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What is considered a short? How many pages? When does it turn into a feature? Is anything under 80-90 pages a short?
I have a 45 page script I'm thinking about possibly posting, but don't know if I should call it a short or not.
It seems I remember seeing this question before, but I couldn't find it.
Thanks,
Pia
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dogglebe
Posted: August 21st, 2006, 9:51am
Guest User
That depends on who you ask. I've seen competitions where they say a short must be fifteen pages or less. Other competitions say thirty or even sixty pages.
I, personally, would put a 45 page script under the shorts section.
I believe that a scrrenplay more than 20 pages longer is very difficult to sell as a short, because most of contests ask no more than that. In other hand if it will be a a documentary piece, 45 minutes longer is sastifatory length.
I wrote a 40 page short and posted in the shorts section. No one seemed to mind it.
I think it won't matter where its posted but it being in the shorts section may get you more reads. That's usually the first place I go, knowing that its quicker and easier to read a short than a full-length script.
What they taught in school was, anything less than 80 pages is technically a short, since it falls "short" of both cinema and TV full length requirements. Zoetrope uses the same standard, for whatever its worth.
I read on the Academy Awards site that to win an Oscar for a short, it has to be less than 40 minutes. So that's the max Oscar length.
I've always wondered what you have to do to get a short film nominated for a short film Oscar. Are there certain film festivals you need to win, to qualify?
If anyone knows how it works, I'd love to hear about it.
On the topic of this thread, I've noticed that a lot of short film competitions don't want films going over 10 minutes. And at short film festivals I've noticed that the majority of films are less than 20 minutes.
As for 45 minute scripts, I really think that they're in no man's land, too long to be a short and too short to be feature length; you to need cut them down or flesh them out.
The hardest part of those rules in my opinion is the one week run in Los Angeles with a standard promotional campaign. Next would be getting the 1024 x 768 resolution.