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I would like to take a part in screenplay competition. The main goal is a script for a short film (8 - 10 minutes).

I have several questions about it:

  1. How long should the script be?
  2. How many elements it should consist of? (It is a writer's competition, so, the director(s) will ask the writer details if necessary, not sure).
  3. Are there any examples of scripts of this length of short films?
  4. Should I worry about time metrics at the end of editing? (Dialogs could take a lot of time, for example, while action scenes are very quick).
Cyn
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gaussblurinc
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1 Answers1

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There is a very strict standard format for screenplays, designed so that each written page of the script will take approximately 1 minute of screen time. The formatting is different for action and dialog in order to maintain the page/time ratio no matter what the content. So, if you follow the format, a script for an 8 minute movie will "magically" be 8 pages long.

https://screenwriting.io/what-is-standard-screenplay-format/

This is not long, so your story should probably be simple and to-the-point rather than detailed and complex. The following link is to a site that posts examples of scripts for short films:

http://www.simplyscripts.com/original-short-scripts.html

Chris Sunami
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