I was wondering if anybody could give me some advice. I learnt the mechanics of scriptwriting and formatting while I was at university, but the one thing I was never taught was how a scriptwriter is supposed to format a scene that involves switching between or mixing locations, such as a montage or if two characters are talking on the phone. I've previously written a montage scene and simply labelled the location as "Various (Montage)" and then explained in the scene description what takes place and where. I'm assuming this could prove problematic if the script ever went into production, as I imagine the locations required wouldn't be properly logged from the scene headings, so I've convinced myself there is another way I'm supposed to do this. As for phone conversations, I've avoided writing anything whereby there's an exchange between two different people and the shots switch between them in different locations, simply because I can't think of formatting it in an efficient manner. Surely I can't start a new scene for each cut, but I can't write one scene in one location when I'm supposed to cut to somebody somewhere else. As for "mixing" locations, such as if a character is watching somebody on a television, would the events on the screen be written into the scene description? It's my instinct to do so, but if it's something that would need to be shot separately for the sake of the production, I run into the same issues as I do with writing phone conversations, such as logging locations etc. I don't know if there's official rules on how to format scripts in these circumstances or if it's a matter of personal preference. Whatever the case may be, I'd be very grateful if anybody can offer me any advice on the matter.
