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Can you help out. I got this question today from Ethan
"I love your site, it's an invaluable tool for an aspiring writer like myself. There's a term, however, I keep finding in a screenplay I am reading that I don't understand and I cannot find it in your glossary. A few times in this screenplay there is a parenthesised term such as "off Rick's look" or "off Duane's hesitation" halfway through the character's dialogue. What does this mean?"
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/
One of the ways I read it is as a bit of direction for camera and a cue for the actors.
Like maybe this:
The scenario is that John and Bill are discussing DEAD GUY'S tragic death. Dead Guy was always one to pay attention to detail.
John has just had the striking awareness:
John He didn't even see it coming. (Off Bill's look) All he had to do was pay attention.
After John says, "He didn't even see it coming." What is being filmed is Bill's reaction to what John has said. While, John finishes with, "All he had to do was pay attention."
So we're very much (in the moment) seeing what Bill's reaction is to what John's saying while it's happening.
I think it's kind of like a moment of "connection" between two or more parties. I think of it as a reaction shot.
Using a wryly mid-dialogue as opposed to a drop-down has bennies. I find them helpful when dealing with some back and forth chippy dialogue. Or to demonstrate a character's revelation...
JOE Who are you?!? (a flash of recognition) No... it can't be!
E.D.
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I commonly use the (off ___'s blank look) parenthetical, and I use it in the similar way it is used in this scene (around the 50 sec mark), with JGL going off Anna Kendrick's confusion: