Misc. Q's

A: I would delete the Moments Later. Those following the characters will assume no great passage of time has happened. In fact time is pretty irrelevant in most scenes other than day and night.

B: I have no idea.

C: For me scenes are as long as I need them to be. I have read scripts where they have a one line scene, for mood and scene set up, and others span a few pages. It depends on what your story calls for.

I agree with Icerose on A and C. On B, I'd take out 'by a stream' from the scene header and stick the 3 words in the narrative where it occurs which you say is only twice - assuming of course it's the same forest on all occasions.

A. scenes are presumed to be in sequential order until proven otherwise.

b. no idea. I don't use Final Draft and Sophocles, the software I do use use allows me to sort by location.

c. 3 seconds shorter than they need to be. Come in late and leave early.

I'll take 3

for a thousand

I have a long answer and a short answer.

I would say that your concluding scenes / scene would run the longest.
So, the last ten minutes of the film is everything getting all wrapped up and concluded. Every idea and plot at that point is going to come together and get resolved.

SO, you could have your last scene [plot point, core scene idea] run for 7 to 12 pages.

Scene lengths ebb and flow.
One scene could be only a minute or two. The next scene could three to seven minutes. (3 to 7 pages)
The story expands and contracts according to the intensity and dramatic climate of each scene.
I think there comes a time in every story, about the back part of the middle, where you get your longest scenes.
All the information you need to know starts coming out, the characters are gearing up for thier major character arc,
and things get set up for that last rushing run to the conclusion.

Now, if you base a scene on location changes, then you ususally want to have some kind of shift or change in scenery AT LEAST every two, three pages.

Even if you have your characters trapped in one room, things happen and move from area to area. A significant event can happen in one corner of the room while another significant event (plot point or story beat) happens in another.

If you aren't going to change the view AT ALL, the visual effect of the film would be boooooooooring.

Is there a "rule" about it? No.
Only a basic, instinctive feeling that things are no longer interesting.
If you find your characters struggling for things to DO, and say, then it's way past time to end the scene.
If your blocks of action/description are getting longer and wordier and so is the dialog then you are way past time to end the scene.

Something to do to answer your question is sit down right next to the DVD player with the script AND the movie.
Every time there is a scene change STOP the film and write on the script how many minutes have passed.
Then look back over it and see how the film was paced and how that compares with the script.

That's the long answer.

The short answer is : much shorter then what you likely wrote.

Depending on how good

you actually are, the answer could still be correct in that even a two paragraph scene that doesn't advance the story shouldn't exist AT ALL and therefore is too long by nature of merly existing.

Yes, the opposite is true, that maybe you aren't developing your scenes enough and so are coming up short.
Couldn't tell you that though with out reading a set of the pages and knowing the basic drift of the story.

Thing is, you can't place an arbitrary page length on it.
It's not right at 2 pages and then wrong at 3 or 3 1/2.

You may have some natural instinct that says you haven't fully developed the scene yet, that it's too short. You should then seriously consider the scene to determine if character, plot, conflict & theme could be developed more. You may have just skimmed over the surface, putting in the basic actions and lines when digging deeper and developing more subtext and intense power is needed.

AVOID fluff, but try to layer the scenes.

Sounds good enough.

Let sleeping dogs lie.