I had mapped out a gripping opening sequence for the new screenplay I wanted to write. Being a Western, it was going to center around a group of men looking to apprehend a notorious outlaw so that they could collect the bounty. Of course it wouldn’t go smoothly, resulting in a shootout.
This sequence worked great. There would be a buildup to the shootout, as the men were preparing and then closing in on the outlaw. While they were doing so, the dialogue was going to give shape to the story, not only for their current objective, but how this was going to fit into the context of the world I’d set up, laying the foundation for the rest of the plot to play out. There would be references to towns and characters that would be introduced later, and hints at what their goals would be.
It would also introduce two of the main characters, as well as a secondary character that would play an important role throughout the story. The two main characters would be the outlaw, and the man who caught him, and the secondary character would prove to be an obstacle to the main character at multiple times in the script.
The shootout would be deadly, which would establish how much of a force the outlaw was. The outcome of the shootout would then also have an impact on character motivations and the actions they’d take as the story played out.
The main character’s introduction would give insight into who they were as a character. The audience would get a sense of them not so much in the actions they took, but how they performed those actions, which I felt was essential in understanding the character.
The secondary character, along with the supporting characters, would be providing the heavy lifting for the world building I mentioned earlier. There would also be hints, in their dialogue, descriptions, even actions, that would establish their current mindset, something that would establish the foundation for all the things they did afterwards.
The scene itself was one of conflict, and would lay the groundwork for future conflicts.
The writing felt good too. Applying the advice I’d gotten from my second script consultation for Dig Down, I made scenes crisp, establishing the point of them and then getting out. In the pages 11 handwritten pages of this first draft, there were 24 scene changes.
And these pages were in a looseleaf notebook, which already were smaller than the page of an actual script. And as I said in my previous post, I wasn’t formatting it like a normal script, as I was only using half the length of the lines so I could write notes in the other half. So, for an opening sequence where I wanted some action, which could afford to last a couple of minutes, and with a page of script equating to about a minute of screen time, I felt the pace had come out well.
Things were feeling good.