The Importance of the Script Part 2 AKA Download Celtx Now

So now that you've written your script and you're ready to move on to the next steps of preproduction, figuring out how long your movie is going to be and breaking down the script.

So first, figuring out how long your movie is going to be; this part is easy. You simply take your script and see how many pages the script is and that is how many minutes your script should be. This is important, because if you have a ten page script you should be looking to make sure you have enough footage to cover those ten pages. This means that when you get into shooting and editing you should be looking to make your film ten minutes.

I've been on shoots where the scripts are around 10-12 pages and when you get done with shooting and editing the film ends up being about 20-30 minutes. Just think about that. When the person wrote the script there were envisioning the film to be about 10-12 minutes, the actors were envisioning the film to be about 10-12 minutes, the DP was envisioning 10-12 minutes, everyone was expecting the film to be 10-12 minutes until it got into editing, when either the editor or the director couldn't let their vision of the film die and just had all of the shots in the film.

So, If you write a ten page script make it a ten minute movie.

Next, what you are going to need to do is breakdown your script. If you used Celtx to write your script then breaking down your script is really easy, because there is a breakdown tab on the right hand side that allows you to easily add actors, characters, props, locations, etc. into their different respected groups, which then can be generated into a report to easily know who is required for each scene.

After breaking down your script, I'd recommend using the storyboard feature and calendar feature in Celtx to help schedule your film for shooting.

If you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of Celtx as a program, it's amazing considering it is free to download to your computer and a small fee to download it to your iphone, ipod touch, and ipad. You can download the program at www.celtx.com.

Also, below I have included a couple books that can help you understand all of the complexity of what celtx has to offer.

Mastering Celtx by Terry Borst
Celtx: Open Source Screenwriting by Ralph Roberts