Screenwriting : Seeking short feature length screenplays for reference/rip off by Dan MaxXx

Action full, dialogue free pages often run longer than a minute, right? Still, I keep seeing 80 pg as the feature min. But what's your end game? A family-friendly dog film on cable over the holidays might be perfect at 55 min. Or a family film at 80 minutes... also perfect.

the end game Is "not to get fired", have control, write a low budget feature that I can part- financed myself. Been Reading Gilroy's Bourne Scripts as a guide. I am not a fan of 1-line action descriptions and I dont want the page to read like bullet lines. (But that writing style fills up the page count). On the side, Ive been reading old filmmaking magazines about animatronics and use of puppets on live action movies. Not sure if people still do old school tech compared to modern Computer animation.

Roger that. Like the idea of puppets. You'd have my butt in a seat. Far prefer real puppets! For what it's worth, when I write action, I break it up into shot set ups as my mind sees them.

Yeah, Im trying to write like a filmmaker. hard to train a real Dog to hit the focus marks for the cameraman :)

Here's a link to a short dog film with very little dialogue - www.dogsandphilosophers.com

Thus the need for dogged determination and a focus puller who knows it's all in the wrists.

Writing a screen play about dogs sounds ruff!

Nothing to bark at either!

Re short page count...The Artist is short if memory serves

A feature at 31 pages??? My current horror feature is sitting at 64 pages and I think that's too short and I'm working to extend it to at least 80.

"All Is Lost" is 31 or 32 pages, the movie with Robert Redford.

thanks, Anthony. Will read

Great movie too... All is Lost that is, amazing the way it keeps the tension up with just one character and almost no dialogue.

I know this thread is not specifically about All is Lost but I gotta say, I really disliked that movie.

Yellowstone Falls which sold to QED in 2014.

Dan: I think the screenplay for Eraserhead was under 30 pages, though I have never seen the script. There is a really cool backstory to that whole production. David Lynch is a Determined Filmmaking God. So is Jim Jarmusch. I vaguely remember an article in Film Comment from maybe ten years ago where he said the screenplay for The Limits of Control was something like 25 pages, and that was a two-hour film. The Artist was something like 40 pages, too. I did see that script.

thanks Bill & Regina

Dan MaxXx: No problem. Can you please post your top-five to CJ Walley's top-five thread, so I can finally buy some much-deserved writer a Stage32 pitch? I'm dying over here for CJ to announce a winner, and this $45 bill in my pocket is a 'hankering to mosey down to the roulette wheel and drop itself on 22. Come on back, 22 come on back 22, 22...22..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7JNUH7P2Aw

Depends on how the film is being made. Paranormal activity didn't even have a script, and neither did Blair Witch for the most part. The one sentence statement "Then Rome Burned" can be shown in 10 seconds or 10 minutes depending on director vision.

An exec told me about a feature script that was 50-55 pages, it was about a pack of wolves, all told from one wolf's POV. No dialogue, just action. He said the key was that it was really well paced and you could see how it's a full feature just from reading it. A lot of people who write short features just don't have enough story and drag things out to get to 100 pages. With these shorter ones (which I highly recommend newbie writers reading this do not attempt - learn to crawl before you can walk, ya know) the key is pacing, and making it clear how this would be a feature on the screen. Good luck!

Hey Erik, I believe that was Yellowstone Falls, which I posted about above.

http://deadline.com/2014/04/qed-buys-yellowstone-falls-52-page-spec-abou...

Hey regina Do you have a PDF copy of Yellowstone Falls?

I do have a PDF. You should be able to download it from a Black List download site.

You are correct! I thought that sounded familiar.