Scene Description Spotlight: “The Matrix”

Still for my money, one of the best scripts for action-writing. The Wachowskis use the basic elements of visual writing — strong verbs and vivid descriptors — to create a visceral sense of time, place, and action. Here are two excerpts of the opening sequence where Trinity tries to escape Agent Smith and his cronies.

And we’re off and running into the next scene. So many strong verbs in this sequence. Here are some of them:

snaps, explodes, erupting, kicks, flies, slams, raking, snatched, twisted, fired.

And that’s just from the first few paragraphs. How about descriptors:

force of a wrecking ball, limp meat and bone, flashlights sweeping with panic, try to stop a leather-clad ghost

In another draft, there’s even better description of that initial fight:

Notice how each line suggests an individual camera shot, you can ‘see’ it edited by the way the brothers approach the scene description — all without using any directing or camera lingo.

But mostly it’s strong verbs and vivid descriptors which make The Matrix one of the best examples of action-writing in a contemporary screenplay.

Here’s the movie version of the scene:

How blown away were you when you first saw The Matrix?

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