Screenwriting Clinic

You can find rules and guidelines@ Screenwriting Clinic.

Welcome to the Screenwriting Clinic Contest! Basically, I find WritersCo far too geared towards a declining art form (fantasy fiction) and an obsolete one (poetry). So this contest will deal with working with the tenets that make a good MOVIE!

NEWS!

This contest is OPEN for submissions until Monday June 30th! Not much time, kids! Please read the rules at Screenwriting Clinic!

Prompts

July: The Montage

A montage is loosely defined as a collection of images showing the passage of time in film. Or "a compressed narrative" as Wikipedia puts it. Honestly, I can't think of any examples right now, but I want to say it's common in espionage movies. If I think of an actual example, I'll post it.

Let's say you're writing a crime script. Your protagonist, bill, is a seasoned bank robber. He's robbed fifteen in eight years, and never been caught. Please don't write Bill, because he's a cliche, but for argument's sake, let's say you want to let your audience see proof of his skills. You really don't want to write fifteen separate bank robberies, so you decide to use a montage. In it, there'll be brief scenes from a handful of the robberies, perhaps with a date and location in text on screen. It might look something like this.

In this, we'll also use a new tenet: the V.O. (voice over). This entails a character talking over the scene (narrating) and is denoted by putting (v.o.) next to the speaker's name in the script.

1. Ext. Los Angeles, CA outside Generic Bank-- morning

As we FADE IN from the opening credits, we SEE BILL MACMASTERS strolling along the sidewalk next to Generic Bank. The morning sun casts a reflection on his bald head, and he sweats profusely in the heat; as well he should, dressed in a heavy legal coat and three-piece suit.


MacMasters (v.o.): I wish I had a good way to hook you into this. I could say "oh, I robbed my first bank when I was three. I walked fifteen miles in the snow to get there.

MacMasters laughs a dry, humorless laugh in voice-over as he enters the bank.

CUT TO: (note: this is an optional note that you are changing scenes. Note that any time you change filming locations, you should have a new scene.)

2. Int. Generic Bank-- morning

MacMasters sizes up the bank, looking around, smiling amicably at two security guards. One smiles back, the other yawns.

MacMasters (v.o.): It's just not that interesting a story. Not at first.

MacMasters moves as if entering the first teller's line, but jukes suddenly and swings his arm around the yawning guard's neck, his other hand drawing a gleam of silver from the heavy overcoat; a pistol.


MacMasters: Nobody move!

The scene freezes, catching MacMaster's face in mid-shout. We can SEE the words 'Generic Bank, Los Angeles: 1988' slam onto the screen to the sound of a two shotgun reports.


MacMasters (v.o.): Okay, it was a little interesting. I ended up earning quite the reputation for it.

We enter a MONTAGE of MacMaster's bank robbery career. We see images from five robberies besides Generic Bank. Each scene shows MacMasters, in a different wig and pair of sunglasses each time, grabbing a guard as he did in the opening scene. Each scene ends the same way; with the name of the bank, city, and year slamming onto the screen as the scene freezes, catching MacMaster's with a half-crazed, smiling shout on his face. In this way we progress from 1988 to 2003.

CUT TO:






Okay, that's a generic, really quick example. But that, basically, is a montage. Another example is showing days pass by showing the sun rising and setting in ultra-fast-forward. One more is showing two characters having a 'night on the town' through brief flashes of them shopping, having dinner, riding a bus, and finally ending up at a destination where a scene occurs. 

So write a montage! Connect two scenes with it somehow... for example, the characters plan an evening out in scene, MONTAGE, then get home in scene.

Any questions? Ask!

Note: There may be dialogue in your montage. However, understand that the point of a montage is to cover a lot of narrative ground in a very short time. Soliloquizing? Bad idea.

Entries

1. [Ash] - 102.Contests.Screenwriting Clinic July 08

Past Winners!

1. Nightshadow - 82.Carla - May Contest: Character Detail

2. [Ash] - 102.Contests.Screenwriting Clinic June 08 - June Contest: Negotiation scene

Related Wikis

Credits

Contest host: [Mister Saint]
Dividers by [Kachi]