Screenwriting : Scene Heading by Imo Wimana Chadband

I am under the impression that EXT represents an outdoor scene, rather than referring to being outside of the referenced location. For example, if you wanted to have a scene outside of the bedroom, perhaps you would say . INT. Bedroom Hallway. I'm not an expert but that is how it was explained to me and how I have come to understand it!

1... EXT is when you're literally outdoors.

Thank you guys. I included that one because I actually saw it done in a script I was reading sometime back, confused the hell out of me. But one thing, is there a reason for it being "INT. HALLWAY - HOUSE" and not "INT. HOUSE - HALLWAY", or that's just the normal way it's written?

I don't think it's a huge deal. I have a scene in an apartment building hallway. I just wrote

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING HALLWAY - NIGHT

That's why I gave that follow up Jeff Caldwell because I myself have placed it in the other direction as well in scenes I've written, but Kay Luke just taught me something new. Thanks for clarifying Kay, I'll start adjusting those scenes in my writing moving forward.

Depends. Are you shooting through a window INTO a room or are you shooting down the hallway.

Kim Marie Cooper That scenario was just made up to give me direction for scenes I'm writing along that line. But the angle was not through a window but in the hallway in the house itself. The emphasis was trying to describe him in front the bedroom door, so I was curious if I needed to utilize the hallway, or describe the heading with the bedroom instead.

Personally, if I have clearly established that we are in a house then I would just keep it simple and use INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT. If, say, using a master heading INT. HOUSE - NIGHT then a secondary heading may work as well, HALLWAY or HALLWAY - NIGHT.

Reading over your last comment, Imo, and Dan G’s... you could just write it simply in action per Dan G’s example.

Dan G's is good.

Thanks for the breakdown Dan Guardino

I follow your logic Beth Fox Heisinger The first description I'll utilize for future scenes where it would come into play. Thanks for the guidelines

I often find myself formatting this way:

INT./EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT

FRONT ENTRANCE

[A character] enters the house.

KITCHEN

[The character] drops briefcase on table.

LIVING ROOM

And so on. In this way, by using INT./EXT. and subheaders, you cut down on the number of sluglines, which I find tedious to read. And not once have I had any formatting complaints from industry peeps.

Thanks Dan.

Eric Christopherson I've never actually used this method in my scripts thus far, but I am glad you gave this example. Definitely storing in my memory bank. I can see this method being useful in some ideas I have. Thanks man!

Ah! Dan Guardino Hm, I can picture the scenario. Thanks man

EXT. BEDROOM

KISS... keep it simple and write visually, omit redundancies. The camera is inside; it's INT. Where is it looking? In a hallway, so we got INT. HALLWAY. It's dark outside, so we got INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT In the previous scene (EXT. PLANTATION GROUNDS - NIGHT, you've set the location: John follows his flashlight up the abandoned manor house steps, enters. New scene as we move inside; INT. GRAND FOYER (you don't need NIGHT here because we already know that). He climbs the central stairway to the upper level; new scene: INT. HALLWAY (we don't need NIGHT - we still know that). He pauses at a closed bedroom door. FOOTSTEPS from within. This certainly may not be the scenario you have in mind - but you hopefully get the general idea. BE CONCISE & SHOW YOUR STORY.

Thank you very much for this Doug Nelson This actually also clarified some other things I've been pondering on based off of what I've come across in some scripts. Appreciate this little crash course! Your experience shows.