I read a fair few spec scripts written by people trying to break into the screenwriting business. Most of them my own. But when I’m in reader mode, one thing that really ticks me off and is bound to tick any script reader off is the use of camera directions in the scene descriptions. You know the stuff I’m talking about; scripts riddled with PAN, ZOOM and the cringeworthy CRASH CUT.

Listen: you’re a writer trying to sell a script, not a director preparing a shooting script. Capito? All the stuff with the camera angles, that’s not your job. Let the director and the DoP worry about that.

Hang on, I know what you’re going to say. You’ve got to put camera angles into your script to express the images that are in your head. You know how the scene plays out, character A has got to see character B before B sees A. Or whatever.

Describe the scene, numbnuts. Use descriptive words to show what’s going on. You’re a writer, for godsake. Write. You’re allowed to get into the character’s head, at least to the extent that it allows a script editor to understand what you’re getting at, a director to interpret how they’ll shoot it and an actor to, well, work out their motivation (darling).

Look, let me give you an example.

EXT. BUS STOP – NIGHT
We PAN across the undergrowth until we see FARMER hiding, his face sheened with sweat. ZOOM IN on the hammer in his hand.

PULL BACK and we see WENDY waiting for the bus, unawares.

The only thing this kind of writing achieves is to show how crap I’d be as a director. It detracts from the story. There’s no suspense, no tension. Contrary to popular opinion script readers want to read great scripts. They want to be entertained, surprised, intruiged. They want to be carried away with the story, eager to find out more. They do not want to be bogged down by amateur hour camera directions.

How could you write the same scene?

EXT. BUS STOP – NIGHT
FARMER crouches motionless in the undergrowth with white-knuckle grip on his claw hammer. The sodium orange of the street lights reflects the sheen of sweat on his face.

WENDY waits at the bus stop, blissfully unaware of the danger lurking beyond.

Yeah, okay, it’s overheated tosh. But there are no camera descriptions. Any director foolish enough to want to shoot it can easily work out the shots for themselves.

Oh, and please don’t prefix every sentence of scene description with “We see…”.

INT. DERELICT GARAGE – DAY
We see JOHNNY pull a gun on DANNY.

Of course ‘we see’. It’s on the bloody screen in front of us. Unless it’s a radio play in which case you’d be a plonker for writing ‘we see’ in the first place.

INT. DERELICT GARAGE – DAY
JOHNNY pulls a gun on DANNY.

There. That’s fine. Took less time to write, too. Everyone’s a winner.

I saw a great example of this whold subject over at Scott’s Get Into The Story blog, where he uses a scene from Silence of the Lambs to discuss how to write POV shots.

One last thing. Please, whatever you do, don’t insert CRASH CUTs into your script. Look at yourself. Do you look like a director? Do you look like an editor? No? Then drop the CRASH CUTs.

If you can’t drop camera directions from your script then go and make a film instead. A serious, proper film with actors and decent cameras and lighting and sound and music. Doesn’t have to be a liong one. Maybe five or ten minutes.

Once you come out the other side of that you’ll know once and for all whether you’re a writer or a director.