Most pilot scripts fail not in Act 3, but in the first 10 pages.
What's the biggest opening mistake you keep seeing?
Screenwriting : Unpopular opionion: by Tash Smurthwaite
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Tash Smurthwaite, totally, most scripts lose me way before Act 3. The biggest opening mistake I see is when nothing actually moves. I want to feel real action in those first 5 pages… what the character wants, what they need, the pulse of the plot already beating. By page 10, I want to be pulled in as things evolve. If that isn’t there, I’m out.
And another one for me is when the script reads like a novel or a play, lots of telling instead of showing. It stops feeling cinematic, and I disconnect. But this is IMO :)