Writing STRONG, SPECIFIC Introductions for the first scene when we meet a character on screen

1. Writing STRONG, SPECIFIC Introductions for the first scene when we meet a character on screen

2. Physical Descriptions, Setting, Dialogue INT. L STREET BAR AND GRILLE, SOUTH BOSTON - NIGHT The bar is dirty, more than a little run down. As we pan across several empty tables, we can almost smell the odor of last night’s beer and crushed pretzels on the floor. CHUCKIE Oh my God, I got the most messed- up thing I been meanin’ to tell you. As the camera rises, we find FOUR YOUNG MEN seated around a table near the back of the bar.

3. Physical Descriptions, Setting, Dialogue The guy holding court is CHUCKIE SULLIVAN, 20, and the largest of the bunch. His is loud, boisterous, a born entertainer. Next to him is WILL HUNTING, 20, handsome and confident, but a soft-spoken leader. On Will’s right sits BILLY MCBRIDE, 22, heavy, quiet, someone you definitely wouldn’t want to tangle with. Finally there is MORGAN O’MALLY, 19, smaller than the other guys. Wiry and anxious, Morgan listens to Chuckie with eager disgust. All four boys speak with thick Boston accents. This is a rough, working-class Irish neighborhood, and these boys are its product.

4. Physical Descriptions, Setting The white refrigerator room door opens, and a second butcher, MARTY PILLETTI, comes out carrying a large leg of lamb. Marty is a mild-mannered, short, stout, balding man of thirty-four. His charm lies in an almost indestructible good humor. He drops the leg of lamb onto the chopping block, reaches up for the cleaver hanging with the other utensils over the block and makes quick incisive cuts into the leg of lamb.

5. Physical Descriptions and Action INT. ZITO’S BREAD SHOP – DAY LORETTA, Italian, 37, enters a few final figures in a ledger. Her black hair, done in a dated style, is flecked with grey. She's dressed in sensible but unfashionable clothes of a dark color.

6. Physical Descriptions and Action INT. BAR – NIGHT RICK, an American of indeterminate age—maybe 30, maybe 40, sits at a table alone. He just sits staring at his drink. There is no expression in his eyes. He is a complete dead pan.

7. Physical Descriptions and Action INT. RECORD STORE – DAY The door flies open and BARRY, an acid-tongued post-punk rock misanthrope without quite enough intelligence to conceptualize his own rebellion, walks in. His teeth are clenched in air-guitar concentration and he’s phonetically cranking a Clash riff.

8. Using Action and Props INT. BLEEKER’S BEDROOM – DAY PAUL BLEEKER, 16, puts on double socks in his bed that is designed to look like a car. He puts on sweat bands. He applies Runner’s Glide. EXT. BLEEKER HOUSE – DAY Paul Bleeker wears a cross country uniform that reads “DANCING ELK CONDORS.” He is eating some kind of microwaved snack gimmick.

9. Using Action and Props INT. BASEBALL MANAGER’S OFFICE – DAY CHARLIEGONSE—60ish, grizzled, dyspeptic—sits at his desk, uniform half off, picking at a salad with a plastic fork as Randy enters. Gonse looks up from his salad, takes a moment to focus, as if he’d forgotten why he wanted to see Randy.

10. Using Action and Props EXT. MOBILE HOME DRIVEWAY – DAY RAY EDDY, 38, a bit worn for her years, with a long dingy ponytail, wearing an old bathrobe, sits in the passenger seat of her red Plymouth Horizon with the door open, smoking a cigarette, thinking. Her breath is visible in the cold morning air. Her bare feet rest on the cold ground.

11. Using Setting INT. MACGUFF HOUSE – JUNO’S BEDROOM - NIGHT Juno’s bedroom is decorated with punk posters: The Damned, The Germs, the Stooges, Television, Richard Hell, etc. She picks up a hamburger-shaped phone and makes a call. INT. LEAH’S HOUSE – BEDROOM - NIGHT Leah’s room is cluttered with the sentimental junk that certain girls love to hoard, like a photo of her hugging a friend in a pink sequined frame that read “Hangin’ with my Homegirl!”. The PHONE RINGS.

12. Using Setting INT. NEO’S APARTMENT - NIGHT It is a studio apartment that seems overgrown with technology. Weed-like cables coil everywhere, duct-taped into thickets that wind up and around the legs of several desks. Tabletops are filled with cannibalized equipment that lay open like an autopsied corpse. At the center of this technological rat-nest is NEO, 25, a man who knows more about living inside a computer than outside one.

13. Using Setting and Action INT. DINER – COOKING AREA - DAY LOUISE is a waitress in a coffee shop. She is in her early-thirties, but too old to be doing this. She is very pretty and meticulously groomed, even at the end of her shift. She is slamming dirty coffee cups from the counter into a bus tray underneath the counter. It is making a lot of RACKET, which she is oblivious to.

14. Using Setting and Action INT. THELMA’S HOUSE – KITCHEN - DAY THELMA is a housewife. It’s morning and she slams coffee cups from the breakfast table into the kitchen sink, which is full of dirty breakfast dishes and some stuff left from last night’s dinner. She is still in her nightgown. The TV is ON in the b.g. From the kitchen, we can see an incomplete wallpapering project going on in the dining room, an obvious “do-it-yourself” attempt by Thelma.