script exercise: deciding what to omit

[miker]

since it's 3.19am and I leave for work today at 5am I have time to kill, so I have decided to perform a public service and post an excellent excercise, shamelessly ripped from Raymond G Frensham:

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How do you decide what to omit? You leave out anything that the audience can deduce for itself. If a woman in an office says she is hungry and is going out to get a sandwich, what are the possible scenes? Let's consider the obvious ones:

1. Office. Pam says she's hungry and is going to get a sandwich.

2. Office, near door. Pam puts on her coat and exits.

3. Stairs. Pam descends the stairs and reaches the street door. She exits.

4. Street. Pam emerges from the door and crosses the street to the sandwich bar.

5. Sandwich bar. Pam enters from the street and queues at the counter.

6. Queue. Pam moves slowly in the queue and finally reaches the counter.

7. Counter. Pam orders a sandwich, waits as it is being made, and is given it in a bag.

8. Shop. Pam takes the bag to a nearby table and sits down.

9. Table. Pam opens the bag, takes out the sandwich and lifts it to her mouth.

10. Mouth. Pam takes a huge bite out of the sandwich. Now she's happy.

Now you decide which are the most meaningful steps in the above story. Choose the smallest necessary ones to tell this story coherently. Leave out steps that you think the audience can deduce. To leave steps in ask yourself: is this meaningful to the story? does it move the story forward? would it damage the sense of the story if it were left out?

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my opinion fell in line with the author's, but that is probably because I've been writing and shooting and editing **** like this for more than ten years ;-)

**** . it's still only 3.32am (GMT, BTW)

[miker]

d-a-m-n is censored! dang!

[deanl]

Hey there.

1. Office. Pam says she's hungry and is going to get a sandwich.

4. Street. Pam emerges from the door and crosses the street to the sandwich bar.

8. Shop. Pam takes the bag to a nearby table and sits down.

9. Table. Pam opens the bag, takes out the sandwich and lifts it to her mouth.


Depending on the story, I would be tempted to cut strait from 1 to 8 and leave 9 and 10 out completely.

Despin out.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 02, 2003 02:05 AM: Message edited by: Despin entertainment ]</font>

[GREATwarEAGLE]

If a woman in an office says she is hungry and is going out to get a sandwich, what are the possible scenes?

1. And only 1.

[emjen]

i'm with despin. she might of course get a sandwich somewhere else, say, out of her lunch box in her own bag, but no. 4 explains that.

[ac_01]

Hey, you're all wrong. It's 1 and 10 ONLY. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] 2-8 is just clutter.

[eddie]

hmmm....well it depends doesnt it.
It depends on what is important in the whole story.
Perhaps the name of the sandwich shop is relevant, perhaps the person behind the counter appears later in the film, perhaps she is just after an excuse to bunk of work for a few hours.
Whats the style of the film? Perhaps its a film that details every little innane moment of trivia that goes on in someones life.....perhaps you want to illustrate that this character is obsessed with all the little trivia - so you may want to show the whole shopping trip....

You need to ask if the scene of her being hungry and eating a sandwich is important, or not. If its not then skip the entire thing all together.
But I get your point.
And if its not that relevant, but you need to show that she has human desires (such as hunger) and want to show it, then 1) and 10).
The rest is all completely superficial.

[emjen]

1 and 10 are required, but for the audience to make up stuff differs.

She's eating a sandwich. Where? With who? Howd she get there? She probably bought it somewhere, but in Holland or Japan?

I think 4 is pretty important but COULD be overlooked. Still, showing the woman crossing the street for a few seconds into the shop would clear a whole lot.

8... can be left out.

[ickle_jim]

im sorta with the people that say it depends on what sorta film you are making, but i take it abit further by saying... if you are only going to show a woman saying she is hungry and then putting a sanwich in her mouth id leave it out all together. So my answer is none of them! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Seen as how its obviously not a vital moment of the film that a plot twist hinges on it can be left out!

I guess exercises like this are useful to a piont, like learning how to shoot things so they make sense! but film is sposed to be a visual art, and the way you use it depends on the mood and emotion you want to create.

[miker]

seems you're all reading into a bit too deep ...

the story is "a woman gets hungry so goes and gets a sandwich and eats it" -- if you omit all steps you have no story!!

but how many of the steps are essentially redundant?

it should be noted as well that step 10 is always going to be in the sandwich bar.

you could approach this from an editor's point of view, too. steps 1 - 10 are the rushes you have but you want to tell the story in the least number of steps. if that makes it easier to understand?

does that make it clearer?

(d a m n insomnia, it's 2:22am)