Script Frenzy 2012

[HoopyFrood]

So I was sitting here, having a think on scriptwriting topics (tee hee) and I realised what time of the year it was.

Script Frenzy time!

For those who aren't aware of this, it's the scriptwriters' version of National November Writing Month (where you battle to write 50,000 words of fiction).

For us scriptly types, during the month of April, participants are challenged to write one hundred pages of script.

Sounds scary. But that's about three and a half pages per day.

I signed up to it last year and started adapting an old children's novel that I loved (and love). I...hem...got about forty-five pages into it and kind of ran out of steam...

If I'm going to do it again this year, and I really should, I'm going to go charging in with my own idea. I've had a few rattling around my head for a while now and this may well prove to be the motivation to stop thinking and just write.

Anyway, have a look at the site and see if it's something in which you'd be interested: http://scriptfrenzy.org/

 

[Jo Zebedee]

i didn't do nano, cos I was churning out so many words at the time I didn't have time, but this is something I'm going to have a serious think about and see if it gives me the kick I need to actually try scripting again.

i don't want to get out of the habit of writing, but it would give me some distance from WIp, maybe let the creative juices flow and bring me a fresh pair of eyes. Good stuff, Hoopy.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I fully intended to do it, but I think I am attending a scriptwriting course in April and I'm not sure if it will help or hinder with it.

 

[Ursa major]

Given that the target is defined by the number of pages, presumably the typical page is also defined? Is that so?



(For Eastercon attendees, reaching the target will require rather more than 3½ pages being produced per day.)

 

[HoopyFrood]

I have to say, when the going gets good, you can definitely do more than three pages. And yeah, script pages are much more...minimalist, which is another reason why you can burn through them. Get someone on a bit of a monologue and you can easily fill half to three quarters of a page.

I don't know how sensitive the dohickey is on the site that counts the pages. I don't know if it recognises the difference between a blank page and a full page, or if it just literally counts how many pages have been entered into it.

I think with any full length script, you'll get some pages with more business, some pages with more dialogue, that'll average out across the whole of the piece.

 

[Ursa major]

I was thinking of more basic stuff, like line spacing, margins, font and font size. Or, to bring it all together: whether they have a preferred template.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Oh, I definitely think they would only want the standard script page layout. It's such a precise thing that you would be massively hindering yourself if you wrote it without.

I see that Celtx has teamed up with Script Frenzy this year and is actively on the site. So the opportunity for everyone to have a programme that automatically sets everything out in the correct manner is right there.

 

[Gumboot]

I was thinking of more basic stuff, like line spacing, margins, font and font size. Or, to bring it all together: whether they have a preferred template.

Yes, screenplays have a standard format.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_Making_Manual/Screenplay_Format

 

[HoopyFrood]

When I first started writing scripts, I stupidly tried to do the layout myself in Word.

After about two pages of this, I quickly changed to a programme that does that for you.

 

[Glitch]

When I first started writing scripts, I stupidly tried to do the layout myself in Word.

After about two pages of this, I quickly changed to a programme that does that for you.

I second that. It was a major pain in the backside.