SCENE CONTEXT


Scene length depends on context. Let me give you two examples.

A woman and female co-worker decide to meet for a drink after work. The woman lives close by and wants to run home first to check her messages because her father is in the hospital, and she's worried about him.

How would you design the scene of checking her messages?

If this is all there is to it, you'd want to do it as efficiently as possible.

EXT. OFFICE BLDG - DAY

Jennifer and Gayle come outside.

                              JENNIFER
                 This won't take a minute. I'll see you there.

She hurries off.

INT. JENNIFER'S APARTMENT - DAY

She looks at her message machine. Zero messages. Jennifer looks worried but doesn't make a 
call.

INT. RESTAURANT - BAR - DAY

And so on.

But let's make the situation more complicated. Jennifer is being stalked. She doesn't realize this yet, though she's seen clues and is beginning to get worried about it.

Now we can make the scene in the apartment a page or more in length in this way:

She hurries off.

INT. JENNIFER'S APARTMENT - DAY

Joe has broken into her apartment. He is in the living room, looking at her cassette 
collection. Suddenly he hears something.

Someone is opening the door. He looks around in panic. There's a coat closet. He hurries to 
it.

He gets out of sight just as Jennifer comes in. She goes right to the message machine. 
No messages.

But now we don't need to have her rush off or cut to the restaurant. With Joe in the closet, we have considerable tension and can build on it. Jennifer decides to change clothes and goes into the bedroom to change. Joe comes out of the closet and spies on her. When she's ready to leave, he hides from her again. We've built a much longer suspenseful scene from the act of checking messages because context justifies the change.

Always be aware of the dramatic context of your scene and design accordingly.


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07/02