Screenwriting : Length of script by Steven M. Cross

No that's perfect -- definitely not too short.

Hey Steven M. Cross! Great question. The short answer is no that is not too short to be a feature. By way of comparison, the first TOY STORY script was 76 pages long. It is to so much the length - but the quality on the pages. Is there a strong enough 2nd Act? Are there compelling B-Stories and Subplots that can carry the narrative in addition to the A-story? If so, then you're in great shape!

It depends on how things are described. I have a fight scene in a screenplay that reads.

“They brawl across the floor, scratching kicking and fighting”.

If we say 60 lines per page. That would be a 1 second fight. Which is not correct.

Read it out loud. Play all the rolls. No matter how bad your acting is, you’ll at least get the timing.

Bonus, if you can’t say a line, no one else can. I learnt that things may read well, but be a bastard to say.

Dan gives great advice - compare to what has sold.

But 85 pages is in the ballpark - as long as the story is all there. As Jason said, short scripts are often an indicator of Act 2 problems, but if that's not a problem - you're good.

If you are making it yourself then 1page=1 min doesn't fit the bill. It also depends on what you have written and where the events unfold, in which language it is.

Location and Language makes a huge difference. If I or any writer writes a script in Sanskrit or any Cantonese or any Asian or even German language, one can write a 2 hour film in 50 to 70 pages too. In Sanskrit which is mother of all languages, you can write a script even in 20, 30 pages lol.

If you watch any regional Indian films with subtitles, you will be baffled and will have a hard time catching up only reading the english subtitles. As subtitles runs so fast and any monolingual audience might feel floundered unable to get the whole conversation or culture and might feel the film is dragged too long while it's not so, thematically. Same is the case for African languages too.

Point is, our thinking brain got it's own native language influence on English writing/speaking. So it influences how we write dialogues or scenes and changes the length of the script or story. So if you are German or African American writing English script the native language will have strong influence and change the length of your script.

This is the same reason many writer's first few drafts will have 120 to 160 pages while they keep wondering why and then try hard to cut down chopping of many needed nuances of stories, character depth just to fit the 90 page mark ruining the story's overall tone of it. And after film being made, they feel like, Oh why I have included this or that, why I cut it off this part so on. In India we call this, elephant trying to wear a cheetah's pants. lol

I see you are from Missouri, so you also might have French and Spanish language influence culturally rooted in your vocabulary, so the word cloud is bigger in your mind and how you speak and write any script even if it's in English will change the script length.

There is a recent movie on news which was all happening in Zoom Conversation. It was written within 50 60pages, I think. Even I have written a zoom conversation driven script as ghostwriter for one of my friend. It was like 4 5 pages which can be shot film in 10, 15 minutes. I wrote it during pandemic. Sometimes there are 120 pages but film turns out to be 1:20 Hr long.

However, if you are writing and submitting for film competitions or studios they have like 90 pages mark which is absurd but that's what being propagated as standards. But technically it's not feasible. We are writers, not accountants to do an excel sheet reports. So go with all creative ways to write, innovate, bring new ways of writing is what I would say what makes you feel comfortable. Later you can fine tune it based on what makes the film's tone, speed, studios' requirement etc.

Finding out how long your story should be depends on so many things. ... In other words, it depends on everyting; It's never "or"/"or", it's always "and"/"and".

Depends on the context.

There's no right answer overall. You'll come to learn how close you write to the one-page-per-minute rule with productions.

In terms of producers wanting to read the material, it shouldn't be a problem. Most indie producers are limited by a ~95min runtime so need something close to that.

85 pages is cool if it works for the story. I try to write scripts that are 80-100.

It 'depends'. There is no specific page count answer. What does the story say? That's your answer.