Screenwriting Tips
Expert screenwriting tips by working screenwriters
You understand the most common use of slug lines, Master Scene Headings:
INT. CAR - DAY
EXT. PARK - DAY
INT. PENTHOUSE - NIGHT
Slugs can also be used for Secondary Headings, which many non-pro screenwriters are unaware of.
Secondary headings properly used, speed up the read - a good thing.
E.g. a non-pro screenwriter may write:
INT. PENTHOUSE / KITCHEN - NIGHT
Action description... Scene eventually moves to...
INT. DINING AREA - NIGHT
INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT
Action description...
A pro screenwriter would typically write it more efficiently by utilizing secondary headings, i.e.:
DINING AREA
BEDROOM
Once the Master Scene has been established, you can use slug secondary headings to identify sub-locations within the same master location. For sub-locations you can exclude INT/EXT as well as DAY/NIGHT since these have already been established.
When writing secondary headings some pros keep the INT/EXT but exclude the DAY/NIGHT.
Sometimes it's due to a preference, other times it's because only one or two scenes take place in a sub-location so including the INT/EXT makes little difference to script-reading times.
This takes some skill and practice but slugs can be particularly useful when writing fast pasted scenes such as action sequences.
A great example is the bank heist scene in Michael Mann's Heat:
EXT. BANK AND STATION WAGON - CERRITO - DAY
awaiting bag number two. Breedan - calm and alert - IDLES THE ENGINE in Drive while braking with his left foot.
PROFILE:
NEIL
coming out with the second bag. Chris follows - backwards covering the interior. Neil avoids a lady pushing a supermarket shopping cart, looks up and SEES:
NEIL'S POV: HANNA + SCHWARTZ
entering rapidly but surreptitiously 50 yards down the sidewalk. Bosko's moving 90 degrees to the right, crossing the street. There would be no, there was no, and there never is any, warning. Neil Hanna and Schwartz with 12- gauges OPEN FIRE. World War III ERUPTS. Now we hear distant POLICE SIRENS.
CHRIS
is hit in the neck.
NEIL’S
FIRING 3-SHOT BURSTS that blow up Schwartz and a lamppost and hit a woman who falls over her shopping cart, shrieking. Hanna’s behind the lamppost.
BOSKO
across the street with his AR-180, opens up on the station wagon which takes HITS. A BLACK AND WHITE slides sideways and COP #1 with a shotgun runs across the street hollering at kids who stop and stare and drop school books.
COP # 1
Drop! Drop down!
CERRITO
over the station wagon roof FIRES a BURST at Bosko, then swings onto Cop #1 and fires, killing him. Cerrito jumps into the wagon.
THE STREET – WIDE: A BUS
The driver panics and slams on his brakes and his bus full of people stalls in the combat zone between Bosko and the wagon.
BOSKO (O.S.)
(screams)
Get the bus out of here...
shielded by the green bag of money which has taken hits, FIRES at Hanna and backs to Chris.
HANNA
pulls Schwartz to cover.
dazed – holding his bleeding neck while Neil FIRES into the parking lot...
PARKING LOT
...hitting Casals getting out of his car. Casals sits down as if stunned.
MAN
pulling his car out of the lot ducks behind the wheel and crashes it into a parked car.
EXT. BANK – CERRITO
(to Neil)
C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!
Neil can’t rake it through the incoming FIRE from Hanna and Cop #2 to the station wagon and Cerrito and knows it.
(to Breedan and Cerrito)
Go!! Go!!
ON STATION WAGON
Breedan floors it.
re-emerges, kneels and PUMPS SHOTS into the station wagon.
rounds the bus with the AR-180 and OPENS UP
STATION WAGON
draws everyone’s FIRE. Breedan ducks and pilots it through the gauntlet.
has taken off down the sidewalk, supporting Chris. TIGHTEN. He runs in among crowds of civilians. He knocks over a man, breaks through. People are screaming, staring, shocked.
INT. STATION WAGON – BREEDAN
getting BLOWN APART by Hanna, Bosko, and Cop #2 falls over the wheel and then is thrown back.
EXT. STREET – STATION WAGON
tires are BLOWN OUT.
It spins across the street on steel rims and crashes sideways into a parked car on the east side of Hawthorne.
INT. STATION WAGON – CERRITO
shot three times, holds his abdomen and bails, returning FIRE. Breedan, like a rag doll is half over into the rear seat and still being hit by more rounds. We HOLD on David Breedan. He’s dead.
CUT TO:
EXT. SIDE STREET – CERRITO
east up a side street past people who stand on their lawns and stare – traumatized.
WIDER
Bosko and Cop #3 chase Cerrito. Cerrito FIRES a long BURST. They can’t fire back because of the people.
EXT. SAFEWAY – TRACKING NEIL + CHRIS – DAY
and the money – running, skipping and dodging past all manner of pedestrians, newspaper coin boxes, fruit vendors and parking meters. People dodge, scream and fall down. It’s chaos.
TRACKING HANNA
a half block behind, chasing Neil – pushing through the same people.
(shouts at pedestrians)
Get down! Get down!
EXT. SAFEWAY PARKING LOT – NEIL + CHRIS
Neil – supporting Chris – throws a lady, who was getting out, back into her Olds Cutlass. He dumps Chris and the money in the back seat and turns on Hanna.
extends the collapsible stock braces on the roof for accuracy and FIRES over the roof of other cars and through people at Hanna closing in 5o yards away.
EXT. SAFEWAY – HANNA + CIVILIANS
who panic. SHOOTING. Windows EXPLODE. A lady holds her ears and shrieks. A newspaper coin box SHATTERS. A man’s bag of groceries explode milk and eggs everywhere. He goes down.
doesn’t have a clear shot and drops, dragging people down with him.
behind the wheel – burns rubber pulling out of the lot over curbstones and through a fence into the alley.
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