How many scenes should a screenplay have?

Answer 1

It all depends on how long your movie is, but remember the golden rule, one page = 1 minute of screen time. So try to limit each seen to 3 pages. taking that a screenplay might have around 40 scenes for a decent movie. My second film just wrapped so i know a thing or two about screenwriting.

It all depends on what your story calls for. There is no maximum and no minimum to scenes. If you were to write a movie intended for TV, then you have a seven act structure. It is entirely possible for a single scene to be one entire act in this. It would be much more difficult to do this with a Feature film, who's acts are split into only three. However, its not impossible.

Now, for an example of a very short scene:

INT. NIGHT - STUDY

ARTHUR paces back and forth in his study, holding the letter in his hands. He stops for a moment, the throws then crumples the letter in his hands and throws it hard.ARUTHURDamn it!

And that's it. That's the whole scene Just a small paragraph and two words. The whole point of this is simply to convey the characters feelings about this letter, and because of what we already know from watching the movie, this letter is somehow important.

A scene could also be as long as fifteen or thirty pages. Scenes that are too long, however, can often lead to boredom in the audience. Think of a scene as a paragraph or chapter in a novel. The paragraph contains a single thread of idea. The next paragraph has another idea. All the paragraphs add up to a single thread of idea, which makes a chapter. Scenes do the same thing: they have a particular idea to them. As in the example provided above, the idea in this scene is basically An Unwanted Letter.

So whatever your writing, just write your scenes as long as they need to be and include however many you need. Remember that you are typically looking at a 90-120 page script, so you can only have as much text and as many scenes as will fit in that page limit. You can go 180 pages for the equivalent of a three-hour movie, but such movies are rare and must be very good, like Lord of the Rings or Titanic. One page is about 1 minute on screen.