“Keep your screen direction tight!” “Don’t overwrite!”
It’s all well and good to tell you this, but how much screen direction is too much? How many lines? What are the rules?
Here’s my own rule of thumb: When your screen direction can’t be covered by a block of Velveeta cheese, it’s too long.
Examine every word, every line. Is it necessary? If you dropped it, would the scene still make sense? If you’re answer is yes, then drop it.
Generally, five lines or less is a good break point. Cut on natural camera breaks; if we see a new character, or the camera would naturally move, add white space, go to the next line and start a new paragraph. This will make your script cleaner. Here’s a nice article from Charles Deemer on White Space:
http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/cfs0403.htm
As usual, there are exceptions. Look at this passage from Gangs Of New York:
EXT. STREET DAY (WINTER)
WINTER WIND blows across a scene as strange and bleak as an alien planet. VALLON, carrying his cross high, steps through the doorway. The OTHERS slowly follow VALLON out of the building, which is three stories high and maybe a block long. A dilapidated sign identifies it as the 5 Paints Brewery.
It is the tallest structure in the midst of low, squalid SHACKS, winding ALLEYS as narrow as a snakes back, and DIRT STREETS filled with ruts, mud and filthy snow. A few PIGS wander forlornly about, rooting for garbage.WASH hangs stiff, in the middle of the square, from a peculiar monument erected to some forgotten war hero. The Brewery occupies one side of a SQUARE surrounded by some storefronts and a couple of collapsed wooden sidewalks. If this place resembles anything at all, it’s a horrible hybrid of London’s Limehouse and a pioneer town in the American West whose best days have long passed--or never came at all.
VALLON stands still, staring across the square past the monument. His battalion of irregulars waits for his signal. Now... very, very slowly...from around both sides of the monument comes ANOTHER GANG, in size the same as VALLON’s, men and women both, armed like Visigoths with HOMEMADE WEAPONS: knives, pitchforks, building blocks and bricks, boards with sharp nails protruding from the ends. Every member of this second group is dressed in a long DUSTER which reaches to the ankles. Several MEN in front of the group sport dusters made of leather.
Whoa! They broke the Velveeta Cheese rule! You said to give white space! You said keep the screen description to essentials!
Yes, I did. I also told you there is no one single way to write a script. There will always be exceptions to the general rule.
Maybe Martin Scorsese asked the writers to put in maximum detail (if Marty tells you he wants the script written long hand in green Sharpie, will you inform him that it’s improper format?) Maybe the producers wanted it that way. You, the Unknown Screenwriter, don’t have Scorsese; you don’t have producers. You’re looking for a way in, so as a general rule: Don’t make your screen direction into a giant block of Velveeta Cheese. Give white space.
If it’s a critical scene, sure, go Dylan Thomas on their asses, lay out the 3 dollar verbs. But if a character walks into Starbucks, please don’t tell me about the fake burnt orange flame logs in the fireplace, or the vermilion stitchery of the loungers, or how many single-pump caramel frappuccino drinkers are working screenplays on their Macs! Not unless it impacts story.
lovely way to learn….. thanks