I have a scene where the daughters are saying good-bye to their parents for the last time. The parents won’t survive the script. The daughters have some dialogue and the father smiles and wipes a tear. I would like to repeat that scene, without the dialogue, in the epilogue where we find out what happens to the daughters by way of Voice Over. What happens to them is good and in this repeated scene I want to stop it with the father smiling, before he wipes the tear. The question is this: How would I indicate in the script that this is a repeated scene? I mean, I don’t think this quite qualifies as a Flashback . . . but I don’t know if there is anything specific like that where I would need to indicate what it is -- as you would a Flashback or Montage sequence. I have written out the same scene over again without the dialogue of the daughters, but is that all that needs to be done? Thank you for your help.
Screenwriting : Question on a very specific problem by Richard Allis
Question on a very specific problem
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Hi Richard, If your scene first appears at the beginning of the story and then you continue forward in time, only to come back to that scene at the end, technically it is a flashback. You can indicate what scene it is in the description, e.g.: FLASHBACK - INT./ EXT. FRONT DOOR - DAY The daughters are saying goodbye to their dad. It's the exact same scene we saw before, except this time -- -- the frame freezes as he waves. VO blablablablah That's my take on it. Hope that helps. Cheers Phil
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Thank you. I wasn't sure what to call it, because I had only known Flashbacks to be used in a backstory kind of way. Some other information that wasn't anywhere else in the script. I had no idea how to indicate it being the same exact scene. Thank you.
You're welcome. Anytime :)
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Richard, for a concrete example see Vince Gilligan's pilot for BREAKING BAD, which is readily available online. He uses an alternative approach to Phil's suggestion.
Phillip's comment is interesting because I had always thought of flashbacks as 'moving back in time to new material', that is, not to a repeated scene. That said, I don't think the use of 'Flashback' in the slug line for a repeated scene would be a problem for me.
Richard – what you’re describing is a pure and simple flashback. You may want to talk with the Director about how to shoot it. I’ve done flashbacks where I incorporate a slight color shift to reflect that.
Thanks, Doug. That's a good idea to keep in mind.