We have examined dozens of
amateur scripts in which scenes would be found written thus:
8--Library, same as 2.
Tom looks on floor, fails to find locket, and then goes into
one room after another searching for it.
This, of course, is impossible. Even though the director were willing
to show Tom going through the different rooms looking for the lost
piece of jewelry, each scene would have to be separately and
consecutively numbered in the scenario. If in the tenth room visited
Tom should find the locket and then go out on the piazza to speak to
Mabel about it, the scene showing the piazza would be 18 and not 9.
It is quite as incorrect to divide into two or more parts the action
of what should be one scene, as already explained, as it is to try to
make one scene out of two or more by running them together in the way
illustrated in the foregoing bad example. To avoid both errors, bear
in mind that besides giving every scene a separate scene number, you
must write a scene into your scenario whenever it is necessary to
supply a new background for some bit of action. For example, you
cannot say:
Scene 4. John comes out of the store, walks down the street
for a couple of blocks, and enters the bank on the corner.
That much action would be written about as follows:
1--Exterior of store.
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