Is it neccessary to use BACK TO SCENE after using a secondary heading? An example:

INT. RESTAURANT - NIGHT

MARK sits alone at a table. He raises a hand to call the WAITER.

                             MARK
               Could you turn on the TV, please?

The waiter turns on a TV.

Mark looks at the...

SCREEN

A REPORTER stands in front of a car crash.

                            REPORTER
               Blah blah blah

BACK TO SCENE

Mark turns and takes a sip of wine.


Is the BACK TO SCENE needed? Or do I have to write INT. RESTAURANT again when Mark stops watching the tv? Or maybe it isnīt neccessary to write anyting at all?

I've taken a pretty good beating for camera angles, and have had some decent practice recently getting rid of them.  Try this.

"Mark looks at the television, where a REPORTER stands in front of a car crash.

Dialogue.

Mark takes a sip of wine."

Or something like that.  No headings at all, it's still clear, and the director decides how it all should look.

It really depends on the secondary heading. The one you specify would not require a back to scene because all you're doing is bringing focus to something inside the location and haven't left it. Once you mention Mark again, we get the idea that we're no longer staring at the TV. This type of heading is allowable in spec scripts since it doesn't interrupt the flow of the story using anything "camera-ish," but you have to make sure it is used correctly. The way you have it shows the SCREEN heading ending a sentence, which is incorrect. A secondary heading can begin a sentence, but cannot end one. Yeah, weird, but it would work something like this (combining your original with Bert's suggestion to create allowable combo).

Mark looks at the

TELEVISION SCREEN

where a REPORTER stands in front of a car crash.

All you're doing is separating the sentence to bring things out. Mark turns from there and the story continues. BACK TO SCENE is used for INSERTS, MONTAGES, FLASHBACKS, and things of that nature. If you had said:

INSERT THE TV SCREEN

And went on about the reporter, then that would require a BACK TO SCENE. What you've done is kind of like this:

MOM

looks at Dad with her large grey eyes.

A SINGLE TEAR

flows down her cheek, dropping to the

FLOOR

where it splashes, almost inperceptibly.

Now that's an extreme, but you get the idea. It's directing the camera without telling the director how to direct the camera. Kind of a sneaky thing, but no camera angles. I mostly use subheadings such as:

INT. HOUSE

From the living room, the character walks

INTO THE KITCHEN

where he makes a sandwich. Sandwich made, the character walks

INTO THE HALLWAY

where he adjust the thermostat.

IN THE BEDROOM

the character strips naked and crawls under the single sheet. He claps twice andthe lights go out.

I run on somtimes, but I hope you get the idea.

Thanks a bunch, Bert and George. Both of your suggestions are pretty good, and help me to get rid of this problem in the SCREEN scenes Iīve got in my script.

One more question guys. I have other scenes when I use POVīs which I canīt get rid off, because I have a character which uses thermal vision, night vision, etc, so I need the POV to show what he sees. What would you suggest in this cases? Should I use a BACK TO SCENE after describing the chacacterīs POV?

I'm not ignoring you.

I am waiting for an answer to this one, too.

A POV is actually considered a camera direction. I conquer this by saying so-n-so watches... In the case of an unknown POV, I say "From the bushes, someone watches." Just like reading a book, you have to consider how it would be written for a reading audience. The secondary heading allows for a little bit of freedom in "directing" the script, but POV directs the camera because it's an angle. If you want to use one anyway, I believe you would do it like this:

KILLER POV

of Darla and Athena walking down the hallway. It draws close to them.

DARLA

turns to Athena and says something.

Just use a secondary heading to bring yourself out of the POV. Since you're still in the scene, you don't need to come back to it. But I would recommend using it sparingly.

In instances like this, you can refer to POV.  When a particular view is required, you're fine.


Phil

Thanks again, guys.