Question for Greg or Christopher-Screenplay Length...

[Joel_Kirk]

I'm going to be entering the Samuel Goldwyn writing competition...and I had the question of the minimal screenplay length....

Some places have it at 90pages...others--like Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope contest--has the minimal length at around 87 pages...

I think JM. Straczynski (sp?) gives the minimal of 90 pages in his 'Screenplay' book...

While I'm at it, there is also the option for a 60 minute teleplay. (In my email to the contact person, I asked if the teleplay is an original idea or a spec script since they don't specify; I also asked about the screenplay length)...

I got no reply..... (And Joel kinda likes to get things planned out and taken care of, since his time is precious...and there are many things on his plate right now).

So, my questions would be:

*If I were to go with the teleplay option, should it be an original script or a spec script?

*If I went with the screenplay option, and my 'baby' runs around 88 pages--and it's a tight script where it stands--would I be okay?

There is also a three-act stageplay option; I have two ideas for that; but I'm not in the mindset to write a stageplay, yet...

Anywho, I appreciate your opinions and thoughts...

 

[Trekker4747]

The rule of thumb is that each page of your screenplay is equal to one minute of screen time. So, in theory, an 88 page screenplay would be an 88 minute movie, or a movie slightly over 90 minutes if you were to factor in margin of error, credits, etc.

So if it's tight and it works it shouldn't need much changing as it's already a decent, beit short in this day and age, movie length.

 

[Christopher]

*If I were to go with the teleplay option, should it be an original script or a spec script?

Those aren't opposites. A spec script is a script written "on speculation," meaning you haven't been commissioned and paid to write it but are doing it on your own time in the hope (speculation) that you'll be able to sell it later. If you haven't been hired in advance to write a script, that automatically makes it a spec script regardless of its subject matter. And of course it always has to be original work, a new story and dialogue of your own conception, regardless of what series it's based on.

I assume you're asking whether the teleplay should be for an existing series or a "pilot" for an original project of your own. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for that, except that generally you shouldn't write a spec script for the particular show you're pitching to (since the producers for that show will be too close to it and might not be able to step back from their assumptions and plans enough to assess your writing objectively).

I daresay it's probably easier to pick some existing show and do a script in its style, since you don't have to do all the work of creating the characters and milieu from scratch. Also you don't have to worry about doing the job of a pilot script to set up the series and characters and can just focus on telling a standard story, which is more the sort of thing a producer would be looking for from a freelance writer. So I'd recommend writing a script for an existing show, ideally a well-known one that the producers you're pitching to would be familiar with.

But if you're doing it for a contest instead of actually marketing it, then I don't know what the answer is.

*If I went with the screenplay option, and my 'baby' runs around 88 pages--and it's a tight script where it stands--would I be okay?

The general rule is to assume each page corresponds to about a minute, maybe a bit less. So you're talking maybe 85 to 90 minutes, which isn't unreasonable. 88 is close enough to 90 that nobody's going to shoot you down for the discrepancy.

But if it's "tight," doesn't that mean you could fill it out more and add a few pages?

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm a novelist, not a screenwriter, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I've never written a screenplay in my life.

But most of the movies scripts I've seen tend to be around 90-100 pages long, which is why it's sometimes a struggle to turn them into 300-page novelizations!

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Thank you, gentlemen...!

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I just got a reply yesterday from the contact for the competition; and, I was given a selected area of the rules.

Apparently, for the teleplays, I am not to do anything that is being produced currently; nor adaptations...etc...etc..etc...

I am supposed to submit an original idea...i.e. a pilot. Interestingly, I don't have any ideas for any pilots at the moment...(given the amount of times I've bitched and moaned that there wasn't/isn't anything on television worth my time,* or certain shows should have had better writing, etc...)

Too, I have too many things I'm writing at the moment(immediate projects) to commit to anything else...

*sigh*

Something for next year....








*There are exceptions: True Blood on HBO, Law and Order: SVU....