My film plays in three different time periods. Do I give the same character different names? Like young Bill or so?
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Depends on your story. You could write:
BILL (aged 5)
Bla bla bla...
and
BILL (aged 27)
Bla bla bla...
Check out the script "The Time Traveller's Wife" for this.
Think of the character slug as an actor... when they run your screenplay through Movie Magic Scheduling or Gorilla Scheduling programs it will collect all of the character names and treat them as the actor who will play them. If JOHN is age 15 in one scene and age 35 in another scene that will probably be two different actors playing the role, so you need to give them two different names. That could be by using ALWrite's method: JOHN (age 5) as the character slug, or you could use YOUNG JOHN. Both work.
Be careful to pay attention to the Three Greek Unities and limit the number of time periods. Usually two time periods - past and present - is the limit. If you have many different time periods we are talking about casting many different actors who all look alike - and that can be a casting nightmare.
- Bill
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Thanks for clearing that up, I was going to say it, but I wasn't sure about it myself.
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Thanks for the replies. I have a story which forms the framework, where they are all 40 years older than in the main story (3 characters are in the later story from the main story). And I have 2 flashback scenes to childhood which play about 25 years before the main story. But they contain only 2 characters of the main story.
You think, this is already a casting nightmare :) ?
Since the framework is only in the first scene, another scene in the first 15 minutes and the last scene and since the 2 childhood scenes are just flashbacks, I think, there would be no problem with the Three Greek Unities ;) .
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