This is a formatting question.

I am working on a script that jumps around a bit time-wise.  The format that I settled on is:

INT. LAB (-6 YEARS)

JOHN(42, male) etc. etc.

INT LAB (-6 WEEKS)

John(48 ) etc. etc.

INT LAB (NOW)

John(48 ) etc. etc.

INT LAB (-6 YEARS)

John etc. etc.

INT LAB (NOW)

John etc. etc.

Does this seem like the right approach?  Just a bit worried about folks getting lost reading it.  Anyone else have any suggestions as to how I might approach it?

You need to clarify what the 6 years and 6 weeks things mean. Are those minuses? What you're doing is mostly fine, but rather than use minuses (if I've understood this right), you should just write out 6 weeks ago or 6 years ago. Just be sure and establish when "now" is as well.

If there's a lot of time switching, another approach (and probably a better one) would be to just specify the date at the beginning of each section. Back to the Future II/III jumped around a lot, so the writers actually had the year on each slugline to keep it straight. Rather than what you have, you can drop the parenthesis and go with

INT. LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 2006

INT. LAB - DAY - OCTOBER 2006

INT. LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 2000

They also did something similar in the script for The Godfather. Except their sluglines were:

INT. DON'S OFFICE - DAY - (1945)

I thought that was an interesting way of doing it. I try to avoid the whole time travel thing. The mathematical implications are truly staggering to me and it gives me a wee bit of a headache. Best to leave it to much better writers.


Cheers, Chismeister.

Thanks, just what I needed (and yes it was a minus sign). Think I am going to go with the date but I have to add a time because sometimes it is the same day but later - in one case only six minutes later.  It will look something like this.

INT. LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 12 2000 15:00

JOHN(42, male) etc. etc.

INT LAB - NIGHT - NOVEMBER 1 2006  22:00

John(48 ) etc. etc.

INT LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 12 2006 15:00 (NOW)

John(48 ) etc. etc.

INT LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 12 2000 15:00

John etc. etc.

INT LAB - DAY - DECEMBER 12 2006 15:00 (NOW)

John etc. etc.

That look ok?

The time periods were sort of relevant to the story but since no one will see them on screen anyway I guess I could lose them.  (NOW) is sort of important because some things happen in the future.

It isn't actually a story about time travel but I figured that was the best way to approach the question.