DOOR SIGNS

avid-dreamer said:

Ok, I need some advice. Now imagine you are writing a scene and you want to draw attention to a sign above a door, do you write it as you would a secondary heading (or mini-slug as you guys refer to it).

Example:

Jason turns and marches toward the door marked

LIBRARY

and.......

OR

Jason turns and marches toward the door marked LIBRARY.


I know in a previous thread it was stated to only use CAPS when referring to noises, but I've noticed that in a lot of screenplays a variety of things are CAPPED.
For example: TWO MORE SPEEDBOATS

Tell me what you guys think.!!
Thanks!!

Click to expand...

I'd think the latter rather than the former. Again -- it's not really an appropriate use of a slug line, even a mini-slug line. It's lettering on a door, not a location.

At some point, you all hope that these things are going to end up being sold, and when that happens, somebody is going to be going through these scripts and "breaking them down" -- that is, dividing them up according to scenes by location.

And that's what slug lines, whether complete or partial, are for -- they are there for purposes of scene breakdowns.

LIBRARY -- would strike somebody as a location. A place. The library.

Somebody scanning a script and looking for slug lines intending to break down a script would see something like that and assume that the text that followed took place in the library.

But you're not using it that way. You're using it in some freeform, artsy-fartsy literary way -- to emphasize the importance of a word.

As I've said, I know a number of people use this style, but I think that it's a really bad habit. It's the equivalent of taking something functional -- like zippers, and just stitching them all over a garment any old place, just on account of how pretty they look.

NMS

Hey, NMS, I'd like to jack this thread and ask a question about an issue that kinds bugs me.

What if someone has a newspaper headline--which is substantially longer than merely ONE WORD. I have actually used a character heading like this, and used italics and quotation marks:

NEWSPAPER HEADLINE
"School Teacher Indicted
on Manslaughter Charges"

Thoughts??

I'm glad you asked that Plot Device, because I'm going to have something similar in the opening scene of my screenplay.

Plot Device said:

Hey, NMS, I'd like to jack this thread and ask a question about an issue that kinds bugs me.

What if someone has a newspaper headline--which is substantially longer than merely ONE WORD. I have actually used a character heading like this, and used italics and quotation marks:

NEWSPAPER HEADLINE
"School Teacher Indicted
on Manslaughter Charges"

Thoughts??

Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you'd use a character heading for something like this, rather than simply something like.

Bob picks up the paper. The Headline reads, "Bob Sought In Multiple Homicide -- Apt Headlines Advance Plot Yet Again".

Once again, there seems to be the urge to re-direct formatting tools strictly for emphasis. Why use the character and margin tabs for something like this? Why add those extra lines?

More to the point -- why use those lines to "direct on the page" for something that is so self-evident? Namely, you reference the headline on a paper -- it's pretty obvious that it's not meant to be seen from across the room. An insert on the headline is implicit in the description.

Now, I understand that sometimes that's not the case, and when that's true you may have to do something to emphasize the fact that attention needs to be drawn to a certain detail.

But if it's obvious, there's no need to take special steps to do it.

NMS

If it is important that the audience SEES the headline and reads it, then I would do it as an INSERT SHOT.

eg.

Robert picks the newspaper up from the desk in the front lobby.

INSERT SHOT: HEADLINE--

UNIDENTIFIED MAN SOUGHT IN MURDER.

WITH HIS PICTURE.

RETURN TO SCENE:

what rice said but you should use "quotation marks" around the words you want the audience to see and read.

Robert picks the newspaper up from the desk in the front lobby.

INSERT SHOT: HEADLINE--

"UNIDENTIFIED MAN SOUGHT IN MURDER."

WITH HIS PICTURE.

RETURN TO SCENE

Click to expand...

:

so your library should be in quotes and in CAPS: "LIBRARY"

ricetalks said:

If it is important that the audience SEES the headline and reads it, then I would do it as an INSERT SHOT.

eg.

Robert picks the newspaper up from the desk in the front lobby.

INSERT SHOT: HEADLINE--

UNIDENTIFIED MAN SOUGHT IN MURDER.

WITH HIS PICTURE.

RETURN TO SCENE:

Click to expand...

While it certainly could be an insert, and there's nothing wrong with it being an insert, I don't know that it's necessary to do it that way.

Here's the way I look at it.

Sometimes, there are things that, when you're writing it, might very well slip past the reader. That is, you might realize that it's necessary that a particular detail be noticed. In that case, it might very well be useful to use something like "INSERT" -- not even because, necessarily, when the time comes, it will be shot as an insert, but because doing it that way calls attention to an important detail that you, as the writer, need to draw attention to.

But really, if you were to write:

Bob picks up the newspaper. The Headline reads: BOB WANTED FOR MURDER.

How else could anybody reading that possibly imagine it, other than that, somehow or other, the camera is going to be close enough to the Headline for the audience to able to read the headline?

You really don't need five lines for that (unless your script is running short, in which case -- knock yourself out).

As to whether it is ultimately going to be an insert or not -- in reality, that's going to be decided during the script breakdown, when they're going to decide how the scene will actually be shot and which specific things are really going to be shot where and when and what's going to be first unit and second unit and inserts and all the rest.

At which point, things you say are inserts they may say not and things you haven't said are inserts they may say are.

From our perspective, it's more important what makes the reading clear and understandable.

NMS