Script Development and the Commissioning Process

Kate Mather

Length of a Short Film‘A short film can be anything from thirty seconds to thirty minutes in length – and this means they can do and be a great many different things. However, if you want to get your short into a festival, then keep it to no more than ten minutes. Remember: you can tell a great story in as little as 30 seconds. And chances are, the longer the short, the more expensive it will be to produce.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/tips_shortfilm.shtml

This quote gives you information’s on how long a short film is supposed to be. It says if its longer then 30minutes the chances are the film will cost more to produce, so from this quote I know that the longer the film shots the longer the film the more it will cost to produce the film.

Writing for a Short Film‘I think the crucial thing to bear in mind is that a short may require as much planning as a much longer film. It means less time writing out the script, obviously, but the vast majority of the time spent writing a screenplay is spent on laying the foundation work. Working out what to leave out can be more difficult than working out what to put in.’ http://www.robinkelly.btinternet.co.uk/shorts.htm

This quote tells me that even though you’re only writing a script for a short film, it will take as much time to write it as it would to write a long film script. Because it’s only going to be 30 minutes long you have to put more effort into planning what you’re going to put into it and what you’re going to have to leave out.

Storyline of a Short Story‘Film is about telling stories in pictures, which is the most economical way of telling a story – and in the making of shorts, economy is everything. Remember the golden rule of filmmaking: show, don't tell. The idea and story can be focused enough in scope to exist entirely in the viewer's head, and so logic and time can play a much smaller role in the journey from beginning to end than in other formats.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/tips_shortfilm.shtml

In this quote it tells you, you don’t tell the story you show it. If the storyline is good then the viewer will be able to tell the story easily. The better the picture the more clearly the story will be told and will be easier to understand.

Screenplay for a Short Film‘It is crucial to remember that film is a VISUAL medium. You don't tell your audience your story, you SHOW them. You must learn to write a screenplay VISUALLY. Write what they will SEE and what they will HEAR. You might love your characters and know what they are thinking, but the discipline of screenplay writing is how to show it on a screen. When it happens, it may be just done with a look, often improvised on the movie set. So just write the pictures, sounds, and speeches, and leave the rest for the filmmakers.’ http://www.screenwriting.info/01.php

This quote tells me that you do not always need to tell the story, you can tell a story with pictures too. In the script writing you have to write what they will see and hear. You will have to make the story line clear so that the viewer can tell what the story is about.

Writing a Short Film Script ‘Although seen stories have unique qualities to film, screen stories for both short

and long films often share characteristics with other kinds of story telling.’Writing The Short Film Third Edition

This quote tells you that behind a story there is a meaning. Also it says it is harder to write a script for a short film as it would for a normal film, because you have to cut straight to the point whereas in a film you can drag things on and have longer scenes. To me this means you have to have a beginning middle and end which cuts straight to the point for the short film, and the story line has to be clear so that the viewer gets the story behind the film.

Writing the Short Film page 32

This quote says that sound is also important to short films as it creates a whole dimension of meaning for visual images of a scene. This quote tells me the sound can make a scene seem more intense or can give visual images of the scene.

Writing The Short Film Third EditionBy Pat Cooper, Ken Dancyger

The Screenplay

When you write a screenplay it has to be from your own experience and it can change when finished, because the theme may be totally different. You wont know the final story until its completely written.

Writing About Your Own Experience

This quote says write from your own experience because if you are 40 year old woman and you write about a teenage boy it wont be as realistic as you have never been a teenage boy. So your writing about a 40 year old woman would be more realistic as you are a 40 year old woman and had have experience.

Conclusion After using books and the internet to research how to write a short film script, I now have more information and understanding about writing scripts for short films. I know how longthe short film should be, how much you have to put into writing a short film and itsometimes takes longer to write and decide what to put into the script and what to leaveout as it would for a long film. How clear the film should be for the viewer to understand thestoryline. I found out it is better to write about your own experiences as you will have moreof an understanding then it would be to write about something you haven't had experienceof.