I was looking through my Google reader and found out that this concept had been done before! http://www.gointothestory.com/2009/10/14-days-of-screenplays-version-30.html . But, as we all know, all the good idea in Hollywood have already been taken. I could have been depressed about this, but instead I'm using this as an opportunity. The owner of that blog has sold screenplays and is a screenwriting professor. So, now when I am at a loss for what to read next, I need only go to his page and there is a list of 28 scripts from the 2 previous times he's done this.
So today I read the first script from the first "14 days of screenplays", Back to the Future. I read a later draft, because it was in .pdf and not .html.
The thing I was struck by when I read it (which is the exact same thing I noticed when I went to the BTTF trilogy last summer) was how fast it moves. It's a relatively long script at 147 pages, but it never drags. All of the scenes have an intensity and urgency that keep the script moving the whole time. There are no wasted character scenes or monologues. It doesn't get bogged down in science. It just tells the story and that's it.
I'm going to try and remember this as I go through the heist movie I'm working. I have tendency to get caught up in clever scenes to the detriment of pacing.
Back to the Future: http://www.sendspace.com/file/om3ilf
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