Author: Stavros Stavrides

When I’m talking about scene design, I’m not referring to the furniture in a room or what’s hanging on the wall. I’m talking about how a writer, and later a film editor, structures each scene in a screenplay.

In particular, I’m talking about the length of those scenes, which is determined by when a scene begins and when a scene ends.

By Charles Deemer, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

UPDATED DECEMBER 7 2022

This article gets to the screenwriting application of “Exit Late, Start Early”. We further cover this concept for film editors in our article Three Pitfalls of the Editor. You’ll find this link at the end below.

Typically, a beginning screenwriter will write scenes that are too long, and that are too inefficient. This error is pandemic because screenwriting is the most efficient narrative form we have.

Every word, every moment, has to matter in a screenplay. Beginners almost always begin their scenes earlier than they should and then carry them on longer than they should. So…

When Should a Scene Begin?

A screenplay is built in modules, scene by scene. For this reason, it is difficult to talk about any single scene out of the context of the whole. All the same, basic principles of efficient scene design are part of the screenwriting craft.

A scene in a screenplay should begin as late as possible. What does this mean? Let’s take an example.

A husband and wife have been separated. The husband is the protagonist in the story. He and his wife are meeting for lunch to talk about their future. The wife is going to tell him she wants a divorce.

Most beginners would spend a lot of time getting the husband to this lunch meeting. He might take some time to decide what he is going to wear. He might dawdle on the way, so as not to be early and appear to be anxious. He might fortify himself with a drink or two. Finally, he’ll be met at the restaurant by a hostess and led to the booth where his wife waits.

There will be small talk. A waiter will take an order for drinks. More small talk. A waiter will take their lunch orders. More small talk. Eventually, they’ll get around to talking about their marriage, at which time the wife will say she wants a divorce.

Although there are dramatic contexts in which this slow development can work (see below), in most cases this scene will be too slow. It has too much fat. What is the point of the scene? The news of divorce. A more skilled screenwriter, therefore, would open the scene just before this moment. The couple is already seated at lunch. They are eating silently. Suddenly the wife pops the news.

But there is a context in which the slow version is stronger than the more efficient version. Let’s say that while getting ready, the husband fetches a handgun, loads it, and hides it on his person.

Now where there was slow development and fat before, there is tension because we are on the edge of our seats, wondering what he is going to do with the gun. And the longer we have to wait, the tenser the story becomes.

In other words, for slowly developing scenes to work, there must be an element to justify their pacing; in general, the crisper the scene, the better.

So what about getting out of this scene?

When Should a Scene End?

In the first version, without the gun, beginners would have the wife pop the news and have this lead into an argument, probably the kind of argument we’ve heard many times before. This argument may take several pages, even though we learn nothing new from it.

A more skilled screenwriter might have the wife’s news be the last line in the scene. A quick look at the husband’s reaction and cut: maybe to the husband having a drink in a bar, talking with a friend, or sleeping with his mistress.

Once again, the gun changes everything because it adds a dynamic new element to the dramatic mix. The wife gives the news. A beginning writer might have the husband take out the gun and shoot her. Chaos results. The husband is wrestled to the ground by customers. He barely gets away.

A more skilled screenwriter would surprise us. The husband takes out the gun and points it at his temple. Would he really? The wife looks like she’s about to have a heart attack. He pulls the trigger. Nothing. “I was going to shoot you but I chickened out,” he says. “I took out the bullets. Have a nice life.” He leaves.

This post is a support article for the “Screenwriting” chapter in Cyber Film School’s 
Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

Effective Scene Design: ‘The Birdcage‘

Hollywood has mastered good scene design and even otherwise poorly crafted movies are likely to have efficient scenes. But good movies, of course, use good scene design to better dramatic effect. In my University screenwriting class, I use The Birdcage as an especially good example of film storytelling with efficient scene design.

Let’s look at two scene transitions from The Birdcage.

In the first, Armand has been trying to teach Albert how to walk like a man. When Albert accidentally bumps into a customer on the patio, Armand rushes to his defense like a macho hero. The customer stands up. Here is what follows:

Study this transition carefully because it reveals the key to efficient scene design. What is left out is as important, maybe more important, than what is left in. Notice that what is missing is the physical confrontation itself. In a comedy like this, physical violence would be inappropriate and Albert’s subsequent description of the fight is far funnier than seeing the fight.

A beginning screenwriter would take a page or more to make this transition. We’d see the fight, and we’d see Albert helping Armand get home, and we’d see Albert helping Armand to the couch and running off to prepare cold compresses. But in the context of the story, all those details are irrelevant.

The story itself always determines what details you need to show because they support the story and move it forward, and which details are “fat” because they do not move the story forward.

Another example. Armand has come up with the idea that Val’s mother might help them in their charade as a straight family. Here is what follows:

Again, this transition has great efficiency, leaving out all the unnecessary details that a beginner would put in: Armand’s going to the phone to make the call, a secretary at Katharine’s office answering the phone, and so on.

Tips

Although it is always the particular context that determines scene design, there are some principles that will help you make tighter scenes.

Think of ending a scene with a kind of “punch line” or a moment that raises or asks a question. Each naturally leads to something new, the next scene.

Think of scene beginnings as starting in the middle of an action at the point where new story information begins to be revealed.

In other words, cut all the “set up” material of the scene and let the context itself set the scene. Get to the point of the scene from the beginning

Admittedly, there are other factors that justify more leisurely scene development, such as pacing and suspense. If we see a serial killer hide in the closet as a woman comes into her apartment, that knowledge will keep us on edge for a much longer scene than we’d accept otherwise, if the apartment were empty. We are constantly thinking, “Is he coming out?”

But in general, the problem beginners have is putting too much detail into a scene, starting it too early, and ending it too late.

If you concentrate on scene openings and endings when you rewrite, cutting from the top and from the bottom, you should learn to write tight, focused scenes that have no fat and no dull moments.

Be sure to read further applications of “Exit Late, Start Early” in film editing in:
Three Pitfalls of the Editor.

<<BACK TO: Learn Screenwriting

What makes a screenplay cinematic is rarely the dialog.  The magic lies in how action is portrayed. In this two-part article, we discover that writing action in a screenplay involves three decisions:

By Charles Deemer,
Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

UPDATED DECEMBER 7, 2022

What to Write

Consider the following attempt at writing action from one of my students:DA

There are so many things wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin.

For the moment, let’s set aside the issues of rhetoric (how this is written) and format (the over-use of capitalization) and just consider what is said.

This is written with the eye of the fiction writer, not the screenwriter. Fiction writers describe everything in detail in order to create a specific image in the eye of the reader. This is not the job of the screenwriter. I repeat this is not the job of the screenwriter.

The screenwriter tells the story, directly and simply. Yes, this involves visual storytelling but to a screenwriter, this means something quite different from what it means to a fiction writer.

A screenwriter is a collaborator. He is neither the costume designer nor the set designer of the production; the writing above invades the territory of each.

Here is how a screenwriter might write the above scene:

The room is large, expensively decorated, with a fireplace. Someone is playing classical music on a piano.

NIGEL, a servant, enters with a tray for tea-time. He marches to the piano.

What an incredible difference!

This is direct, barebones writing, which is the style usually most appropriate for screenwriting.

Granted, there may be dramatic reasons to include some of the details I’ve omitted. Let’s say the walking stick is going to be stolen. In this case, it would be appropriate to mention it.

But the point is this: the screenwriter is not the set designer, costume designer, or director. The writer merely suggests what is appropriate to the story; “large, expensively decorated” is enough to say about the room.

Where the fiction writer writes in great detail, the screenwriter writes general suggestions for his or her collaborators.

This post is a support article for the chapter “Screenwriting” in 
Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.

The screenwriter’s job is to tell the story, and does this by:

• Telling us what we see on the screen, and
• Telling us what we hear in dialogue and other major sounds important to the story: explosions, whatever).

In telling what we see on the screen, the screenwriter focuses on story movement and does not include so much detail – that is the major responsibility of a collaborator such as a costume designer or set designer.

The screenwriter doesn’t write descriptive detail, as it slows up the STORY’s forward movement.

Consider how characters are described in a screenplay. In literary fiction works, the description of characters is written in great detail.

Now look at the scripted character descriptions from the following films:

Citizen Ruth

She is around 30.

(That’s it!)

Big Night

PRIMO, the chef, is at the stove. Brooding, intense, he is in his late 30s but seems older than his years.” “His younger brother, SECONDO – early 30s, handsome, charming but high strung.

Lone Star

We see SAM DEEDS, the sheriff, driving. Sam is 40, quietly competent to the point of seeming moody

Get Shorty

CHILI PALMER, late 30s, sits in a booth with TOMMY CARLO, a low-level mob type.

Quiz Show

The hand belongs to DICK GOODWIN, late 20s.

Often the only character description we get is the decade of age! There’s some room for individual writing style here but no screenwriter writes with the “detailfiction” writer.

Here’s a detailed character description in a screenplay:

Bull Durham

ANNIE SAVOY, mid 30’s, touches up her face. Very pretty, knowing, outwardly confident. Words flow from her Southern lips with ease, but her view of the world crosses Southern, National and International borders. She’s cosmic.

Beginning screenwriters also tend to over-write character movement within the scene, which means they usurp the role of the director and choreograph the scene.

My students often begin writing things like this:

She walks slowly across the room, her high heels taking small steps on the thick red carpet. Reaching the portable bar, she stops and considers her options. Her left hand picks up the tongs in the ice chest and drops three ice cubes into a glass. She returns the tongs, then picks up the only bottle of Scotch and pours, stopping a quarter inch from the brim of the glass. She sets down the bottle and, still using her left hand, raises the glass. She brings it to her bright red lips and slowly sips.

A screenwriter is more likely to write something like this:

She moves across the room and fixes herself a drink.

Another major mistake many beginners make: like literary fiction writers, they get inside a character’s mind, in Writing Action – Part Two: How to write it and format it.

NEXT: Writing Action – Part Two >>

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Charles Deemer is the author of Screenwright: The Craft of Screenwriting and “Practical Screenwriting”. All right reserved.