Tips: Your Short Screenplay

So you have an idea... Now how do you transform it into a short film? The first step is to write a screenplay. But even before you do that:

Map it out.
Outlines and storyboards are key to helping you write your script. You should know your beginning, middle and end before you begin writing. What's more, the elements laid out in the beginning should be clear in the film's ending; they should have purpose.

Now you're ready to write. Make sure you:
Format your screenplay correctly.
There is a particular style that is used for screenwriting. Final Draft is a program that will help you to format your screenplay to the industry standard.

Keep your desired length in mind.
Typically, each page of a screenplay translates to one minute of film. So, the screenplay for a feature film might be 90-110 pages.

But your short film will probably be 5-20 minutes long. It could even be as short as 1 minute! That means that there is no time for subplots and complicated plot twists. This brings us to our next tip:

Create a strong opening scene.
Your opening scene will need to quickly set the story up: it needs to introduce the characters and communicate the conflict. In Bob Giraldi's short film, Second Guessing Grandma, the first line of dialogue is "You shouldn't have told her." This immediately establishes that the son has told his grandmother something difficult (that he's gay), and that this film will deal with the consequences of that.

Now you're into the meat of the story. You'll need to:

Write your remaining scenes. Easier said than done. Economy is integral to writing scenes for a short film, so remember, a good scene is dramatic; it moves the story forward; it reveals something new and important. In short, each of your scenes should be engaging and purposeful.

Don't try to write the shots.
You're screenplay shouldn't be filled with directions like, "Close-up" or "The camera pans out." Instead, describe your action well enough that the kind of shot needed should be obvious, and trust your director of photography to make the right call. He or she might even come up with a shot that you hadn't thought of, but that better serves the story.

Don't write long dialogues, or worse, monologues for your characters.
The actions of the character are often far more meaningful than what they say. One of my favorite short films, Spike Jonze's How They Get There has almost no dialogue. But there's meaningful interaction between the characters that establishes a rapport between them and builds up to the dramatic conclusion. All in under two and a half minutes.

So you have an idea? Well now get to it-- write that screenplay!