John August

Projects

Cut-scenes do not a videogame make

Prince of Persia, Rant, Story and Plot

Screenwriter and videogame developer Jordan Mechner, who is writing the Prince of Persia movie I’m executive-producing, has a [great opinion piece](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/story.html
) in the new Wired magazine. In it, he argues that videogame-makers need to stop trying to ape Hollywood blockbusters, and instead focus on creating _playable_ stories:

In a movie, the story is what the characters do. In a game, the story is what the player does. The actions that count are the player’s. Better game storytelling doesn’t mean producing higher-quality cinematic cutscenes; it means constructing the game so that the most powerful and exciting moments of the story occur not in the cutscenes but during the gameplay itself.

You can see the whole article [here](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/story.html).

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.

Prince of Persia retrospective

Prince of Persia, Projects

[prince of persia](http://media.ubi.com/us/games/pop3/videos/POP3_retrospective_trailer.wmv)Jordan Mechner forwarded me this Ubisoft-created look back at the [Prince of Persia series](http://media.ubi.com/us/games/pop3/videos/POP3_retrospective_trailer.wmv). It’s in sucky .wmv format, but does a nice job showing the evolution of the franchise from its humble PC roots.

Anticipating your inevitable questions:

1. No, I don’t know when the movie will come out.
2. No, we haven’t cast anyone.
3. Yes, the movie is based on “The Sands of Time,” the first game in the series, which is lighter and more swashbuckling than the later games.
4. Yes, we’re aware of the fact that Babylon (games two and three) doesn’t have anything to do with Persia.
5. No, we don’t have a director yet.
6. Yes, I think it would be great to find a (relatively) unknown Persian actor to play the prince. It’s not my decision, though. Just my opinion.
7. No, don’t send headshots. Or links. I’ll delete them.
8. I’m serious. Stop.

Who am I kidding? I’ll end up having to close comments anyway. But in the meantime, you can see the promo [here](http://media.ubi.com/us/games/pop3/videos/POP3_retrospective_trailer.wmv).

The answer is…Bob: The Musical

Projects

When I spoke to classes at Trinity University last week, a frequent question was, “What are you going to write next?”

It was a well-timed question, because I wasn’t entirely sure. There were two projects on the radar screen, both of them rewrites. I had a week to decide whether to do either.

The first was a difficult-but-potentially-great bio-pic about a major figure of the 1970’s. Everyone and their brother had tried to make the movie, but it had never gotten to the starting line. But there seemed to be new traction, along with a new (and high-profile) director who seemed up for the challenge.

The other was a high-concept comedy about a guy who hates musicals, who wakes up one day to find himself trapped inside one. It too had a well-chosen director, along with a studio that was very eager to make it.

I described both projects to various classes and listened for their reaction. For the bio-pic, I got respectful nods.

For “Bob: The Musical,” I got a laugh-and-or-chuckle, almost every time.

I think that’s because it’s really easy to see why the movie would be funny. In five seconds, you can visualize the trailer, the TV spots, and the one-sheet. You can hear what the star would say on Leno: “It’s a movie for people who love musicals, and especially for people who hate them.”

But the fact that Bob is obviously a movie doesn’t mean it’s obviously the movie I should write next. Here was my decision making process:

__1. Which movie is more likely to get made?__
Remember, as the screenwriter, I don’t get to decide which of the movies I write actually gets made. For that, I’m beholden to a hundred other factors, most of them out of my control. So if I’m going to dedicate months of my time to a project, it makes sense to pick one that will get made. So for that, I’d say Bob. It’s easy to make, easy to market. The bio-pic, on the other hand, has been in development for more than a decade. My script could be just one more sitting on the shelf.

__2. Which movie will be better for my career-slash-reputation?__
Tougher call. If I wrote a kick-ass version of the bio-pic, and if the director did a great job, and if the film got a terrific critical response, then I think that would be the winner. Notice: that’s a lot of “ifs.” But by the same token, if the film didn’t work (a “noble failure” in industry parlance), I’m not sure it would hurt me that much.

Even if I wrote the superlative version of Bob: The Musical, I wouldn’t clear any space on the mantel for awards. It’s just not that kind of movie. And in disaster, I’m not sure the movie would do me much harm either.

__3. Which is the more challenging?__
The bio-pic, no question. I’d be working out of my comfort zone, most notably in the time period. I was born in 1970, so trying to write about the adults of that era is difficult. In many ways, I’d feel more comfortable writing about cavemen, because at least that way I’d know that no former hippie was going to come up to me and say, “Man, you totally missed what it felt like to be there.”

By the way: challenging is good. All things being equal, I’d rather work on the challenging project than the one I could write easily. But challenging work takes longer, and forces me to ask the question…

__4. Which do I have time to do?__
This was really the deciding factor. Because of prior commitments, I have a limited window in which to do this next project. So whichever rewrite I choose, when I’m done with it, I need to be able to walk away. That was looking unlikely with the bio-pic, given the director’s schedule and work history. Also, knowing myself, I would probably choose to stay much more involved with something I’d struggled harder to write.

So, after meeting with the director, producer and studio folks, I signed on yesterday to rewrite Bob: The Musical. The original screenplay was written by [Mike Bender](http://imdb.com/name/nm0070500/), who is now adapting a Spanish film series over at New Line. Considering that his brother is one of the producers on Bob, I suspect he’s okay with getting rewritten.

I’m eager to get to work. Obviously, with Charlie and Corpse Bride, I’ve written musicals before, but this is the first time I’ll be able to incorporate songs into something approximating the real world. It’s also a chance to riff on musical cliches and conventions. Marc Shaiman (South Park, Hairspray) has signed on to write the songs, who seems ideally suited for the task. So here’s hoping.

One irony is that the director is [Mark Waters](http://imdb.com/name/nm0914134/), who’s made a good career for himself despite having turned down Go when it was offered to him. An unwritten rule of Hollywood is that eventually you work with everyone, so it’s nice to see that coming true.