Scott,

INSIDE - LOBBY

Shouldn't that secondary shot heading be formatted:

EXT./INT. FRONT SIDEWALK - LOBBY

This tells you where you are outside looking inside at the guard.
Then go...

INT. 30TH FLOOR - HALLWAY

Since you've already established you're in the Sears Tower, just cue us that your now at the 30th floor and continue on with added details of assault.

ALSO aren't all sound effects supposed to be capitalized (grenade, silence, boom, cellphoe, chirps)? One last thing, in the line, "The explosion rattles the Guard to his feet." Shouldn't gaurd be lowercase "gaurd."

The topic of this post doesn't escape me though. In past writings I've put in a occasional CUT TO:, and DISSOLVE TO, but thinking about this a little more I think I'm going to stop using them altogether. EVEN for time and geography considerations, because IF you change time you can add a time disclaimer as parentesied descriptor in the time of day field (1941), AND add a SUPERIMPOSE "1941" should the audience need the cue. Geography changes are spelled out in the new scene heading.

LOVE the nuts and bolts "tricks of the trade" entries. Keep 'em coming!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Traditionally, SFX are capped, but that's a guideline, not a rule. Again, as noted elsewhere, the trend has been to make screenplays less 'scripty' -- and capped SFX derives from shooting scripts to alert special effects teams. If every time, you had to note -- the phone RINGS, the door SLAMS, the popcorn POPS, and so on -- it could be distracting to the script reader.

That said, I would definitely recommend capping sounds that are critical to the plot, such as an explosion. Also if you're writing an action scene and want to punch up certain moments so the reader will be sure to catch them, that's another time to use caps.

Re EXT/INT: Personally, I never use those as they read 'scripty.' But that's just me.

Thanks for your responce, Scott.

MOST of my comments are based on what I've read in script writing reference books, which I took as gospel as pertains to script format.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm gratefull to be living in this time and age where I can read your posts. Keep 'em comming!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA