How to Format Phone Calls, Text Messages, Montages and Flashbacks in a Screenplay

The rule underneath all of these

Each of these situations has more than one accepted convention, and readers will forgive any of them. What they do not forgive is confusion — a reader who has to stop and work out where a voice is coming from, or whether we are in the past. Pick a method, use it the same way every time, and the reader will follow.

All the examples assume standard screenplay format.

Phone calls

One side of the call

If we only see and hear one character, write their side as ordinary dialogue. The pauses tell the reader someone is talking on the other end.

INT. MAYA'S CAR - NIGHT

                    MAYA
          (into phone)
          No. No, I said Thursday.
              (beat)
          Then tell him Thursday.

Hearing the other voice

If we hear the other person through the phone but do not see them, give their name with (V.O.) — the voice is coming from a device, not from someone in the room.

                    RAVI (V.O.)
          The bridge is still closed.

(V.O.), not (O.S.): off-screen means a character physically in the scene but out of shot.

Both sides: intercut

To cut between both callers, establish each location once, then write INTERCUT and let the dialogue run without repeating headings:

INT. MAYA'S CAR - NIGHT

Maya, phone to her ear, engine idling.

INT. RAVI'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS

Ravi paces by the window.

INTERCUT - MAYA / RAVI

                    MAYA
          Where are you?

                    RAVI
          Still here.

The director decides the actual cutting pattern; you are telling the reader both places are in play.

Text messages

There is no single standard, so the three common methods are:

1. In the action line. Short and readable: Her phone buzzes. A text from RAVI: "Bridge closed. Don't wait."
2. As an insert. For a message the audience must read exactly: `ON MAYA'S PHONE:` followed by the text on its own line.
3. Like dialogue. For long back-and-forth conversations, some writers use the sender's name with (TEXT) and the message as dialogue. It keeps a long exchange readable, but establish it the first time.

Whichever you choose, keep the messages short. A screen of text the audience has to read slows a film down as much as it slows the page.

Montages

A montage compresses time — a training regime, a relationship forming, a city waking up. Give it a heading, list one picture per line, and close it:

MONTAGE - THE FIRST WEEK

-- Maya opens the shop at dawn. No customers.
-- She repaints the sign. Rain washes half of it off.
-- A child presses her face to the window. Maya waves.
-- The first sale. Maya counts the coins twice.

END MONTAGE

SERIES OF SHOTS is the close cousin: use it when the moments happen in one stretch of time or one place, rather than across days.

Flashbacks

Label the flashback in the scene heading, and make the return as clear as the departure:

INT. SCHOOL HALL - DAY (FLASHBACK)

YOUNG MAYA (10) stands alone on the stage.

BACK TO PRESENT:

INT. MAYA'S KITCHEN - NIGHT

For a long flashback, many writers put FLASHBACK: on its own line before the first heading and END FLASHBACK at the end. For a quick flash, a single scene with (FLASHBACK) in the heading is enough. If the film moves between time periods often, dating the headings ("1998") can be clearer than labelling every one.

Two people talking at once

When characters genuinely speak over each other, dual dialogue prints their lines side by side. Keep it short. For a single interruption, end the first line with a dash and start the next speaker straight after — it reads faster.

Typing these in Fountain

Most of the above is ordinary text in Fountain: scene headings, (V.O.) after a name, INTERCUT and MONTAGE as plain lines. Two pieces of syntax help:

• Dual dialogue: add a caret after the second speaker's name — `RAVI ^`.
• Forced elements: start a line with `.` to force a scene heading, or `>` to force a transition, when the text would not otherwise be read as one.

You can type these in any text editor, or in ScenePaper's free Writers' Room, which formats Fountain as you write.