What's the shortest page-count you would tolerate for a feature length spec script?

nmstevens · May 19, 2008

aceinc1 said:
I had told ya guys I has written an outline then directly shot it to a movie. well, I was expecting it to run 70 minutes only. it ran 110 minutes.

I have read Roger Corman's "how I made hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime". his average movies were in the range of 65-80 pages. he made a career out of horror+soft porn. so yeah, 75 is acceptable for most low budget producers.

regards,
Ace.Inc1

When Corman was making these movies, for the most part they were featured in double bills and were generally much shorter than feature films or feature scripts today.

In the same token, the eighty to eighty-five page scripts that I was dealing with were intended for direct-to-video release and were intended to be that short.

But 75 pages would have been considered too short even for a DTV movie. I mean, soft porn scripts (things like Petticoat Planet) paged in at something like forty to fifty pages -- because they had a lot of those soft-core porn scenes that took up a lot of screen time but which obviously didn't take up much in the way of page count.

But soft-porn excluded, you were still talking 80-85 pages -- for a DTV movie.

But unless you're aiming to write for that market (and if you are, you're aiming pretty low these days) I think you've really got to aim for around a hundred pages.

A hundred to a hundred and fifteen pages is the target.

A hundred to a hundred and five is really ideal.

NMS

Jon-Luke · Jun 8, 2008

The reason scripts are formatted the way they are with the specific font requirement and font size is because general understanding is that one page of the script should take up approximately one minute of screen time. This is a gross generalization because obviously this depends a lot on how the director shoots certain scenes. But its a general rule and an average that seems to work well enough for producers to still use this yard stick after years and years of using this method (I know that the format has been around since the 1950's I'm not sure exactly when it was decided on).

So taking this into account a producer will look at a 75 page script and think that he will get a 75 min movie and that's just not long enough. If you look at the length of the average movie its somewhere between 83 and 95 minutes some go a lot longer but it rare to find anything below 80 mins (I can't think of any).

So I would say you would need another 5-7 pages at least.
Hey at the end just when you thought they were safe, another 5 mins of unexpected danger and then finally real safety... or are they...

GigiZ · Jun 8, 2008

What about Final Draft's option of of "normal" "tight" and "loose," length?
My second draft is 91 pages long under normal but when I tried the loose option it was 96! It's a big difference if you're bordering on too short or too long.
I wonder if anyone notices that stuff when they read a pdf or a copy. By juts looking at the page I mean.

kullervo · Jun 8, 2008

Yes, someone who reads a lot of scripts notices. They also know what the real page count is. They can tell the number of pages in a script by picking it up. Don't play games.

dpaterso · Jun 8, 2008

GigiZ said:
What about Final Draft's option of of "normal" "tight" and "loose," length?
My second draft is 91 pages long under normal but when I tried the loose option it was 96! It's a big difference if you're bordering on too short or too long.
I wonder if anyone notices that stuff when they read a pdf or a copy. By juts looking at the page I mean.

This got posted over on the Done Deal board last month and caused some hilarity, alas there's no link so I can't verify if it's true, so make your own mind up:

(RSS)

From the Hollywood Informer:

"In local Hollywood news, spec scribe Gary Prince of San Marino became irate when he was informed that his spec "Apatowian" Teen Comedy - RIGHTEOUS, about several teens vying to be high school hall guardians was rejected because his first page was too long.

"It's one page," Gary said, fuming and as he continued to try and get connected to the general voicemail box to leave a message for his "agent" Gemma Kranz of the Catch 23 agency. who has been unavailable for comment.

Prince indicated he was informed of his rejection via an email that he described as being sent from the email address [removed]. Quoting his email: "Hey Gary, While we love the idea for Righteous, your first page is too long." End of email.

A frustrated Gary Prince complained "I was just trying to set up the milieu, and nail a really awesome visual "sex joke." Gary sighed. "It's my sixth draft. I don't know what I can do with this feedback." He also added that he used Final Draft's "somewhat, but not too noticeably tight" line spacing option and speculated that "that can't be it."

After repeated calls and getting a voicemail menu that did not give a direct option for leaving a message for a Gemma Kranz, Gary said he feels 'disappointed' As a counter offer, Gary stated he'd offer re-submitting his script using Final Draft's "Normal" line spacing option "but wasn't sure if that would make a difference." Ultimately Gary wonders if he's a victim of some kind of new paradigm of screenplay structure that has swept Hollywood or if they just didn't like his script."

-Derek

NikeeGoddess · Jun 8, 2008

i know i've said in the past that people shouldn't use the cheating methods even when offered by standard scriptwriting software like FD. but people still fight for it like it's a god given right and/or only solution to their problem.

What's the shortest page-count you would tolerate for a feature length spec script?

nmstevens

What happened?

Jon-Luke

Anomalous crusader

GigiZ

kullervo

minion

dpaterso

Patent pending

NikeeGoddess