Esther Luttrell's Tools of the ScreenWriting Trade
Slug Lines: Exterior Scenes.
Shoot for the stars! Go for the moon!
How to Tell Cast & Crew When to Move From One Location To Another
"I once wrote a screenplay in which the producer and the director didn't change one word. I think the word was "the". Steve Martin
Recommendation: Click here to read "Slug Lines" and "Slug Line Interior Scenes" before reading this page.
The rules are pretty much the same for exterior Slug Lines as they are for interiors. For instance, if you're writing about a scene on a farm and you want to indicate that cast and crew should move from the front yard of the farmhouse, to the back yard and then to the barn, it would look like this on your script page:
_______________________________________________________________________________
EXT. JOHNSON FARM - DAY
Joe steps out of the house, crosses the front porch and goes into the yard. The mailbox is beside the gate. He strides to it quickly, sees it's empty, looks both directions down the country road. Maybe the mailman hasn't been here yet, he's thinking. With a resigned sigh, he turns and heads for the
BACK YARD
Simon, his lab puppy, races to his master and follows him to the barn. Joe pulls open the door and they go inside.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Keeping in mind that a screenplay is nothing but production notes to a film crew:
The reasons for making BACK YARD a Short Slug are the same as they were for interiors (See
"Slug Lines: Interior Scenes"): You have nothing new to tell the First A.D. (you are already EXTERIOR), nothing new to say to the Location Manager (he's already secured the farm you're using as Joe Johnson's place), and the Lighting Tech has set the scene for day shooting. That leaves only the Set Decorator, if you're using the system I recommend for proofing your Slug Line. The Set Decorator almost never works on exterior scenes. He (or she) is usually found preparing interior shots for filming later in the day, or the next day.
So long as you stay in the same location (Johnson's farm), and it remains either day or night (whichever one was established in the Slug Line that began the scene), you need never write EXT., the location, or Day/Night again in this sequence of scenes. You could write Short Slugs until the cows come home - so long as the camera never stops following the actor, and so long as it remains either day or night.
Before we leave the subject, I'd like to mention a couple of things that come up over and over again in novice scripts. Let's take the scene we've already used as an example:
_______________________________________________________________________________
EXT. JOHNSON FARM - DAY
Joe steps out of the house, crosses the front porch and goes into the yard. The mailbox is beside the gate. He strides to it quickly, sees it's empty, looks both directions down the country road. Maybe the mailman hasn't been here yet, he's thinking. With a resigned sigh, he turns and heads for the
BACK YARD.
SIMON, his lab puppy, races to his master and follows him to the barn. Joe pulls open the door and they go
INSIDE
_______________________________________________________________________________
What is wrong with this picture?
1.
A Slug Line does not end with punctuation (even if, in reading it, it sounds as if it should).
A Slug Line does not end with punctuation (even if, in reading it, it sounds as if it should).2. Simon is not an actor who needs to know where his part in the film begins, so his name
Simon is not an actor who needs to know where his part in the film begins, so his name doesn't need to be capped (As soon as I can get to it, I'll be posting more information on the why and how of capping characters names in scripts)
3. The word "INSIDE". You can never go from INT. (interior) to EXT. (exterior), or from EXT.
The word "INSIDE". You can never go from INT. (interior) to EXT. (exterior), or from EXT.to INT., without a full Slug Line. Reason: Interior scenes and exterior scenes are scheduled to be filmed independent of one another. So, when you have written the exterior scene (which may be shot on, let's say, a Monday) and the next scene in the script will be an INT scene (which might not be shot until another day in the week), you must write a full Slug Line, giving all of the information, in full, to the cast and crew.
A little tip: I wrote in the narrative that Joe was thinking about the mailman. Now, ordinarily you don't write anything about what a character is thinking - UNLESS it helps the actor understand his action. If something CANNOT be directed or acted, it probably shouldn't be written. In this case, I felt it was information useful to the actor.
I know this sounds too obvious for me to mention, but it does come up more often than I like to think is even possible: The term "EXT." means "exterior". It isn't necessary to write in a Slug Line: EXT. JOHNSON'S FARM - OUTSIDE THE HOUSE - DAY.
Don't laugh. It happens. A bunch.
You know what else I see frequently? A Slug Line that establishes we're outside and then the opening narrative begins like this: "Joe is outside the farm, walking across the front porch..."
We know he's outside the farm! You just told us in the Slug Line that he's EXT. the farm! Think about what you're writing! Visualize it on the screen. Don't race through, writing willy-nilly as inspiration strikes. Well, do. Yes, that's fine. Write while the inspiration's hot, but for heaven sakes, go back over what you wrote when cool, detached logic settles in and the thrill of your creativity has calmed itself a bit.
