Flashback Intro
Osias Baptist
Using something specific in the present-moment scene to create a direct connection with a particular aspect of the flashback memory (general, specific, or anchor) will help you segue smoothly into the flashback scene.
The article will likely highlight the use of sensory details to evoke a memory and initiate the flashback. This could be a sight, smell, sound, taste, or touch that is strongly associated with the past event.
With the exception of the CD-based releases, all other versions of Flashback (Sega Genesis, SNES, FM Towns Marty, Macintosh, DOS, and Amiga) play the same famous introduction jingle when Conrad is waking up. All - except the Atari Jaguar release which, for some reason, had the jingle accessible from the sound test menu but was never used during the game.
This is why it is super important for your opening sequence to be one of the best scenes in your entire script. Not only is it the first impression you get as a writer, it should also be a snapshot of what the audience is in for. But the most important thing it has to do?
OPEN ON ACTION, is probably the most tried and true. Even in dramatic films, opening on a high tension moment works great to suck people in. It could be two people in an intense dialog, or it could be a fight. A CHASE is the most basic action in film history. Think STAR WARS.
AN INFODUMP doesn't sound super interesting, but it's often the best way to set up a world, or pose a question. "What if I told you, XYZ?" And XYZ changed your world view? CHILDREN OF MEN drops its bomb off the bat and you have to keep watching.
VIBE. The music, the visuals, the style, a unique world-- if the story FADES IN and you're immediately entranced by how it makes you feel, that's impactful. STRANGE DAYS. I'd say DRIVE too, but it combines VIBE with a chase.
THE FAKE OUT. You think you're getting X, but actually, you're getting Y. This works great for stories where the lead lives a boring existence and that's about to change. Pixar leans deep into their status quos at the top of their films.
THE FLIP. We start with what seems to be an ordinary scene, something out of everyday life, but then, odd details start to pop up, and then suddenly, there's a reversal you never saw coming. BLADE RUNNER opens with what we think is a performance review-- but isn't.
THE FLASHFORWARD is what you get when execs don't like a slow-burn story, and think you need to get some danger introduced ASAP, but the writer refuses to pre-escalate their stakes... or you're JJ Abrams. Popular in TV.
I like to think of opening scene scares coming in three varieties, all of which can merge with any of the scenarios above: breaking the lead, the informed scare, and the uninformed scare. Breaking the lead is often paired with a flashback, it's all about that trauma.
An informed scare is when you show us people going to face a thing they know to be scary, and it usually goes wrong. Think Ghostbusters or Devil's rejects. The Uninformed scare is the most common-- bad stuff happens to innocent people.
The most common openings currently, are the flashback to trauma, the uninformed scaring of innocents, and the "cold open kill." Cold open is term from TV where you have a scene that jumps right into action before you get a title card. It can be present tense, or a flashback-- but usually isn't the main characters. Often times you can think of it as "the last time this happened." With "this" being whatever spooky thing your leads run up against is.
A list of spooky opening scenes that occur to me in this moment, not intended to be uninclusive so don't get mad if I don't list yours: Jaws. Babadook. Raw. Scream. Jennifer's Body. Halloween. It Follows. Final Destination 2. The Ring. Zombieland. Sweetheart.
Anyone who has even thought about writing a screenplay is told right and left how important the first act is, how it has to set everything up-- genre, tone, vibe, leads, conflict, etc... and it\u2019s the truth. The first ten pages have to sing, because in case you didn't know, unless you're paying for coverage, an industry pro will bail after 10 pages if it's not good. Hate to tell you this, but when you read enough screenplays, you can tell how good it is by 10 pages.
We all know a what a hook is, but to be clear-- after that opening scene your reader/view should have a burning question and a vested interest in what is going on, and the only way to satisfy those two things is for them to keep reading/watching. So how do you hook? I spilled the beans above\u2014 you set up a questions that needs to be answered. You create stakes with no immediate outcome. You establish danger. You create a cliffhanger. OR you just vibe so hard, your target audience member is just IN.
AN INFODUMP doesn't sound super interesting, but it's often the best way to set up a world, or pose a question. \\\"What if I told you, XYZ?\\\" And XYZ changed your world view? CHILDREN OF MEN drops its bomb off the bat and you have to keep watching.
Since I've decided to make my tip-giving unique by calling it Scary Movie School, obviously, we should now get into these ideas specifically for horror. To start with-- without question. YOU MUST VIBE. Horror should set it's tone and feel from the go, so unless you're WTFing\u2014 Make your opens moody, spooky, and/or full of tension. They should unsettle.
The most common openings currently, are the flashback to trauma, the uninformed scaring of innocents, and the \\\"cold open kill.\\\" Cold open is term from TV where you have a scene that jumps right into action before you get a title card. It can be present tense, or a flashback-- but usually isn't the main characters. Often times you can think of it as \\\"the last time this happened.\\\" With \\\"this\\\" being whatever spooky thing your leads run up against is.
To transition back out of the flashback, we use another trigger, followed by a brief glimpse of the setting in its current state again to reset us to the present timeline. The verbs have shifted from past tense back to present tense:
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Well, there is none. The game works fine and everything (at a frame skip of 2) and there is music, but I can't get sound FX to work. The install keeps trying to autodetect so I can manually set the IRQ and all. What should I do?
Okay, I had this game laying around and decided to play with getting it to work well in DOSBox, and here is what I found:
- Starting DOSBox with dynamic core and a high cycles count (I was using 25000, but it probably doesn't need that much) BEFORE starting the game seemed to help the slow-motion problem quite a bit. When I ran at 3000 cycles and then turned it up to 25000 after starting the game, it would stay in slow-motion
- I wasn't getting any sound. Setting the sound to something other than Sound Blaster and then setting it back caused the install utility to re-detect the Sound Blaster, after which it worked. I don't get any sound in the intro (just music), but I'm assuming this is normal (it's been too long since I played under pure DOS to remember).