Arguably the dean of contemporary American screenwriters William Goldman sold the first spec script in the modern era: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). That combined with Goldman’s involvement in numerous movies, both credited and as a script doctor, leads me to one inescapable conclusion: Any study of scene description must include Goldman because anybody that successful must be doing something right on all fronts of the screenwriting trade.

Here’s a great example: An action sequence at the end of Butch Cassidy.

CUT TO

BUTCH streaking, diving again, then up, and the bullets landing around him aren’t even close as—

CUT TO

SUNDANCE, whirling and spinning, continuing to fire and—

CUT TO

SEVERAL POLICEMEN dropping for safety behind the wall and

CUT TO

BUTCH really moving now, dodging, diving, up again and

CUT TO

SUNDANCE flinging away one gun, grabbing another from his holster, continuing to turn and fire and

CUT TO

TWO POLICEMEN falling wounded to the ground and

CUT TO

BUTCH letting out a notch, then launching into another dive forward and

CUT TO

SUNDANCE whirling, but you never know which way he’s going to spin and

CUT TO

THE HEAD POLICEMAN cursing, forced to drop for safety behind the wall and

CUT TO

BUTCH racing to the mules, and then he is there, grabbing at the near mule for ammunition and

CUT TO

SUNDANCE throwing the second gun away, reaching into his holster for another, continuing to spin and fire and

CUT TO

BUTCH and he has the ammunition now and

CUT TO

ANOTHER POLICEMAN screaming as he falls and

CUT TO

BUTCH, his arms loaded, tearing away from the mules and they’re still not even coming close to him as they fire and the mules are behind him now as he runs and cuts and cuts again, going full out and—

CUT TO

THE HEAD POLICEMAN cursing incoherently at what is happening and—

CUT TO

SUNDANCE whirling faster than ever and

CUT TO

BUTCH dodging and cutting and as a pattern of bullets rips into his body he somersaults and lies there, pouring blood and

CUT TO

SUNDANCE running toward him and

CUT TO

ALL THE POLICEMEN rising up behind the wall now, firing and

CUT TO

SUNDANCE as he falls.

Setting aside Goldman’s use of CUT TO — his way of designating a specific camera shot — two things to note here. First the use of Secondary Slugs or Shots is a great way to ‘direct’ the action without using production lingo. We could get rid of the CUT TO’s and write it this way:

BUTCH

streaking, diving again, then up, and the bullets landing around him aren’t even close as –

SUNDANCE

whirling and spinning, continuing to fire –

SEVERAL POLICEMEN

dropping for safety behind the wall –

The second thing is this: 293. That’s how many words are in this action description. Or rather a 293 word sentence. The entire string of scene description is one long sentence, Goldman’s way of conveying the fact that this is continuous action. No breaks, no time to breathe, the effect is to pull us into the moment – along with the characters – and experience the increasing frenzy straight through.

As a screenwriter, we do whatever we can in scene description to create a powerful sense of the moment in order to immerse the reader in the experience.

Scene Description Spotlight is a GITS series that focuses on that most fundamental aspect of screenwriting: describing the environment of and what happens in a scene. It is critical to know how to do this well, using images, atmosphere and style, not only to convey clearly what transpires, but also pull the reader into the story universe.