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Old 07-11-2016, 12:42 AM   #29
Nerwen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Marwhini View Post
Technically, as in according the rules they teach at UCLA on Screenwriting.
The "rules" as applied to script-to-film or novel-to-script? Can we have a reality check here? According to you, it would seem the "rules" state that an average-length novel must be adapted as a trilogy, or even a quadrology. Ever notice how that generally fails to happen?

Quote:
The 20 minutes, average, per chapter is all that needs to be considered in getting a six-hour long production (technically six-hours and twenty-minutes).

You don't need to worry about breaking down the page-count, because you can just work to try to make it so that the length each Chapter covers averages out to 20-minutes per chapter.

So you might have some chapters that are dealt with in 15 minutes (or maybe even 10-minutes or less), and some chapters that are dealt with in 25-minutes to 30-minutes (or longer).

As you keep pointing out, pacing for the chapters will be different, allowing some things to be dealt with rather quickly, and other things that might need greater exposition, visualization, or narrative.

With 19 chapters, times 20-minutes per chapter, that is 380-minutes, or 6.33 Hours.

Leaving each "Episode" at roughly 2.11 hours, on average (or roughly 127 minutes each, minus credits, and any Intro).

The 1:1 is an AVERAGE, meaning that not every page is going to result in a full-minute.

But that is averages out for such.

That is why it is called a "heuristic" (meaning "Rule of Thumb" or "best guess" or "approximation" - technically it is Greek for "That which is found by accident/unusual").

Some pages of the Novel might not warrant more than a few seconds of screen-time.

While others might warrant five minutes of screen-time.

The point being that when all is said-and-done, they average out to about 1-minute per page.

That is pretty much the rule (Heuristic) that they work toward, or use when dealing with estimating how much screen-time is going to be created for a given script.

The estimation might not work out to be 100% accurate, but when you take a long at all movies produced, and compare their length to the script that produced them, you get that relative 1:1 rule (page of script per minute of scene/screen-time).

When estimating a budget for a production, that is how Film is bought, and how to estimate production budgets. I have only taken a few Film Classes, mostly dealing with VFX and Writing. But it is a subject that I have had to go over when looking at how much it is going to cost us to shoot the documentary we hope to do in the next couple of years.

The budget might go over, or under that estimate, but that is what they use to get a "bust guess" when looking at financing a production. And it seems to be pretty reliable, assuming that you have records of the average number of takes for a scene that your director usually uses; with a new director, you have to just make a best guess there, but they have a heuristic for that too (never having wanted to Direct, I never looked into it).

MB
Yes, but the question is why you would want to do this? Why adapt a fairly short novel into six hours when two or three would be more usual? Why- and this is where you came in, remember?- increase those six hours to nine or twelve? How is this "technically" mandated "by the rules of screenplay writing, and alteration to a script"?

(And look, while it is certainly very kind and helpful of you to repeatedly explain the basic script-to-film rule-of-thumb to me, I'd really appreciate it if you'd note the parts where I point out that a.) I know that and b.)it's not actually a rule for adapting a novel into a screenplay in the first place. I'm getting the impression that you think the two are the same, else why bring it up?)

Again, I am genuinely interested in this topic- what I'm looking for is more in the nature of actual ideas of how it could be done without resulting in an extremely turgid and padded film.

Now, you *have* made a concrete suggestion here:
Quote:
But that would be applying a roughly 30 minute per chapter formula (using the 9 - 12 hour estimate), given more attention to some details, and visuals. It isn't that hard to squeeze 10 more minutes into each chapter (on average) by simply adding a few seconds into each shot/scene.

That would add up quickly, and would not slow things down significantly.
All right. The problem I have with this is, why wouldn't it? Remember, you're talking about increasing the length and number of shots enough to turn a book of circa 300 pages into nine to twelve hours of cinema. That's, you know, quite a lot...

Now Marhwini, I'm really trying not to sound testy, but sorry if I come across that way regardless. It's just I feel you're tending to deliver lectures rather than actually replying, and I'm finding it a bit frustrating.

EDIT: Looking back through this thread, I realise I may have been seeming to miss the point at times, but that's because you've been switching between your "9-12 hour rule" and your "6-hour rule" such that I've honestly found it hard to keep track of which one you're talking about. I asked why the "usual formulae" demanded a 9-12 hour film and you replied by telling me why they demanded a 6 hour one. I think. And again, I apologise for the probable hectoring tone. I'm not suggesting you're doing this on purpose or anything like that.
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Last edited by Nerwen; 07-11-2016 at 07:13 AM. Reason: clarification
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