Few topics generate more debate among beginners than the question of the ratio of script time to screen time. That is, how many pages of script does it take for how many minutes of film?
Of course this is ridiculous. It’s obvious that the whole issue can be resolved with a simple formula or two.
Or is it?
Let’s try to figure it out, starting with the simple formulas mentioned above:
1. It’s ordinarily considered that two pages of a fact film’s two-column shooting script averages out a minute of screen time.
2. Similarly, a page of a feature film’s master scene script allegedly is equal to a minute of screen time.
Is this true? Well, now, that all depends.
Suppose, for example, that the two pages of fact-film shooting script is made up of descriptions of 15 shots of mechanical components. Each shot is scheduled to run not more than two seconds. In consequence, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out that 15 shots times two seconds comes out at 30 seconds—one-half minute.
Or, suppose a page of your feature film script includes that immortal line, “Five hundred Indians ride over the hill.” How much running time does that take?
The issue, you see, is that each page of script is different.
But—and here we get the other side of the coin—they’re not all different, and they’re not often wildly different. Put together, one after the other, the average fact film script will run about 30 seconds per page; the average feature, about a minute.
Which is not to say that it still doesn’t pay to use your head at least a little. Thus, if you have a whole series of pages that strikes you as running extremely slow or fast, make allowance for it.
Ordinarily, that allowance should take the form of including a few too many pages, rather than a few too few. Why? Because your script is going to pass through many hands, and be filmed under circumstances you can’t control. In consequence, you need to take it for granted that a few lines or shots or scenes just may be blue-penciled somewhere along the line. Also, that when the crew gets out on location, they’ll discover that it takes Harold Hero only 17 seconds to climb the cliff, or that the dog flatly refuses to frolic for more than seven, no matter how his trainer curses.
And then, when the boys view the dailies, they discover that two-thirds of the footage in the shot of Hilda Heartlorn swimming across the creek is light-struck, to the point it can’t be used.
That kind of thing explains why the old hands would rather write a little fat than thin, as in the case of two TV scripts now beside me. Each is designed for a one-hour show—which is to say, 60 minutes minus commercials, for an actual on-screen time of 42 minutes. Both scripts were done by old pros with years of experience behind them. One runs 72 pages, the other 75.
‘Nuff said?
Beyond such generalities, here are ten factors to bear in mind when judging timing:
1. Number of locales.
Every time you change to a new setting, you have to establish it in your viewers’ eyes. Establishing takes footage. Footage takes time. So, the more changes of setting, the more screen time will drain away. And if these changes are of a type that take only a line in the script (INT. - SPACESHIP - DAY), the normal balance between pages and minutes can get seriously out of kilter.
2. Subject.
A shot must be held on the screen long enough to convey the essential information about it to the audience visually. Obviously, less footage will be needed if the subject is a simple monument than if it’s a complex piece of machinery.
3. Action of the subject
I’ve already mentioned the classic gag about the Indians riding over the hill. In general, simple action will be more easily understood—and will take less screen time—than complex.
4. Distance.
A long shot takes more time to grasp than does a closeup. Why? Because Viewer may have to search the long shot for seconds before he can decide the point being made (“What the Sam Hill gives with all that desert? Oh, I get it! There’s a rider over there in the corner”), whereas a screen-filling closeup of Chief Running Sore makes its impact instantly.
5. Composition.
The shorter the shot, the simpler the composition is going to have to be. Long S-curves in the D.W. Griffith tradition, patterns within patterns, and the like, take time to comprehend.
6. Color.
Footage in color takes longer to understand than footage in black and white. I learned this the hard way via a shot of a herd of Black Angus cattle grazing on lush green pasture land. Given enough distance to show the herd as a herd (see point 4, above), black cattle and green grass so blended that we had to throw out the footage. In black-and-white workprint, in contrast, you had no trouble at all separating them.
7. Size of screen.
A “normal” film frame has an aspect ratio (ratio of width to height) of four to three. The various “wide screen” gambits change this ratio—Cinemascope, for example, offers a ratio of five to two.
The normal screen allows for faster cutting, simply because the audience doesn’t have to scan so large a span in search of each shot’s point, the thing it’s emphasizing. Result: A film designed for wide screen will actually include fewer shots than one shot for normal.
(Incidentally, do bear in mind that many theaters project all films wide screen, whether they were shot for it or not. Which explains why so many actors’ heads are cut off just above the eyebrows, and why audiences leave theaters frustrated and baffled when the final, crucial action happens to take place a bit too low. Television is even worse, of course, in the way it not only trims edges but, because of small screen size, virtually eliminates anything meaningful where shots at any distance are concerned.)
8. Depth.
It’s easier and quicker for viewers to grasp what’s going on if action takes place on a virtually two-dimensional plane. The greater the effect of depth—that is, three dimensions—in a shot, the slower the cuts must be.
Pans, tilts, zooms, dolly shots, and the like tend to control—and to slow—cutting. Consider, for example, the shot in which Our Hero makes a crucial announcement. Camera pans to Heroine so we can see her reaction. Fine, but less time and footage would be involved if we merely cut to her shocked face.
Which is not to say camera movement should never be used, of course; merely that it does have negative aspects which should be weighed against possible advantages.
10. Context.
Closely related to point 1, above, is the fact that if your audience has already seen given settings, people, equipment, or what have you, they’ll catch it faster in succeeding scenes.
Bearing this in mind, you as writer can use such familiar material to speed up the cutting and thus reduce footage and screen time.
On the other hand, you don’t dare forget that, overdone, too much of the familiar creates a devastating—and deadly—sense of monotony.