John August

QandA

Ratio of pages to screen time

QandA, Words on the page

How do you (roughly) calculate the ratio of script length to screen time?
Would you use a different calculation for different genres?

–Rebecca

The very general rule is that a page in the script should equal a minute of screen time, which is one reason the industry has standardized around 12-point Courier for the font. Since most screenplays are around 120 pages, the movie should work out to be 120 minutes, or two hours, assuming every scene in the script makes it into the movie.

Of course, a page full of action would likely take longer than a minute, just as a page of rapid-fire dialogue would be a lot faster. That’s why before a movie goes into production, the script is often “timed” to estimate how long the movie will be, so the director and producers can plan accordingly.

A “script timer” is a professional reader who estimates how long each scene will play, and thus, the length of the overall movie. Generally, the script timer will take into account the director’s vision and style when timing the scenes; the David Lynch version of a scene would tend to run longer than the Michael Bay version.

Many script timers are in fact the script supervisors, who will be set during the entire production helping the director, actors and editors maintain continuity and catch mistakes. From the screenwriter’s perspective, this is one of the most important people on the set, since he or she always has the director’s ear, and will be the person correcting actors who mangle their lines.

Are characters based on people you know?

Go, QandA

As a writer, do you worry about everyone in your life thinking characters
are based on them?

–Dari

Surprisingly, the issue almost never comes up. I guess that means either,
(a) everyone in my life has already accepted that something they say or do
might someday end up on screen, or (b) they’re angry and repressing their rage.

A writer is inevitably going to borrow ideas from real life, both consciously
and unconsciously. With me, it’s dialogue. I’ll hear somebody say something
perfect and immediately jot it down on one of a hundred tiny slips of paper.
(Probably half of the time, I’ve actually misheard what they said, the same
way song lyrics seem much more poetic when you can’t quite make them out.)

But I’m pretty careful to never completely base a character on somebody I
know, especially not a close friend or family member. It’s just not worth the
potential grief.

Of the scripts I’ve written, GO was closest to using actual true people and
events. Tiny (played by Breckin Meyer) was inspired by Anthony Satariano, the
sports editor of my high school paper, who was a white kid talking black way
back in 1988. The food poisoning from shrimp at a Las Vegas buffet happened
to my friend Wende in 1993, while the hotel room fire is a possibly apocryphal
story related to me by my friend Tom
Smith. (No, it didn’t happen to him.)

It’s worth noting that of all these incidents, the only one I asked permission
to use was Tom’s, probably because he’s a writer himself, and might have been
saving it for one of his own projects. He was gracious enough to let me have
it.

Another factor which reduces the "Is-That-Based-On-Me?" tension
is that a lot of the projects I work on already have some form of source material,
be it a book, a TV show or whatnot. For example, my screenplay for BIG FISH
involves a lot of my experience watching my father die, and my frustration
at trying to get to know him. But the fact that it’s ultimately based on Daniel
Wallace’s book makes it easier for my family and everyone else to get some
emotional distance, and differentiate the movie-dad from my actual dad.

Specs, treatments, and pitches

QandA, Treatments

What’s the difference: spec script, treatment, pitch and
outline?

–Fabio Bueno

These terms deal with different forms or stages of a screenwriter’s work.
A "spec script" is a completed screenplay, probably about 120 pages
long, that a writer wrote on his own. That’s the "spec" part, meaning
that no one paid the writer in advance to write it, just like a house built
on spec doesn’t have a buyer until it’s finished. Most writers’ first screenplays would be considered specs, because it’s rare for someone to hire a writer without
reading his or her work first.

"Treatment" and "outline" mean different things to different
people, and one writer’s treatment might be another’s outline. Regardless,
treatments and outlines map out a movie story, often as a precursor to writing
the full screenplay. An outline might be one page or might be ten; a treatment
could be three pages or could be thirty. James Cameron is known for writing "scriptments" that
are 70 pages or more. Ultimately, the length is less important than the function:
hopefully, an outline or treatment will help a writer spot problems early on,
so that the finished script will be better. Treatments are usually written
in paragraph rather than screenplay form, but there are no hard and fast rules.
Outlines are often more rudimentary, with just sluglines to refer to sequences.

A "pitch" is the oral presentation of a movie idea, where screenwriters
explain to studio executives that their movie is "Ghostbusters meets Titanic." God
knows why screenwriters – who spend most of their days typing in dark rooms
– are supposed to be able to suddenly become eloquent and impassioned hucksters,
but such are the weird realities of Hollywood. Ideally, a pitch should feel
like how you describe a really good movie to a friend who hasn’t seen it yet.
Casual but excited. Truthfully, I usually write every word I’m going to say
ahead of time, then internalize it so it feels like I’m ad-libbing.
There might be situations when you give a "written pitch," but truthfully,
that document would probably be an outline or treatment.

I’ve been on panels dedicated to the topic of pitching, and I’ve come to the
conclusion that it’s not a skill that can really be taught. It’s like stand-up
comedy. You have to learn through practice in front of actual human beings.

Themes

QandA, Story and Plot

After viewing many films and reading many books on the craft of screenwriting
one of the most important aspects of film seems to be theme. I’m sorry, I’m
starting to ramble. My question is this: is it bad to formulate an entire screenplay
on the basis of a theme, or does that get in the way of creativity? Should
an idea stem from a theme, or should the idea produce the theme, or can it
work both ways? I thank you in advance for reading this, I know that you have
a tumultuous schedule.

–Brian Formo

"Theme" is one of those words that’s thrown around a lot without
any consensus about what it’s supposed to mean. Here’s my definition to add
the to mix:

Theme is the emotional, intellectual or spiritual issue at the core of the
story. It is the "dark matter" that gives a movie weight – you don’t
notice it directly, but when its missing, the movie seems frivolous and disconnected.

Sometimes, it can be summarized in a word. In X-MEN, the theme is mutation,
and all aspects of the story radiate around this word. The heroes and villains
are all "mutants," different than normal people. The villain wants
to change – mutate – all the world’s leaders. Rogue and the others suffer prejudice
and persecution because of their "otherness." In crafting the story,
the writers focussed on parallels in the real world: particularly Martin Luther
King versus Malcolm X, and the controversy over gay rights.

In ALIENS (the sequel), the theme is motherhood. Almost asexual at the start
of the movie, Ripley adopts a surrogate child in Newt. When Newt is kidnapped,
Ripley must face off against the alien mother, resulting in one of the best
lines of dialogue ever shouted: "Get away from her, you BITCH!" (Interestingly,
in Cameron’s original script we learn that Ripley did have a child of her own
once, but after all these years asleep in space, Ripley
has outlived her.)

In GO, the theme is shouted by several characters in crucial moments: "GO!" Which
means, "I don’t care which way you go, you have to go now!" In each
of the three stories, characters get in way over their heads, but there’s never
time to stop and think through to the best answer. You’ve made a mistake, but
you have to keep going.

Which comes first, idea or theme? Ultimately, I think they’re too inter-related
to divide. When I was brought in to work on TITAN A.E., I explained to the
studio executives that I loved how the Earth was blown up in the first three
minutes, but that the only way to thematically balance the Earth’s destruction
was to create a new world at the end. The story, which had previously been "Treasure
Island in Space," with the Titan holding the Earth’s fortune, became a
Genesis allegory, albeit with a lot of laser blasting and cartoon cleavage.
Thematically, it was now a movie about Home, and every beat of the story focussed
on some aspect of it, from the initial destruction, to the derelict station,
the drifter colony, and finally the Titan itself.

The movie tanked, but how ’bout those themes?
In your own work, it’s definitely worth sitting down and looking at whether
you’ve really explored the idea-within-the-idea. The world doesn’t need another
hollow action movie, but it could use another SPEED (you can’t slow down),
MATRIX (reality is an illusion), or RUN LOLA RUN (what if you could do it again).
It’s no coincidence that the best movies of a category generally have the best-explored
themes.