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How should I wrote this scenario?

H

harmonica44

In my script, the main cop character decides to pursue an investigation on his own, off the books, and he decides to tail a suspect and keep surveillance on him, hoping to find a lead, or hoping he will incriminate himself, and give them evidence.

Basically the cop figures out who the suspect likely is, in one scene. Then the next scene I have written is him tailing the suspect, and the suspect goes to a place and does something to incriminate himself and gives him a lead. From there he follows up on the lead, and the rest of the plot goes on. This is what I need to link the suspect and the lead together for the protagonist to discover.

However, it seems to convenient that in the first scene, the cop comes up with a suspect, then in the next scene, he is tailing him, and the suspect ends up giving him a lead. It just seems too convenient that he got what he needed so quickly. So I should probably write it so that the cop was following him around for quite some time, but I do not want to write a few scenes of him doing that, cause that is more scenes, and more budget to spend. The cop cannot tell anyone that he has been following the suspect around for days cause he is working outside the law, and cannot tell anyone therefore.

So how do I establish that the cop has been following him around for some time? Or how should I write it so that it's not so convenient?
 
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A short montage maybe? Produce 30 seconds of your protagonist in various locations at different times of day, wearing different clothes. I would hope that it's obvious enough without spoon feeding that he's been working the case for at least a few days.
 
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Out of the context of the rest of your story, it’s hard to say. Is it really too convenient for him to find the criminal partaking in his criminal activities on the very first night? If he’s a professional criminal, or some sort of a gangster, it strikes me that he may well be constantly embroiled in crime, or at least on a nightly basis.

Having said that, if you show your detective looking at photographs of the criminal going about his business, that could imply that he took those photos at different instances.

However, personally, I’d write a few short scenes showing the investigation over the first few nights. That’s more because I don’t really like the idea of a montage.
 
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There's always someone he can talk to, send him to a shrink or a priest or a barkeep or a girlfriend or something.

Then fade into your flashback as he starts to describe the action.
You get to show some action and slip in some exposition without boring the audience with too much talk.

Watch a show like "Homicide Hunter" with Lt Joe Kenda on Investigation Discovery and just imagine him telling someone other than the camera what he was doing.

You could even keep the identity of the tellee (is that a word?) in the dark, who knows, they might even be a baddy as well.
 
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Well I was thinking of a montage perhaps, and I did write one, but I found the script needing more budget than it needs perhaps, since I would have to rent more locations, and acquire other actors, to fill roles, for the suspect to interact with, or extras to have occupy public places he is in.

So I was hoping to write it in a way, in which I will not need many more locations or actors, if that's do-able, but not sure how to approach it. A short montage is fine, but most of the script is already written and it's not a good idea, for this to take up too much length as well. I don't even have to write it so he has been following him around for days necessarily, I just have to make it less convenient.
 
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Okay thanks. But isn't that kind of uninteresting to the audience, if all I show is him waiting and having lunches in his car? Shouldn't I be showing something to develop the suspect character as he is being watched, or something?
 
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You said you wanted an inexpensive (read: cheap) montage to show the passage of time.
15 to 20 seconds of quick cuts is not going to excessively bore the audience, unless your story is, overall, boring. And you can throw in something humorous, like looking for a restroom/peeing in a bottle.
 
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I think Mlesemann has it, and it could be done with a couple of camera angles and a couple of shirt changes.
One through the driver's window, one from the back seat, maybe one at an outside coffee shop for a little changeup, and another from the windshield looking in.
Toss in a couple of quick cuts of what he's looking at and you've only got about 30 seconds of time.

Here's a short version of something like that:
PI watches a mark on "Cry Wolfe"

You have to plow through a stupid commercial, sorry!


Just about every episode of Rockford Files has something like this too
 
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Okay thanks, that helps! Aside from just showing the cop in the car though, in a few shots, what about showing the perp?

Wouldn't the perp be in several locations and I would still need to show those? Or at least show the main character looking at him, since we need to establish what he is seeing or that he is following him? If I show a bunch of car shots and not show the perp, the audience may become confused as to who the cop is looking at in his car, over the days.
 
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Okay thanks. I don't think I should show time pass with clocks or calendars cause you see this in family oriented movies, and it may not be right for my tone, therefore maybe.

mad_hatter said:
Out of the context of the rest of your story, it’s hard to say. Is it really too convenient for him to find the criminal partaking in his criminal activities on the very first night? If he’s a professional criminal, or some sort of a gangster, it strikes me that he may well be constantly embroiled in crime, or at least on a nightly basis.

Having said that, if you show your detective looking at photographs of the criminal going about his business, that could imply that he took those photos at different instances.

However, personally, I’d write a few short scenes showing the investigation over the first few nights. That’s more because I don’t really like the idea of a montage.
Click to expand...

I think I like the idea of montage better if it were the cop looking over photographs, sticking them on a wall through a montage, while he makes some calls with a plan of his own. However, would actually showing him follow the perp around be better, also so you can see the perp's private non-criminal life, as oppose to just seeing it in pictures? The reason why I like the photograph idea is because then I can just use one location, as oppose to a few outdoor ones, but is it not as good?

Also what's so bad about a montage?
 
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