All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Okay so i want to do a montage of short shorts - the montage part is easy. The problem I’m having is that there are two different scenes - locations. What i am doing is using the montage to contrast the complete opposites of my two characters. Both are in a church during a service - different churches.
Picture it this way - you have two characters playing in two different basketball games - you want to montage short shots from each game - multiple shots flipping back and forth.
The first thing you need to know is if what you're doing is actually a montage, an intercut sequence, or a series of shots. Each are different and all serve a different purpose. It sounds to me, based on how you laid it out, that you're actually talking about an intercut sequence.
This is different from a montage in that a montage is a series of mini-scenes, each a part of a single arc in the overall story. The dating montage from The Naked Gun, for example. Besides being a lot of silly fun, it's also a great example of a montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTSjhm2t8ms
A series of shots is just what it sounds like, only instead of depicting a story arc, it's usually more like a step-by-step breakdown of a single act. Like the brief car chase in Hot Fuzz: https://youtu.be/0-lcqIuVaR8
An intercut sequence -- which, again, is more what it sounds like you're going for -- is used to depict two different acts, scenes or locations happening at the same time. You can intercut between two montages, you can intercut between two series of shots, you can intercut between the INT and EXT of a car during a high octane chase scene, etc. For your purposes, all you need is a master slug:
INTERCUT - INT. BOB'S PENTECOSTAL CHURCH / INT. MARY'S CATHOLIC CHURCH
And from there just use mini-slugs to jump back and forth. And a mini-slug can be something as simple as the character's name:
BOB drops pocket change into the collection plate and passes it along.
MARY takes to her knees, hands clasped in prayer.
BOB opens his hymnal.
MARY receives a communion wafer.
And on and on until the intercut is finished. The next scene after, indicate the end of the intercut with something like:
EXT. WHATEVER LOCATION - DAY (END INTERCUT)
The key, as always, is clarity. Just keep it simple and clear as you can. Good luck.