Flashback advice.

I am revisiting a comedy drama script I wrote a while ago, which I cannot get out of my system. It is a pilot for a series or serial (a bit like some on this forum - I think it could go both ways) in the Bally k or Monarch of the Glen style.

I previously entered this for a couple of comps but had no response at all and so bottom drawed it. But I just keep coming back to it...

A while ago on a BBC writers room blog it was mentioned that a script that started with an alarm clock might not get read as this is such a beginners cliché. Guess what mine starts with? This was all the encouragement I needed to get it out and dust it off again.

I was thinking of inflicting this script on MCharsley when he was kind/foolish enough to offer 'free script advice' but decided I really should at least butcher or remove the two scenes that really aren't working or better still bite the bullet and rewrite it all again before asking anyone to read it.

So to my question. I wrote it originally in a strictly linear form, but this means the real story and key location are not arrived at until 30 min into the script. But as the set up is vital to the protagonists character I still need to cover it - so I thought enter later and use a series of 'flashbacks' to show the set up. Only I have never writen a flashback. What I need to know are the do's and don'ts. Are there any rules for working with flashbacks in a TV script?
I don't want to commit any more beginners errors...

Any or all advice most welcome.

In terms of technicalities - it depends a little bit in which format you are working.
And there are two kinds of flashback - ones where the viewer is taken back and ones where the protagonist is going back in his head - in which case you shouldn't go into a new scene, just put FLASHBACK on a new action line, on it's own, with the flashback action starting on the next action line.
Where it's a case of the viewer being taken back, if the location changes it should definitely be a new scene heading, with FLASHBACK as part of the time-of-day bit.
If it takes place in the same location you can get away with putting the word FLASHBACK as a separate action line and then, on a new line describe the flashback action.
In all cases when it's over, put END FLASHBACK as a separate action line.
Obviously you have two audiences - the reader and the viewer - and you have to let them both know you're entering a flashback sequence.
So some sort of "Earlier that day" title will be called for.
Flashbacks, like voice-overs can indicate a structural weakness in a script.
On the other hand, they can be brilliantly effective.
Just make sure you're using it for dramatic effect rather than a way of getting you out of a hole.

Quote: playfull @ 3rd February 2014, 2:36 PM GMT

What I need to know are the do's and don'ts.

View original

Is there an online guide to do's and don't for all these sorts of things?

Quote: playfull @ 3rd February 2014, 2:36 PM GMT

the real story and key location are not arrived at until 30 min into the script. But as the set up is vital to the protagonists character I still need to cover it

View original

Can you be more specific?
There are always ways round these things.

"Lost" was a great example of using flashbacks effectively as a way of getting to know the back stories of characters, interwoven at different intervals throughout the episode instead of just one flashback.

Maybe try the same technique and chop up those 30 pages of back story into a series of smaller flashbacks throughout your main story.

A technique sometimes used, at least in films, is to change to black and white or sepia.

Lazzard, what if the flashback is in the characters mind but in a different location would that not require a new scene?

I find little bits of flashback very irritating, however the type in LOST where the flashback covered the entire intro story of the character & then returned to the present time, were OK.

It's the director's job to determine how the flashback is presented, so Sepia, Monochrome etc should be left to the director, (IMO.)

Yes they would normally be a fresh scene, so the flashback can be noted in the slug line, e.g.

EXT -- FLASHBACK TO BRISTOL HARBOUR 1935 -- DAY

The last episode of Musketeers used flashback to good dramatic effect. And you can start with a clock ringing... it's perfectly okay as long as you have a twist on it. As in everything really. If it is lazy exposition then not good. And the main story should't start 30 mins in. If what precedes it is just laying the ground, cut it. Or if you use flashbacks use them in a dramatic way to reveal to the audience something they didn't know which puts a slant on things they have already seen.

Quote: blahblah @ 4th February 2014, 3:31 PM GMT

Lazzard, what if the flashback is in the characters mind but in a different location would that not require a new scene?

View original

I wouldn't put whole new scene heading - simply because to my mind the action is still taking place where the protag is.
I might put a location slug-line in ie

FLASHBACK

END FLASHBACK

If it's more of a 'Drift' back it might call for a new scene header ie

He looks into the mid-distance, mind drifting to another time, another place....

EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND - TEN YEARS EARLIER

It's then debatable whether or not you even need the word 'flashback'...

I suppose in the final analysis, you just need to make your intentions clear with minimal disruption to the script.

Re Lazarus examples. First one would be audio most likely so stage directions would be fine and in the second I would have him looking into middle distance. The sound of laughing running and playing children leads the...

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Thanks for the advice everyone.

Quote: Lazzard @ 4th February 2014, 10:23 AM GMT

Can you be more specific?
There are always ways round these things.

View original

Hi Lazzard thanks for answering. Have PMed you a very short synopsis, so hope that and this might make my dilemma clearer. -
The Protagonists life falls apart in the first part of the story. Something he has largely brought upon himself. This part of the story is set in a City and is paced accordingly.

In the second part of the story he moves to Scotland where the pace slows and he can begin his journey of personal redemption.

Without the first part the second part does not make sense. The problem is (or problems are) that the quaint, romantic feel of the story and location that is the backdrop to the main story do not arrive until (it is worse than I remembered) half way through the episode, by which time any reader may well have stopped reading and any viewer might well feel misled by such a step change in tone.

So I thought open with him in Scotland and tell the backstory in flashback. But I don't know exactly how to go about this. Do I insert a few big flashbacks or throw in a series of shorter ones, effectively alternating between two linear storylines. Or is it more modern to have the flashbacks out of sequence? Revealing different parts of the backstory at different times?

Are there any things I absolutely should avoid doing?

Once again thanks for your time.

Quote: Marc P @ 4th February 2014, 4:03 PM GMT

The last episode of Musketeers used flashback to good dramatic effect. And you can start with a clock ringing... it's perfectly okay as long as you have a twist on it. As in everything really. If it is lazy exposition then not good. And the main story should't start 30 mins in. If what precedes it is just laying the ground, cut it. Or if you use flashbacks use them in a dramatic way to reveal to the audience something they didn't know which puts a slant on things they have already seen.

View original

Thanks Marc, some interesting points. The last point in particular about revealing something to the audience via the flashback is not something I had thought about.

So what you have is a fish-out-of-water story.
City living guy finds himself in the boondocks doing all sorts of shit he'd never thought he'd have to.
So you need to show him in his favoured environment to make the story work.
But it's just a means to an end - the bulk of the fun - and the remaining episodes I should imagine, are set in the out-of-water setting.
So pare it down to the bare minimum - what's the least you can get away with to make the story work.
Classically in film scripts it happens at the end of Act 1 - about a quarter of the way in to the story.
So, I guess if you are writing a TV hour you could afford max 10-12 minutes of set up.
But that, as you say might give readers/viewers the wrong impression of where the thing is meant to end up.
A classic way of doing this is a sort of "how did I get here?' opening.
Bloke doing barmy thing in scotland - up to his neck in pig-muck, holding onto a bull's tail whilst being chased by a swarm of bees.
Freeze frame, or wind-back or some other such device to same bloke smart suit, strolling into smart office block etc etc.
Then you have to very quickly explain/show how he ended up in Scotland or wherever
That way, the tone of the thing is established up front.
It doesn't matter how much funny stuff you have written in the set-up - chuck it out, cut it down.
The only other thing you might want to include in the 'flashback' is what wants 'fixing' in the character i.e. he won't commit, or he's uptight emotionally - stuff that unravels during the telling of the story.
Also any stuff that might be relevant to the fish-out-of-water bit - things that exacerbate it i.e. he's afraid of heights and end up a mountain.

Lazzard's such an asset to this forum!

The classic Noir D.O.A. starts in real time and then the whole rest of it, practically, is flashback. Same with Sunset Boulevard. But the opening to D.O.A. is one of the best I have seen.