Opening page length of a thriller

[nmstevens]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

I'm sick and tired of teaser openings.

What dramatic purpose does a big-ass explosion serve when the order it shatters was never established?

The same dramatic purpose that it served Shakespeare when he started The Tempest -- in the middle of the Tempest, without our knowing anything about any of the characters before they were wrecked in the storm and castaway, desolate, on Prospero's Island.

It throws us into the middle of action. It's exciting. It starts the story on its legs.

It's not always the best way to start every story, but it's certainly a perfectly good way to start some stories.

NMS

[goldmund]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

The same dramatic purpose that it served Shakespeare when he started The Tempest -- in the middle of the Tempest, without our knowing anything about any of the characters before they were wrecked in the storm and castaway, desolate, on Prospero's Island.

Haha, yet the opening tempest in The Tempest consists of characters talking for 5 minutes, and not deafening dolby noises, shaky cam, some people running and some other shooting.

Does anyone remember what a foreplay is, for chrissakes?

Honey! Not so fast!

[Ronaldinho]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

My first reaction was "why are you worrying about the page length of your opening?"

And then you said this:

the purpose of the setup is to have a close look and feel of my hero in a calm family setting before the action creeps and the pace takes off after page 11.

The problem is almost certainly NOT the LENGTH of the opening. It's that the opening is boring, and people are giving you the note in terms of page length.

You are almost certainly committing the very common newbie mistake of "not starting the story quickly enough."

One of the biggest problems I see in amateur screenplays is what I like to call "set-up-itis." You feel like you have to show us a whole bunch of details about the hero's status quo before you can start your story properly.

But the interesting thing is that you really don't have to do this. It's often better to start the story sooner, and trust the audience to fill in the details.

Take a look at "Alien." The inciting incident (for lack of a better word) is the FIRST THING that happens in the story: the crew is woken up because the computer picked up a strange message. The filmmakers "set up" who the crew is in the process of responding to do the message. You get clear, relevant to the conflict story - some of the guys don't want to do the job, and are pissed off about what they're getting paid. You learn exactly who these guys are, but the story is already moving so you almost don't notice.

Another example is "North by Northwest." The inciting incident is the hero being misidentified by the bad guys, resulting in his kidnapping. This happens in minute 3. We learn a tremendous amount of his status quo (his life before the story) over the course of him trying to clear his name. (His failed romances, his alcoholism, his relationship with his mother.) You never miss that the lead was not really "Set up."

I'm personally not a fan of the "teaser" opening, although they clearly can be done well. The problem with a teaser is that those "set up" scenes still have to be interesting - and right now they're not (operating under this assumption because of the note you got). A lot of times, writers try make boring scenes interesting by chopping them up or putting them out of order, but that doesn't solve the problem that the content is still boring.

If you have an already interesting scene and you think it makes it more interesting to chop it up, that's one thing - but don't think that you'll make a boring scene exciting by doing that.

Also remember that when an audience walks into a movie theater they know what movie they've come to see. They know what it is.

Watch out for set-up-itis. Often those scenes are good for you to write because they help you understand your character and his relationships better, but they don't belong in the finished script. 10 minutes is an eternity in cinema - it's about a tenth of your movie. Do you really want to use a tenth of your movie before the thing people paid to see starts happening?

Ask yourself what the latest point you could possibly start your script is. Start it there. Sometimes you'll cut it too close and need to add more context. But I've done this with my students: when I make them start a script at the latest possible moment, they invariably end up cutting a whole bunch of pages ... and then when I give them permission to put them back in they almost never do.

[wcmartell]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

11 inches. No opening page should be longer than that.

It's not the number of pages, it's what's on them.

- Bill

[montevideo]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

One of the biggest problems I see in amateur screenplays is what I like to call "set-up-itis."

I would think there's a spark on the page by page 2. Things start going out of plan. The audience will say, "oh, something's going down very soon."

I don't like slow openers, A.D.D. hmmmm...

But then yoiu have Bourne Identity. All we see is good movement on the boat, the mystery of who the hell is this guy then the first clue -- laser beam.

Well take out the fast movement and keep the rest and you still have something. Who's the guy and what's this laser number thing.

i should've said the opening sequence not page, cross cutting between two locations, house and exterior of house.

[-XL-]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

BOURNE is far from a "slow opener." The hook -- the mystery -- is there on page one: a body floating in the middle of the ocean. Who is he? How did he get there? Wait, bullet holes?! Fvck, he's alive!!

It isn't a big action setpiece, but it doesn't need to be. There's intrigue, tension, conflict, and just as importantly it sets up the central premise of the movie ("Who am I?") and establishes the tone.

I'm with Ronaldinho. Chances are, it's not the length of the opening but the content. It's tough to be specific without seeing the pages, but it could very well be a "starting too early" problem, or simply a tone issue (where the thriller elements -- suspense, intrigue, etc -- come in too late).

[nmstevens]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

Haha, yet the opening tempest in The Tempest consists of characters talking for 5 minutes, and not deafening dolby noises, shaky cam, some people running and some other shooting.

Does anyone remember what a foreplay is, for chrissakes?

Honey! Not so fast!

With all due respect, given what was available to Shakespeare and the limitations of Elizabethan theater, the opening to the Tempest was as shaky-cammed and dolby-ed up as they could have made it.

I presumed you were asking (and maybe I'm wrong) -- what the point is of starting a movie off with a big action sequence rather than taking the time to get to know your character, essentially "at rest" -- in their normal lives before the sh*t hits the fan.

Well, that is exactly what Shakespeare did in the Tempest. He starts his play in the middle of a big action sequence with our knowing nothing about any of the main characters. We meet them in the middle of a crisis -- to all intents and purposes, in the middle of a "big ass explosion" and we don't get to know anything about their back story or what their "normal lives" were like before, until after they arrive on Prospero's Island.

The Tempest by no stretch of the imagination, starts in the midst of foreplay.

It starts pants down, going at it.

NMS

[sc111]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

I'm wondering what everyone thinks of the technique of opening with an action scene that chronologically takes place later in the film and then using a super, like: 24 Hours Earlier, for the slow intro of protag in his/her regular life.

[wcmartell]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

"In Media Res" - every episode of THE UNTOUCHABLES opens with the big action scene from the last act, then flashes back to how we get there.

- Bill

[emily blake]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

It's not just The Tempest, either. Romeo and Juliet opens with a sword fight between guys we never meet again to introduce us to the conflict between families.

Hamlet opens with guards seeing a scary ghost.

Macbeth opens with three witches being all witchy.

Shakespeare knew back then that you gotta catch your audience with a bang to get them invested before you lay on the exposition.

Not all his plays open this way, but most of his best ones do. But, in each case - and this is important - the bang opening is plot relevant, because Shakespeare also knew he needed not to waste anyone's time.

[spinningdoc]

Re: Opening page length of a thriller

Stuff with a Latin name tends to be time-tested and proven, I've found. Then it gets over-used and trendy and people think it's clunky for a while, stop using it, and after a while someone else does it and it becomes a cool new trick.

The whole 'start with a flash forward to the end of Act Two' (which I think is what sc111 is talking about) is about at the 'it's clunky' point in the cycle now, from what I've seen.

See *this* from a UK-oriented competition organiser.

http://www.screenwritinggoldmine.com...pt/2012/09/28/

Oh, and cutting the first ten pages of my first draft is pretty much my default first bit of rewriting now. Generally they're smart and I love them, but they get nothing important done.