Section 6: Understanding Film Through Creative Practice

Chapter 20: Researching and constructing a short film: narrative construction

Preparing to write a screenplay: the extended step outline

Screenplay writing is a lengthy and complex process, with a feature film taking anything from six weeks to six months of intensive work to produce a decent first draft, and up to two years to get to a stage where the script could go into production. Importantly, it is the screen story that sets all other activities in motion, from storyboarding, through casting, through production, distribution and exhibition, to a spectator telling someone what a great (or lousy) film they saw last night.

Feature screen stories are largely broken down into ‘acts’ (units of action in which the story is following a particular path). The most common structures for screen stories revolve around either a three-act structure (beginning/establishing, middle/developing, end/concluding) or a five-act structure (set-up, development, recognition, crisis, resolution), with each act broken up into sequences, which in turn are made up of scenes (small units of action, usually located in one place). Each scene, no matter how small, can also be further broken down into set-up, development, and conclusion.

Screen stories are inhabited by three-dimensional characters who have past histories, ambitions, problems, and relationships. These characters have internal aspects (e.g. beliefs, hopes, fears, dreams, opinions) that are shown through their external actions. For example, the hardened ruthless criminal who stops to pick up and return a child’s dropped teddy bear, or the cop whose hand shakes when he points his gun at a suspect, or the doctor who unlocks the desk drawer at the end of the day, pours a large whisky, and stares at it without drinking. Internal characteristics, that are the essence of novel writing, are of no use to the screenwriter unless they can be externalised, unless they can become an action, a look, a gesture, or an expression which conveys this internal aspect.

While dialogue is a key feature of screenplay writing and of characterisation, it is an aspect that is often over-relied on to ‘tell’ the story. Good screen stories do not tell the story, they ‘show’ the story through the actions and interactions of the characters populating them, and in doing so reveal more by relying on the audience to ‘fill in the blanks’.

Scriptwriters commonly use a step outline as a planning tool for producing scripts. For AS Film Studies, this film industry planning and visualising technique is being adapted: it is being ‘extended’ to include the micro details of the scene being outlined.

The extended step outline will thus provide students with the opportunity to develop ideas for a series of scenes – between five and eight are required, totalling 1,000 words – while still developing visualising skills. As a guideline, the average length of a scene for this extended step outline is envisaged as being 175–200 words (excluding the context boxes above the scene description).

Looking at the step outline sheet below, you will see that half of the page is given over to a scene description and it stresses ‘without dialogue’. The reason for this is to give you space to describe the setting and what is going on without worrying about what is being said or how it is delivered. This allows you to visualise the setting, the action, and the micro aspects without relying on dialogue to carry the scene (something that happens all too often). It also means you will be focused on mise en scène, on sound, and on how it might be shot, or how it might be edited (although this is not directly your concern, it should be in your mind so that you can then write a scene to suggest the way it should be shot).

A typical step outline may run like this:

Scene no. 28	Page no. 3
Slugline	Interior flight deck of the space freighter ‘Pole Star’. Day.
Endpoint of last scene	Canton scrabbles desperately to reach the Failsafe lever as the Gyroscope powers up, lighting the hull of the ship.
Characters in scene	Hunt, Fischer, Cruise, Rodriguez.
Point of scene	To show that Hunt is a better flight commander than Fischer.
Conflict	Hunt’s desire to see Fischer fail set against the consequences for all of failure.
Ending/central question	Hunt is forced to countermand Fischer to save the ship/Will they be able to escape before the oxygen fails?
Key micro elements employed	Mise en scène, sound, lighting.

Scene description (without dialogue) focusing on key micro aspects (e.g. mise en scène, camera, sound, editing).

Consol lights flicker illuminating Cruise from below with coloured lights. He looks across to the shadowed, leather captain’s chair where Fischer sits crouched forward. A nearby sun flares. The sunshields descend with a worn mechanical sound. Fischer leaps and crouches to see Canton, as the shields descend.

Bulkhead doors clang as Hunt and Rodriguez enter. Rodriguez, sweat-covered and dishevelled, looks to Cruise. The lights turn red. A pulsating siren begins.
Hunt runs to Fischer, whose face is lit by the red from the consol. Hunt grabs his face and lifts his wildly flicking eyes to hers, but he cannot look at her and he retreats into the shadows. Hunt turns and barks instructions. A moment of hesitation. Cruise and Rodriguez look from a red-lit Hunt, to a silhouetted Fischer.

A distant rumbling explosion rocks the ship. They are thrown to the floor. The Gyroscope camera activates. Rodriguez leans over a monitor, bathed in blue light, sweating. On screen an interference-strewn image of Canton appears unmoving as the lights on the Gyroscope come close to reaching the top. Picking herself up, Hunt barks a command, and Cruise hits a button.

The Gyroscope lights power down, the monitors and lights on the consol slowly die. A fading screen displays descending bars and a flashing oxygen warning. Another explosion rocks the flight deck and they are thrown into darkness.

The first thing you may notice is that there are no specific camera or editing instructions included in the extended step outline: camera and editing decisions are not made by screenwriters – they are made by directors, directors of photography, and editors who interpret the ‘master scene script’. A good screenwriter will be able to write action to suggest a particular shot, which a good director, DoP, or editor will be able to visualise from the description. In the PAL, however, it is accepted that there may be a desire to indicate camera shots and angles, and highlighting some key shots or edits (although not advised) will not disadvantage you.

The scene number is at the beginning of a line of essential information, called the ‘slugline’. The slugline begins with the designation of INT (Interior) or EXT (Exterior), the location, and whether it is day or night (sometimes this may be more specific, but realistically this is simply an indication of what lighting set-up will be needed, and this falls easily into these two categories). It is important that slugline conventions are adhered to, as these enable the production crew to do their jobs more easily.

Following the slugline comes the ‘Endpoint of last scene’. This usually consists of a few lines to ‘set the scene’, and serves as a context for the current scene. It is here that you will see whether ‘scenes’ flow or not. The ‘characters in scene’ are simply listed, and you should remember that if they are mentioned in this box then they should be seen in the scene.

The ‘point of scene’ is key to the motivation of the scene and the direction it will take. Behind all scenes, there is a key point that is the reason why the scene exists.