How long should it take to write a script?
Answering a recent question, I made the following unqualified assertion:
Six weeks is a long time. I say this not to panic you, but to make sure you understand that employable screenwriters need to be able to produce on demand.
In the comment thread that followed — and subsequent emails — many readers wondered exactly how long was too long, and what was a reasonable timeframe in which a screenwriter should be expected to deliver a script. So let’s try to answer those questions.
When a screenwriter is hired to write a project (like Shazam!, or Big Fish), the contract generally allows for a 12-week writing period for the first draft. Subsequent rewrites and polishes are given shorter time period, anywhere from eight weeks to two weeks.
In practice, I’ve never seen these contractual writing periods enforced. 1 Rather, a few weeks into the process, a producer or studio executive calls the screenwriter and the following conversation takes place:
PRODUCER
So, how’s the writing going?
WRITER
Good. Good.
PRODUCER
I know it’s early, but do you gotta sense of when you’re going to be finished?
WRITER
Umm....
PRODUCER
Just ballpark, like, end of January? Start of February?
WRITER
Yeah. Absolutely.
PRODUCER
Great. Great. Because I know the studio’s really excited to see it, and it would be great to get it in around then.
WRITER
Shouldn’t be a problem.
PRODUCER
I’ll just check in with you in a coupla weeks, make sure everything’s going okay.
I’ve encountered some version of this conversation on every project I’ve written. Follow-up phone calls try to narrow the time frame down even more, with the goal of getting you to deliver the script on a Thursday or Friday so everyone can read it over the weekend.
I’m hesitant to give a firm number for how many weeks it should take to write a script. Every project is different. Big Fish took me the better part of four months, while Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was three weeks. But part of the reason Charlie was only three weeks was because that’s all the time there was. There was already a release date, and sets were being built.
And that points to the better question to ask: How quickly should a professional screenwriter be able to turn around a script, given some urgency? In my experience, the most successful screenwriters are the ones who are able to accurately estimate how much time they’ll need. That’s part of the craft, just like a cabinetmaker promising a delivery date. For my work on Iron Man, I told them exactly how many days it would take to address certain issues, and delivered pages every night.
For feature films, I’d be reluctant to hire a writer who couldn’t deliver a script in eight weeks. For television, writers sometimes have less than a week to get a one-hour episode written. You’d like to give every writer as much time as she needs, but in my experience, the deadline is often the main force getting the script finished.
- In a few cases where a movie was rushing to production, my contracts have had special language like “Time is of the essence” or similar, which I suspect is a giant flashing arrow to indicate that the studio really would consider withholding payment if delivery were late. ↩
Filed under: Big Fish, Charlie, Film Industry, Projects, QandA, Television
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December 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am
For anyone about to answer a follow up question, also dealt with here
http://johnaugust.com/archives/2003/how-long-to-write-a-script
December 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am
Interesting post. Great to know what is expected from professional writers.
When working on personal projects and spec scripts I always feel that unproductivity comes from the lack of a defined deadline so in a way a 6 to 8-week deadline sounds pretty good.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:32 am
Thanks for the clarification! I’m 20 pages into my third spec feature and on this and the others I’ve allowed myself 12 weeks from conception to draft. I’m writing with a separate full-time job as I’m sure most readers are, but that timeline seems to work. I pressed up against the last day on the first one, but the second was closer to 8 weeks. I expect 8 on the current one as well.
What has helped me shrink my own timetable is figuring out my process. Seems everyone has their own. I spend the first two weeks writing beats, digging into characters, and doing any upfront research. Then I’ll write the first few scenes to get a feel and go back and fine tune some of the structure during the third week. Once I have that I’m fairly consistent writing 10 pages/night (3 hour sessions). I hate rewriting structure (love polishing dialogue) so I try to think through and watch the sequences before I commit them to the page.
I’m about to begin a commissioned screenplay for my full-time employer and I’m projecting a first draft on a 6 week turnaround, but I’ve been given a rough outline and most of the story.
I’d be interested to know how others break the process down?
December 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
The best thing about the deadline is that it streamlines the decision-making process. “Does Harold wear a Stetson or a fedora?” “Who cares, man?! It’s due tomorrow!” Which is one of the great things about film school: they give you deadlines. The question is, in that inevitable limbo between film school and the paid gig, how does one give a deadline real weight? I and every spec-writing film student I know are incredible pushovers. Are there freelancers out there who I can pay to think I’m an asshole if I don’t deliver after 8 weeks?
December 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am
My best recommendation for you, Sean, would be to join/form a writers group. Get some people in there that you don’t even know that well. Then when you set deadlines, you won’t want to let these people down. Set the deadline to workshop your material and then be sure to deliver by the due date. It’s as close as you’re going to get to film school pressure… until you get a paying gig, at least.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Six weeks sounds like an eternity to me.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
@Andreas, Lots of people use real or imaginary deadlines as motivation. I remember reading an article from a well-known advertising copywriter that said he liked to wait to write copy until the traffic manager (a kind of internal project manager at an ad agency) came to ask for it.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
That’s why every aspiring writer – and I mean EVERY aspiring writer – should take parts in as many competitions as possible. Real deadlines (not the “I’ll write for four weeks and after that for another four weeks and hey, let’s go for another four weeks” deadlines) are a fantastic way of boosting creativity.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
My personal goal for completing a script is eight weeks. 120 pages over 56 days is a little over 2 pages of screenplay per day. When I look at the numbers like that, it seems ridiculous that I could not complete a screenplay in that amount of time. This is assuming that when I begin an assignment, I’m working from a detailed treatment that everyone has already signed off on, which seems to be required for every project these days.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:39 pm
In an interview on YouTube, Sheldon Turner states that when he arrived in Los Angeles, he wrote a new screenplay every month for 12 months…..
….while working as a bartender.
I’m calling bullshit on that one.
He also says he reads a book a week, three newspapers a day and a screenplay a night.
Does he ever have time to wipe his ass? That’s the REAL question.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Oh man, I have so much trouble getting things finished. I have two dozen projects going at once because I can never stick with one for very long, but I don’t abandon most of my old ones, I just come back to them when I feel like it. I have set deadlines for myself before and I never meet them. I love the wooshing sound they make as they fly past. I suffer from what I have termed “typer’s block”. I have so many ideas, but I cannot seem to get them down properly. It all comes in fits and starts and I’m at the mercy of whatever mysterious force controls my ability to write. It’s really terribly inefficient. I think it might be an organizational thing. I haven’t found the proper way to organize my thoughts and projects. Anybody have any suggestions? I recently finished my first feature spec and I’ve been writing scripts for at least five years now. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I provide incentives for myself to finish a project. Right now, I’m working on a novel and I’ve promised myself a little treat for every 10,000 words I write – a Wii Fit, a good bottle of gin, a nice lunch somewhere, etc… Works for me.
December 1st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Sean Wolfson–
You can pay me to call you an asshole if you fail to deliver a script in eight weeks. I can do it by phone or email. But if I have to come to your house to physically threaten you it will cost you extra. Also, since I am a girl and relatively scrawny I’m not very physically threatening. I could bring a weapon, if need be. A crowbar? A 2×4? We’ll think of something. :)
John — thanks for these answers, you’ve cleared a lot up.
December 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Matt —
(good luck with your commissioned screenplay…)
My process: I write out of sequence, three scenes a night, at least two of which have to be substantial (not just a transitional sunrise or something). I fold a yellow legal pad sheet in half and hand write each scene, giving it an on-the-fly title so I know what it is with one glance. I arrange these as one would use index cards — Act 1, Act 2, etc.. I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for how many “legal pad” pages will equal a 27 page Act 1, a 50 page Act 2, so I can begin to cut/add if I see a certain act isn’t fleshed out enough.
When I’m done, I type it from beginning to end using Final Draft, rewriting and refining as I go, so my first “typed draft” is actually my second draft. It works amazingly well for me. No huge structure changes after the fact because they get fixed at the handwritten stage.
I’d like to read of others’ writing processes too.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
So is this time period all in? Starting from just the gem of an idea from a producer or from some other source material (book adaption, old movie, etc) All research and outlining and completely finished 1st draft in 8 weeks? Do you turn in and get feedback (notes) on anything in this time period or just work through the first draft yourself? Thanks.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Helpful info!
December 1st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
12 hours a day for 15 months and i’ve just finished my first script. it required a lot of adderall, social anxiety, and silver-spoon roots. my hunch is this: 6 of those months can be chucked up to the “learning process” – and say, another 2 months to research as a means of avoidance. that is, no screenplay of mine will ever take so long again.
John, my comment is a question, to you and to your readers too: pretend that what i wrote is hollywood-brilliant in such a way that things could never be the same again; it’s hard to imagine what that script might be, or if such a script is even possible. and if is, wouldn’t it require months of aggressive concentration? months to find not just that story that’s never been told in hollywood, but a way of telling it too? and wouldn’t it take months to speculate just why such a story has never been told in hollywood, and even more months to figure out how you might get away with telling it?
in a nutshell: writing a quality screenplay is 12-weeks is a talent unto itself. but what if you’re 24 and don’t have assignments or deadlines, any obligations at all other than the one you want: to write a screenplay – at any price – that will get made. isn’t this the time to ask yourself and others not “how good is my screenplay?” but rather “how good could it be….what am i capable of writing…what might be possible if i were to refuse satisfaction again and again until dissatisfaction was dissatisfying itself? could that ONE screenplay be the 3 screenplays so many professionals and gurus tell me i need?
i probably sound silly. i think i am.
thanks, i enjoy your blog.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I always try to meet a 6-week deadline. I rarely make it because, like most of us, there are other things in life that can distract you. However, sometimes I can very easily make the deadline. i wrote one full-length feature (120 pages) in less than two weeks. Some days I could only write a couple pages, and other days I could shoot out 35 pages without even realizing how much I’m writing until I stop and go back to see what I’ve done. I like hearing other processes. Very interesting and some very useful information. I have this enormous, 386 page book, called ‘The Screenwriters Bible’. Very helpful. I recommend it. Cheers
December 1st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Kevin,
The Screenwriter’s Bible is the devil.
Furthermore, books that also promise to give you THE formula and “structure” are also the devil.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’m a professional TV writer*. When I’m on a job, no-one is better at meeting deadlines than me. I can get up at 5am in wine-stained clothes from the night before (okay, only one time) and write like the wind.
But when I’m writing specs or passion projects, I can stare at internet horoscopes for weeks at a time. If you’re slack like me, don’t be too discouraged. Real deadlines can bring it out of you. I didn’t say “will” – just “can”. Subtle difference.
Personally, I always work from an outline because that, to me, is by far the hardest part of the process. Once you have that, and true character motivations, the characters kind of write themselves. Kind of.
She said, idling away while supposedly writing a spec…
*or I was, in my homeland, before I moved to the US.
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:36 am
Thanks heaps John, great advice as always… I have never really committed to writing anything more substantial then the short films I sometimes get to make… I’m a teacher and with the upcoming holidays I plan to try and knock out a pilot for a show I have been thinking on for a while… The time frame seems to fit…
The fact is that being in Australia (with the limitations of Australian tv) makes me feel that any idea I have is better then whats on… So how can I fail? :)
P.S. When you first wrote your warcraft lessons, I was intrigued… now I have “put” (wasted?) 64 full days of my life in it and weigh 30kgs more then i did… and thats with a 7 month break!… haha… no really… once I hit 80 im gone!…
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 am
I never have a problem with deadlines, and six to eight weeks has been more than enough for me when on assignment … when I’m working on my own specs, however, I find I take a lot more time with them, sometimes working on them for a year or so … I tend to keep a few projects going at once, so if one is dormant, another can be picked up … but passion projects, as someone else mentioned, always seem to take a lot of time.
Or it could be that they just don’t have a deadline, so it’s easy to meander – LOL!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
I agree that deadlines are key, and being able to accurately estimate the time you need. Deadlines kind of provide a push. Accurate estimates are just polite and professional!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
@ carol That’s why I love the creative process — it works so differently for everyone. I don’t think I could ever work off legal pad halfsheets, mainly because I would lose them as soon I wrote them.
@ N H I turn 24 in a couple weeks… Every story has already been told in some way or another. The more I read old books and watch old movies the less I believe in a concept of groundbreaking originality. So why write? Because there’s an opportunity to reinforce the great ideas and great stories of old in a new context. People who won’t read Dickens (or watch a remake of Great Expectations) might watch a film that represents some of those same truths in our society.
My question would be, is any story, a single 2 hour film, worth years of my life? Sure, I’d like to have a great life work I’m remembered for like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Lucas’s Star Wars (I have one), but I’m 23. I have a lot to learn.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Here’s my question though — in an effort to put this information in a context that’s more useful to us pre-professional spec writers.
When you get 12 weeks, say, to write a script for hire, what are you usually starting from? Is there typically already an outline in place for you to work from (perhaps written by the producer and/or a studio exec)? Or is it literally something like, “Gimme a great movie about a penguin. Twelve weeks. Go!”
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I try to write a little each night — unless the hate of my current job gets so bad all my energy goes to dust…
Then I just end up eating a cookie and falling asleep in my clothes.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Nick #25: You’ve already gotten the job at that point, so you’ve either pitched an original, or you’ve pitched your take on an assignment. Sometimes there will be a formal outline / treatment step after that, sometimes not. Either way, before you go to script, you’ll need to give the studio / producers a fairly good idea of what they’re buying — premise, characters, arcs, major beats, etc. — or they won’t buy it. Then, you’ve got twelve weeks to go off and deliver your draft. Although, typically they start asking for it around week 5. And you’ve also gotta hand it in to the producers first, get their notes, then do a “producer pass” before it actually goes to the studio. At least, that’s been my experience.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’ve found that what seems to work for me is beating out an act at a time, writing the draft up to the act break, then beating out the next act. I’m trying the approach of searing honesty re my productivity – if you visit my website you’ll see exactly how many pages I’ve written (or not) each day. This public humiliation approach is working pretty well so far.
I’ve instituted what I call the Chocolate Fish Awards to encourage other screenwriters to post their daily (or at least weekly) progress to my website – if you post your progress (that is, page count) regularly to my site, I’ll send you a chocolate fish when you finish your draft.
Normally the Chocolate Fish Awards are within New Zealand only, but for the next while I’m willing to spring for postage for up to six overseas Fishies. So if you’re interested in utilising the power of peer pressure (and chocolate), check out my website.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Deadlines are for pussies… true writers are unfettered by time… and use words like unfettered… now admit defeat and send my a box o’ chocolate fishies!!!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Hey Jack, I never bought a book that promised to give me the formula and structure or anything like that. I just like it because it taught me how to write in certain things that I was previously unaware of. Just have this one book anyway. hehehe cheers
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 am
I’m interested in this statement: For my work on Iron Man, I told them exactly how many days it would take to address certain issues, and delivered pages every night.
I’d like to see what the draft looked like before you received it and the changes you made to improve it. I think that would be interesting to read.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
N.H. #17, No. There’s no such thing as the magic screenplay that solves everything. Do you have to have three screenplays to start a career? No. Technically you could start a career with one, but if you do succeed with one script, you’ll soon be under pressure (from your agents and others) to deliver more screenplays quickly. If you’re starting out you can obviously spend as much time as you want to on a script, but keep in mind that no one cares if it’s your magnum opus. If you need to take a long time because you are learning the craft, great, but I’d recommend that you spend the bulk of your time developing your story and writing your outline since if the story doesn’t work, years of writing drafts won’t fix it. If you have a strong idea and a solid outline, you’ll probably find that you can write the draft pretty quickly.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:55 am
William Goldman says in one of his books (the second Adventures in the Screen trade, I believe) that he takes about 6 months to deliver a first draft screenplay. He says the first 4 months are spent outlining, making notes, ruminating. In the last 2 months, he writes it. Kind of echoes the 8-10 weeks that John and others suggest here. Though I tend to think that originals are much harder to write. With an assignment or adaptation (which is what most of these pros are doing), you’re given the story, characters, major beats. You just have to figure out how to present it in a way that’s interesting and fresh. Most of the heavy lifting is already done. Much easier to improve on something, than it is to outright invent it, no?
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Out of curiosity, John, how long did it take you to write Go and The Nines? If I recall correctly, neither of them were assignments. (Both of were three interconnected stories, though, coincidentally.)
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Kudos to Mr. August for giving us a glimpse into how the sausage is made.
I can attest that, having worked inside a studio, these perverse deadlines were often in force. I remember one tent-pole movie being filmed in Chicago where the production office was waiting on daily faxed pages from the $200K-a-week script doctors so that they could inform the actors what roles they would be playing. No matter, the movie was based on a best-seller and it opened at #1 on its weekend — a gullible audience was rooked out of its cash.
When one of the creative execs at that studio learned that I wanted to be a screenwriter, he gave me this sage advice: “Here’s what you need to understand about screenwriting: Every day, Idiots are paid millions to write shit. Those things are true separately and collectively: Every Day. Idiots. Millions. Shit.”
John opines that the ability to write quickly is an important skill.
I would add to that in order to continue to write quickly as a working writer, you cannot be precious about your work. 23 year old D-Girls will tear your work to shreds and you will be asked to start on page 1 and deliver in eight weeks AGAIN — but this time, incorporating everyone’s notes. With a smile! Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
If you ask the Producers “Do you want it fast or do you want it good?” you will sound like a scold and will be on the fast track to having no career. I was fired from a rewrite job for saying that in order to do the script justice (since it was being fast-tracked to production), a rewrite would take six weeks. No matter that after I was canned, the producers hired six more writers after me in two-week increments. It didn’t matter, I still lost the job.
The problem, I would argue, is that if you are a truly great writer, you have to employ some version of a moral worldview, and the extent to which you have to prostitute your craft and your scruples in this perverse business will eventually cause you to hate yourself at some level. Ever seen Oscar-winner Steve Zaillian, one of the biggest script doctors in Hollywood, in person? He always looks miserable. Like he wants to swallow Ajax. “Hangdog” doesn’t begin to describe it.
It’s a horrible, miserable profession and it murders the soul.
I’m kidding. It’s easy… you’ll love it.
Great blog John!
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
LOL McScruples.
You (not you you, but the proverbial you) gotta…
A. Have some perspective. You can support your family and sometimes get a movie made that you’re proud of (and btw, even if you got your way 100% of the time, the sometimes rule would still apply).
B. If you want to be precious, write something else (say, a Novel, a la David Beniof) or be so singularly brilliant that the usual rules don’t apply to you (think Charlie Kaufman).
It helps to remember that it’s a job, albeit a pretty great one.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 pm
McScruples lives in his aunt’s basement in a suburb in the midwest. That’s all I’m saying.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:16 am
“[...] the extent to which you have to prostitute your craft and your scruples in this perverse business will eventually cause you to hate yourself at some level.”
What’s so bad about prostitution? While I agree with everything else you wrote in your post, please leave sex workers out of this. Thank you.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:43 am
“The deadline is often the main force getting the script finished.” And how! I make my bread and butter in the tech/business writing world, but when I’m working with clients, I always tell them to give me a deadline that’s a week earlier than they actually need it. That way they’ll actually get it on time.
It’s like the old advice, “Wanna make a movie? Go out and spend $5,000 on film, and put it in your fridge, knowing you’ve got one year to use it. Then see what happens.”
December 4th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I wish I still lived in the Midwest! I’d rather not have a Los Angeles sized mortgage right now. As it happens I think I live within a couple miles of the Blogger himself. We both picketed at Paramount, so I’m pretty sure we’re in the same Hancock Parky hood.
What John’s OP is speaking to is the ability to create an external sense of urgency when none is there. When Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and a crew of hundreds are waiting for your pages, it’s not real hard to feel the urgency. But for the rest of us mere mortals, where does it come from?
Deadlines? Sure. I’m down with that.
When you get hired by a studio, you might imagine that the calculus becomes simple, right? You finish by the deadline because that’s your job. And if you do your job well you will be rewarded with success and money and a pony.
Ahh… not so fast.
All working writers have experienced the phone call that John outlined above. But what he omitted was that in 90 percent of studio development, after the phone calls and the noodges and threats and ultimatums, when you turn your script in, you will hear nothing for weeks on end. Months, even. But at least several weeks. “What’s wrong with it?” you’ll ask yourself. “I did what they told me to do. I held up my end. Were my pages that bad? Just tell me, for God sakes! Tell me I’m a talentless hack! At least that’s better than radio silence!” And still the tumbleweeds blow by.
You will quickly realize when working within the studio system that the deadlines are just as arbitrary as they were when you were writing specs, and often cynically so. And the reasons that you care about doing your work quickly and well will be used to manipulate you in perverse ways. It’s a job — yes. But instead of Michael Scott, your office manager is Franz Kafka.
I’m speaking about feature development, of course. This is the very reason why Trey Parker and Matt Stone, two hugely creative and successful dudes, have sworn off making movies altogether. It’s a screwed up, byzantine system. If ONLY it were like technical writing. If only.
What you will find, by and large, is a distressing lack of urgency. A distressing lack of situations where Tim Burton will need your script in three weeks. Terry Rossio has written about how most of the time, studios buy scripts not to produce them, but to control them. Within this environment, creative executives — especially the lower level ones — will toy with you like a kitten with a bedazzled sock because they can. They must! They need to justify their jobs.
Although it doesn’t seem like it at all, I swear I’m trying to be helpful. Because I noticed in John’s post a fairly simplistic causal connection between writing quickly on demand and being successful as a professional screenwriter (although I don’t think he truly meant it that way).
I don’t think it can be said often enough that success is not that simple, and it comes about for ridiculous reasons that are often disconnected from the nuts and bolts of what we do.
But — BUT! The ability to write quickly on demand is a hallmark of many people who are comfortable in themselves and in their craft. That’s the goal.
We write, and keep writing, not for the pony, but for the principle.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Wow, McScruples, I don’t know what to say to that except take your meds. I’ve certainly delivered a script and then had to wait, but really, so what?
The reason you need to be able to deliver on time (or something close to it) is because it’s the professional thing to do.
Is Hollywood a sweet, gentle environment? No. But neither is it as bleak as you portray. If your post can be helpful, it’s in helping people realize that not everyone has the temperament for this business. For those who have yet to make the trek from the Midwest, this is something worth considering before they set out.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am
This is a great post.
I’m a former production company exec turned full time (and I might add, broke writer). As an exec it was not fun to have a studio exec yelling at me wondering where the pages where. Then I would have to call the writer and have “that conversation”.
I spend the first two weeks on the character breakdowns, the outline, writing out major beats, and some dialogue. When I start my first draft I write between 5-15 pages a day, seven days a week. Once I’m done I take a day or two off from that project then start rewrite #1. Depending on the draft I might have a writer friend look at it or wait until draft 3 or 4, then I send it off to my manager for his notes.
I find writing the outline and very in depth character breakdowns really helps me. Once I start writing I don’t want to get bogged down with major structure or story problems. I want to focus on the dialogue and pace.
That first draft comes out fast and then it’s all about re-writing. That is the part of the process I really love.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:38 am
John, here’s what you need to clarify….
8 week from what? From a pitch to a first draft? From a fully realized, completed outline to first draft? Etc, etc.
8 weeks from scratch (or a loose pitch) to completion is a little much. 8 weeks from a completed outline is reasonable.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am
From outline. At least in my contracts (of which there have only been three, so take it with a grain of salt). My experience (and John’s) is 12 weeks for first draft, and then fewer weeks for subsequent drafts (e.g. 8 for the 2nd draft).
December 12th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Gotcha, from a completed outline, yeah. If you can’t complete a script in 12 weeks or even 8 from a fully realized, completed outline….you’re gonna have trouble out here in la-la land.