I have a question about formatting for a script I’ve been working on. The concept involves some scenes being completely silent, but with an occasional sound coming through (i.e. everything’s silent, including speech, until someone breaks a glass and the shattering is audible).
I’ve tried a couple of different methods of formatting this but I’m not sure what makes the most sense. In early drafts, I just designated the scene as “Silent” at the beginning and capitalized the sounds that broke through. My writers’ group found this to be strange so in my latest draft I tried it with “M.O.S.” attached to every action that was supposed to be silent, but they didn’t like that either.
So now I’m kind of stumped on how to translate this idea to the page. Is there a way to format it that makes sense? I want it to be as clear as possible to readers.
– Cali
Seattle
My hunch is that you are doing too much, and it’s slowing down the read. A modern screenplay isn’t a list of camera angles and sound cues. It reads more like journalistic, present-tense fiction. (Think Hemingway, not Faulkner.)
If certain scenes are going to be silent, and other ones aren’t, my inclination would be to flag them in the scene headers, the same way you call out special events like [RAINING] or [DRIVING]. So in your case…
Within scenes, putting those few audible sounds in UPPERCASE makes sense. Remember, treat your readers like audience members, and think about it from their perspective.
For example, in the second pilot Jordan Mechner and I wrote for Ops, we had an extended sequence with no natural sound. It was important to showcase why this was going to be cool:
Look at your silent scenes from your reader’s perspective, and try to read them without knowing what’s happening next. You’re not nearly as curious what is sounds like as what it feels like to have the sound missing. Write that.
