Day 7 (Shawshank Redemption)

Today we touch on Frank Darabont's screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption. This script falls on the flowery end of the scale as scripts go, possibly because it is adapted from a Stephen King novel, and possibly because it was written by Frank-friggen-Darabont. Either way, I'd say it's unlikely I'll encounter lines like this in the Die Hard script tomorrow...

INT. ANDY'S CELL - DAWN (1954)

ANGLE ON RITA POSTER. Sexy as ever. The rising sun sends fingers of rosy light creeping across her face.

We see a lot of ANGLE ONs in this script because, as with several in this experiment, the writer also ended up the director and this is a shooting script, not an early draft.

Another neat advantage to being Frank Darabont is earning the right to break our lowly first-time screenwriter rules and specify soundtrack choices in the script. And he does it with such zest...

INT. PRISON CORRIDOR - DAY (1965)

DOLLYING Tommy as he struts along, combing his ducktail, cigarette behind his ear. We definitely need The Coasters or Del Vikings on the soundtrack here. Maybe Jerry Lee Lewis.

The script reads pretty exactly how the film does, well-written from both a literary standpoint and a formatting standpoint. You really can't ask for a much better script.

But we'll try tomorrow with the shooting script for Die Hard written by Jeb Stuart with revisions by Steven E. DeSouza.