John August

Corpse Bride

Changing heroes mid-stream

Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, Writing Process

Germain Lussier looks at how and why the upcoming Zootopia switched out its lead character late in production:

In Zootopia, which hits theaters March 4, a young bunny named Judy Hopps leaves home for a job as a police officer in the big city of the title. There, she must team up with a con-man fox named Nick Wilde to solve a crime. Nick, voiced by Jason Bateman, is jaded, sarcastic, and believes everyone is exactly who they are. Judy, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, is exactly the opposite. She’s cheery, optimistic and believes anyone can be whatever they want.

For years, Nick was the focus on the film, with Hopps playing a crucial, but secondary role. But on that fateful November day, a little over a year before the film’s release, director Byron Howard realized they had to make the switch.

In live-action films, the stages of writing, production and editing are distinct and sequential, so you rarely see this kind of major 11th-hour refocussing. By the time you realize you’ve made a fundamental mistake about your central character, you’re largely stuck with what you’ve shot.

Animation, on the other hand, is iterative. As you move from screenplay to storyboards to scratch reels, you see the story coming to life — and the problems front-and-center. At each step, you’re screening and debating and rewriting. Talk to animation folks and you’ll hear countless stories of sidekicks promoted to heroes, and whole plotlines ditched.

In our Scriptnotes episode with Jennifer Lee about Frozen, she described some of the major changes to Anna and Elsa while in production.

I’ve mostly worked in stop-motion animation, which falls in the middle between live-action and CG animation. For Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, we had a lot of flexibility up until the shutter clicked. From that point forward, it was very difficult to make significant story changes, much like a non-animated movie.

New interview up

Big Fish, Charlie, Corpse Bride, Go, Projects, The Nines

I did a 30-minute internet radio interview this afternoon with Sam Heer, in which we talked about Go, The Nines, the Burton movies and screenwriting in general.

If you’ve heard other interviews with me, there will probably be nothing revelatory. But it’s amusing to hear how fast we both manage to speak. It really sounds like we’ve been artificially sped-up, but it’s just a lot of caffeine.

Are animated specs worth the time?

Corpse Bride, Genres, Projects, QandA

questionmarkI have been tossing around an idea for an animated feature film. I have a ton of notes, character breakdowns, beat sheets, outlines, etc., etc. Now its just a question of putting it down on the page. My question is fairly simple and straight-forward: Am I wasting my time?

I’ve read that writing specs for animation should be avoided, as the big animation studios typically take pitches, ideas, and submissions internally. Is this the case?

I know you are credited on Corpse Bride and Titan A.E. I’m assuming those were both work-for-hires. But what do you think about specs?

— Jack Mulligan

Go ahead and write it. It’s very unlikely that an animation spec will get sold and produced, but remember, that’s not the only goal of writing a spec. You write specs to get your next job, and if you can write a great animated spec, do it.

Both Titan A.E. and Corpse Bride were rewrites of movies already close to production. In both cases, I didn’t need to write at all differently than live-action. There were small semantic changes — in animation, you number for sequences rather than scenes — but when reading the script, you wouldn’t necessarily know that it was going to be animated rather than live-action. So don’t freak out about some special formatting you see in a printed script or guidebook. Just write it like a normal feature.

Last year, I had a meeting with Disney Animation, in which they talked through all of their upcoming projects. It’s clear they really develop in-house, and aren’t searching the town for new material. And I suspect that’s true for all of the majors.

But the animated spec you write could be a great sample for live action, particularly if it showcases comedy and set-pieces. If you write Shrek, you can write funny, and someone will want to hire you.

How accurate is the page-per-minute rule?

Big Fish, Charlie, Charlie's Angels, Corpse Bride, Go, QandA

questionmarkEvery screenwriting book I’ve read, class I took, and basically the first rule I learned says:

ONE PAGE OF A PROPERLY FORMATED SCRIPT = APPROX. A MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME.

I know one page of say a battle can last five minutes whereas one page of quick dialogue my last ten seconds if the actors talk fast… So my question is, is this rule true?

Has your 120 page script been a 2 hour movie or was it more like 90 minutes?

My main reason for asking this is I want to make my own low-budget movie. And the best tips I get say keep the script 90 pages or shorter. And to make it a play (dialogue heavy, one location).

However, from my short film experience and being an editor, I saw a 90 page script of a friend be only 55 minutes when edited. And I know Kevin Smith’s CLERKS was 164 page script, but is only a 90 min movie because of the dialogue.

So, how can I find an accurate length of the movie before I shoot it. Or should I have a 130-page script if I want to make my own feature? How do the big boys figure out if there’s enough actual screen time on the pages?

— Matthew Kaplan
New York City

Your instinct is right: the one-page-per-minute rule of thumb doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. True, most screenplays are about 120 pages, and true, most movies are around two hours. But the conversion rate between paper and celluloid is rarely one-to-one .

That’s why when a movie is in pre-production, one of the script supervisor’s first jobs is to time the script. She or he reads through the screenplay with a stopwatch, estimating how long each scene will play, then adds up the total running time. Generally, they go through the whole script twice, averaging the times.

How accurate is the script timing? Well, that depends on how well the script supervisor has factored in the director’s style. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain featured long, contemplative shots of the heroes herding sheep, which another director might have dropped altogether. But generally, the script timing is in the right ballpark.

Although a script supervisor has more experience, you can time a script yourself. My advice would be to read the dialogue aloud, while trying to pad for non-spoken moments. It’s easier with some scripts than others.

As far as my own films:

Go was 126 pages, but came out at 103 minutes — without any major scenes left out. It wasn’t play-like, but the pacing was quick.

Big Fish was 124 pages, and 125 minutes long. To my recollection, only one significant scene was omitted, so the page-per-minute rule came close.

Both Charlie’s Angels movies went through so many drafts during production that an accurate page-count is impossible. But the first drafts were around 120 pages. The original film was 98 minutes; the sequel was 106. The pacing was obviously quick.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 128 pages, 115 minutes.

Corpse Bride: 73 pages, 76 minutes.