I recently finished a 160 page Feature Film Screenplay-- now I realize 160 pages is far to long for most Producers to take on as a film project but the idea for the film was originally writen as a 60 page T.V Pilot for a network such as HBO. Now I havn't really made much of an attempt to sell the script as a Pilot, primarly because I don't know who to send it to . But my question to anyone this may concern or who may wonder the same thing is, in the long run, which is better to get into, Film or Television? This isn't based on how much money you could stand to make but instead is based on which will do a better job of getting your name out. All of your opinions is appreciated.
Screenwriting : Film or Television? by Jeremy Hunter
Other topics in Screenwriting:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
I hear 120 is a good amount to aim for in length. Personally I think it would be best to get into either one of those. Once you make your name in one it can be used to get into the other. However this is just a guess, i am not a hollywood insider.
Damn, thats good advice, Dan. So the best thing for me to do is go through these scripts of mine a few more times, make them perfect and then send them to independant producers?
Be careful with Independent Producers. Do your homework first on them! I went to one Independent Producer, who had his own production company with Reds HMI Lighting-the works, and all he wanted to do was sabotage the film project from the beginning. Plus he was a low budget horror film maker, and even though he had all the top of the line equipment, he still could only make low budget "Sc-Fi Channel" feeling movies at best.
Good advice, Ryan. Going to one of these independant Producers, should I also take into consideration what it would cost to make the film and make changes appropriate to budget in the script?
@Jeremy. Just from experience my script, cast dependent, is budgeted at $25M-$57M with an immediate projection of $175M. This independent Producer wanted to shoot it for only $1M because he "wanted to stay away from SAG/AFTRA and any other unions". You can't get any actor for $10,000 to shoot for 6-9 months for that kind of money, let alone B or A rated actors. It's impossible! Besides, you get what you pay for, and $1M as compared to $25M is a big difference in quality and will show. @Dan. Have you ever tried doing research and homework on reputable professional analysts? A good analyst is the "middleman" standing between you and very powerful Producers, Directors, etc. Once you get their stamp of approval, your script gets sent off to their pool of these professionals in their circle.
2 people like this
Jeremy, I agree that you should work on the script because 160 pages that started as a 60 page TV pilot sounds like the writing has got to be...I guess I would say questionable. 1 TV hour show is like 43-45 pages, right? (because of commercial breaks).... and 1/2 hour is 19 to22 pages or somewhere in that range....Feature film scripts round out to 90 to 120 pages for speculation...So if you're numbers are running higher you're over writing somewhere...unless you are putting a teaser in for some reason....the over writing would be either in your action, or dialogue or you have some shooting script stuff in there that should not be in a spec script. After you finish the script just make a list of recent films that are similar to it as far as budget, concept, genre...and look up the Executive Producer, Producer, Co-Producer, Director, Agencies and Managers involved in the making of those films use IMDB or Google and look up their companies, find out their submission policy and query them to see if they're interested. There are some video pitch websites out there like Greenlight and there's another one that takes reality show pitches...can't recall it off hand, but you could do a video pitch of the concept to some companies that way too. Hope this helps.
Karen, thanks for the great advice, I was thinking about where the script went wrong the other day. When I write a screenplay it's my sandbox and sometimes I get a little lost and pay to much attention on finding a way out. The film, sixty pages into it in my words was filled with suspense and intrigue, interesting charecters and good dialogue but the last hundred pages, which I typed out in about three days were dry and lost that pace that the script had in the beginning. So I thought about a way to change it, to make it better which is narrowed down to a single decision the main charecter makes which will drop the page number down significantly. Instead of the main charecter walking away from his coke baron father who admits to killing this charecters mother when he was a child the main charecter removes a gun from his wasteband and aims it as his fathers head... but he waits to long, the bad guys enter the room and its a Mexican standoff, instead of this charecter deciding to do something he did before which was leave when he had the chance he stays to long and now has to make a hasty decision, kill the bad guys or kill his father and this one decision will make this script significantly shorter while keeping that pace that it had in the beginning. I'm currently working on another script right now so I will have to come back to this one another time but I do intend on re-writing the second half to make it work. I will be sure to get into contact with the proper people once the script is something I have 150% confidence in. Since it's not perfect I'm not gonna waste my time sending it anywhere.
http://www.broadjam.com/artists/songs.php?artistID=75069&mediaID=486214&...
Laura, thanks for the great advice, I was actually hoping to pitch the show to HBO as it would make a much better television drama then feature length film, simply based on how much I have in the pilot, but I don't have any contacts with HBO (As of yet). I grew up watching shows like "The Sopranos" and watch "Boardwalk Empire" whenever I have the chance and as far as I`m concerned HBO is THE network to get into contact with. If only a knew how to make that happen. As far as the blacklist is concerned I will certainly look into it and I value your comments. Thank you once again for the great advice :)
Some work still has to be done on the script before it's ready to send anywhere but I thank you for the great advice, Laura. I'm looking into all links you sent me now.
I say make it a two or three part series. Seems some of them love sequels and trilogies.
I have twenty pages to go before the first film script is finished, these charecters, the story, it's almost like its writing itself at this point and it's becoming something like "The Godfather". I'm not saying it's as good as "The Godfather" but some scenes, I can't even figure out how I came up with them. At this point I've had no problem writing it, only if I'm writing it for myself but I'm going to split it into a three part series and hopefully some producer out there will one day want to have it produced. If not a movie series it would always make a good T.V show and I will look into getting Netflix or Amazon studios interested.