RE-WRITING a Longer Than Norm Script

to avoid the red flags (holy ****, this thing is 200 freakin' pages!!!!) that will make producers/readers throw your script in the trash.... i say, make it a 2-parter for tv. but, know that you must be specific. channels with commercials expect natural commerical breaks (mini cliffhangers) in your script. non-commercial channels will expect a normal 2-parter (if you can't do a standard length story).

hope that makes sense.

Hi Writingfool,

Based on my book "The Complete Book of Screenwriting" by Micheal J. Straczynski, in the television section under MOVIES FOR TELEVISION it states...

"Also known as Movies of the Week, often called MOWs in television parlance, these are 120 minutes long, generally consisting of six to eight acts of equal length."

I would suggest keeping the script to a minimal of 120 pages if you're going to market it for television. I think three hours would make it too short to cut in half for a two parter and I don't see very many miniseries on T.V. anymore unless they've got the name Stephen King attached to them or they are on Sci-Fi. Most people want to sit down and watch a whole movie without having to come back the following day, or week, to watch the other half.
I would try to trim down to atleast 150 pages. That is 2 and a half hours. Personally, I don't think the amount of pages determines wether or not your script sells as long as it doesn't run over 2 and a half hours. I think if someone starts to read your script and they like it enough to read on, more than likely they will read until the end. I don't judge a book by how many pages it is, if the first page reads well, I continue to read it.

But of course I'm not an expert so I can be really wrong.

Hope it helps.
Steph

Writingfool,

I think the biggest problems with scripts that run too long are in the scenes themselves. Are you taking a good look at each scene and using a critical eye to determine wether or not every scene has a strong backbone? Meaning, is there a clear purpose for each scene. Sometimes when I'm writing my scripts, I write scenes that I am dead clear about and insist they are necessary, then when I go back, I realize I really didn't need it afterall.
Every scene should move your story forward, have a begining, middle, and end, and must connect with the whole of the script...blah, blah, blah. I know you've heard it all before.

Some scenes might only have a minor detail that you don't want to leave out, sometimes this minor detail can be attached in another scene with a major detail or left out all together depending on how important you see them.

My point is, I wouldn't go into rewrite mode just yet. I would take a few days, maybe a week, come back and look over every scene with a more critical eye. Maybe highlight the scenes your iffy about then try reading your script without them and see if it works. Go from there.

Steph

Sorry, I don't have much experience myself, but I would say go with the two part or the series. Good luck, I hope it works really well for you.

There are some movies that naturally tend to run longer: epics, war stories, some sci-fi. It would be good if you gave us at least a small summary of what your script is about so that we could better advise you. You can break any rule you want, but you need to have a damn good reason for doing so. If the script must be that long, you might want to consider splitting it up into two scripts and making the second one a sequel film. It would have been pretty impossible for George Lucas to get the Star Wars story out in one film or for Tolkien to fit all of Middle Earth into one novel.

My advice

Try to shorten the script as much as possible.

I haven't seen that many mini-series on TV any more and I know I sure as heck don't want to wait all week for the next part.
USA and Sci-fi channel, and even HBO or other movie channels will run MOW or direct to TV films. This is often a good place to start for the newbie writer.
Still, these are feature length films (about 120 min) broken up by commercials.

Movies ARE being made in parts. LOTR and Kill Bill broke that mold.
Plenty of trilogies have been made.
These films are exceptions though, made by known people, from either stories with a built in following, or with strong stories sustainable over a long viewing time. Even then, the studios had MAJOR issues with the length.
At first LOTR was going to be only one film.

In my two examples each part has a strong beginning and end point.
You feel as though you've watched a complete story even though you know there is more to come.
When the audience is totally invovled in the story then, for the most part, we are willing to sit a little longer. Titanic was a great movie but it was long.
Seasbiscuit is a great movie but it is long.

You'll need to look at your script from all angles.
See if it can be broken up for commercials, if there are natural breaks every ten, fifteen minutes. Is there a natural break about page 120 or so where one half of the story comes to a satisfying end and then the rest continues with a good new beggining? And is sustained?

If you have to go to 140 or 150 to get to the end and then have 45 to 60 or 70 pages of wrap up or continuing story you will need to do some rearranging and repacing.

I don't know that much about you, so far your posts have seemed very reasonable and inteligent so I assume you know and understand a fair amount.
Still, keep your mind open to the possibility that there could be more to cut then you are willing to see.
They don't call it killing your babies for nothing.

Let me make sure I am understanding you correctly.
You look at your dialoge and even though you like it all and it sounds good to you, still you have this nagging sense that maybe that is where you should cut?
That seems reasonable to me.

Go through it again. See if there are places where a look or an action can replace some lines. See if you can tighten up a few lines, maybe take out some fluff, overly polite or too perfect words.
Many times the dialog of some characters is written in "correct english" when that charcter, most characters, wouldn't talk that way.

See if there are scenes that would be more powerful if done in silence.

There are little tricks for shortening up the script.
Honest ones, no, not cheats Joe.

Search through the script for widows, or orphans. (one word taking up one line)
Look for lines that can be tightened up by fragmenting the sentence.
John grabs the gun that he had set on the table, and then cocks it, and points the buisness end at Martha
could be shortend to John grabs the gun, cocks it, aims at Martha.
Take out any uneccessary parenthecticals.

If you've got lots of action lines that are only one or two lines long see if you can combine them. If you've been forcing yourself to only write in a 3 or 4 line blocks then go up to 5 BUT not too often.
All those blank lines can really up the page count.
Keep in mind that the script STILL needs to be open.
It's a very delicate balancing act. Something that you can play with though.

60 pages is a lot but, every little bit helps.

Post some of your pages. Maybe we can help you out more.

Sequel!