Good, Better, Best Writers... a few seconds please?!

The hell you say! Moving to Scripts, Stage, and Screen discussion forum, where the screenwriters hang out.

-Derek

My initial advice would be not to do it. Not helpful, I know, but I'll explain.

Are you the director? Are you writing this for yourself as a writer/director? I'm a writer, but I often get annoyed by montages in screenplays. My opinion is that the writer tells the best story they can, but montages stray into the director's territory of expressing that story as a series of shots. Not all montages in screenplays (as opposed to films) are unnecessary, but I find most are.

Even if you don't agree with me, you might consider writing the story without montages as some directors see it as directing the director and you don't want to piss off a director before you get paid for the script. (I've heard rumours that directors have even bigger egos than writers.) If you know the director who will be attached to the script, and you know he or she doesn't object, go for it. Otherwise, why risk it?

But say a triple montage is the only possible way to tell the story. I don't believe you, but let's go with it. I would simply write it as a single montage but add a location tag at the beginning of each shot.

My other question would be, how long does it take to have this baby if Bob has time to raid several different locations and a survivor can get to Charlie to report?

nazareth said:

I have a formatting/tech question that I would appreciate a little help with. This is not a SYW thread, so moderators please do not move my post!

I ran into a situation in my script where I would like to address several situations (montages) happening simultaneously; 3 different characters in 3 different locations. I attempt to cover A LOT of time through Montages, but this is different, especially since ONE of the characters is moving from place to place. Confused? Me too. Let me explain, or rather ask.

How would you write 3 simultaneous Montages (cut scenes, intercuts...?) as one scene? Or can you? I initially wanted to cut back and forth from each of the 3 montages, like shuffling 3 decks of cards together, to build excitement as the situations escalate.

Montage 1: Character A having character B's baby [location 1]

Montage 2: Character B raiding (wars) Character C's men, in various locations [location(s) 2]

Montage 3: Character C informed and enraged of Character B's raids, by survivor [location 3]

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle...
Any ideas or help would be much appreciated. Thank you ALL in advance.

Click to expand...

It might be worth your while to get a copy of the original script for The Godfather and look at the montage for the baptism/killing of the heads of the five families scene. You'll see that it does cut back and forth between the various scenes but not nearly as much as we see in the final movie, which would have been almost impossible on the page.

Essentially, it *suggests* to the director the notion that the various scenes -- the baptism of the baby and the various killings, are all happening at the same time, but it doesn't go into a lot of detail as to how or how much intercutting will ultimately happen.

Hopefully this might help you get a sense of how you might proceed.

(And no, I don't have a link for the Godfather screenplay, you'll just have to look around and see if you can find it).

NMS