Hello, good People.
I have written a screenplay that is dialogue driven for the first 18 pages. The first event takes place only on the eighteenth page. The second is on twenty second. The play ends six pages later. It's title is A Recipe For Disaster. I hope It's unbalance structure will not be a recipe for disaster. Please let me know what I should do? I'll post the first couple of pages for you to see. Thank You.
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It's called a 'movie' for a reason... It comes from the root move i.e. it implies movement or action of some sort.
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At 22 pages it is a short I take it.
Get some GI Joe figures and a camera. Take some still or even video of the toys. Make something approximating a previs. You play all the characters. You can get a free version of Davinci resolve to cut it all together.
If you can’t make it work as the writer no one can.
Then you will have the answer to your question. As writers we have to think through everything.
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Dialogue can work. Tarantino comes straight in with dialogue in Pulp Fiction. He uses dialogue as subtext though. It's rarely about the moral virtues of a foot massage. It's purpose is to reinforce the scene beat. Think about it. two guys chewing the fat about a foot massage then in the next scene what happens? I don't think it's an easy ask. I think you have to say more with action that why the dialogue has meaning. Maybe you'll break the mould though. Do what feels right for the scenes, if you are doubting your work there's maybe good reason.
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By the "first event", do you mean that's when the conflict begins? Page 18 may be too late for a short film, though it may not, depending on how interesting the scene[s] preceding it is. Although, it's honestly hard to say with so little information. What actually happens?
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It could work. Best to see it.