Hey there, I don't know if something I search for was already discussed here...

I would appreciate it if you can help me out, or point me to a movie script where my situation is played.

I write a comedy feature in my native language (formatting isn't much different here). The framework of the script is done. It's a goofy comedy. One step above the trash comedy genre, I hope. We have a market here in which our stand-up comedians are involved into movies. They for example made a parody on Winnetou: a film about Amerindians, only that all characters play as if they were gay and so they build up a non-serious situation of the things Indians usually do. Snow white and the seven dwarfs is another example. Any dwarf was played by another comedian and gave the dwarf a certain style of jokes. Austin Powers is much better, but it goes in that direction...


So, there's one situation in my script when a character suddenly performs his introduction by singing a song.  There's not a complicated choreography going on, but I want to let the characters interact a bit while he sings.

Important to say is, the lyrics will be written by me. There will be no memory effect for the audience, no famous lyrics to identify. I hope that I have the opportunity to break up some of the song's lines. You know, that the rhythm and rhymes become a bit obvious and comprehensible. I won't include backround music.

I could give further information, no problem, I could even show what my approach would be, but it's unnecessary if somebody already knows about this scenario, what I'm not.

The last point could be important too: I want to do that just one time. It's a single performance, not a scheme I go for. Not a returning element, that musical stuff.

Anybody has a clue what I'm talking about? Seen it, heard it, made it?

Thanks for spending your time on my musical dilemma.

I'm fairly certain it would be something as simple as putting (singing) under the characters name and italicizing the lyrics.  You might even be able to do a brief explanation of what's going on in the action (so they know if music is coming in and they're not just singing acapella).

Yes you can break up the song with actions going on elsewhere in the same place. Obviously the director will not switch off the song while these actions take place, the song will continue.

I wouldn't italicise, or use parenthesis, but I would mention it in the action lines. Is the singer on a stage, with a microphone? It should be obvious from the action that he is about to sing... IMO.

Hi guys. Good points. I'll be back this evening to clear some things up. At first place, my stuff could be described, from what I know, as a scene in Scream 2. There's a character jumping on a table singing a song for a girl. There they chose quotes around the dialogue box to emphasize it.

The big difference is, the author just written the text without breaking it up, because it was a text already known by the reader/audience. I'm curious about if I can break up the rhymes in the dialogue box, or even change the size of the box to help understanding text and rhythm because it's my own "composition" and it would help to understand. It's comedy and a bit crazy. It has to be funny and abstract and understandable because of that; it's not about him singing well or anything. I'm on the run, will come back later.

@ Dressel and Dustin

my character is singing acapella in the script. But I want the reader to know, there's a different kind of show now going on. The director can do whatever he wants with it. Some ways it's very abstract, and in case of scripts a new land for me, otherwise I wouldn't have questioned.

So, I can break up the song for a short time to bring in some interaction. That's good. No, there's not a microphone. It's another kind of comedy as explained above. In my imagination, his voice is boosted, he has the whole focus, but that's not my thing, I guess.

My thoughts were that I will give him a sentence to introduce it (or half of it) which breaks the "screenplays language a bit" and say.

Steve captures the attention, sings from the top of his lungs:

(sth. like that)

So last question. Can I break up the song's lines?
Here's what I get so far. I will think about using italics. Would help anyway- I inserted quotes because I saw it in the script I mentioned.

The example doesn't make much sense I know...



Steve captures the attention, sings from the top of his lungs:

STEVE
(sings)
"I'm a bad guy,
I'm a bad guy,"

Steve nears Hank, laughs while he slaps Hank in the face.

STEVE
(cont'd)
"Bad guy is what you're looking for.
I'm a bad guy.
I'm a bad guy,
Bad guys....."


Is it possible to break the dialogue up? By the way, Steve is the comedic personalization of the characteristic "Fear". In this scene, he wants to convince Hank to follow him and do wrong stuff.

Of course it is possible to break up the dialogue. I do it all the time.

You just have to trust that the director and actors will know not to finish the song to make action happen. The song will continue. Be a bit silly to stop a song to film a piece of action. Seems to me like you're worrying over nothing.

Not worrying. I just haven't done this before and wasn't sure how it's usually presented. But it's logical to just write it down, the musical style will be delivered by my words.

I have broken up some dialogue lines before, too, didn't  know if it's regular. So, if you do it  that way, I think I can do that too. Thanks