How do I write a short film script?
- Festival shorts typically run 5 to 15 minutes, which means 5 to 15 pages.
- Shorts that get made are the ones a small crew can afford to shoot.
- One location and two to three speaking parts is the practical sweet spot.
- A short is not a compressed feature; it is a complete story at its natural size.
- Many directors find their first feature deal through a short.
A short film script works with one character, one problem, and one turn, told in under fifteen pages. Resist compressing a feature. Write for a single location and a small cast, because a short that cannot be shot for the money available to short filmmakers will not be shot at all.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Shorts are the format where writing and producing constraints meet hardest. A brilliant fifteen-page script requiring a period street, a car crash, and nine speaking roles is a script nobody will make. Writing to what a first-time director can afford is not a compromise, it is the craft of the format.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A single dramatic question the short answers.
- One location, or two if the second is free.
- Two to three speaking parts, cast realistically.
- A turn in the final third that recontextualizes what came before.
- No voiceover explaining what the images already say.
- A production budget sanity check before the second draft.
Chapter iii·Example
A writer cut a short from four locations to one apartment and from six characters to two. The script that had sat unmade for a year was shot in a weekend and played eleven festivals.
Chapter iv·Related questions
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