One page of dialogue may run faster, a page full of action may run slower, but in the end a movie will usually run for as many minutes as there are pages in the script). It can also be a sign that the writer simply does not have a good understand of the medium he/she has chosen to write for - the average length of a feature film is two hours, which means that screen stories should run 120 pages (because that old rule of thumb – 1 page of script = 1 minute of screen time - is pretty accurate. However, a high page count is usually a sign that something is seriously wrong with the script’s storytelling – that the piece is unfocused (because it contains far too many narrative elements that require lots and lots of pages to service), that it is has too many characters (who also require lots of pages to service), that it is redundant, poorly paced, poorly structured, and/or that it contains far too many irrelevant details. Plus, from a reader’s point of view, they are a real chore to get through).
It is not the excessive length itself that makes these scripts so problematic - although long scripts do have some definite drawbacks (their budgets are higher, they are harder to produce, and the final films screen fewer times a day than normal length movies, which limit their earning potential. Despite the ubiquity of this advice, I regularly receive scripts that clock in at more than 120 pages - often considerably more: a few weeks back I received a script that was 199 pages long. One constant piece of advice given to screenwriters by me and by every other screenwriting professional, consultant, and teacher out there is keep the length of your screenplay to 120 pages or less (or, these days, 110 pages or less). The length of the script really is important.
SCREENPLAY FORMAT SLUGLINE SERIES
When it comes to premises and story concepts, I suppose it is something floating around the zeitgeist when it comes to technique, I suspect it is the result of writers attempting to ape the mechanics of a currently successful film or television series or being inspired by what seems to be surefire advice from the latest hot screenwriting book or guru.ġ. These commonalities pop up constantly for months on end and then vanish, only to be replaced with a whole new set. after never having read a single script about female pilots during World War II, I’ll get three in a single week) or storytelling techniques (after months of nothing but straightforward narratives, suddenly every script I pull out of the slush pile is told in reverse chronological order or has a “voice of God” narrator or delivers its exposition using cutaways). These common elements can be premises and story concepts (e.g. When you read scripts for a living as I do, you notice an interesting phenomenon: certain common elements tend to recur in a majority of the scripts that you read in a specific period of time. Click to tweet this article to your friends and followers!
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