Screenplays are formatted to provide approximately one minute of screen time per page, so a 120-page screenplay will roughly translate to a two-hour film. The theater allows for more wiggle room for the number of acts Hollywood movies will have three. Hollywood screenplays have three acts and movies are intended to be viewed without an intermission. Shakespeare plays are separated into five acts.
Recently, however, there’s a trend with many newer plays to be performed without an intermission if the length of the play is 75 minutes or less. The end of the first act usually has some type of major turning point or information reveal intended to hook the audience to return to their seat after their bathroom break. Most stage plays have two acts with an intermission in the middle. Movies may have many characters because they use images as a type of shorthand to reveal what makes them tick. With fewer actors in a play, there’s more time to reveal character. Screenplays typically have much larger casts, along with “extras” or “background actors” to fill out the many locations and make sets like a bustling train station feel authentic. Remember that plays are trying to plunge the depths of a character’s psyche, so the fewer characters, the deeper the playwright can go. Just like locations, stage plays favor fewer actors. Where does your imagination take you? Number of Actors In Plays Bottom Lineĭue to budget, space, and time limitations, plays are generally set in a handful of locations, but screenplays can be set all over the world – and even all over the universe. Screenplays can jump from location to location, and with big blockbuster films like the recent Black Widow, film audiences expect to be dazzled by a car chase in Budapest or a climax at the mysterious Russian spy-training facility called the Red Room. The use of a “black box” type of theater, where the walls are painted black and there are very few set dressings (like in Our Town by Thornton Wilder), is a clever cheat to help the audience imagine different locations. It’s also less expensive to have fewer locations and plays typically have much smaller budgets than movies. Location(s) In Playsĭue to the nature of plays being live, physical productions where stagehands have just a matter of seconds to change out the scenery between scenes, very limited locations are the norm. As the writer, try to determine if your story can be told with mostly visuals, or if dialogue is the most important story-telling device. Stage plays are dialogue-driven, while screenplays rely on images to tell the story and express character. Also in plays, the dialogue can be highly stylized with characters speaking in sophisticated, rhythmic language, even poetry in the case of Shakespeare. In film, the magic of a close-up often tells you everything you need to know, making words obsolete. This is necessary because, unless you’re lucky enough to sit in the front row, it may be difficult to read the actors’ subtle facial expressions or body language. They will often rant, argue and even break into monologues or soliloquies. In this medium, characters use words to communicate their wants, dreams, manipulations, and frustrations. Montages usually do not contain dialogue.
Movies also include montages, or a series of images edited together to help the audience process a lot of information in a very short amount of time.
Actually seeing a plane crash is much more dramatic than hearing about it. In a film, you’ll typically see a plane crash or a boat sink rather than one character telling another that a plane crashed or a boat sank. The general rule in writing a screenplay is to “ show, don’t tell,” meaning screenwriters try as often as possible to let an image communicate an idea. More info coming soon | Remind Me Images vs. Plays are generally small and intimate, told in and around a central location, with dialogue guiding the story. Screenplays are typically for large-scale stories, set in many locations, where the images, sounds, and action all really help tell the story. The Diary of Anne Frank is expressly quiet and intimate, making it a great experience for live theater. Dunkirk is highly visual, exciting sonically with lots of special effects making it highly suited for the cinematic experience.
Is it an epic World War II film with lots of action that takes place in the air, sea, and on land, like in the movie Dunkirk, or is it an intimate, family drama set in one confined space, like an attic in The Diary of Anne Frank ? Both stories are set during the same war, but they offer two very different experiences. If you have a story idea and you’re trying to figure out if it’s best told as a stage play or a screenplay, think about the scope and scale of the actual story.