Thread: What you think of this opening sequence?

I have to write a complete script by the end of the semester in my screenwriting capstone. Scripts are far from my specialty, but I would love to make it a hobby one day. Any thoughts on this opener?



FADE IN:

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT (1997)

And old TV flickers to the bustle of a late-night infomercial. In the background we can see a small, worn dining table littered with pizza boxes, opened half-empty cola bottles, and spoons and bowls that were probably from the morning’s cereal.

There is one tattered sofa and one recliner that looks as though it’s lived through many generations of sloths.

A RANDOM GUY lies on the sofa, sprawled, unconscious, and probably naked under the blanket.

GLENDA, 31, sits in the recliner, staring blankly at the TV -- all the while, she’s lining up a bit of cocaine on a piece of stained glass art that reads at the top: “I love my mommy!”

Behind Glenda, we can see the entrance to a hallway and a closed bedroom door. Light emanates from under the door.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT (1997)

The bedroom of a happy, spoiled little girl. An extremely elaborate doll house sits in the corner of the room.

It’s perfect down to every detail, from the tiny bath towels and china cabinet to the bowls and plates in the kitchen and the little fluffy pillows in the bedroom.

A pile of dolls lay on the floor next to the doll house.
SOFIA, 8, BETTY, 9, and PHOEBE, 8, sit on the floor in Sofia’s bedroom, solemnly playing with dolls. LAURA, 8, sits on the bed holding a BABY-SITTER WENDY DOLL.

BETTY
Can I play with Dentist Stacy?

SOFIA
No.

Sofia snatches the doll away from Betty and puts it in her pile of dolls.
Phoebe reaches for a doll outside of Sofia’s pile, and Sofia tries to grab it.
They fight for it briefly, and Sofia rips it from her hand. Sofia slaps Phoebe across the face. Hard.

She scowls at Phoebe and holds her stare until Phoebe looks away.
Phoebe doesn’t cry or give any sort of appropriate reaction to being slapped. She rubs her face and looks at Sofia again.

PHOEBE
What can we play with?

BETTY
Yeah, every time we come over you don’t let us touch your stuff!

SOFIA
Play with that one then.

Sofia points at a NAKED DOLL on the floor at the foot of the bed. It looks worn out and is missing a leg.

Out of nowhere, Betty begins to sob.

Sofia ignores her and plays with one of her dolls. She pretends that the doll is snorting coke off a tiny doll plate from the doll house.

She shakes the doll a bit.

Nobody moves.

PHOEBE
Let’s go to my house next time.

Phoebe quickly puts her hand over her mouth. Oops.

Sofia rolls her eyes and catches Laura out of the corner of her eye. Laura continues to play with the Baby-sitter Wendy doll.

Sofia is motionless. Her stare is fixated on the Baby-sitter Wendy doll. Her nostrils flare with anger.

Laura strokes the doll’s hair.

Sofia glares at her. She looks as if she’s going to explode. But Laura doesn’t notice. She just continues to play with doll as if nothing else is going on.

Sofia makes the doll in her hand do one more line of coke. Then she stands up and faces Laura.

SOFIA
(calmly)
What do you think you are doing?

Betty stops sobbing.

LAURA
I, I -

SOFIA
That’s Baby-sitter Wendy.

LAURA
I know.

SOFIA
Does Baby-sitter Wendy belong to you?

Laura pauses momentarily. She gently sets the Wendy doll next to her on the bed and looks up with Sofia with just a hint of fear in her eyes.

LAURA
No, but you weren’t playing with her

SOFIA
Do you realize that Baby-sitter Wendy is my favorite?

LAURA
I know, but you were playing with another doll and I thought it was OK.

Laura picks up the doll and hands it to Sofia. Sofia doesn’t take it.

SOFIA
Sure, Laura. It’s fine. It’s fine!

Betty cries even louder.

LAURA
(hesitant)
OK. Thanks.

LAURA’S P.O.V. - BABY-SITTER WENDY DOLL

Laura looks down at the floor and strokes the doll’s hair.

She looks up just in time to see Sofia thrusting the end of the naked doll toward her face.

RETURN TO SCENE

Sofia walks out of the room. Laura’s body still sits upright; half of the naked doll sticks out of her left eye. The sharp doll foot clearly went right through her eye and into her brain.

A tiny trickle of blood flows from Laura’s eye to the doll and drips off the end of the doll’s arm.

Silence.

Betty runs out of the room, screaming.

Phoebe just stands in place, shrieking continuously.

INT. DOCTOR’S OFFICE - DAY (2007)

A well-organized psychiatrist’s office.

DR. SMITH, 29, sits on a leather chair, holding a clipboard and a fancy pen.

SOFIA, 17, no makeup, a look of perpetual exhaustion after spending nearly 10 years behind walls, sits upright in a hard plastic chair and smokes a cigarette, taking long drags and letting the smoke escape her lungs slowly.

SMITH
Take your time. What did you do next?

Sofia blows a huge puff of smoke from her lungs. Slight cough. She shifts in her seat and sits on her legs on the chair.

Just a quick glimpse but... don't put the year in the slugline. Does not good if the audience doesn't know it and that info is not for sluglines. If it's REALLY important, use a card or sub or whatever.

RANDOM GUY is now what you see listed in credits. If he has no lines or great role to play, don't cap it. Better yet, Random People lying around.

And remember, you only all-cap a name the first time the character appears.

Avoid "is" verb forms, progressive tense, etc.

A battered sofa and recliner look like they've....

"We can see" is not highly thought of. Enough people are adamant about it that it's too risky to use. And not necessary

In the background, small table....

In fact, I'd ditch "in the background". Serves no need.

she’s lining up a bit of cocaine on a piece of stained glass art that reads at the top: “I love my mommy!”

I love it!
But, again, "she lines up coke" is safer than the progressive tense. Screenplays live in the simple present.

I don't believe in capping props and it's out of fashion. Some people use caps for props and sounds that are of great importance.

One way to get around the year thing is to use tags like:

Hairstyles, wall art, and TV show indicate the year 2007 or "contemporary" or some such.

Some people spell it out. "TV commercial for 2008 Model year" or some such.

This is much more useful. You tell the audience what year it is and the reader how they know.

Of course "Sophia, now 17 and the worse for the past ten years" or such does that easily and automatically. Having kids in both scenes makes stating the time redundant.

Avoid things like POV and CU. You can almost always get it across without them. For that matter, if you just say the doll's in the kid's eye, is there any need to call the shot angle?

Ah, easy fixes. Thanks! What did you think of the scene itself?

Ok, got a chance to read it.
Not bad AT ALL, Mr. Creepy.

I think it works to bring us up to where Sophie is at these days. Plays pretty well. Could be condensed a little perhaps, but I don't see anything particularly excess.

I see what the POV thing was all about now. I would definitely lose it and the RETURN TO SCENE. That's an idiosyncratic slug and really we never left the scene.

I would suggest you handle it by losing those slugs and simply changing this line:

She looks up just in time to see Sofia thrusting the end of the naked doll toward her face.

To something like: "She looks up and sees only the doll jabbing forward into her eye, then nothing but blackness."

This knack of directing the view without using camera direction tags was much discussed on screenwriting forums over the past few years, and almost anybody would advise to do things by statements rather than POV or CU or REACTION SHOT or whatever.

Regarding character intros, the idea is to get across what they look like without information that is superfluous or overly specific. There is really no need for the Doc to be 29, for instance. Instead you're saying something like:
"DR. SMITH--thirtyish and fussy-looking, sits attentively holding notepad and elegant pen."
Or whatever character tag is required to get across who he is...storywise.

By the way, if DR. SMITH is never addressed as such and has a small part to play, there is no point in naming him. "A thirtyish, anal-looking PSYCHIATRIST listens, jotting notes with an expensive pen."

you can say "10 years behind walls", but not if there's no way for the audience to see it. This is a major bugaboo of beginning screenwriters. Basically you can't say anything the audience can't see or hear. So if you say that, you have to pay it off sooner or later. "You've been in closed wards for 10 years and you haven't learned a damn thing, you little bitch." or whatever.

Another way is to be vague. "Julie, late teens now and bearing the stamp of institutions" or some such.

By the way, the little girls can be handled more economically and without the specific numbers by something like "A group of sixth grade girls sits on the floor: JULIE, DAGMAR, BRUNHILDA", etc. In a case where the girls have important characteristics, you can get them in later. "HILDA, the cute one,," "DAGMAR, small and timid," etc.

When calling characters and such, it's a good idea to always keep in mind that there will be credits. So THE OTHER COP doesn't make it. SHORT COP does.
Which reminds me, Julie will be played by two girls, so needs two credit lines.
So you have an easy solution to a lot of the initital doll scene.

"SEVEN YEAR OLD JULIE, cute but homicidal, sits on the floor playing with a group of girls her own age, DEBBIE, DOGGIE, and DOODOO."

In second scene she is just JULIE. Remembering the credits is a good tip for this stuff. Also notice that this introduction is short and elegant. Which is what screenplays are about. Telling only what is necessary, spelling out everything of importance to the director, being parsimonious, and having a little personal style on it, but not enough that people will say "Hey, you're not writing a novel here."

Looks good.

Originally Posted by StephenP2003

FADE IN:

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT (1997)

And old TV flickers to the bustle of a late-night infomercial. In the background we can see a small, worn dining table littered with pizza boxes, opened half-empty cola bottles, and spoons and bowls that were probably from the morning’s cereal.

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

A late-night infomercial flickers on an old TV *agree with Lin that you should set up 1997 this way, since the DAY/NIGHT section is just for lighting, it won't show anyone what year it is*. In the BG is a small, worn table littered with pizza boxes, opened half-empty cola bottles, and spoons and bowls from the morning’s cereal. *I'm just cutting out anything that's ambiguous. For example, we can't see that the bowls are "probably" cereal bowls... we just see cereal bowls crudded up with old milk and cereal on the bottom.*

Originally Posted by StephenP2003

There is one tattered sofa and one recliner that looks as though it’s lived through many generations of sloths.

A RANDOM GUY lies on the sofa, sprawled, unconscious, and probably naked under the blanket.

GLENDA, 31, sits in the recliner, staring blankly at the TV -- all the while, she’s lining up a bit of cocaine on a piece of stained glass art that reads at the top: “I love my mommy!”

Behind Glenda, we can see the entrance to a hallway and a closed bedroom door. Light emanates from under the door.

This can be shortened:

There is one sagging, out-of-date sofa inhabited by a RANDOM GUY who lies sprawled, unconscious, and naked under the blanket.

*Trust me, you'll want and need all the space you can get, and many people who read scripts "skim" over long descriptions. I know, they're asswipes, but try to get as much in as you can in as little possible*

Again, this runs a little long and can be clearer. Staring blankly can be shortened to staring at the TV. All the while, she's lining up a bit of cocaine on a piece of stained glass.... is also more complex than it needs to be.

Behind Glenda, we can see the entrance to a hallway and a closed bedroom door. Light emanates from under the door.

Again, combine: In the background (BG) hallway, light eminates beneath a closed door.

*Avoid the "we see" stuff... just say what it is and avoid laying out whole floorplans. Like, listing the furnature... then who sits in them. *

Alright, overall I think this is a sharp start with... a surprising sort of twist at the end. Not expecting a child to be capable of such violence. Or the jump to present day. I have a few suggestions. First, if the first scene is long if these characters aren't too important. Not sure where it's at page-wise, but maybe keep is to half a page...

I get the little girls confused. More defining characteristics? Less little girls? Single out Sofia more? I'd even suggest we don't need to know all their names. Call one a Brat, one a Smart ass, or whatever. Unless they come back into the script.

How did Sofia manage to shove a doll through a little girl's skull? It's a great visual. But tonally, I start to wonder what type of script this will be. Care to tell me? I can't help but be curious.

heh. Scripts are not my forte either. I cant really tell you much except I liked the story. Sorry if I'm not much more of a help.

Thanks for the critiques!

I will try to cut the fat on the opening scene. As for the little girls' names, they are important to know because Sofia faces Betty and Phoebe in present day. Perhaps Laura is the only name we don't need to know.

The movie is going to be a dark comedy. Sofia is released from the asylum when she turns 18, she is on a mission to confront her mother, and she ends up killing a few people along the way. She's psychotic and quite obsessed with dolls. Kind of like that movie "May." I do not have an ending in mind, though I should probably get moving with that since my ENTIRE SCRIPT is due one week from today.