Only My Scriptwriting

It's Time for Another Decision

It’s Time for
Another Decision

I finished my spreadsheets for The Final Ritual scriptwriting project sort of. What do I mean by sort of? It means I have finished my spreadsheets for this movie. But I have finished two of them. Now I have to decide which one I’m going to be using.

I’m leaning toward the first spreadsheet. But I like the second spreadsheet more. After all, it introduces the main characters of Dinill and Marri right away, and according to Industry Experts, that’s what we are supposed to do as scriptwriters. Spreadsheet one introduces them within the first ten pages. But it’s not at the very beginning.

Industry Experts also say that the first ten pages of a script are the most important. If you don’t catch the Script Reader, Producer, Director, etc. by then, you won’t catch them. The only problem is I can do this with both spreadsheets. So, which one should I choose?

As I wrote above, I like the second spreadsheet more than the first spreadsheet. Why do I like it more? Because of the starting and ending of this movie with either Dinill or Marri. I don’t like the number of scenes each of the six main characters has. It’s jagged within the main characters and the secondary characters.

What do I mean by jagged? It means that there are forty-eight scenes for Dinill and Marri each. That’s eight more than the first Spreadsheet. But that’s my I like the first spreadsheet. It’s because Dinill and Marri each have forty scenes within this movie.

The second spreadsheet is jagged too for the secondary characters. Each one has twenty-six scenes. That’s four under for all four of them. Adding two of the twenty-sixes to Dinill or Marri and you get forty for Dinill and forty for Marri. The thirty scenes belong to the secondary characters aka Kealor, Pallim, Tylmer, and Corma.

Since the Teaser Act for this movie is about five minutes long, I can use either spreadsheet for it. After all, even if I use the first spreadsheet my main characters will be in the first ten minutes/pages of it. they just won’t be in it from the beginning or end of it.

Speaking of the Teaser Act, I am writing my single-paragraph Outlines as though it were a television movie. But I haven’t decided if it’s going to be a television movie or a feature film. I would like it to be a feature film first. Only because of the theme of it, it may be better as a television movie.

For a long time, television movies were a thing of the past. But with all the Streaming Services out there, they are starting to become a thing again. So, this movie could be either a feature film or a television movie. It could go either way. That’s another decision I will need to make.

What I will probably do is write it both ways. I will write it as a television movie. But if I decide to go for a feature film first, it won’t be too hard to make it into a feature film. After all, all I need to do is take away the Act Heading at the top of a new page, most of the FADE INs and FADE OUTs, and eliminate the Page Breaks.