How to Write Breakdown Pages for a Script

Video Transcript

"Hi, Chris Cobb for Expert Village, welcome back. As you can see, I'm just finishing up breaking down the final, the last page into eighths of a page. And, from here, let me finish just a quick bit. Three-eighths, last bit, two-eighths, all adds up exactly to eight-eighths of a page. So the script is done in terms of breaking it down into eighths. Then we actually take that script all over again, and we're going to do another pass on it. Now it may seem like a lot of tedious work to do this, twice, to do a pass on the script. In my experience, it actually means that you become such an expert on the script that the director oftentimes will ask you something about it, most of the crew will, and, every now and then, the writer might ask you a question if you see her or him on the set, mostly in terms of production, of course. And as you get more experience, what I'm going to show you next you can actually do at the same time. I tend not to. Again, I like to do two passes on a script; it makes me very well informed about what's in it. So the next thing you do is you actually take the script and take a bunch of colored markers -- these are highlighters -- have at least five colors. And what we're going to do then is we're going to take the script and break it down for a breakdown page. Now this is a breakdown page. Come a little closer and I'll show you. Essentially what it is, is it's a breakdown of all the elements in a scene. So, starting with scene 1 on script page 1, the page count on that might be one-eighth of a page if you recall. And it's sheet number 1. Now that sheet actually means this page, the breakdowns page itself. So the sheet is the breakdown page. Interior/Exterior: if you ever write a script, or written one, you know that those are part of the slug lines. Interior/Exterior and Day or Night. Again, if you've ever written a script, you know that those are part of the slug lines as well. Those are the elements that are at the top of a breakdown sheet. And then the Scene Description, Settings, Location, Sequence. And then you see all these boxes. What these boxes are, are all the elements that over time Hollywood have figured out costs you money and need to be planned for. So, trust the wisdom of Hollywood a little bit on here; although, feel free to add your own boxes as you get more comfortable with this, or to rename boxes when you find that some, like Greenery I never use, so maybe I'll leave that for Effects or Stunts, something like that. Although there already is one for Stunts, but you know what I mean. So anyway, Cast Member, Background Actors, Props, Stunts, Vehicles, Special Effects, Wardrobe, Makeup/Hair, etc. etc. Well this sheet represents what you're going to do to each scene -- you're going to break it down. And the way you're going to break it down is by using these pens. So when you come back, I'll show you what we do there."