Screenwriting : Cut to? by Bill Lonero

Transitions aren’t important unless they are they are there to add clarity.

They aren't.

Thank you

Bill. A new scene heading is a cut to so you don't need them and people stopped using them a long time ago.

Not at all important, screenplays are blue-print

Were the scripts you read writers scripts or shooting scripts? Usually you don't use them in writers scripts because the directors, editors and producer will all have their own way of doing it. Shooting script come from later on the process. I found out the hard way not to write or submit shooting scripts.

I can see no other way of doing an insert shot.

Craig. Why would you use CUT TO for an insert shot. You wouldn't be cutting to a new scene you'd just be entering a shot in an existing scene.

We are in one room talking.

PERSON1

Talk

PERSON2

Talk

CUT TO: Other location SOMEONE doing something.

PERSON1 (V.O.)

Someone wouldn’t dare do what I am saying right now.

PERSON2 (V.O.)

Why not we have cut to a shot showing them doing it.

——

That sort of thing. I could use a scene heading but that would indicate to the reader that we are in an entirely new scene rather than just a shot to counter point dialogue.

There is probably an easier way.

I got told off for it last week in coverage. They added that they would never use it unless they were really trying to stress a passage of time.

Just leave the CUT TO's out - period. It sounds to me like you're trying to write a scene within a scene. If the camera goes to a different location; it's a new scene... I doubt that an INSERT or CUTAWAY is gonna work very well.

"Cut To:" is now just called a Slug Line. And unless it's really crucial to the Story, stay away from Transitions as well.

Craig. In your example you said you are cutting to a different location which would require a new scene heading. That would be a problem if someone didn't catch it.

If the scene/person change happens more than once, use 'INTERCUT SCENE A/SCENE B.' It is a 'Shot.' At the end, be sure to 'END INTERCUT.'

But there is no place for 'CUT TO' in a spec script. Your descriptive and visual writing does that for you.

Thanks All.

A new scene heading would (in the mind of the reader) imply a new scene. Which this is not, just an inserted shot. I have seen heaps of Cut To, normally to indicate a solid change in tone.

Huge shoot up

Cut To

Calm ocean.

But they have been made redundant. I have used hundreds of Intercuts previously in other scripts. AMY is nearly entirely phone calls.

I just can’t think of a smooth way to tell people it is the same scene. If I was editing I’d use the same music to link. But I don’t have that tool.

Maybe CONTINUOUS

Thanks

Thank you for the terminology for screen changes.

Craig. I am not sure what you mean. Intercuts are two different scenes. Continues is when you move from one location to another which wouldn't have anything to do with intercuts. Am I missing something?

Hi Dan

Someone mentioned INTERCUT, so I was responding to that suggestion. I have used them and didn’t think it was appropriate solution in this case.

I’ll just have to keep looking around.

I reread the “True Detective” pilot script. Great script but a bit of a struggle with its formatting. Gets the job done. Great script. Just more overhead than I am wanted.

The scene motors along. Was trying to get the pace of the read with minimal formatting.

Also, if you're doing multiple scenes at once you could try START MONTAGE and END MONTAGE.

Thanks Tony.

The scene is two people talking and we see about 10 seconds of footage of something happening at a different location show he is lying, then back to the scene. This dropped in shot has VO dialogue. So we feel we have never left the first scene .

Don't need them in a spec screenplay.

Helpful, but not essential unless you've spent over a decade reworking and visualising the story in your head (like yours truly).

Craig. Why not just write what we see on film and forget about the reader. Just a suggestion.

I do normally. I am very visual in my writing.

But what we see is a conversation, then cut to a shot of people sneaking down a driveway, with the conversation continuing over the driveway shot, then cut back to the conversation.

The driveway shot is no more than a few seconds. The page real estate should be commensurate with the screen feel. I am trying to avoid 2 inches for 2 seconds.

I do think of the read experience. It is the writing version of a viewing experience - for me anyway.

Cut tos are usually only used in shooting scripts. They waste valuable page space in a spec draft. A cut is implied by a new slug line.

On spec scripts, "cut to" and camera shots are not expected. A lot of what you see out there are shooting scripts that have all of those elements added in.

I find the term "spec" very offensive, even pejorative (partly because I come from a background of writing novels instead of scripts). A script's a script, it shouldn't have entitlement issues.

Stefano. Any script that isn't sold or written for hire is a "spec screenplay" because the screenwriter wrote it on speculation. The term is not offensive.

Maybe, but it does devalue the work slightly if it's not intended to be made.

Stefano. Why would you assume people are writing spec screenplay and they have no intention of it getting made. I think the opposite it true because most people that write spec screenplays try to sell them so they will hopefully get made. I am sorry I just don't see how the term "spec screenplay" devalues the product that someone writes and is trying to sell.

Some scripts can be close to a writer's heart, others can be written as a means to an end. It's a question of perspective.

Hey Bill, "CUT TO:" is something to work hard at keeping OUT of your script, unless it's an actual "SHOOTING SCRIPT" in-which the director uses as ques for what HE wants to have happen next in the telling of the story.

Refrain-- refrain-- REFRAIN from using it or any DIRECTION unless it's CRUCIAL.

Stefano. How many screenplays have you written that you wouldn't sell if the price was right?

Craig. It sounds like you are just trying to make a scene a shot to save space which could cause issues if it goes into production.

Let's end this once & for all. As the writer, you use TWO transitions; you get FADE IN and you get FADE OUT - that's it! As the Director, you get to add all those CUT TO, CROSSFADE, BLIND CUT, INVISIBLE CUT, SWISH PAN, ZOOM STOP, on and on. The Director gets to call the shot types; LONG, COWBOY, MID, CLOSE, ECU, on and on (you don't do that as the writer). You can argue with a fence post all night long, but Hollywood ain't about to change its evil ways for you or me. Get over it.

Stefano Pavone what is your interpretation of the word "spec"?

Pierre Langenegger Specimen - something to be used as an example of the writer's calibre or background.

It's short for speculative.

Doug Nelson That may be so, but when my novel will be adapted into a movie (I'm so close, I can taste it - I just need one last hurdle to jump across), the Director would logically want to cooperate with moi, the Writer and Author (and owner of the rights to the source material, so no remakes/reboots without my consent) to make the best adaptation possible from page to screen. For any successful relationship in life, the key is the four C's: Compassion, Compromise, Communication and Courtesy (I was going to add Common Sense, but it doesn't seem to be very common).

Stefano Pavone Specimen is incorrect. It stands for speculative, which means you're writing your script on spec. Basically any script you write that is not a studio assignment is a spec script. Whether it is used as a specimen or not has nothing to do with the term, "spec script".

7 minutes late. :)

Wow! I came back to this post and see all these replies and people talking about "spec". In the music industry we use spec as well. For instance, if we are working with an engineer or producer, they may work on the album on spec and get points on the back end. So no money up front. I myself don't find the word offensive at all. It's "speculation". Everything we do is on spec unless it was created for money from the get-go.

I’ll try to keep my answers on point.

SPEC is an abbreviation of “Speculative” meaning something that was created for no specific customer in mind. I do understand Stefano’s concern. By saying it can’t be done in a spec script, implies that it can be done in other scripts and therefore spec scripts are different or lesser in some form.

Writers can only use Fade in and Fade out.

As much as I enjoy Doug’s insights. But are not in the same ballpark here, or the same continent. I don’t know how to say I couldn’t disagree more, than say “I couldn’t disagree more”.

If a tool exists it can be used. A tool is used to solve a problem. If you don’t use the tool the problem will remain.

If you use a tool incorrectly, you look like an idiot, like using a chainsaw to slice bread. To say that writers cannot use all tools available to them feels like a reaction to fear. Use all tools. If you know how. Otherwise you look foolish, for not using it or using it incorrectly.

I may be the only person that believes this next statements.

“You are all jobs until someone buys your script and gives those jobs to someone else”.

My second belief “They will adapt my script in the same way they will adapt a novel.”

I am not arrogant enough to think they will shoot my script as written.

Dan Guardino I am trying to keep people in the correct scene, there is a virtually a flash of another scene. If this was a problem in production I would sack the line producer. The shot is definitely a second unit shot. Not dialogue just someone walking down driveway. But important to the context of the main scene. It shows the person is conniving, has plans in place, is living to his bosses face and is willing to kill to get what he wants.

If you have seen “Knives Out” there is a huge display of knives. If is visually stunning. In the script it simply says “decorative wall of knives”. I am trying to be that simple in the read.

Again thinks all.

Craig. If you can see the person walking down the driveway from where you are filming inside the house then I understand that it is a shot. If they have to move the camera and equipment outside to film, it then it is a scene. If your doing something else I don’t have a clue what you are doing and I have no clue what a "second unit shot".

Craig. Do it your way and good luck with it.

Thanks Dan G.

No it is at a different location. I’ll figure it out.

Craig. You have two locations so that would require two scene headings. I don't see anyway around it. However you might get away with writing a master scene heading and a scene sub-heading. Something like --

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

Blah, blah, blah...

OUT IN THE DRIVEWAY

Blah, blah, blah...

BACK IN THE LIVING ROOM

Blah, blah, blah...

Maybe something like that would work.

Craig. What if someone inside sees the reflection of what is going on outside in a mirror or someone's eye or on their glasses. I'm just trying to come up with different ideas.

True.

I should have explained. The second location is already known to the viewer/reader.

Sorry for being unclear.

I guess I am thinking of using something like calling out location within a location.

Don't use them or camera direction or anything else. The reason these are in scripts you've read is because those are produced shooting scripts.

Using them is in a non-produced script is a glaring mark of the amateur.

There have been a few scripts which I've read (mainly Ingmar Bergman films from the 1950s and 1960s) which don't even have ending credits! Then again, European screenwriting conventions (at least then) differ from American ones.

Hi Joshua Keller Katz I have been paid for two scripts in twelve months. One in Production in NYC the other in the UK. Does that mean I am allowed to do it since I am a paid writer?

I think you are conflating amateur and bad. Bad writing can also be done by professionals.

Stefano Pavone I do like and tend to write in a more european way. I have been looking for a good example that work as part of an entire screenplay. I think that is why this has been an interesting discussion. It needs to be solved in context of the entire screenplay.

I’ll post my final solution.

Craig D Griffiths You are allowed to do whatever you want: like "sell" your scripts to two non-WGA signatory companies (AKA amateurs) or to be condescending to someone who is offering another writer advice. But MY advice, is to not do those things. I also still advise to not put transitions (other than FADE IN/OUT into) screenplays. It distracts the reader and scene headings are already transitions by default.

This thread died a slow death four months ago. I pretty sure the OP got the answer he was looking for.

Dan Guardino I was responding directly to a comment made to me. I didn't see the response until 2 days ago. Perhaps ironically (definitely hypocritically) , by replying, you are contributing to the life of this thread.

Joshua. That is fine. After four months maybe he'll read your response.

Whatever you say Dan.

"Cut To:'s are Old Hollywood at this point. If you're directing, you'll advise the editor as to where you want a 'Smash Cut To' in the editing room.