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I recently did this and wasn't sure if it looked right...
INT./EXT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS - DAY (MONTAGE) CELINE’S APARTMENT
as opposed to INT./EXT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS - CELINE’S APARTMENT - DAY (MONTAGE) (I really do think this looks too cluttered)
Can you do it like that? A master heading then a secondary heading. I'd move up the secondary heading into the main heading but I don't really want more than 3 things up there.
Also... when I did the montage I did the A/B/C/D method and thought it looked squashed and perhaps was too much to digest at once. Does this look better?
And some quick questions... A secondary heading is formatted as an actual heading right? Does establishing go in brackets?
Oh right. Do you think I'd get away with doing it like the way I've done? I just think it looks cleaner. Easier to digest. Hopefully its still clear. I've more or less done it constantly throughout.
I have several montages in a character's house so it skips from each room a lot. I only have one montage with the Various Locations but I wanted consistency so I kept my secondary heading montage thing.
As the scenes are fairly long - would it make more sense to scrap the montage and just slug them each as its own short scene? This might be the best choice, as more than one thing happens in each scenelet. And then I don't even have to indicate montage as the short scene descriptions should make it obvious.
Would it be safer to do this instead?
INT. CELINE’S APARTMENT - DAY INT. FANCY RESTAURAMT - DAY EXT. THE BEACH - DAY
INT. CELINE’S APARTMENT - KITCHEN - NIGHT INT. CELINE’S LOUNGE - NIGHT INT. CELINE’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
A montage is usually edited to have a single musical piece over all of the scenelets, which helps the audience tie them together into a cohesive theatrical statement.
Readers don't have the benefit of background music, so they rely on the formatting.
Personally, I like your subheading idea for montages, but there is a serious risk of confusing a screening reader. Or a screening reader might see non-standard formatting from an unknown writer and assume that all of the elements (formatting, story arc, character development, etc.) are too amateur for consideration.
Fortunately, formatting fixes are the easiest kind to make. It can get tedious, but it doesn't require really rethinking anything. The only REAL change is that you need at least one line of action after each main heading before going into dialogue or subheadings.