I'm currently reading Robert McKee's "Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting" and he defines a scene in a way that is completely independent of location, despite the fact that many scenes often happen in one place.
He claims that a scene technically begins when some value is established and ends when that value has changed. ... [snip]
I've seen hundreds of "chase scenes" in action movies where you only get 3 seconds of an actor jumping off of a fire escape, then 2 seconds running down the alley, followed by 4 seconds running across the street, then another 3 or 4 seconds running through a restaurant, another few seconds through the kitchen, then out through the back door and into another alley and so on.
Are all of these 3 or 4 second shots considered scenes because the location has changed? Or do screenwriters and filmmakers have different definitions for the same words? Can anyone clarify this for me?
Well, adding to what I wrote previously, and to what Xylofonic wrote, think about what the director and crew would have to do to shoot the sequence you described, which shows continuous action in discontinuous locations: fire escape, alley, street, restaurant, and so on. Each of those is gonna require a whole new set-up of lights, cameras, equipment, crew, actors, craft services. It may need 30 takes to get the guy jumping off the fire escape just right, and that could last all day or even two days (depending on what kind of production, ie. budget). Okay, so let's say everyone has spent two days shooting the action on the fire escape. The director and script super have numbered the scenes, and this one is Scene 1. They've blocked the set, taken pictures, done a ton of prep work before even shooting, and the script super has kept a log of notes on every take for the director and editor.
After those two days, they're in a different location to shoot the actor running down an alley. This might not even be anywhere near the fire escape, but they found an alley that looks just right. Again they have to set up lights, cameras, equipment, crew, actors, craft services, and do all the prep work for this location. And then they shoot it - should the script super refer to all the work on this day as still Scene 1 in the shot log? Or would'nt it be more logical (and make everyone's lives easier) to call these Scene 2? Then a week later they shoot the guy running through the restaurant. All new set-up and prep work. Maybe a day and a half of shooting. Still Scene 1? Although, yes, a good editor makes it all seem like it is one smooth continuous flow of action, and your mind believes that the guy really jumped off the fire escape, and ran down the alley and through the restaurant -- bing, bang, boom, one right after another -- it never happens that way during a production. What you perceive as one long scene is a sequence of scenes.
Now, for you as a screenwriter, you're not numbering the scenes, but you are adding the appropriate scene headings, such as EXT. CITY STREET - DAY, EXT. RESTAURANT - DAY, which accomplishes the same thing. Each time a character moves from one location (ie. walks from one room to another) or in time (ie., in the present having a conversation, then flashes back to a memory), you insert a new scene heading. And why do we call them scene headings? Because they delineate where a new scene starts! The point is that the screenplay not only tells a story but is a blueprint for what you will see on the screen. You have to spell it out, scene to scene.
Start to really watch a movie or television show just to identify where scenes begin and end. A sequence like what you described is a series of scenes knitted together, and what you the viewer REALLY sees starts with (for example): the man on the fire escape looking up from the ground, a view down the alley as a man runs past, a crowded restaurant as a man runs through -- it's not JUST a scene of a man running away from someone, but our brains put it all together and perceive it that way.
Make sense?
