How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

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  • How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

    I need to write a TV pilot that is supposed to be 7000-10 000 words. I'm wondering how many minutes does that amount to (and how many pages).

  • #2
    Re: How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

    A few years ago I read that you can take a script and divide the number of words by 180 to obtain an estimate of the number of pages. I ran some experiments at the time, and I have continued to do so through the years. Occasionally I take a random script and analyze it.

    First, I "normalize" the script. The most significant factors are the number of allowable characters per line for dialogue paragraphs, and the option to break a page only at the end of a sentence. I allow a page to break within a sentence, and I allow 37 characters per line in dialogue. (Final Draft has a default of 35 characters per line, and the default option for page breaks is to allow breaks only at the end of a sentence. Fade In uses a default of 37 characters per dialogue line, which I think works better.)

    Second, I paste the text of the script into Word or LibreOffice (free). I get the same word count with these two programs.

    What I have found is that the number of words per page varies a lot, but scripts tend to have between 180-200 words per page. Yes, some outliers exist - scripts with 160 or 220 words per page. But if a script has a typical balance of dialogue and action, the word count per page tends to be in the range that I mentioned. Of course, scripts with a lot of one-line paragraphs or blocky paragraphs will not fall into this category.

    In general, though, I have found that I can take the word count and divide it by 190 to obtain a fairly accurate estimate of the number of pages.

    So I would say that for your pilot script of 7000-10,000, we could estimate a script of about 8500 words. That would give a page count of about:

    8500/190 = 45

    Considering that your script might be a little longer than 8500 words, you are probably looking at something around 50 pages.

    I do not know why they specified the length in terms of total words instead of total number of pages. Actually, I do have an idea of why. The page count varies a lot because of short paragraphs in dialogue and action. The word count may, possibly, be more reliable, but that is difficult to say.

    "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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    • #3
      Re: How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

      Are you writing for the European market or American? Are you writing a drama or a sitcom pilot? Europe uses a different paper size than the US, which could affect your page count if you are writing an American pilot.

      Sitcoms can be single-camera or multi-camera. Single-camera sitcom scripts use the same format as feature films, but the US uses s different format for multi-camera sitcom scripts. You can google this subject and find many articles that will help you.

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      • #4
        Re: How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

        Originally posted by Dimitri001 View Post
        I need to write a TV pilot that is supposed to be 7000-10 000 words. I'm wondering how many minutes does that amount to (and how many pages).
        Who defines a script's length by the number of words it contains? I'd be questioning whether whoever's asking for this knows what they're doing. Or if this is a test to see how new writers react. Or a dumb joke. It doesn't sound right. We need a 25-page script to fill a 30-minute slot, allowing for ad breaks, sounds a little more realistic maybe. Good luck!

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        • #5
          Re: How many minutes and pages is 7000-10000 words?

          Publishing tends to be obsessed with word count rather than page numbers, so maybe the person was trying to speak book language?

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