I plan for flashback to be a major factor in the series I am scripting, and a lot of the characters backstories will be showcased and shown through the usage of them. One problem with this is that I have never worked with flashbacks before in any of my scripts, and as such I have little to no idea about how to actually format a flashback in a script.
Since I plan for flashbacks to play a major role in showing key-moments in my story, learning to script and format them is something I need to pay careful attention to.
I managed to come across this site: http://www.scriptologist.com/Magazine/Formatting/Flashbacks/flashbacks.html which gives a very brief example of how a flashback should be scripted. The format looks quite solid and workable, and after trying it out in my Final Draft Software, I found it to be a very useful and straightforward way of getting the point across that the scene described takes place as a flashback.
With this in mind, I decided to check out a famous script in order to check if this technique was effective in scripts that were actually used on big budget film productions. I came across this script for Quentin Tarantino's film; Resevoir Dogs: http://seai.uniroma1.it/sites/default/files/dialoghi%208%20SCENA%201-SU%20YOUTUBE%20RESERVOIR%20DOGS%20TIPPING%20SCENE.pdf
and came across this particular page which shows the beginning of a flashback occurring.
Something I was a little confused about was the fact that this flashback sequence begins with the heading; CUT TO: as opposed to FLASHBACK TO:
I believe this is just Tarantino's choice of wording, as the scene shown in the movie is most definitely a flashback.
I think I will continue to use the FLASHBACK TO: header in my own script, as I have discovered that when I input this into my script, the scriptwriting software Final Draft automatically places the text to the right, similar to the area the CUT TO: header is placed in the Resevoir Dogs script. This to me suggests that the software recognises the header as the beginning of a flashback sequence.
This formating technique is something that I think will be very useful for defining flashbacks in a simple, easy to understand manner in my script, and it is a technique I will definitely be using a lot during the script-writing process.
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