Scene Description Spotlight: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

The ending sequence includes a most interesting sentence…

Arguably the dean of contemporary American screenwriters William Goldman sold the first spec script in the modern era: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). That combined with Goldman’s involvement in numerous movies, both credited and as a script doctor, leads me to one inescapable conclusion: Any study of scene description must include Goldman because anybody that successful must be doing something right on all fronts of the screenwriting trade.

Here’s a great example: An action sequence at the end of Butch Cassidy.

Here is the entire ending sequence as it appears in the movie:

Setting aside Goldman’s use of CUT TO — his way of designating a specific camera shot — two things to note here. First, the use of Secondary Slugs or Shots is a great way to ‘direct’ the action without using production lingo. We could get rid of the CUT TO’s and write it this way:

BUTCH

streaking, diving again, then up, and 
the bullets landing around him aren’t 
even close as —

SUNDANCE

whirling and spinning, continuing to fire —

SEVERAL POLICEMEN

dropping for safety behind the wall —

The second thing is this: 293. That’s how many words are in this action description. Or rather a 293 word sentence. The entire string of scene description is one long sentence, Goldman’s way of conveying the fact that this is continuous action. No breaks, no time to breathe, the effect is to pull us into the moment — along with the characters — and experience the increasing frenzy straight through.

As a screenwriter, we do whatever we can in scene description to create a powerful sense of the moment in order to immerse the reader in the experience.

Scene Description Spotlight is a Go Into The Story series that focuses on that most fundamental aspect of screenwriting: describing the environment of and what happens in a scene. It is critical to know how to do this well, using images, atmosphere and style, not only to convey clearly what transpires, but also pull the reader into the story universe.

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