Unveiling the Hidden Secrets: A Scene-By-Scene Breakdown of "Antebellum" That Will Challenge Everything You Thought You Knew
Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:
After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.
For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.
The value of this exercise:
- We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
- By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
- A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.
Today: Antebellum (2020). You may download the script here.
Written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz.
Plot Summary: Successful author Veronica Henley finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it’s too late.
Antebellum
Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Rose Banks
GoIntoTheStory.comp.2: Onscreen quotation: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ — William Faulkner.
pp. 3–7: Louisiana. A plantation, the house surrounded by cotton fields. A little blonde girl gives flowers to her mother, both of them in antique dress.Young black women slaves peg out laundry, made anxious by the attention of three Confederate soldiers. A recaptured slave, Eden, is brought back slung over a horse, a menacing figure following close behind, while two more recaptured slaves struggle with soldiers. Eden notes something startling in the horse’s saddle bag. One of the recaptured slaves, a young Ghanaian woman, kisses the crucifix she wears and then runs. Jasper, the head overseer, catches her with a…
