so am i correct in assuming 60 pages is roughly an hour of film?

Roughly, if the format is correct and the writing style is correct.  That's what the guidlelines say.

If you're writing for television, fourty-four (to forty six) pages is an hour, because broadcasters like to insert a lot of commercials.

Gotta love television, so i wonder what they would do if you write more than that. What if the full script is so great and it goes past that mark? You know Oz one of the best series about prison went past the 1 hour mark many times probably because they were so good the handlers didn't want to cut down what works

OZ and THE SOPRANOS are HBO ORIGINAL SERIES'.  Each episode is produced "feature-film style," and originally aired without commercials.  When other networks buy those shows, they add in commercials, and they run overtime.

Of course but they can still run overtime if the network likes it, you don't think Show Case would let it run overtime if it wasn't a good show

Wrestling tho it's not a show per say it still runs overtime and so does That 70's Show once in awhile

When THAT 70'S SHOW, or the recently deceased FRIENDS, or *shudder* WILL AND GRACE, run overtime, they call it "super sized episodes."  Those episodes are roughly thirty two minutes of content, and THIRTEEN minutes of commercials.  Damn advertisers.

All this talk about commercial advertisements, show overtime, and all this other stuff makes me glad I have aspirations to be involved with television at all, that is until they offer me anything higher than a dollar.

I'd take a dollar if it got my foot in the door!

Anyhoo, I have an e-mail buddy who used to write for pro-wrestling.  A lot of it is in screenplay format.  Really interesting stuff.  The matches are mostly improvised with only key moments, and the results, scripted.  But the "story" parts of a wrestling show are scripted much the same way a television show or a movie would be scripted.  Some writers write dialogue for specific dyads (pairs of wrestlers), but they write that dialgue under the supervision and guidance of the person (or wrestler) who created the character, and they write it in the context of a story that's already been planned for that clip or center-stage (ring) discussion.  They produce content at almost the velocity of soap-opera writers.  Now my rant is focused on soaps.  If I could write for any soap in the world, I'd write for PASSIONS.  God, I love that show.

How many pages are there in each act? I thought it was 30-60-30, but this site says different:

http://jclarkmedia.com/film/filmguide.html

If this is wrong, can someone direct me to a site that explains the corrects amount of pages for each act and what should happen in them. I know I saw this one site that used the Matrix as an example and it seemed like a good site with a lot of info, but I forgot the address. So, can someone help me out?

It sounds right to me.

The rule is however, there is no rule. For a 2 hour movie the structure would most likely be "30-60-30" but for a 3 hour movie, the structure changes dramatically.

You can make your acts shorter and or longer if you need them to be. There is really no set formular, don't let anyone tell you different. In fact, write without acts at all. Just write the movie and fit everything you can inside of it, within 120 pages to 130 pages and you'll be alright.

the rule you speak of is a good rule... but it's not the back bone rule.

I like to make my movies "30-60-40" it gives me some time to wind down the story and make for some intense action in the end.

thanks guys

Hi,

I have a short that I wrote a while back. It's not very good but I'd like to improve it so that I can possibly put it on the site. The main problem is it feels very rushed. I have improved my writing skills (I think) since I wrote it, so there may be ways I can change this without making the script longer, but I have a feeling it may need more to give it a better pace. So...

How long should a short script be? I don't want to make it a feature length script because to me, it isn't that kind of story. I want it to remain a short, but I'd like to make it longer than it is (it's currently 16 pages). Does anyone have any idea what the maximum length of a short is? How long can I make it before it's considered to be...well...a Long?

Thanks for any information.

Ian

Shoot for 22 or 25 pages. I like to do 22 pages for all my shorts.

By the way... I'm a master at writting shorts. I've wrote well over 47 of them in the HORROR genre.  I love shorts, they are the best form of writting, cause you have so little time to make them good. You have so little time to develope characters and you have so little time to make everything come together.

When writting a "GOOD" short, it test the writer and challenges the writer to do the best he can.

I've almost come to a point where if I can't say it in 20 to 25 pages... I don't even wanna bother with it anymore.

This however is just me.

A short does not have to be 22 pages.  A short can be 6 minutes, it can be 40 minutes,  it can be an hour, there is no "rules" really, because shorts are not exploited like features to make maximum profits.

The Hours and Times by Christopher Munch was 60 minutes and won Special Jury Recognition at the 1992 Sundance Fest, because it was so good but not a feature.

Do what you feel is neccessary within your means to best convey your story.  If you're making a short, you're obviously not trying to make a blockbuster film, so do your best to make the best film or video possible.