Spec Story Length: Abide by the rules or be a damn good salesman

Don't know where you got these numbers from, but I've read that comedies are minimum 80 (under 90 is not a great idea, as execs can wonder if there's enough that's keep-worthy for a whole feature), max 120, with 100-110 being considered ideal. Don't know what my source is, either, just something I read somewhere. My comedies are between 100 and 110 and I've never gotten a negative comment based on length.

As for the over 2 hours question, if you haven't been produced yet, from what I've read I suspect it's easier to rewrite than to sell something much longer than 120 in any genre. Unless it's Gone With the Wind, it shouldn't even come close to 3 hours, in my opinion. If you're going to ask people to sit in a movie theater that long, you'd better be giving them the movie of their lives.

My advice:

Cut it down to 120 pages AND be a damn good salesman.

My answer would also lean towards "both." There's a small army of unsold spec writers out there who are querying scripts < 120 pages, why shoot yourself in the foot and limp behind the competition?

-Derek

Madbandit said:

I have two spec scripts, both dramas, that are above 120 pages but under 240 pages (four hours)

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That's a large gap.

Are they 140 pages or 210 pages?

I wouldn't try and sell anything more than 140 max. AND I MEAN MAX!

MAX!!! 140.

The execs will still look at page count at 139 and shake their heads in disgust but they might still read it.

Anything more that that, I think they'll look at the page count and jsut assume you don't know what you are doing and that the script is probably just a waste of time.

Comedies: 90-110 is okay.
Drama: 100-120 preferably.

But there are no hard rules.

If it's the greatest 210 pages ever written in the history of film, there's always hope.

Madbandit said:

Rules:
Comedy: Up to 90 pages (one hour and a half)
Drama: Up to 120 pages. (two hours)

I have two spec scripts, both dramas, that are above 120 pages but under 240 pages (four hours). They're anthologies. Should I rewrite or be a damn good salesman?

BTW, I do believe a film should be under four hours.

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Look, anyone can talk themselves into anything, but here's the deal.

I've been writing and selling screenplays professionally for close to ten years now. I've sold or optioned five specs in that time, in addition to assignment work -- and I would never under any circumstances, submit a spec that was even as long as a hundred and twenty pages.

In recent years, I aim for a length of around 105 pages -- maximum 110.

I would never submit a screenplay under any circumstances -- unless it was an assignment that *specified* a greater length -- that was longer than 115 pages.

In fact, 115 pages would really worry me. I would wonder why it was that I couldn't get it down to 110.

The 120 page figure is out of date. It's too long. Readers and producers expect scripts to be leaner.

If I, who have been writing and selling my material for ten years, feel that I need to work to keep my specs at this length -- what does that say about how you should approach the page count on your spec scripts?

And if you're about to give me an argument about how your specs need to be longer than a hundred and twenty pages -- you're about to give me the wrong answer.

NMS

In recent years, I aim for a length of around 105 pages -- maximum 110.

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This is the target I go for as well, but I don't recall where I got the info from, probably a screenwriters conference in Austin, Texas years back. Over 105 bothers me. I've heard some readers feel the weight of the script and won't read a 'heavy' screenplay. More likely, they check the thickness and just won't bother when they can tell it's over 130 pages long by a glance.

IMHO, it's better to cut out material than to try to fill, so you got that going for you. The 240 pager has a cut of almost 2/3rds, which will be tough. Perhaps this could make two films?

If not, start cutting scenes, not lines. Combine characters or cut characters out completely. Remove anything that doesn't move the story forward expeditiously, because you believe every word moves the story. Look for the stuff that moves faster than other scenes. Cut, cut, cut.

Then use one sentence or two for your description lines. Use one word for description instead of five or six.

Remove all adverbs. All of them.

Ensure your font and formatting is correct, you could lose or gain dozens of pages.

Good luck.

Sorry to piggyback a thread, but rather than starting a new one for virtually the same topic...

Does anyone know what to shoot for as far as TV spec scripts are concerned?

Comedies tend to run 22 minutes (on air) and dramas 40-45, so if you follow the 'page equals a minute' guideline, that gives you one estimate. But I've also heard everything from 30-50 pages for comedy and 80-100 for drama.

Does anyone have an informed opinion on the proper length?

nmstevens said:

...
In recent years, I aim for a length of around 105 pages -- maximum 110.

I would never submit a screenplay under any circumstances -- unless it was an assignment that *specified* a greater length -- that was longer than 115 pages.

In fact, 115 pages would really worry me. I would wonder why it was that I couldn't get it down to 110.

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Assume 105 pages. Where does it go from there? I read quite a few scripts of good movies and most are well in excess of 120, even 150 pages. Okay, some of them were shooting scripts and probably most of them from previously produced writers.

If you sell a script of 105 pages, will it be rewritten - by you or someone else - and turn out longer in the process?

azdak said:

Assume 105 pages. Where does it go from there? I read quite a few scripts of good movies and most are well in excess of 120, even 150 pages. Okay, some of them were shooting scripts and probably most of them from previously produced writers.

If you sell a script of 105 pages, will it be rewritten - by you or someone else - and turn out longer in the process?

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Well, what happens after the script is sold doesn't really matter. If it balloons to 150 pages that's fine because the film itself will almost certainly be edited down in post.

I just think the sad truth is that these days a script that is 105-110 pages is going to be more appreciated than a script that is 120-120+. I think readers and producers recognise the craft involved in honing a story down to its leanest form.

That's not to say you must do that. You don't. Write what you want to write but just make sure that whatever your page count come the end of the script, that every single one of them is absolutely necessary to telling the story.

Have you ever tried writing to a screenwriting model? Sounds crazy but I find it incredibly freeing to use (even as just a starting point) the model outlined by Blake Snyder in his book "Save The Cat." It guides you into structuring your script to a maximum of 110 pages from the outset and, like I said, there's a weird comfort or freedom that comes from doing that. And it feels very satisfying to have a good script with a story well told all wrapped up in 110 pages.

I love watching the DVD bonus features Deleted Scenes.

Sometimes I agree with the cuts, sometimes not.

But if the director, writer, and producer all get together and say, 'let's lose this scene, it doesn't work as well as we'd hoped, and it's not critical to the story', after they spent all that money to make it, then I can cut my words.

It hurts to lose that work, but sometimes cuts are best.

azdak said:

Assume 105 pages. Where does it go from there? I read quite a few scripts of good movies and most are well in excess of 120, even 150 pages. Okay, some of them were shooting scripts and probably most of them from previously produced writers.

If you sell a script of 105 pages, will it be rewritten - by you or someone else - and turn out longer in the process?

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Well, you have to understand that when you get into actual production drafts, page counts go into a very bizarre realm as scripts get rewritten and the rewrites get rewritten.

You enter the world of what's known as "rainbow pages."


Basically, at a certain point in pre-production, when the script is going to widely circulated, they "lock the draft." That is, they lock the pages and from that point on, they never distribute a completely revised script.

The reason for this is because people in different departments start marking up their individual drafts. If there was a rewrite, and the result, as one might expect, was that everything got shoved around -- the script is now three or four pages longer, what used to be on page 19 is now on page 22, what used to be on page 80 is now on page 81 -- everything is different - that would mean that dozens of scripts would have to be pulled back, replaced -- and everyone would have to re-transcribe all of their notes.

Not once, but every time there was a new draft -- and that keeps happening throughout production. Dozens of times.

So they lock the draft and from that point on, they simply send out "rainbow pages" -- just the pages that have changes in different colors, with a particular color corresponding to the generation of the draft.

That way, you pull out page 5 and put in page 5, 5a, 5b. And at the same time, you can pull out half of page 9, page 10, and page 11 -- and on the new page 9, it'll say omit page 10, 11 -- so that people will know that they're not missing those pages.

So with all those pages pulled and all of those additional pages stuck in you can end up with this really chunk document full of partial pages.

How long is it actually? Who knows? By the time you're into production, nobody is bothering to keep track of that sort of stuff. The Director wants a scene, the producer wants a scene, the studio wants a scene -- it all goes in.

Then later, when the rough cut comes in at close to three hours -- it all comes out.

And then they have a Special Extended Edition Director's cut -- and it all goes back in.

NMS

I'm glad nmstevens clarified this. I think the poster named "clockwork 9" also clarified something related to all of this about three or four months ago (he expained to me back in an August thread about "a" pages and "b" pages). And then after that thread from August, I went back to my Final Draft program and started playing little games with the "lock page" feature in some dummy-scripts I made up for nothing, and then I realized what cw9 was explaining. (And darn it!! I have no idea how to UNLOCK a page in Final Draft once it's been locked!! So I'm glad I did it with a dummy script and not a REAL one!)

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73780&highlight=pages

This thread is worth a look because cw9 posted some actual examples of a-pages and b-pages. He also alluded to the colored pages that nmstevens is talking about. And I have seen scripts with those colored pages too. but nmstevens added extra info I wasn't aware of as far as the colored pages are concerned.

I can't speak for Movie Magic. But if you have Final Draft, you might also want to play little games with your "lock page" feature at some point just to self-teach.

Just for fun...

I've actually just been reading about the colouring of pages for revisions. John August's website lists them as...

White
Blue
Pink
Yellow
Green
Goldenrod
Buff
Salmon
Cherry
Tan
Gray
Ivory

Regards unlocking pages in Final Draft, it's in the 'Production' menu and then there's 4 options at the bottom of that menu.

Lock Pages
Unlock "A" Pages
Unlock All Pages
Locking Tools

You should be able to choose 'Unlock All Pages' though this doesn't revert the script back to its original state, rather it just allows you to edit the document without creating new pages. This is in Final Draft version 6, btw. I don't like 7 very much and I don't know if the options are any different.

(And please, call me Chris.)

Will do, Chris.

Tom - tv and feature writing are a bit different. page count is one thing but if you really want to be structurally sound then you need to know about cliff hanging commercial breaks. i don't write tv scripts so don't take my advice too literal. but an example: if a 1/2 sitcom is 30 min then you need 7 min for commercial breaks. you have to break the remaining 23 minutes in segments according to these breaks and it's best to end each segment with a tiny cliffhanger to keep people tuned in during the commercial break and not flip the channel. i know there are tv writers here but i suggest you check out http://www.tvwriter.com for specific tv writing questions.

You might want to break it into two different scripts. It seems everyone nowadays likes the sequels. Just make sure each section is a complete story. You may have to change it around a little to work properly.

On another note, if you cant get it down to 90-105 pages you're not telling it right. NO ONE is going to read 210 pages EVER.

Check your scenes and decide if they move the story forward. If not, delete them...PERIOD. Every scene must create motion or build character. Remeber ACTION IS CHARACTER...NOT dialog. If you're using dialog to tell the story then you're doing it all wrong.

You need a nice balance of action and dialog for a good story.

A good book on this subject is "Screenplay" by Syd Field. He lays out the structure of a screenplay in a pretty decent way. It helped me bunches when I first started.

Anyway, good luck.

SM

Thanks for the info, man. I'll check out the link.