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How long can a scene last in a montage?

H

harmonica44

I want to write a montage for a section of my script but one of the scenes goes on and on, cause their is so much explaining that has to be gotten out of the way, for it to make sense, so I wonder if this is where the montage ends, before starting up again, or how long can a scene last in a montage do you think?

Thanks.
 
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Just be sure to break it up with lots of unnecessary commas.

Look, montage or not, anything can run too long. If your editing skills are even close to par, you'll know when you see it. That's also where test screenings come in handy. The last thing you want to do is string your audience along with something that wastes their time and attention.

Is the montage too long? You need to figure out why. It's possible it will end up, in the first cut, explaining way too much or explaining in too much detail. The solution is to make some tough, editorial decisions. For every shot, the question to ask yourself is, "Does this enhance the story, detract from it, or make no difference?" If it enhances the story, keep it. If it detracts or makes no difference, get rid of it.
 
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I agree. What can you show rather than tell? When I'm looking to produce a script, my first task is to open to a random page and look for the balance of action to dialog. I know that if there's a 50/50 balance, the writer has taken the time to describe the world without having to resort to dialog based exposition.

What is the specific chunk of stuff being explained?
 
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The scene shouldn't be disproportionate long, there has to be an equilibrium between all of the montage scenes.

A montage is a lot about rhythm, and that's why it comes with music: Music is about rhythm too, at least most of the time. So of course, pick the right music rhythm to the right "montage rhythm".

And of course, if all of the scenes are extremely long, it's not really a montage anymore...

It depends on your script and exact requirements, but in your case, I would probably just interrupt the montage, but maybe let the music still play in the background, but toned down and barely audible - over it, we hear the dialogue and noises of the scene. After the scene, the montage and the visual/auditive rhythm pick up pace again, and the music gets back to the previous volume. That way you have a moody montage, but you also have a lot of liberties with your scene.

I'm sure you have seen movies in which they execute it like that, but currently none of them comes to my mind.
 
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Thanks, I thought of the break as well with the music, and it could work. Well my script is too long, and I am trying to cut it down by an 8th, about.

The long explanation is one character explaining to another how he is going to hack into the bank records, and move put some things in other characters accounts, and how this will help flush out who the person is that they are looking for. It takes some explaining so it makes sense, but since I should show and not tell, do you think the audience will get such a thing if I show it?

All he does is look up some bank accounts and I would have to close up on some transactions, but not sure if the audience will put it together as to what's going on, without a verbal explanation to another character.

I mean for example, in The Hunt for Red October, one character on the submarine had to explain to another, how a submarine cannot detect sonar from behind, and how if an enemy ship suddenly turned around, that they would have to immediately shut down all the moving parts on their own sub, to prevent the enemy from detecting their sound.

Now they could just shown this and forget about the explanation but they didn't, probably cause they felt the audience wouldn't put it together.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Thanks, I thought of the break as well with the music, and it could work. Well my script is too long, and I am trying to cut it down by an 8th, about.

The long explanation is one character explaining to another how he is going to hack into the bank records, and move put some things in other characters accounts, and how this will help flush out who the person is that they are looking for. It takes some explaining so it makes sense, but since I should show and not tell, do you think the audience will get such a thing if I show it?

All he does is look up some bank accounts and I would have to close up on some transactions, but not sure if the audience will put it together as to what's going on, without a verbal explanation to another character.
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That's really difficult to tell without knowing the script. Sounds like I wouldn't let the audience alone with images, sounds like you need to add a verbal explanation. The question is: How can you make that explanation as short as possible? It can probably be made very, very short, just a couple of words. So it pays off if you spend a couple of days thinking about that 5 seconds audio-screentime. :)

Also, think of the possibility of "transfering" the explanation into earlier (or later?) scenes, so they don't interfere with your montage.
 
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Okay thanks! That's a good idea, but some verbal explanation will still have to be given in the moment of that scene. What I might do is just put the montage on a short hault, to have the scene which requires more dialogue and then just start the montage up again. Do I write END OF MONTAGE after the whole thing though, even though there is a break. There is no hard rule so I could do it that way if it makes sense.

I have been trying to make the script shorter, however, if it goes below 90 pages, say 80 pages, is that too short? Every site says feature length scripts are between 90-120 pages. So does it look bad if a script is in the 80s somewhere?
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks! That's a good idea, but some verbal explanation will still have to be given in the moment of that scene. What I might do is just put the montage on a short hault, to have the scene which requires more dialogue and then just start the montage up again. Do I write END OF MONTAGE after the whole thing though, even though there is a break. There is no hard rule so I could do it that way if it makes sense.

I have been trying to make the script shorter, however, if it goes below 90 pages, say 80 pages, is that too short? Every site says feature length scripts are between 90-120 pages. So does it look bad if a script is in the 80s somewhere?
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Yeah, 80 pages is really short, you should aim for 90 pages at least. The audience wants a full feature film, which is considered to be 90 minutes at least. And production companies, of course, want what the audience wants...

Anything from say, 30 minutes to 80 minutes is hard to sell, because it's too long for a short but also not a feature yet.
 
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I would have to agree that with the earlier point that it's all about what you are trying to convey. I don't think there is one answer to that question. I've been fortunate to work very closely with the composer in recent projects and the flow of the music has helped dictate the length of the edit. If the content is interesting and valid and the music follows that string of interest then you can press on for longer.
 
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Okay thanks, I figured out how to rewrite the script so it will not be so long or too short. I decided to make two characters, one character, with the motivations still being the very much the same and making sense. I also wrote the montage scenes out of order, intercutting back and forth in time, to convey a certain storytelling effect, which will smooth things along better.

However, how do I format such a montage? I looked up several examples, but no sites, talk about properly formatting a montage, where the scenes intercut between each other. They just give examples, of the scenes being one after the other. Do I just write all the scenes, one after the other, and then write a slugline that says:

INTERCUT BETWEEN ALL MONTAGE SCENES

Or do I have to decided the where the intercuts between the scenes are, individually, and just keep putting a new scene heading every time I want to cut, even though it's just a spec script and the cuts back and forth are not decided yet?
 
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