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Yeah. You keep capping the first letter of whoever's name.
Gabe
Just Murdered by Sean Elwood (Zombie Sean) and Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley) - (Dark Comedy, Horror) All is fair in love and war. A hopeless romantic gay man resorts to bloodshed to win the coveted position of Bridesmaid. 99 pages. https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1624410571/
I'm not sure which is 'right' but I do it the way you do. All caps first then Cap the first letter just like a name...we still do not try to remember that character when reading because he isn't named.
I really really like use of a descriptive word to name the minor characters. If I'm reading a script with a lot of characters...it makes it so much easier to know which to concentrate on. This may be 'against' some of the old rules...but I love it as a reader.
You want to CAP the initial intro of all characters, named or not. This includes animals, birds, fish, insects. That means CAP every letter in whatever it is.
Is the question, should you continue to cap the first letter of "man" or whatever, as in a name?
I say no, as it's not a name. You could also have multiple "man" or the like in your script. No need to cap the first letter over and over, IMO.
I think my point's being made here. Mixed respones. Interesting stuff. Personally, I cap the first letter, but I've seen it done both ways. That, of course, is why I posed the question.
You're going to learn that right or wrong is kind of muddled when it comes to descriptions. Format is stricter.
Just Murdered by Sean Elwood (Zombie Sean) and Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley) - (Dark Comedy, Horror) All is fair in love and war. A hopeless romantic gay man resorts to bloodshed to win the coveted position of Bridesmaid. 99 pages. https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1624410571/
Agree, Mr. R, I've been writing scripts for years and never seen a concrete answer on this subject. Thanks for your input. You and I do it the same way - the right way, of course. LOL!
Agree, Mr. R, I've been writing scripts for years and never seen a concrete answer on this subject. Thanks for your input. You and I do it the same way - the right way, of course. LOL!
Just be careful that you don't have more than 1 "MAN" speaking or being described in action/description lines, because then, it would be the wrong way.
I recall some advice here on SS once about this. And it was you perhaps should only cap anyone who is gonna have dialogue. If you have say, a backpacker in a scene who walks past the hero and spits at him then isnt in the script again, and doesn't speak at all, then don't worry about it?
You should still capitalize the backpacker when you first see him. Otherwise, readers will wonder where he first appeared.
When I wrote The Devil's Jokebook, I had unnamed priests up the wazoo. I capitalized PRIEST each and everytime. If the director wants to use the same background actor in several scenes, that's his choice, but you still have to introduce each character in your script.
When you CAP a character's first intro, you're doing 2 things:
First, you're helping out your readers who don't have the luxury of having any actual visuals. This way, the reader knows whether or not this character has been onscreen before.
Second, you're using a standardized method for production/pre-production on just exactly what's necessary to shoot the script. Same goes for animals and the like. If your script calls for a herd of deer, you'll want to cap that, so when the peeps in charge of putting it together read it, they'll know what's going to be needed.
I realised after I posted that I have this similar 'problem' in my nearly finished new horror feature. The creatures in it ( technically zombies but I don't use that word in the script) aren't capped when I intro them mainly because there's a heap of them.
I just checked and no, I didn't cap the undead warriors when they first appear. Obviously they aren't going to speak.
What about in something like World War Z? Would it just have an action scene like...
Hundreds of ZOMBIES swarm from Lambeau Field towards the soldiers.
On second thought, that would happen at EVERY home game the Pack have, lol
In the case of World War Z, I imagine they stopped the uppercase just to save on ink. Technically, you would probably have to capitalize ZOMBIE once in each scene.
You CAP for three reasons, and they are all script breakdown reasons as Jeff said.
1) Foley (sound effects).
2) Props (sometimes) - if there is something that is needed, that should appear (an object).
3) Characters.
Pre-production requires that all these factors, and the cost of them, be taken into account. If you're going to be an a$$ and make it difficult for these people to produce your work, don't be suprised when it gets rejected