More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Sluglines

by Jim Kalergis

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More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Sluglines  

by

Jim Kalergis

The term “slugline” comes from the world of typesetting. Back in the days of movable type, instructions to the printer were embedded in temporary metal strips called sluglines, which were inserted between rows of regular type. In similar fashion, screenplay sluglines were once used to give instructions as to where and under what lighting conditions a scene was to be shot. Each of the three parts of a slugline meant something very specific in that regard.

A couple examples:

    1          2              3

EXT. CITY PARK – DAY

   1           2                   3
INT. SMITH HOUSE – NIGHT

1.  INT. or EXT.

Indoors or outdoors? (Natural or artificial light?)   

2.  THE NAME OF THE SET OR SHOOTING LOCATION 

Where the crew would be working . 

3.  DAY or NIGHT 

Sun up or down? (What lighting equipment would be needed.) 

Prior to production, for scheduling and budgeting purposes, the script would be “broken down” by copying each slugline onto a thin strip of cardboard. Different colors of cardboard represented each of the four possible combinations of slugline elements 1 and 3.

INT/DAY – WHITE

INT/NIGHT - BLUE

EXT/DAY - YELLOW

EXT/NIGHT – GREEN

The slugline strips were grouped together by color and shooting location, and then mounted in the order the scenes would be shot on a master scheduling board. Obviously it’s far more efficient to shoot all the scenes in a particular location, under the same lighting conditions, on the same day or series of days (or nights) rather than in the scattered order in which they appear in the script. 

Using this compiled slugline information, the budget people were able to estimate such things as how many days the crew would be shooting in any given location, what equipment and crew service would be needed, and how many times the crew would have to pack up the Teamster driven trucks and move to a new location. This information was used to come up with a “below the line budget”, the estimated crew and equipment costs for the shoot. Note that the only acceptable slugline extensions were DAY or NIGHT. There were no other script breakdown categories.

Over time, with the advent of CGI and other technical developments, scheduling and budgeting became far more complicated than simply breaking down a script by slugline elements.  Sluglines, at least in “spec” or “master scene” screenplays, became more about orienting the reader to the story than budgeting and scheduling. Slugline extensions like DUSK and DAWN became commonplace, even though, in real life, neither dusk or dawn lasts long enough to shoot a scene

of any length. MORNING and AFTERNOON became common slugline extensions as well, even though to the camera they’re both “day.” 

CONTINUOUS, meaning entirely different things to different people, came on the scene to further confuse new writers. In the early days, CONTINUOUS meant an uninterrupted camera roll… following an actor from outside to inside a house for example. Some writers use CONTINUOUS to indicate the scene immediately follows the previous scene… but what’s the point? From the audience’s point of view all scenes immediately follow one to the next.

CURRENT BEST PRACTICES

My advice on format in general and sluglines in particular is, “KEEP IT SIMPLE.” Getting overly complicated serves no purpose other than to distract the reader. 

INT. or EXT.  

Does the scene take place under open skies (EXT) or does the scene take place in an interior set or location (INT)? Rarely, when a scene shifts quickly or continuously between INT and EXT you may choose to use INT./EXT.   

SCENE LOCATION

The “where.” Start with the general location and then go more specific. 

JOE’S HOUSE – GARAGE 

SUPERMARKET – BACK ROOM

Nothing else. Adding clutter just serves to distract the reader from your story. Since the audience will never see your sluglines, if there’s something else about the location they need to know, present that information in a way that allows the director to capture it on film.     

There’s nothing wrong with being creative in choosing location names.

For example, compare…

INT. RESTAURANT - NIGHT  to…

INT. JOES ROADSIDE DINER – NIGHT to…

INT. BILLY’S BAR AND SPORTS GRILL –NIGHT to…

INT. PAPA JOE’S ITALIAN JOINT - NIGHT

The first slugline doesn’t bring to mind much of a visual. It’s plain vanilla. The others are visual and help communicate the feel of the scene. Choose slugline location names that help your story play out as a movie in the reader’s theater of the mind.

“MINI-SLUGS”

When moving to another location in the same general location, rather than cluttering up the page with wall-to-wall sluglines, consider using “mini-slugs. By way of example, let’s say we’ve already established that the couple is in JOE’S APARTMENT, and the guy is talking to the gal and following her around from room to room as she packs up her things. Rather than cluttering up the page with a full slugline for each room… 

INT. JOE’S HOUSE - THE FRONT ROOM - NIGHT

INT. JOE’S HOUSE - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT 

…use mini-slugs with “INT” and “NIGHT” assumed.

THE FRONT ROOM  

THE BEDROOM

SLUGLINE EXTENSIONS

Stick with DAY or NIGHT as much as much as possible. When it’s hugely important for dramatic reasons that the reader/audience knows the scene takes place at precisely 9PM, don’t make “9PM” part of your slugline. That information must be captured on film, so write accordingly… there’s a clock on the wall… or maybe a radio’s playing and the DJ gives the current time as 9PM.  

IN CLOSING

Sluglines and other format issues should be the least of a writer’s concerns when working on a screenplay. One could spend days studying style and format in produced screenplays, but it would be a waste of time, as pro style and format is all over the place. Study produced screenplays for story, not for format. To learn format, the far better choice is to pick up a good basic book on the subject, David Trottier’s, THE SCREENWRITER’S BIBLE for example. Spend an afternoon studying and be done with it. Screenplay format is easy... unless you overcomplicate it. Great storytelling is hard.   

Jim Kalergis 
E-mail: screenplayrewrite@earthlink.net