Screenwriting : Getting Screenplay's Made by Dylan Kalloo

Here in the USA there is no market for short films, so they are basically "practice". I directed and produced every short script I wrote (funded out of pocket back when everything was shot on film), and just made a stack of them. Because I am still home for the holidays, I've been hanging out with friends I used to make short films with (I'd crew on their films if they crewed on mine). We all had day jobs we worked our butts off at so that we could afford raw stock and processing. I see that you are in Canada, and it may be different there. There may be a market for short films which doesn't exist down here. By the way: page count is what matters, word count does not. So how many pages is your correctly formatted screenplay? Screenplays are (ballpark) about 1 minute per page when filmed, which gives people a good idea of how long the short will be. As a frequent Film Festival Jurist, I know that around 10 minutes is the "sweet spot" for short films when programming for a fest. A 10 minute film can be paired with a feature in a 2 hour block, and a 2 hour block of 10 shorts in the 10 minute range can fill a cinema. So knowing the page count is important.

Thanks William for replying. To be honest, I'm not sure whether short films are a big thing in Canada but I feel as if it wouldn't be as different to USA given that Toronto is becoming quite the center for film. That being said, I've only recently started working towards a greater goal with writing and film production so I may need to do further research. In regards to the page count, I'm only looking at 6 pages. It was my first screenplay so I wanted to write one that focuses more on atmosphere than actual dialogue. I'll make sure that if I ever do write another short, I'll aim for roughly 10 minutes. Now with my screenplay, I'm guessing that the best thing I can do with it is just make it myself?

Dylan - I've written a series of articles on getting short scripts made - http://www.anthonycawood.co.uk/articles/ they might help,

I don't know if this would help, but I know that certain countries are more likely to provide funding for short films than others. I used to live in Dublin, IE and I interned for a small film company there - and it seems that short films can sometimes be government funded. There are tax incentives in different states in the US as well, that help budding filmmakers. Just a few suggestions - if you want someone to look at the screenplay, give them a really good synopsis first, and not the whole script. Also, you could start talking to various film production companies, pitch them your idea, then see if anything comes of it. Hope that helps a little!

Not quite sure what "atmosphere" is... but you can easily tell a story in a short film without resorting to dialogue - just using the actions of the characters. And 6 pages is much better than 60 for a short. It's not that a short has to be 10 minutes - it's just that shorter is usually better than longer. 30 minute shorts limit the number of shorts and how a fest can program them... yet people often write shorts that are 30 pages or more. And what Karina said - Canada may fund shorts.

William - I guess I should use less vague terms like "atmosphere". But yes, I used actions of the characters over dialogue. That's good to hear about length for shorts. I tried to gauge how long a short should actually be so thank you for your insight. I do have a follow up question. I was reading upon spec and shooting screenplays. For short film purposes, if I were to say, submit a screenplay to a contest of some sort, do you know which one would suffice?

Hey Anthony - read some of the articles. There are some great resources here. Thanks for the help.

No problem Dylan, glad they were useful.