Ok, so what happened here? A question on my feature's length..

L

LPguy

Member
Hey all,

So I just finished the fine cut of my first feature film, Misdirection, which I shot on the DVX. The editing process is going well, and I'll have a trailer out and about in a couple of weeks (frankly, I'm excited about what we accomplished on a budget of $1,000 on my first sustained narrative effort, but that's a different thread for a different time.) But now I have a bit of an issue, one that's amusing, but that I need to understand:

The shooting script for the film, properly formatted, is 128 pages long.

The fine-cut runtime, is 85 minutes.

The fine cut only removes one short scene (about 2 pages) and merges two others into a "here and there" montage (net loss... maybe 1:30 of screen time.) Heck, the rough cut was about 97 minutes long, and it's true to the shooting script.

Where'd my 1:1 ratio go? Granted, this is a talky film, but there's also a fair deal of action and plot development (as the name might suggest.) I'm not upset - really, this is a beautiful problem to have - but it's a bit stunning, and scary to think what would've happened if the screenplay had come in around 100 pages... where I'd originally wanted it.

Can anyone help shed light on how this happened?

Cheers,
Steve
 
I'm in the same boat -- though my situation isn't so 'beautiful' a problem. My 83 page script turned into a 54 minute rough cut. My script is formatted correctly, so I'm curious where the extra time went too. Hope you get a good answer.
 
Hmm, my 85 page script just came in at an 81 minute cut, so I'm pretty happy :-)

The only thing that I can suggest is that, while your scripts may be properly formatted, your writing style probably needs some work (although I can't really say for sure without seeing your script). Action scenes are where you tend to fall behind on the ratio. If you describe in detail every kick and punch of a fight, taking a page to do so, you'll suddenly find that that page translates into about five seconds of screen time.

Remember, a screenplay isn't a novel. You don't have to go into elaborate detail of locations, just describe the elements important to the plot/action, rather than letting us know what colour the curtains are. Don't describe every little action the characters make. Odds are the actors will change them on set anyway.

Screenplay writing needs to be tight and economical, especially if you want to maintain something close to the 1:1 ratio. Go through your script again, see if there are times when you've used a paragraph to describe something that could be said in a sentence. If you find this, you've probably found the key to your problem.

And the solution? Just keep practicing your writing, remembering the tight/economical thing :-)

Cheers
Pat
 
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Hollywood Gothic had a 94 page script with an 87 minute running time. We ended up not shooting about 2-3 pages so it was pretty close.
 
We open on JAKE’s Eyes, and pull back to reveal him lying in bed in his apartment. He is intense, betrayed, and stoic. He stands up, dressed raggedly, throws on a shirt, and walks to the door. As he reaches for the door, JESSICA is standing there. JAKE flies into a rage, throwing her up against the wall, screaming, and shaking her.
Click to expand...

That's the first 50 seconds of my third act, and a good example of the amount of direction in the script for an action/emotion-based scene. It's about 1.25 inches of vertical length in the script.

Looking at the script document, we've got...

Courier New, 12pt. Description Margins: 1.5" left, 1" right. Dialogue: 3" left, 2.5" right. 1" top & Bottom.

Additionally, I'm willing to throw another variable into the list - before anything, I was an editor, and worked a lot on music-video type projects (montages, etc.) I'm wondering if this is more about my natural affinity to cut things quickly, get-in-get-out-and-move-on style. I'm huge on the arrive-late, leave-early philosophy. The two people who have seen the fine cut have remarked that they were surprised that was 'only' an hour and a half for all that they saw take place. Perhaps I'm just really fine with the cutting?

At any rate, I think this is an interesting discussion, thanks for the replies, and let the speculation continue ;)
 
There is also a 20 minute scene in "Gone with the Wind" that last 20 minutes that read as:

ATLANTA BURNS

in the script.

A lot has to do with the pace of the actors from the direction they were given, the pace of the edit, etc. I remember the first feature I edited the first cut came in at slightly over 60 minutes. We spent a lot of time repacing the film and got it to where it needed to be. What happens a lot is you cut to the script and not to what you have in the scene - meaning dialog, cut, dialog, cut, and not looking for those moments that can enhance a performance etc. That comes with experience.

In the previous example, 1/8 of a page (scripts are broken down in 1/8's of a page) came in in at 50 seconds. Depending on how that scene was directed, the kind of footage the editor had to work with, and how you want the scene to play out in context of what comes before it and after it, the style of the film, it could play as short as 15 seconds or as long as several minutes -

Michael
 
And first timers or newbs to the screenwriting world always write tons of descriptive verbiage that artificially lengthens the script.

example - You've got 1/2 a page about how a guy walks through the door, stares at someone, hangs his coat and sits down. And it takes you 10 seconds to show the viewer that. You've got descriptions of wardrobe, facial expressions, etc. that we all see in the first second.

Look at the density of your script. Any really good script is mostly white space - if you have huge blocks of text, that's a no-no.

Chapelgrove on the other hand (I've read that script) has next to no descriptive text since the script is webcam based and so It's mostly dialog. And it flies by pretty quickly.

Simple really.
 
Well I can tell you that as far as my own screenwriting, I certainly don't go into excessive descriptive text, as Adam said. And there are no significant action sequences.

The script I co-wrote for 'Afterlife' was 105 pages, and the rough cut runs about 90 minutes. That's an acceptable margin, in my book. But an 83 page script turning into a 54 minute cut? That's way off base, and I'm not sure why.

Adam, I can't remember -- did you read the 'Tangled Web' script, or the 'The Circle' script? Both were webcam concepts.
 
Well now I don't remember, David. I think it was the one where the girl was having some sort of secret online afair, was caught, then it turned out the guy she was having an affair with was in on the whole thing.
 
Rats! You just revealed the Big Secret! :-)

Yeah, that was 'Tangled Web' -- the very one that should have been close to 70 mins long, but turned out at 54. I just spent the weekend shooting new scenes for it.

From reading the script, any thought as to why the page count/minute ratio is so far off?
 
Well, I think It's simple. It's almost all dialog - 84 or so pages of it. There are no different camera angles to cut to, no long tracking shots to drag the action out, etc.

There are two factors at work here.

1) It takes time to show the viewer different camera angles. The action goes quicker when there's only one angle throughout the whole show.

2) Because of the lack of camera movement, there's only so much you need to describe in your screenplay and hence there is very little action verbiage. The 1:1 ratio was developed with action verbiage in mind.

Time how long it takes to read one page. I bet it's like 30 seconds....nowhere near a minute.

But yours is a special case due to the nature of the project so it wouldn't apply to every case.
 
taormina said:
Time how long it takes to read one page. I bet it's like 30 seconds....nowhere near a minute.
Click to expand...

This.

There are no excessive patches of description text in my script, and frankly a lot of the description that *could* be there was omitted because I was writing & directing, and I didn't want to muddy the actors' reads with material that was more for myself, anyways. However, we did use a lot of static camera angles, and some of the bigger scenes are really dialogue-driven. Towards the end, where the action increased in ratio to the dialogue, I did notice the ratio becoming more true.

Interesting thoughts & discussion everyone. I think I know what happened (in my case) and it seems like ChapelGrove has a plausible explanation as well. If anyone has any other ideas, bring em here :)
 
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