How many pages of script makes a feature?

**pauldrystonewall** · December 31st, 2003, 03:29 AM

THREAD JACKING IN PROGRESS!!!

as you know, i am a composer not a film-maker...so i apologise if these questions make me sound stupider than i am! all this creative energy at this board has rubbed off on me and i have a couple of script ideas i want to work on.

what, in detail, is the difference between a script and screenplay....and which would you advise for a person with no discernible writing talent to try? obviously a script is mainly dialogue with stage directions...but how far can you go with the stage directions....or is detail the job of the screenplay?

advice appreciated.....i am very lucky to have an "email" contact who is an award winning script writer in the US, so he has sorted me out on the 12pt courier, and alignments of a script, but i don't want to lean on him too much for help, because i am hoping he will come in handy later on in the process. (don't want to use up his patience!)

thanks in advance!

p.s. hope you had a nice christmas!

p.p.s i have redesigned my website, and i am experimenting with the idea of "company idents" and title sequences....anybody who is getting some exposure and wants some work doing, let me know!

www.paulharckham.com

**jungleguy** · December 31st, 2003, 04:41 AM

how big is the font your using? cause you get less words with a 14point font than a 12 point.

Also could someone here tell me how long a piece of string is?

**emjen** · December 31st, 2003, 10:03 AM

there is no difference between a script and screenplay.

as for writing scripts - its very easy to write one - its a pain in the ass to write a good one. Really. They say writing is wre-writing. I think writing is pre-writing. There's so much you have to think of before you start jotting down words - if you want to write a good screenplay that is. And structure, that's a fucking bitch.

They way I think of it now, you have to read a couple of books to know what to do. But you have to forget all the fucking rules they tell you to do because you'll get mad if you keep applying them. I have a bunch of projects going on, and they're all great ideas with great potential. But i also have to finish every single one of them. Thats where the pre-writing comes in. Saves you from wandering about. Oh well. It's hard it is. We're not tarantino yet - we cant write anything we want.

as for the wachoski's. I think the last two matrixes were so bad because the wacho'bros had no limits whatsoever. They didnt have to do their best writing a good screenplay anymore. Everything they would've written would be made. What we saw was probably a first draft. A first draft sucks with every movie. They just can't handle the non-pressure. Same for Tarantiono - but he's got talent.

**ac_01** · December 31st, 2003, 03:10 PM

Originally posted by pauldrystonewall:
THREAD JACKING IN PROGRESS!!!

as you know, i am a composer not a film-maker...so i apologise if these questions make me sound stupider than i am! all this creative energy at this board has rubbed off on me and i have a couple of script ideas i want to work on.

what, in detail, is the difference between a script and screenplay....and which would you advise for a person with no discernible writing talent to try? obviously a script is mainly dialogue with stage directions...but how far can you go with the stage directions....or is detail the job of the screenplay?

advice appreciated.....i am very lucky to have an "email" contact who is an award winning script writer in the US, so he has sorted me out on the 12pt courier, and alignments of a script, but i don't want to lean on him too much for help, because i am hoping he will come in handy later on in the process. (don't want to use up his patience!)

thanks in advance!

p.s. hope you had a nice christmas!

p.p.s i have redesigned my website, and i am experimenting with the idea of "company idents" and title sequences....anybody who is getting some exposure and wants some work doing, let me know!

www.paulharckham.com

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">First things first: Buy one of those inexpensive screenplay books by Syd Field. Read it. Learn the rules. Then forget it. The hardest thing to do is moulding your story into the confines of the screenplay. You'll learn a lot more by reading other sript out there (www.simplyscripts.com/www.scriptsecrets.net) You'd be surprised by how much detail is in a script and yet there is none at all.

Thats about it. Nothing more to it. Structure is key. Its the difference between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded. [img]wink.gif[/img]

**GREATwarEAGLE** · December 31st, 2003, 06:13 PM

SCRIPT is a broad term.

A screenplay is a more specific type of script, obviously meant for the big screen or like direct-to-video. As opposed to a playscript - for the stage.

Then theres a teleplay - a script for broadcast television.

I myself cant recommend Sid Field, having read just about all of his books. Others may find him useful - Im just speaking for myself. THE SCREENWRITERS BIBLE is pretty good, though, written by David Trottier. There are some others but I forget the titles.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 31, 2003 02:17 PM: Message edited by: GREATwarEAGLE ]</font>

**pauldrystonewall** · January 1st, 2004, 06:26 AM

thanks for the help guys.

i now know i am pretty much going about it the wrong way by just diving in there! [img]wink.gif[/img]

i will definitely look into doing a bit of research as you suggest before i go much further. i know (or so i have been told) that i have come up with an interesting approach to the story....the trick now is just not to nark it all up!

i will take my time anyway, as i am wading through books on film music at the moment to help me with my compositions.

thanks again.

**james2183** · January 1st, 2004, 10:42 PM

Wasnt Kubricks 2001 script around 50 pages long and only 25 pages had dialogue?

**untamed_aggression** · January 2nd, 2004, 07:25 PM

Supposedly the Lost In Translation script was only about 65 pages, and that movies about two hours (I think)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In one of today's broadsheets (I think it was The Times) Bill Murray said that the script for Lost in Translation was 75 pages long and that a lot of stuff was improvised..