is the '1 minute per page' rule still holds? + other related questiond :)

roei z

roei z

Veteran
Hi-
i wrote a screenplay for a feature in Hebrew,
that's why i cannot use any specific software to 'arrange' the sceenplay in a perfect template.
but besides that, the sceenplay is now around 46 pages.
it got me a little worried.
but i know for a fact (did some shooting tests) some scenes that are written on 1/4 of a page-
could actually take around a minute in actual time.
so- when i tried to calculate the actual 'real' screen time in my mind for every scene, i got to something like 64 minutes (being very precise, not adding fake time and credit roll).
which means that it will probably have those extra few minutes for a 72 min. full length feature.

can someone refresh the facts on this matter? how come they made that 1 minute rule if i can clearly declare 1.5 minute for my screenplay? is that just a template inaccuracy problem?
or the rules have changed a bit?
and am i right about the 72 min. minimum full length feature time?

thanks :)
 
It's not really a 'rule' so much as an observation. Whether or not your script will time out to 1 page per onscreen minute depends on a lot of things.

First off, realize that the page per minute is an average. That doesn't mean that each page of your script can or should equal one minute of screen time. Some will take more screen time, some less. The idea is that it generally averages out to 1 minute per page.

I have a script for a feature that is almost all dialogue. Very little action, and only 3 scenes. Because of that, my 120 page script will actually time out to just around 100 minutes. Maybe less. The more different scenes you have, the more space on the page it takes up to put in scene headings, etc. A page that has one long monologue by one character is going to time a lot different than a scene with two people firing one- to two-word quips back and forth.

If your goal is to write screenplays and sell them, then you should try to achieve an average of 1 page per 1 minute of screen time, just because it's what the industry is accustomed to. If you're just writing for your own productions, then I wouldn't worry about it so much.
 
The "one minute rule" is really just a loose guideline, and it's mainly for feature-length scripts. The shorter the script, the less accurate it is (and it's often highly inaccurate for a feature - check some shooting scripts of produced features to see). Descriptions are the most inaccurate (compared to dialog). A paragraph could represent a few screen seconds, and a sentence could represent minutes...

Robert Rodriguez wrote in "Rebel Without A Crew" that he "played the film in his head", timed it, and was (IIRC) able to be fairly accurate in his estimations. You might want to try that as an alternative to the page/minute rule.

But nothing will be more than loosely correct until you make the final cut...
 
The 1 minute per page rule is an average based on standard script format (Courier 12 point, 10 pitch, correct margins & page lengths, etc.), though many productions will have somebody time the script out to check if it is going to be too short or too long once it is actually produced.

However, it is important to try and stick as close as possible to 1 minute per page, because otherwise you will make it nearly impossible for somebody to accurately schedule the shoot. Scripts are broken down into 1/8 page increments when they are being scheduled, and if your 1/8 page increments in your screenplay are equivalent to 1/4 or 1/2 page increments in normal scripts, it could cause issues.

I personally think that 72 minutes is far too short for a feature, especially if that includes opening and closing credits. Feature films, at least in the US, are usually closer to 90 minutes or longer.
 
Ted Spencer said:
Robert Rodriguez wrote in "Rebel Without A Crew" that he "played the film in his head", timed it, and was (IIRC) able to be fairly accurate in his estimations. You might want to try that as an alternative to the page/minute rule.
Click to expand...

thanks.
yea, i guess that's what i actually did.
when i write: "he drives around at night", it can actually be a 30 seconds scene in my head,
with many elements, like tiny action details, music, and general tension..

maybe i should consider a lot more 'widening' to the tiniest descriptions.
and even be extra careful on 'pauses' in dialogs. that can be a major difference.
but many times i usually improvise and develop those new descriptions on the set, so..
it can be a bit tricky to convince people your 45 pages screenplay can turn up to be a full length.. ;)
 
agcohn said:
However, it is important to try and stick as close as possible to 1 minute per page, because otherwise you will make it nearly impossible for somebody to accurately schedule the shoot. Scripts are broken down into 1/8 page increments when they are being scheduled, and if your 1/8 page increments in your screenplay are equivalent to 1/4 or 1/2 page increments in normal scripts, it could cause issues.

I personally think that 72 minutes is far too short for a feature, especially if that includes opening and closing credits. Feature films, at least in the US, are usually closer to 90 minutes or longer.
Click to expand...

thanks. i hope i use a decent template when i write in a hebrew 'word'..
i'm not exactly sure how to set the dialogs 'width' right. there are no templates in Hebrew..

about the 72 minutes length, i hope i will get a final tight script that could hold this length without credits.. :)
 
roei z said:
thanks. i hope i use a decent template when i write in a hebrew 'word'..
i'm not exactly sure how to set the dialogs 'width' right. there are no templates in Hebrew..

about the 72 minutes length, i hope i will get a final tight script that could hold this length without credits.. :)
Click to expand...

There is such a thing as 'language lexical density'... that is how much information is communicated in a sentence, paragraph, etc.

The 1 page/ minute movie runtime was calculated from English language scripts. So, while it may be a rule of thumb, for languages
that have a different lexical density, one could come up with different numbers...

Sounds like a good Ph.D. thesis topic to me in linguistics..

Where most people see this 'difference' is in dubbed versions of 'foreign' films, where the speakers definitely have 'ended' but the dubbed voice
continues... or adds useless utterances to make up the time if the screen speaker's mouth is still moving...

I wasn't able to find a comparison between English and Modern Hebrew... (In fact I wasn't able to find any comparisons between language, just written and spoken for the same langauge.)

However, it does occur to me that because standard Hebrew does not include vowels, there could be a higher 'written' density, than in the case of English. I took your first post, dropped out 'aeiou' from the text and the result was:

Original number of characters: 942
Processed for dropping vowels: 660

Yield a ratio of 1.4 or so.

Your estimate: 46 written pages, to 64 estimate movie minutes: 1.39...
 
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:)
That was a very interesting answer indeed...
I hope you're right about that.
Thanks for the effort!
 
Hmmm..
I personaly think that in the case of Somewhere,
making a 44 pages script Into a whole feature with long silences and endless scenes was one of the film's problems..
On the other hand I wonder about Tarkovsky's scripts ;)

* just discovered "script shadow", started reading script reviews and cannot stop ..
 
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