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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board / Screenwriting Class / Time travel question
Posted by: mcornetto (Guest), December 19th, 2006, 2:35am
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?
Posted by: George Willson, December 19th, 2006, 6:46am; Reply: 1
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
Posted by: chism, December 19th, 2006, 7:53am; Reply: 2
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.
Posted by: mcornetto (Guest), December 20th, 2006, 2:52am; Reply: 3
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.
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