How the hell are they written? Do you write the details of swerving and skidding? Do you just write "then they chase each other"

I suppose it depends if you need the pages or not.

80% of the chase in Bullitt was apparently scripted, but there again by the time you come to shoot it, the chase car really does need to know it the chasee is going left or right at the traffic lights.

In The French Connection, it originally just said 'There is a car chase' but by the time they got to production, there were seven pages of it.

Not really advice, this, is it? :-)

I suppose it depends how much you need it to advance the plot, whether the location is real and known to you or not, at what stage you are at, and whether you can be bothered - it is something you can easily skip and come back to, or leave for a later draft.

Ian

What you might want to do for SCRIPTFRENZY and what you might do otherwise for scenes like: fights,car chases, sex scenes, shootouts and the like. Give specifics but in a general way, in my screenplay, for example, there is a brief fight scene. What I did was give specifics about how my fight started.
The turning point, example, character gets held by two of his opponent's chronies while the opponent beats him up. Then the results of the fight.

I believe otherwisee the widest latitude should be offered first to the DIRECTOR.
So, if I submitted my screenplay I would write ONLY: Fight. Andy is dumped unconscious in alley. He has a broken rib, and broken nose. His face is swollen.
He is hobbled. He walks home.

I believe car chases are always best scripted by DIRECTORS and SPECIAL EFFECTS, as some will go on and on, while others are short and quite spectacular.
HOPE THIS HELPS!
GOOD LUCK!
WRITE ON!

"It's never too late to become what you might have been."
- George Eliot

Hey Lokier,

best way to find out is to read scripts of your favorite movies with chase scenes and see how the pros did it. Check out: http://www.dailyscript.com/movie.html

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United We H.A.C.K.

Scriptfrenzy '07: Darkness Rising (winner!)
Scriptfrenzy '08: Quest for the Soul Stone
ML for Denver, Colorado

That's funny, I always heard that the car chase in Bullitt was in the script something along the lines of "A car chase ensues." Perhaps somebody should check the actual screenplay of Bullitt and see what it says. Maybe that story is an urban legend.

"Let's have some new cliches." - Sam Goldwyn
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