'd be interested to know though what you find out in those scripts. Please report back if you find any of them.