---
name: screenplay-scene
description: |
  Writes screenplay scenes in industry-standard format with slug lines, action lines, dialogue, and parentheticals. Enforces visual storytelling and proper screenplay conventions.
  Use when the user asks to write a screenplay scene, script a scene, format dialogue for screen, or draft in screenplay format.
  Do NOT use for prose fiction scenes (use scene-writing), stage plays (different format), dialogue-only exercises (use dialogue-writing), or full screenplay structure (use plot-outline for structure first).
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  author: foundry-skills
  version: "1.0.0"
  tags: "creative-writing writing technical-writing"
  category: "writing"
  subcategory: "creative-writing"
  depends: ""
  disclaimer: "none"
  difficulty: "intermediate"
---
# Screenplay Scene

## When to Use

**Use this skill when:**
- User asks to write a specific scene in screenplay format -- a single scene with defined beginning, middle, and end
- User wants to draft a film or TV scene requiring slug lines, action lines, and formatted dialogue
- User needs to adapt existing prose, a summary, or a story beat into proper screenplay format
- User asks about specific screenplay formatting conventions (margins, parenthetical use, slug line syntax, scene heading variants)
- User wants to write a scene for a specific genre (thriller, comedy, horror, drama) and needs genre-appropriate formatting rhythm and pacing
- User needs a scene for a specific screen format -- feature film, episodic TV, limited series, or short film -- each with different conventions
- User wants to write a cold open, a teaser, a montage sequence, or a specialty format element within a larger screenplay

**Do NOT use this skill when:**
- User wants prose fiction narrative (use `scene-writing` -- different sensory register, interiority allowed)
- User wants a stage play, musical theater book, or radio play (different margin conventions, different staging grammar, parentheticals serve different functions)
- User wants dialogue practice or character voice exercises without format requirements (use `dialogue-writing`)
- User wants to plan full screenplay structure, act breaks, or sequence outlines before writing any scenes (use `plot-outline` first to establish structure)
- User wants to analyze or give notes on an existing screenplay (that is coverage, not scene drafting)
- User wants a prose-style "scriptment" or treatment document (use `creative-brief` for development documents)
- User wants to write a commercial, corporate video script, or instructional video (those follow two-column A/V script format, not spec screenplay format)

---

## Process

### Step 1: Gather the Minimum Viable Scene Parameters

Before writing a single line, establish the five structural anchors of the scene. If the user has not provided all five, ask for them or make defensible creative choices and flag them explicitly.

- **Scene objective -- the one thing that must be different at the end:** A decision made, a secret revealed, a power dynamic reversed, a commitment broken. Not "they argue" -- "she decides to leave." Not "he is suspicious" -- "he finds the photograph." A scene without a single objective is a scene without a spine.
- **Characters present and their want:** Every character in the scene wants something -- even if it is just to leave the room. Conflicting wants create scene tension. Complimentary wants create scene momentum. Write down each character's want before writing their first line.
- **Location specificity:** Not just "a kitchen" but "a kitchen at 3am with takeout containers stacked on the counter and one flickering overhead bulb." The specific detail generates the action lines. Vague locations produce vague scenes.
- **Entry and exit states:** What is each character's emotional/psychological state as they enter? What is it as they exit? The gap between these is the scene. If a character exits in the same state they entered, the scene has not happened yet.
- **Genre and tone:** This determines action line density, sentence length in action blocks, parenthetical tolerance, and how much white space the scene breathes. A thriller scene reads differently on the page than a romantic comedy scene even if the story beats are identical.

### Step 2: Map the Visual Architecture Before Writing Prose

Screenplay is a visual medium written on paper. Map the scene's three-beat visual structure before drafting.

- **Opening image:** The first thing the audience sees. This image must do narrative work -- it establishes geography, tone, and stakes simultaneously. "A boardroom full of suits" tells us nothing. "A boardroom with a single empty chair at the head of the table, the nameplate already removed" tells us a story.
- **The silent beat:** Locate the moment in the scene where all dialogue stops and a single image carries maximum meaning. Every great scene has one. Plan it deliberately -- it is the scene's most powerful tool. The object picked up. The look exchanged. The door that does not open.
- **The button:** The final image or line that closes the scene and propels into the next. The button should be the scene's most charged moment -- not a summary, not a fade, but a forward thrust. "She leaves" is not a button. "She leaves his key on the counter and does not look back" is a button.
- **The visual through-line:** Identify one object, gesture, color, or spatial relationship that carries meaning across the scene. The recurring motif -- a half-eaten meal, a phone that keeps buzzing, the distance between two chairs -- gives the director and audience an emotional anchor.

### Step 3: Draft the Slug Line and Establish the World

The slug line is not a formality -- it is the scene's first storytelling decision.

- **Standard format:** INT. or EXT. (or INT./EXT. for liminal spaces -- car windows, doorways, drive-throughs) followed by SPECIFIC LOCATION, followed by time designation (DAY, NIGHT, DAWN, DUSK, CONTINUOUS, LATER, MOMENTS LATER). All caps, no period at the end of the line.
- **Location specificity in slug lines:** "INT. APARTMENT - NIGHT" is weak. "INT. COLE'S APARTMENT - KITCHEN - 3 AM" is strong. A good slug line narrows geography enough that a production designer can immediately picture the set. Use sublocation after a dash for complex spaces: INT. HOSPITAL - OPERATING ROOM - DAY.
- **Time designations that carry meaning:** CONTINUOUS means the action flows directly from the previous scene without a time cut -- do not use it casually. MOMENTS LATER implies seconds, not minutes. LATER implies a time jump within the same location. SAME implies simultaneous action in parallel editing.
- **Avoid camera directions in slug lines:** "INT. CLOSE ON SARAH'S FACE - DAY" is a directing choice, not a scene heading. Write the slug line for location and time. Let the director decide the shot.
- **Secondary slug lines (subheadings):** Used to move within a continuous scene without starting a new scene. Format as: BACK TO SCENE, or a location subheading like: AT THE WINDOW. Use sparingly -- each one adds a read-pause that affects pacing.

### Step 4: Write the Opening Action Block and Character Introductions

The first action block is the hardest single piece of writing in the scene. It must establish world, tone, and stakes in under four lines.

- **Character introductions are non-negotiable:** The FIRST TIME a named character appears in the entire screenplay (not just the scene), their name goes in ALL CAPS within the action line, followed immediately by their essential description. This alerts the reader that this is a new speaking character. Example: "DETECTIVE SARAH COLE (40s, economical movements, a woman who has been in too many rooms like this one) ducks under the tape."
- **Character description rules:** Age range (not exact age unless it matters -- say "40s" not "43"), one physical detail, one behavioral or attitudinal quality. Maximum one line. Do not write a character bio in the action block. "JAMES WHITFIELD (60s, silver hair, the kind of tan you buy)" tells us everything. Ten lines about James Whitfield's commanding presence and distinguished bearing tells us nothing filmable.
- **Re-entering characters:** If a character already established in the screenplay enters a new scene, do NOT use ALL CAPS for their name in action lines -- only in dialogue headers. ALL CAPS for character names in action lines means "meet this person for the first time."
- **Action line prose style:** Present tense. Active voice. Subject-verb-object. No subordinate clauses if you can avoid them. "Cole crosses to the window" not "Cole, who has been standing near the door, moves across the room toward the window." Short sentences create pace. Long sentences slow pace. Know which you want.
- **The four-line rule:** No single action block should exceed four lines of text. If your action description runs five or more lines, find the natural break and insert white space. Dense blocks of gray text on a screenplay page are a signal to the reader that the writer does not understand visual economy.
- **What cannot go in action lines:** Internal thoughts ("She wonders if he knows"), emotional labels that cannot be filmed ("He is devastated"), narrative commentary ("This is the moment everything changes"), and instructions to the actor that belong in parentheticals.

### Step 5: Write Dialogue That Cannot Be Replaced by Action

Dialogue in a screenplay is always the option of last resort -- use it only when visual storytelling cannot carry the weight.

- **The substitution test:** Before writing any line of dialogue, ask: can this be shown instead? If the character can convey this through action, gesture, prop interaction, or expression, the action is always stronger. Dialogue that duplicates what the action already shows is a sign of an insecure screenplay.
- **Dialogue header format:** Character name in ALL CAPS, centered at 3.7 inches from the left margin (in production format). When writing in plain text or markdown, center the name in the dialogue block. The name must be consistent throughout the screenplay -- choose one form and keep it.
- **Character name extensions:** (V.O.) for voice-over narration playing while action runs on screen -- the character is not physically present. (O.S.) for off-screen -- the character is in the scene's physical space but not visible in the shot. (CONT'D) when a character's dialogue is interrupted by an action line and then continues -- modern practice is to use (CONT'D) only when necessary for clarity.
- **Parentheticals -- the four legitimate uses:** (1) When the emotional read is the opposite of what the words suggest ("Of course I love you" said bitterly needs a parenthetical -- the actor cannot infer sarcasm from "I love you"). (2) When a character is addressing someone specific in a crowded room ("to Reeves" when three people are present). (3) When a physical action is inseparable from the delivery ("opening the briefcase" while speaking). (4) When a single word or phrase within the line has a specific meaning the whole line does not ("almost whispering the last word"). Everything else -- "sadly," "angrily," "with a smile" -- is directing the actor on paper and should be removed.
- **Dialogue rhythm:** Read every line aloud. Real speech has contractions, interruptions, incomplete thoughts, and overlapping intentions. Characters who speak in complete grammatical sentences with no verbal tics sound like they are reading from a textbook. Each character should have a recognizable speech pattern -- sentence length, vocabulary register, tendency to deflect or confront -- that distinguishes them from every other character in the scene.
- **The three functions of a great dialogue line:** (1) Advances the plot. (2) Reveals character. (3) Carries subtext -- what the character means but does not say. A line that does only one of these three things is acceptable. A line that does two is good. A line that does all three is exceptional. A line that does none of them gets cut.

### Step 6: Construct the Scene's Rhythm With White Space and Action Beats

The physical appearance of a screenplay page is a pacing instrument. White space is not empty -- it is visual speed.

- **Action beats between dialogue:** Short action descriptions between dialogue exchanges do three things: they give actors something to do with their bodies, they create a beat that lets the audience breathe between lines, and they prevent the scene from becoming what the industry calls a "tennis match" -- two talking heads bouncing lines at each other.
- **"Beat.":** The single-word action line "Beat." is legitimate screenplay shorthand meaning a significant pause -- a moment where a character processes something and the audience holds their breath. Use it when the pause itself is the dramatic content. Do not use it as a verbal tic every three exchanges.
- **Pacing through sentence length:** Thriller and action sequences use sentence fragments. "She runs. Door. Locked. Another door." The white space between short sentences equals screen time and perceived speed. A dramatic two-character dialogue scene can afford longer, more grammatically complete action lines that let the scene breathe. Match sentence architecture to genre.
- **Scene transitions:** Most professional spec screenplays do not use CUT TO: between scenes -- it is redundant because every scene heading implies a cut. Use transitions only when they carry meaning: SMASH CUT TO: for a jarring temporal or tonal jump. MATCH CUT ON: when the visual rhyme between two scenes is the editorial point. DISSOLVE TO: for time passage. FADE OUT. only at the end of an act or the end of the screenplay. Avoid FADE IN: except at the very beginning of the screenplay.
- **Page count as time:** In a correctly formatted screenplay, one page equals approximately one minute of screen time. A scene that runs four pages will run approximately four minutes on screen. Know when your scene is running long and cut accordingly. Most dialogue scenes in feature films run two to four pages. Most action sequences run one to two pages of compressed description.

### Step 7: Revise Against the Core Quality Tests

Before delivering the scene, run it through these specific quality filters.

- **The "can it be filmed" test:** Read every action line. Circle any phrase that requires access to a character's interiority. "She remembers the accident" -- FAIL. "She touches the scar on her wrist" -- PASS. Replace every fail with a filmable equivalent.
- **The "maid and butler" test:** Read every line of dialogue looking for information that exists only to fill the audience in. "As you know, Thomas, your father left you the estate when he died three years ago" is exposition nobody would ever say to someone who already knows it. Find the scene where that information can be revealed as discovery rather than recap.
- **The "radio play" test:** Read the scene with your eyes closed. If it works perfectly as audio with no visual story loss, the scene is underwritten visually. Find the physical world and put it on the page.
- **The "talking heads" test:** Count how many action lines exist between dialogue exchanges. If you have more than four consecutive dialogue exchanges with no action between them, the scene is becoming a tennis match. Add physical action or break the geography.
- **The "parenthetical creep" test:** Count the parentheticals. In a two-page scene, zero to two parentheticals is healthy. Three to five is acceptable with scrutiny. More than five means you are directing on paper -- trust your actors and your dialogue.
- **The "scene is doing one thing" test:** State the scene's single emotional beat in one sentence. If you cannot do it in one sentence, the scene is trying to do too much. Cut to the essential beat and save the others for their own scenes.

---

## Output Format

Deliver the screenplay scene followed by a brief scene notes block that explains craft decisions. This is what the user gets.

```
INT./EXT. SPECIFIC LOCATION [- SUBLOCATION] - TIME OF DAY [or CONTINUOUS/LATER]

Opening action line. Present tense. Active voice. Establishes the world in under
four lines. This is a description of what the camera sees, not an author's note
about atmosphere.

CHARACTER NAME (age range, one physical detail, one behavioral quality) enters
the space. What they do immediately tells us who they are.

                    CHARACTER NAME
          Dialogue line. Natural speech rhythm. No
          complete grammatical sentences required.
          Characters can trail off or be cut off --

                    CHARACTER NAME 2
          -- or they can interrupt.

A physical action beat. Brief. Specific. One to three lines maximum. An object
is noticed, a gesture happens, a spatial relationship changes.

                    CHARACTER NAME
                    (parenthetical ONLY if essential)
          Response dialogue. The subtext is in what
          is NOT said, not what is.

Action beat. Something shifts in the room.

                    CHARACTER NAME 2
          Button line. The scene's final charge.

CHARACTER NAME 2 does something physical that closes the scene's loop. This image
is the last thing the audience sees before the cut.
```

**Scene Notes Block** (delivered after the scene):

```
---

### Scene Notes
- **Emotional beat:** [State the single emotional shift in one sentence]
- **Visual storytelling:** [Name the specific image or object that carries the scene's meaning without dialogue]
- **Subtext:** [What are the characters NOT saying, and how does the scene surface it visually]
- **Format decisions:** [Any non-standard choices -- transitions, specialty headers, dual dialogue -- and why they were made]
- **What to revise:** [If the scene has a known weakness or a choice that could go another direction, flag it honestly]
```

---

## Rules

1. **NEVER write internal states in action lines.** "She feels a surge of hope" cannot be filmed. "She stands a little straighter" can. Every internal state must have a physical, filmable equivalent. If you cannot find one, the internal state does not belong in the scene.

2. **NEVER use parentheticals for emotional adjectives.** "(angrily)," "(sadly)," "(happily)," "(nervously)" are directing choices that belong to the director and actor, not the writer. The only exceptions are emotional reversals (saying "I'm fine" while clearly not fine -- the parenthetical tells the actor the read is ironic) and precise physical actions mid-line.

3. **NEVER write action blocks longer than four lines.** If you reach line five of an action description, you are writing a novel. Find the visual beat within the block and break it with white space. The white space is part of the screenplay.

4. **NEVER introduce a named character without ALL CAPS on first appearance.** Character introduction in ALL CAPS is not optional formatting -- it is a functional signal to production that a new speaking character has arrived. Skip it and you have broken the document's casting logic.

5. **ALWAYS write in present tense, active voice.** "Cole crosses the room" not "Cole crossed the room" (past tense) and not "The room is crossed by Cole" (passive). Screenplay present tense is not the same as story present tense -- it is the grammar of what is happening on screen right now.

6. **ALWAYS make the scene's single emotional beat specific.** Not "the mood shifts" but "she realizes he has been lying." Not "tension builds" but "he decides not to tell her." Abstract emotional labels on scenes produce abstract scenes. A specific beat produces a specific scene.

7. **ALWAYS format slug lines completely.** INT./EXT. + SPECIFIC LOCATION (not just a room category) + TIME DESIGNATION. "INT. ROOM - NIGHT" is incomplete. "INT. HOTEL ROOM 412 - NIGHT" is complete. The slug line is a production document -- it tells the production team where and when to schedule this scene.

8. **The scene must be a scene, not a conversation.** Characters must exist in physical space. They must move, handle objects, respond to their environment. A scene with no action lines between dialogue exchanges is a transcribed conversation, not a screenplay scene. Minimum one action beat every three to four exchanges.

9. **Dialogue should almost never explain the scene's emotional content.** Characters who say "I feel like our relationship is falling apart" when the audience can see two people who haven't looked at each other in three pages have committed the screenplay's cardinal sin: telling what the visual story is already showing. Trust the images.

10. **Every scene must end differently from how it begins.** If the power balance, knowledge, emotional state, or relationship of the characters at the scene's end is identical to what it was at the start, the scene has not occurred dramatically. It is the writer's responsibility to ensure the scene's opening condition and closing condition are measurably different.

11. **Do not use CUT TO: between every scene.** CUT TO: is redundant in spec format -- all scene transitions are cuts unless specified otherwise. Using CUT TO: after every scene is a hallmark of amateur formatting. Reserve transition designations for cuts that carry specific editorial meaning.

12. **Character names in dialogue headers must be absolutely consistent.** If the character is "DETECTIVE COLE" in her introduction, she is "COLE" in every dialogue header for the rest of the screenplay (use the shortest unambiguous form). Switching between "SARAH," "COLE," and "DETECTIVE COLE" in dialogue headers creates production errors and marks the writer as unprofessional.

---

## Edge Cases

### Montage Sequences
Format as a master slug line reading "MONTAGE --" followed by a brief thematic description ("-- Cole traces the victim's last movements"), then a series of brief slug lines and one-line action descriptions for each shot. End with "END MONTAGE." Each shot in the montage gets its own mini-slug line (INT. PARKING GARAGE - NIGHT) but action lines should be one sentence. If dialogue or voice-over accompanies the montage, treat it as V.O. running over the sequence. A montage is a compression device -- if the same information can be shown in a single scene, use the single scene.

### Voice-Over Narration
Format with CHARACTER NAME (V.O.) in the dialogue header. The visual action running beneath V.O. must do its own narrative work simultaneously -- the images and the narration should create meaning in counterpoint, not in unison. If the V.O. says "That was the summer everything fell apart" while the images show a family laughing at a barbecue, that contrast is the storytelling. If the V.O. says "That was the summer everything fell apart" while images show things falling apart, the V.O. is redundant and should be cut. The camera image and the narrated line should never say exactly the same thing.

### Phone Call Scenes
Two options based on dramatic need. Option one: stay on a single character, show only their side of the call, and let the audience infer the other end from reactions -- this is often the stronger dramatic choice because it creates an information imbalance. Option two: use INTERCUT -- PHONE CONVERSATION after establishing both locations with their own slug lines. The intercut format allows the scene to move freely between both speakers. End an intercut sequence by returning to a single slug line when the call ends. Avoid "We hear a VOICE on the phone" (O.S.) as a lazy third option -- it creates a disembodied voice that disrupts visual grammar.

### Dual Dialogue (Simultaneous Speech)
When two characters speak simultaneously, format their names and dialogue in side-by-side columns. This is a specialty format -- use it only when the simultaneity is essential to the scene's meaning (an argument where both characters are talking over each other at peak). In plain text or markdown, flag with "(simultaneously)" as a parenthetical for both characters and note in scene notes that this requires dual dialogue formatting in production software. Overuse of dual dialogue is a spec script red flag.

### Action Sequences
Action writing is compression writing. Each line is a shot. Use sentence fragments deliberately: "She runs. The alley narrows. A chain-link fence. Locked." The white space between fragments is screen time. Do not write action sequences in paragraph prose -- it will read as slow on the page and be even slower on screen. Break geography into discrete spatial beats so the reader always knows where bodies are in space. A chase scene where the geography is unclear is a chase scene that cannot be storyboarded and will be rewritten by someone else.

### The "Quiet" or Character Scene With No Plot Event
Not every scene requires an external plot event -- some of the finest scenes in screenwriting are about nothing except two people in a room and what is between them. However, these scenes are the easiest to write as static talking-head exchanges and the hardest to write well. The technique: give each character something to DO with their hands. A task that runs through the scene (cooking, packing a suitcase, fixing a car) creates physical subtext and prevents the scene from becoming a conversation. The task also gives characters a reason to be in the same space doing different things -- proximity without forced contrivance.

### Adapting Prose Fiction Into Screenplay Format
The prose-to-screenplay conversion has three mandatory operations. First, extract every internal thought and find its filmable equivalent or cut it -- interiority does not exist in screenplay. Second, identify every piece of expository backstory and find a dramatic scene where that information can be discovered rather than narrated -- or cut it entirely. Third, strip all authorial commentary from action lines ("This is the moment when everything changed") and replace it with specific images. What remains after these three operations is the visual and dramatic skeleton of the scene. The prose writer's greatest screenplay problem is writing action lines that describe emotion rather than image -- "the room felt oppressive" must become "the single window faces a concrete wall."

### TV Pilot vs. Feature Film Tone
Television screenplay format is largely identical to feature format but the rhythm differs significantly. TV scenes tend to be shorter (one to two pages), dialogue-heavier by necessity, and structured to end on a micro-hook that carries the viewer into the next scene. The act break -- where a dramatic question is raised that cannot be answered before a commercial break in broadcast, or a tonal shift in streaming -- is structural, not stylistic. Feature film scenes have more freedom for visual silence, for scenes that do not advance plot but deepen world, and for longer action passages. When the user does not specify, ask. A scene written for a prestige drama pilot reads differently on the page than the same story beat in a two-hour feature.

---

## Example

**Input:** "Write a screenplay scene. A man visits his estranged father in a nursing home. He intends to ask his father to sign legal papers handing control of the family business to him. The father has early-stage dementia. The son realizes partway through that his father thinks it is thirty years ago and that the son is still a child. Drama. Single emotional beat: the son's agenda collapses into grief."

---

**Output:**

INT. MEADOWBROOK CARE FACILITY - VISITING ROOM - AFTERNOON

The room tries hard. Framed prints of coastal scenes. Chairs upholstered in a green that was soothing twenty years ago. A television in the corner plays a game show with the sound off.

MARTIN CALLOWAY (50s, good suit, the kind of stillness that cost him something) carries a manila folder and a coffee he has not drunk. He finds his father near the window.

PAUL CALLOWAY (80s, a large man reduced to a smaller version of himself, hands still wide and capable-looking) sits in a wheelchair watching cars in the parking lot. A NURSE adjusts something on his IV stand and leaves without acknowledging Martin.

Martin pulls a chair over. Sets down the coffee and the folder.

                    MARTIN
          Dad.

Paul turns. Something moves across his face -- recognition, but the kind that takes a moment to assemble.

                    PAUL
          You're late.

                    MARTIN
          The traffic on Route 9.

                    PAUL
          Your mother had dinner at six. You know
          that.

Martin does not correct him. He opens the folder anyway, sliding it across the arm of Paul's wheelchair.

                    MARTIN
          I need you to look at something. Just --
          take a look at a few pages.

Paul looks at the folder. Does not touch it.

                    PAUL
          Homework?

Martin's hand goes still on the folder.

                    MARTIN
          No. It's -- there are some papers. For
          the business.

                    PAUL
          You can't run the business yet, Marty.
          You're eleven.
                    
Martin looks at his father's face. At the absolute certainty there.

He closes the folder.

A long moment. Paul turns back to the window. Two cars are leaving the parking lot. He watches them like they are going somewhere interesting.

                    PAUL
          You should have something to eat before
          you go back.

                    MARTIN
          I'm not going back tonight.

                    PAUL
          Your mother will worry.

Martin sets the folder on the floor beside his chair. Puts both hands on his knees.

                    PAUL (CONT'D)
          She worries.

                    MARTIN
          I know she does.

Paul nods, satisfied. He points at the parking lot.

                    PAUL
          Blue Cadillac. That's the good model.
          '69 or '70. Before they ruined them.

Martin looks at the parking lot. There is no blue Cadillac. There are a Honda and a Subaru and a white van from a pharmacy.

                    MARTIN
          Yeah.

                    PAUL
          Your grandfather had one. Before you
          were born. Big as a boat.

                    MARTIN
          I know. You told me about it.

                    PAUL
          Did I?

Beat.

                    MARTIN
          A lot.

Paul smiles. The smile belongs to somebody younger -- an expression the face has not forgotten even when the mind is busy losing other things.

Martin picks up the coffee. Holds it without drinking.

The game show on the television flashes to applause. No sound.

                    PAUL
          You're a good boy.

Martin looks at his father. At the wide capable hands resting on the wheelchair arms. At the folder on the floor.

He does not pick the folder back up.

                    MARTIN
          I'll come back Saturday.

                    PAUL
          Bring your sister.

Martin does not have a sister.

He stands. Touches his father's shoulder once -- brief, careful, the touch of someone afraid of breaking something.

He picks up the coffee. Leaves the folder on the floor.

At the door, he stops. Looks back. Paul has already returned to the window, watching the parking lot for the blue Cadillac.

Martin walks out.

---

### Scene Notes
- **Emotional beat:** Martin arrives with a predatory agenda -- acquiring legal control -- and leaves having involuntarily become his father's eleven-year-old son again. The legal document, the scene's inciting object, never gets opened. His agenda does not fail -- it becomes irrelevant.
- **Visual storytelling:** The folder's journey is the scene. Martin brings it in, opens it, closes it, puts it on the floor, and walks out without it. The audience never needs to know the specific legal contents -- the arc of the object tells them everything. The final image of the folder left behind on the floor is the scene's emotional conclusion, requiring no dialogue to explain.
- **Subtext:** Martin and his father are speaking entirely past each other. Martin is in the present; Paul is in 1985. Every line of dialogue is the characters talking about different things simultaneously -- and both meanings are visible to the audience, creating the irony that produces grief.
- **The "sister" line:** "Martin does not have a sister" is an action line that technically violates the "only what can be filmed" rule -- it is information, not image. This is an acceptable exception because the information creates the dramatic punchline of the exchange, and the actor's reaction to the line is what the camera will film. Use this technique sparingly; it is a professional flourish, not a standard tool.
- **Format decisions:** CONT'D used on Paul's second consecutive dialogue block because an action line interrupts what is one continuous thought -- the CONT'D signals to the actor that the pause is not a scene beat, just a staging description. No transitions used -- the scene ends on action, not on a designated title card.
- **Parentheticals:** Zero used. The actors have everything they need from the action lines and the text. Paul's certainty and Martin's collapse are written into what they do, not into stage direction parentheticals.
- **What to revise:** The scene could be cut by one exchange in the middle -- the Cadillac conversation could be compressed. The current length is appropriate for a dramatic feature but would need trimming for a one-hour TV drama pilot. The folder-on-the-floor image may be too obvious for some tastes -- a more subtle version would have Martin simply not reach for it when he stands, without the explicit camera call of returning to it at the close.
