Slugging Your Script

INT. YOUR DESK – DAY

Most of us have a basic understanding of how a slug line works. Slugs are the bits that establish where and when we are. Easy enough, right? But sometimes it gets confusing. We move locations from room to room, day to day and sometimes from one era to another. Slug lines can easily become very cluttered and difficult to read.

Let’s review the most common mistakes that I see in sluglines:

• Putting too much information in the slug
• Indicating times too specifically
• Slugging every single room in the house

The most infamous slugline ever: INT. BRAIN – DAY
Done Dealers will recognize that golden oldie instantly. Those were good times.

While there are no hard and fast rules and while any one can come up with exceptions, Rouge Wavers, I read an awful lot of scripts each week. And so I have a perspective on what is usually done. And not done. So let me further elucidate:

Too Much Information:

EXT. BOMBAY – LAXMI MARKETPLACE – MANGO STALL – 1922 – MORNING

Here is the better way:

EXT. BOMBAY – LAXMI MARKET PLACE - 1922– DAY
Ghandi examines a mango at the mango stall. It’s first thing in the morning and the fruit is fresh and covered with dew.

Or

EXT. BOMBAY – 1922 – DAY
It is early. The Laxmi Marketplace is bustling with vendors and shoppers.

AT THE MANGO STALL
Ghandi examines the fresh fruit.

Whatever works, whatever keeps it simple, whatever suits your style.

Time of Day:

Really, the time of day should be limited to: DAY, NIGHT, DUSK, DAWN, LATE AFTERNOON, EARLY MORNING.

You can also note things like: LATER, MOMENTS LATER, SIMULTANEOUS or CONTINUOUS. We’ll come back to continuous and simultaneous.

Moving From Room to Room:

There are differing styles of indicating moving from one room to another. I like to use the mini-slug. A mini-slug is an all-capped – well, mini slug. Let me give you an example.

INT. BOB’S GAMESHOW SET – DAY
Bob wraps the show, thumbs-up the director and heads offstage.

THE GREEN ROOM
The door opens and Bob goes straight for the water bottle and pours it over his head.

Or

INT. THE CRAIG FAMILY LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Dad sips his bourbon and watches football stoically.

IN THE KITCHEN
Melanie chops onions and cries.

A Comprehensive Bad Example:

Hewing to my belief that you can learn more from bad examples than good, here is some slugging that I very often see cluttering up newbie scripts and in this really annoying example, you'll see every mistake being made - too much information, time of day repeats, noting every single room and location to the nth:

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – LIVING ROOM – EVENING
Dad sips a Pabst Blue Ribbon and irons his shirt for tomorrow while the TV blares.

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – DANNY’S BEDROOM – EVENING
Danny uses a quill pen to draw a delicate dragon on his forearm. Somebody taps on his window.

EXT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – DANNY’S WINDOW – EVENING
Danny’s friend Lloyd hoists himself in the window.

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – LIVING ROOM – EVENING
Dad looks up. He heard something. He heads upstairs.

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – THE STAIRS – EVENING
Dad goes up the stairs.

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – THE LANDING – EVENING
Dad reaches the landing. He looks toward Danny’s room.

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – DANNY’S DOOR – EVENING
Dad knocks on the door.

Okay I don’t need to go on – though I could. The number of slug lines is dizzying. We don’t need to indicate the time over and over again – it’s happening continuously. But Rouge Wavers – I see this type of writing a lot. I am not exaggerating though I sorely wish I was.

Let's Try That Again:

INT. THE VAN DER HOOVLE HOME – LIVING ROOM – EVENING
Dad sips a Pabst Blue Ribbon and irons his shirt for tomorrow while the TV blares.

UPSTAIRS
Danny uses a quill pen to draw a delicate dragon on his forearm. Somebody taps on his window. Danny looks up. His friend Lloyd hoists himself in the window.

DOWNSTAIRS
Dad looks up. He heard something. He heads upstairs.

THE LANDING
Dad looks toward Danny’s room. He walks toward the door. Knocks.

Continuous:

Continuous basically suggests that the camera is moving and/or following the character or action. So it might be written thusly:

EXT. JACKSON BROWN’S JACUZZI – NIGHT
Mr. Brown tosses back the rest of his margarita and rises from the steaming water. He throws on a kimono.

INT. JACKSON’S OPULENT BEDROOM – CONTINUOUS
Jackson tosses off his kimono and falls face down onto his bed.

IN THE CLOSET
A beautiful blonde unsheathes a knife.

Simultaneous:

Simultaneous indicates that something is happening - well – simultaneously. So it would be used thusly:

EXT. JACKSON BROWN’S JACUZZI – NIGHT
Mr. Brown tosses back the rest of his margarita and rises from the steaming water. He throws on a kimono.

INT. JACKSON’S BEDROOM – SIMULTANEOUS
A beautiful blonde grabs a hunting knife and hides in the closet

INT. JACKSON’S OPULENT BEDROOM – MOMENTS LATER
Jackson tosses off his kimono and falls face down onto his bed.

IN THE CLOSET
The beautiful blonde unsheathes the knife.

Simultaneous Made Even Simpler:

Personally, I never use simultaneous. Because there is another accepted method and that is where a scene is happening simultaneously, leaving off the time of day part of the slug altogether connotes it. Check it out:

INT. MR. GREENJEAN’S DRESSING ROOM – NIGHT
Mr. Greenjeans takes off his pancake makeup and stares into the mirror. Lights a cigarette.

EXT. THE TELEVISION STUDIO
A black Mercedes rolls up to the building silently. The window rolls down slightly. A pistol barrel peeks out.

Here’s the thing with sluglines. Keep them simple. They serve a very basic function. They tell us where we are. They tell us about what time it is. They serve as a quick guide. Readers don’t read them so much as glide over them – what we want to read is the action and dialogue in the scene. When you clutter up your pages with sluglines in an effort to be precise, you just make it more confusing.

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