Quote: billwill @ September 26 2008, 12:32 AM BSTA script is NOT a story, it is a set of instructions to a production team and a set of actors, to PRODUCE a TV program or film.
So the slug lines tell the director EXACTLY where the scene is set. The slug lines are used for scheduling the shooting of the film & all the scenes at a given location or set are commonly filmed one after each other, then the whole team moves to the next location etc. So if you put false location is the slug line you will b*gg*r up the production team.
If you wish to guide the director that the AUDIENCE do not realise that it is a prison cell, you write that into the stage directions.
Lighting is dim, we can just see that there are
two occupied bunks, but no detail of the rest of
the location can be seen.NOPE!
I expect that, any one actor has the same name against his lines, either CLARK or SUPERMAN; otherwise you will mess up the production team, actor call sheets etc etc.
However! it might not matter in a submission script, because the production team will re-write it the way they want it to be.
Bill's completely right on this one, and his location description is spot on in this instance. "Lighting is dim, we can just see that there are
two occupied bunks, but no detail of the rest of
the location can be seen."
This tells the reader what the AUDIENCE should be seeing.
Of course there is the argument that this being an early incarnation of a script, there might be license to flout convention and just let the creative juices flow. But everything I've read and learned points to the fact that the closer you get to a professional, no nonsense script, the better chance you have of ultimately selling the bastard and getting it on telly.
But by way of disclaimer, I might be wrong.
But I'm not.
