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Is it okay to 'tell' instead of 'show' in this sense?

H

harmonica44

In my script, a man in a courtroom uses his training to escape custody. He takes the guard's gun, shoots him along with other guards and cops. He takes a hostage and escapes. However, when he gets to the outside of the courthouse, he will logically then either have to take a car, escape on foot for some time being.

The cops would be called, and since a courthouse is likely in the middle of downtown, in a large city setting, the cops would block off all the roads around, and he would have to evade a lot of cop cars coming for him, if he expects to escape, which the script needs him to, in order to continue.

However, I do not have the budget to show what happens, once he gets outside the courthouse. I was thinking, instead of showing it, I could just tell it, through a police radio scanner, which is being listened to, by other characters who are playing a part in the whole thing.

Will this be okay with audiences, or will they think it's too cheap, or that they are being cheated, or will it feel downright off, that none of the remaining escape is shown, and it's being told? What if I just tried to write the radio chatter as really suspenseful, or will that not work, cause the more suspenseful something is, the more they will want to see it?
 
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Maybe you need to rethink the escape?

Or write it without keeping the budget in mind.
And then find a solution.

How suspensefull do you think radio chatter can be?
It is not a football game with an excited presentor on edge.

"Suspect moving to this and that street."
"We have a visual. Moving eastward."

And what explaination will you have for the shift of perspective?
You're not just trying to hide the lack of budget, you shift the perspective to someone else.
Who is listening to the chatter?
If you can't justify this shift, people won't like it for sure.
 
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Are you sure that if he moved quickly he couldn't escape from the middle of the city? If the shooting and escape from the courtroom happened quickly it's not unreasonable to assume it will take the police a while to respond and organize a dragnet. They do have to finish their Dunkin' Donuts, after all. How about a stolen or hijacked car that the cops are not looking for? It wouldn't take much money to have a scene where he jumps into a car at a stop sign, tosses the driver out and takes off. It would be no more unlikely than a prisoner in a courthouse could overpower a guard, shoot him, shoot other guards and take hostages. Of course hostages would complicate things. If your hostage is in a wheelchair, all bets are off.

If that's not possible to do for budget reasons, then yeah, you'll have to truncate the whole escape thing and either use a B-story secondary character for exposition about what's happening, or cut to the post-escape scene and have a few comments that give a general idea how he managed it. The big question is how important the actual escape details once he leaves the courtroom are to the story. Is there something essential to your plot and your character arc that happens during that escape, and only during that escape, that's essential to your narrative? The audience will forgive a cut from an exciting courtroom scene to a relatively calm scene where he's escaped and in a hideout or whatever if the story isn't lacking an important beat or if there's no significant hole in the plot. They'll assume it was a relatively uneventful period from leaving the courtroom to arriving at his hideoout. And that's not entirely impossible.
 
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This is the same script I was writing before, and I am writing it in between projects. I have a shoot coming up that will hopefully take place but that's not a month, and in casting right now, so I have time to write in the mean time. Plus I am trying to write a script that actors will hopefully find more interesting anyway.

The details of the escape are not necessarily important, plot wise, I just need him to escape. The people listening in on the radio chatter, are people, who the escaped prisoner wants to kill, and they are listening in, hoping the cops will catch him, so they will be safe. Once they hear on the radio that they lost him, they will then panic about what to do. So those people are relevant to the chase, cause their lives depend on the cops catching him.

Now I don't have to show the escape, but at the same time, I don't want the audience thinking "how did he escape such a difficult situation all of a sudden, we didn't see it!" I asked my friends what they thought of it, and they said that they would have to see it in order to be satisfied and that it's important, otherwise it would just come off as awkward.
 
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Well, you either show it or you don't. If you can't for budget reasons, then your only option is to work around it, no matter what your friends or anybody else thinks. If you can show it, what's the problem?
 
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Why do you always complicate things? You can tell/show what happened either in "real" time or as a "recap" from inside the police command post or from cops on the scene on radios and discussing what happened as they attempt to deal with it.

You can do the escape from the courtroom itself and then the rest is heard by those in the courtroom but not seen. When the "boss" arrives on the scene asking "Whatta we got?" someone will give him a brief report; others come in with updates/intelligence. Or, after your protagonist leaves the courtroom itself, you cut to a ranking official (or someone important to the story/plot) receiving notification of the event and is provided the run-down of what happened.

There's also the question "did he have help?" which only you as the screenwriter can answer.
 
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INT. COURTHOUSE MEZZANINE - DAY

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI strolls up to OFFICER GARCIA. Attached to his wrist is a pair of frilly
pink handcuffs. Attached to the other end, a broken bed post.

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
Don’t even fucking ask. So, what the hell happened, Garcia? Where’s the suspect?

OFFICER GARCIA
He ran out the side door, Lieutenant. A civilian chased him, but pulled a groin muscle - says
he’s gonna sue the city. Two cruisers from uptown cut him off in the alley,
but he slipped under a fence. When the officers gave chase, he pulled a pair of skates
out of his backpack and left them I the dust.

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
He’s fucking Tara Lapinski?

OFFICER GARCIA
Then our helicopter picked him up down by the Third Street bridge. Sonofabitch had ditched his skates
and was putting on a wet suit.

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
A fucking wet suit?

OFFICER GARCIA
Yes, sir.

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
So he thinks he’s Lloyd Bridges, too?

OFFICER GARCIA
Who?

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
Never mind. What happened.

OFFICER GARCIA
He disappeared in the river and we haven’t seen him since.

LIEUTENANT PAGLIACCI
What about our nautical patrol…

OFFICER GARCIA
They won’t go up the river from the harbor, sir. They say it stinks and is “unsafe
due to too many floating turds” -- according to the union.
 
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Okay thanks. I don't know if showing a high ranking official afterwards would be necessary though, since we already have the escape being heard by the point of view of the characters, that the escapee wants to come after. Or is it still necessary to show an official come in and comment on the aftermath?
 
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Okay thanks. Well I am trying to write it so that perhaps some of it can be shown from outside, as long as it's brief. Can I write it so that the guy who escapes gets his hands on a police radio and can hear that a helicopter is looking for him, or do I have to actually show the chopper, to satisfy the audience, and just hearing it through radio only, will not be enough? Or would it not be believable that the police have a helicopter already in the air, ready to go, spur the moment?
 
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Okay thanks. In order to save money on shooting some scenes, I am wondering what else I can recap, to save on shooting. There are some scenes that I feel do not have to be shown. Here is an example of a scene similar to one of mine, in Patriot Games:

http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=55165

Now in that movie, Harrison Ford's boss later reprimands him from trying to blackmail the man in the bar. Did we really need the bar scene, if the reprimanding scene comes later, where we still hear about it? Or do we need to see confrontation scenes like this to add depth? Would it be okay if I just did a voice over of the scene, between the two characters talking, as other scenes are shown in montage, or for a dramatic confrontation, does the audience actually need to see the eye contact and everything played out?
 
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Actually I was watching Braveheart, and there is the scene where William Wallace and his men break down the big doors of York. The movie then cuts away, and King Longshanks receives a message that York has been taken.

Yet they do not even show York actually taken and they cut away, just as the doors are broken through. So can I do it like that and not show the chase, but just have characters address what happened to each other later?
 
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Do realize that what you are watching is not necessarily the written script. MANY MANY movies reflect cuts made by directors and editors at the request of studios to meet time, content and format constraints. There may have been a longer sequence that was written and shot but cut from the final movie. You tend to quote examples of the film as if they were the same as the script. Most movies do not exactly match their scripts. Often studios amend shooting scripts for release to match the movie. Actors will change lines in delivery. That needs to be reflected. Scenes get cut, that needs to be reflected. Film editors are often very critical yet often unrecognized contributors to creating the final story.

Can you? Of course. Should you? That depends on the rest of your story. If cutting away is believable, then yes. If not, then no. This is a creative decision that you must make as the writer.
 
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Okay thanks. But the reason why I use those examples, a movie must make as much sense on the screen, as it does originally on paper. If you are allowed to cut a scene in post production, and the movie still makes sense, than are you not allowed to cut the scene while writing the script?

I know that editing it out after the movie is made is different, but the principle of satisfying the audience is still the same, whether the movie is finished, or still on paper, isn't it? I mean it's not like the editor of Braveheart said "well now that the movie is finished, it will still make sense if I cut something, compared to on paper, where it wouldn't make sense".
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. But the reason why I use those examples, a movie must make as much sense on the screen, as it does originally on paper. If you are allowed to cut a scene in post production, and the movie still makes sense, than are you not allowed to cut the scene while writing the script?
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Repeating myself: Can you? Of course. Should you? That depends on the rest of your story. If cutting away is believable, then yes. If not, then no. This is a creative decision that you must make as the writer.

harmonica44 said:
I know that editing it out after the movie is made is different, but the principle of satisfying the audience is still the same, whether the movie is finished, or still on paper, isn't it? I mean it's not like the editor of Braveheart said "well now that the movie is finished, it will still make sense if I cut something, compared to on paper, where it wouldn't make sense".
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Every good writer is always asking herself or himself is this scene relevant and necessary? And if you ever have to adapt a book to film, you quickly realize you can't simply recreate a 400 page book in 110 pages without significant revision.

The editor's role is more complex having to match motions, select cuts that can convey the story and maintain pace and continuity. Often the editor is not focused on satisfying the audience but making scenes flow together. The story has already been told. It's often more like, the studio says "we need this to fit certain criteria. You need to edit it down.'

The original "Cleopatra" with Elizabeth Taylor was 8 hours edited down to 6 hours. The studios demanded it be edited down to 4 hours for theatrical release. In "Xmen: Days of Future Past" they cut a whole segment. It could be editing out content to get a certain MPAA rating. It could be editing to accommodate the 16:9 to 4:3 display format. Editors don't intentionally change the story but do influence the pacing. Alternate footage needs to be interposed.

If the editor has a question about story, s/he works with the director. The director is the final creative authority. Though the producer and studio are strong creative influences.
 
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