Script To Screen: “A Quiet Place”

The terrifying opening incident is a master class in demonstrating how to use paragraphs of scene description to suggest individual camera shots.

From the 2018 hit movie A Quiet Place, screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski, story by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck

Plot summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing.

Here is the scripted version of the movie’s opening incident:

Here is the scene from the movie:

Notice how each paragraph of scene description ‘moves’ the action?

- ON THE MOTHER

- ON THE FATHER

- THE TREES BEHIND THEM

- ON THE BOY - ON THE FATHER

This technique of using individual paragraphs of scene description to suggest camera shots is a common practice in contemporary screenplays. Directors don’t want to be told how to shoot their movie? Fine. In describing the action with separate paragraphs, the screenwriter infers camera shots without using directing lingo or camera jargon.

Side benefit of this approach: It causes us to keep paragraphs down to 2–3 lines making the script a much easier read than having big blocks of scene description.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more Script To Screen articles, go here.