The Fat and the Thin

Small children and babies ought to be plump.

So wrote Sei Shonagon in her Pillow Book over a thousand years ago, and her intimation was that everyone else ought to be not. 

Those of us currently living in Fat America salute her prescience. 

Shonagon also said, Nothing can be worse than allowing the driver of one's ox-carriage to be poorly dressed, so I don't consider her to be an infallible sage.  But I thought of her while doing two days of studio notes on a comedy project that had last come in at 144 pages and was now weighing in at 124.

110 pages is okay, just over 100 is good.  Why?  Ask a stand-up comic about going in late and getting out early.  Disturb, delight and depart before they can think about what hit 'em.

Life is short.  Comedies should be shorter.

Movies in general are too freakin' long.  Here's Ryan D'Agostino at the Daily Endorsement, in a compressed version that makes a leaner read:

Normally in life, getting more for your money is a good thing. But movies aren’t Pringles, and 20 percent more free isn’t necessarily what you want. Even 10 minutes of unnecessary screen time can cause a good, tight story to fray. “I Love You, Man” was funny at 104 minutes, but it would have been precisely as funny at 95. ... And was it me, or did the fifth hour of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” start to drag?

You’ve probably never walked out of a movie and said, “It was about 20 minutes too short.” ... The original Rambo is an economical 91 minutes. “Annie Hall” is 94. So is “The Road Warrior.”  “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” needs only 92 minutes to convey the entire high school experience. Every frame matters. Some stories are better longer, of course. Even at three hours, “The Godfather” doesn’t waste a millisecond. But lately too many directors are indulging themselves at the expense of your time.

Consider Judd Apatow.  The 40 Year-Old Virgin: 114 minutes.  Knocked Up:  126 minutes.  Funny People: 146 minutes.  Given that his first is his best, what are we watching as these times engorge?  The sight of one man's ego becoming obese.

Here's a quote for those of you in the world of pre-pro spec-writing, overheard in a studio story department: 

"It's 104 pages?  Thank God!"

The best movie I saw this week is under five minutes long.  Courtesy of fellow blogger Scott Myers, here it is.

 

[images: showhistory.com, images.smh.com, pzrservices.typepad.com, fesfilms.com]

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

Will be interesting to see what Judd Apatow's new movies made at Universal end up clocking in at. He's in your wheelhouse now... Can't wait to see what "the Mernit touch" does. It's closely related to the Midas touch, right?

This pre-pro writer still has 120 pages as my scipt page goal.

Shorter is fine as long as key momments or funny set peices aren't left on the cutting floor. The goal is to create a fun, intesting piece of art -- not just to boast the movie came in under 90 minutes.

Billy, you gave us the punch-line, "It's 104 pages? Thank God." But not the set-up. Who's the joke on?

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[ScribeLA]

Hey Billy,
I've been saying/thinking this for years. "The Breakfast Club" is exactly 90 minutes. Now, consider it at 115 minutes - not a classic, but a bloated, if entertaining, diatribe....
Scribe

[Bill]

I'm glad you posted this. From a strictly practical and self focused point of view, length is a problem for me. I use to watch a movie almost every night (on DVD) but found I was staying up way too late. I found myself looking at times on the DVDs and, while I know it is no way to decide on what to watch, I did find it affected my decisions.

I confess that when writing I have a tendency to over-explain, include too much background information and bore the daylights out of people as I do it. I once spent about five years working on a short story simply because I couldn't bring myself to delete a section - even though I knew, all along, that it it had to go.

I read an essay by, or interview with, Gabriel Garcia Marquez years ago where he said great writers are great not for what they've written but for what they haven't. In the context of the piece, he was referring to what was left out, dropped, as unnecessary.

Maybe scripts need a word or page limit. :-)

[J]

I so agree with this.

During my days as a ScriptReader, I'd just throw the ones over 130 pages out.

Who writes an epic as a spec?
Whoever you are, let's hope we never meet.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=802349586]

I definitely believe in the economy of story and usually come out around 95-100, but as studies have shown page numbers don't always equal screen time.

I guess a lot of it is in the hands of the director as you said. Of course, it's quicker to read 10 100 page scripts than 10 120 page scripts, but it's all about the director being economical in the footage he leaves.

[mernitman]

EC: Funnily enough, the 144 down to 124 page script I mentioned is Apatow produced (thus, speaks for itself). As for the quote, it doesn't matter whose script it was - the point is, your readers love short.

Scribe: True that.

Bill: If only! Re: Marquez, it's so true. And the two pro movie editors I know attest to this in all their anecdotes - they (editor w/director) get their best cuts when stuff's been shot, put in... and then removed. The material around what's been cut then resonates wonderfully with what's been taken out.

J: I've met them, and they're just as boring as ever.

Christian: True, but why give a director more excess to be excessive with? LESS IS MORE.

[free movie]

This is so true post, when the movie focused on the plot without any extra long science the more this movie enjoyable and you are more in to it.