Scene Description Spotlight: “The Shawshank Redemption:

Here is the opening sequence in The Shawshank Redemption, screenplay adaptation by Frank Darabont from a novella by Stephen King. Note the contrast in scene description, pivoting from a MAN and WOMAN having steamy sex, and the drunken, but calculating moves of ANDY DUFRESNE:

1 INT — CABIN — NIGHT (1946)

A dark, empty room.

The door bursts open. A MAN and WOMAN enter, drunk and 
 giggling, horny as hell. No sooner is the door shut than 
 they’re all over each other, ripping at clothes, pawing at 
 flesh, mouths locked together.

He gropes for a lamp, tries to turn it on, knocks it over 
 instead. Hell with it. He’s got more urgent things to do, like 
 getting her blouse open and his hands on her breasts. She 
 arches, moaning, fumbling with his fly. He slams her against 
 the wall, ripping her skirt. We hear fabric tear.

He enters her right then and there, roughly, up against the 
 wall. She cries out, hitting her head against the wall but not 
 caring, grinding against him, clawing his back, shivering with 
 the sensations running through her. He carries her across the 
 room with her legs wrapped around him. They fall onto the bed.

CAMERA PULLS BACK, exiting through the window, traveling 
 smoothly outside…

2 EXT — CABIN — NIGHT (1946) 2

…to reveal the bungalow, remote in a wooded area, the 
 lovers’ cries spilling into the night…

…and we drift down a wooded path, the sounds of rutting 
 passion growing fainter, mingling now with the night sounds of 
 crickets and hoot owls…

…and we begin to hear FAINT MUSIC in the woods, tinny and
 incongruous, and still we keep PULLING BACK until…

…a car is revealed. A 1946 Plymouth. Parked in a clearing.

3 INT — PLYMOUTH — NIGHT (1946) 3

ANDY DUFRESNE, mid-20’s, wire rim glasses, three-piece suit. 
 Under normal circumstances a respectable, solid citizen; hardly
 dangerous, perhaps even meek. But these circumstances are far 
 from normal. He is disheveled, unshaven, and very drunk. A 
 cigarette smolders in his mouth. His eyes, flinty and hard, are 
 riveted to the bungalow up the path.

He can hear them fucking from here.

He raises a bottle of bourbon and knocks it back. The radio 
 plays softly, painfully romantic, taunting him:

You stepped out of a dream… 
 You are too wonderful… 
 To be what you seem…

He opens the glove compartment, pulls out an object wrapped
 in a rag. He lays it in his lap and unwraps it carefully —

— revealing a .38 revolver. Oily, black, evil.

He grabs a box of bullets. Spills them everywhere, all over 
 the seats and floor. Clumsy. He picks bullets off his lap, 
 loading them into the gun, one by one, methodical and grim. 
 Six in the chamber. His gaze goes back to the bungalow.

He shuts off the radio. Abrupt silence, except for the distant 
 lovers’ moans. He takes another shot of bourbon courage, then 
 opens the door and steps from the car.

4 EXT — PLYMOUTH — NIGHT (1946) 4

His wingtip shoes crunch on gravel. Loose bullets scatter to 
 the ground. The bourbon bottle drops and shatters.

He starts up the path, unsteady on his feet. The closer he 
 gets, the louder the lovemaking becomes. Louder and more 
 frenzied. The lovers are reaching a climax, their sounds of 
 passion degenerating into rhythmic gasps and grunts.

WOMAN (O.S.) 
 Oh god…oh god…oh god…

Andy lurches to a stop, listening. The woman cries out in 
 orgasm. The sound slams into Andy’s brain like an icepick. He 
 shuts his eyes tightly, wishing the sound would stop.

It finally does, dying away like a siren until all that’s left 
 is the shallow gasping and panting of post-coitus. We hear 
 languorous laughter, moans of satisfaction.

WOMAN (O.S.) 
 Oh god…that’s sooo good…you’re 
 the best…the best I ever had…

Andy just stands and listens, devastated. He doesn’t look like 
 much of a killer now; he’s just a sad little man on a dirt 
 path in the woods, tears streaming down his face, a loaded gun 
 held loosely at his side. A pathetic figure, really.

Compare the contrasting moods — the couple’s passionate love-making (arches, moaning, fumbling, slams, ripping) and Andy’s dispassionate preparation with the gun (loading, methodical, grim, silence). And then bringing the two ‘worlds’ together as Andy approaches the cabin, the “languorous laughter” and “moans of satisfaction” smashing into Andy’s consciousness “like an icepick,” then he “just stands and listens, devastated… a sad little man on a dirt path in the woods.”

This is an excellent example of using words to describe starkly different moods — but also to create immediate empathy with a Protagonist character. The couple is unaware of Andy’s presence. But the reader experiences the moment along with Andy — and in our own way share his pain.

Those of you who remember the movie will note that this scene is cut differently than in the script. For tomorrow’s Great Scene post, we’ll look at what writer-director Darabont did to make the scene even better on film.

[Originally posted April 15, 2010]

Note: Over the last few months, I have gotten a lot of questions from GITS readers about scene description. In conjunction with that, I’ve delved into the general subject of action writing and scene-writing with participants in some of my Screenwriting Master Class courses. So I figured the stars were aligning for me to bring back the weekly series Scene Description Spotlight. For the next two weeks, I will spotlight an SDS post from the archives. Then beginning the week of 3/19, I will resume the weekly series.

Consider this: At least half of a script is scene description. And the fact is, many readers simply don’t like to read it compared to dialogue which has narrower margins and is easier on the eyes. So in a way, we actually have to write scene description better than dialogue to overcome that negative. Plus there are all sorts of issues tied to scene description: How much is too much description? How much is too little? Can we ‘editorialize’ about characters or only describe what a moviegoer could see? How do we introduce characters in memorable ways? How many lines of scene description should we have in paragraphs? How does scene description in an action script differ than a drama or comedy? And on and on and on.

If you have questions about scene description or more generally how to handle writing scenes, please post them in comments or email me. I have spent many, many hours thinking about and researching this subject area, as well as working on it myself with my own writing. It is so fundamental to what we do as screenwriters, each of us really should do everything we can to become masters at scene description.

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