Failings of the 3 hour film.

Few films need to be over 2 hours. Some rare exemptions are "Titanic" and " The Lord of the Rings." When a film starts creeping over the hour and a half mark, people start looking at their watches, yawning, start thinking about what they are going to do after the film and begin wishing they hadn't had so much soda to drink.

King Kong, I couldn't finish watching but I did skip to the end, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the story of a man who ages backwards, was so long, I began to age with him. Lawrence of Arabia, considered one of the great films, is still an unwatched film by me. I have the dvd, but the movie is 216 minutes long and it is taking forever to get to the meat of the story, the action instead there are a bunch of scenes of him riding through the desert.

When a screenplay is over 90 pages, there has to be a reason for it to be longer otherwise, you end up with a lot of unnecessary filler scenes that slow the story down. But then you don't want a story to be so short, it feels as if there is no tension or drama. For example, " The Seeker: Dark is Rising" started off so slow, then when it kicked in to gear, the seeker found everything so easy, it didn't seem as if he had to work for anything at all.

The classic page length for a screenplay is 120 pages, but not many people these days want to sit two hours in an uncomfortable seat. Especially if your target audience is teenagers.

When I write, I want the story to immediately dive into the deep end of the pool, no wading slowly through back story. I find there are more interesting ways to establish backstory and characters.

Introduction

My name is Jennifer Wilson. After high school graduation, I went straight to college with the thought of becoming a counselor, inspired by Deanna Troi on Star Trek, but switched my major to Computer Graphic Arts with a minor in Psychology. I then obtained a Masters in Business Administration.

As a child, I was interested in writing. I wrote little stories, did skits in front of our home video camera and imagined myself writing a book. I remember seeing the TriStar Logo before films, the winged horse, and becoming excited because I knew the movie was about to begin.

I figured I would express myself in book form, but when Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Rings came out, I turned my focus on screenwriting. No film, not even the other LOTR films that followed affected me like the first LOTR film because I had never seen anything like that before, everything was different for me including the camera angles. I have read that James Cameron and Ridley Scott were both affected by the Star Wars films and I imagined that what they felt seeing Star Wars is how I felt seeing Fellowship of the Ring.

I have seen how film has inspired and excited people. When a film I want to see is coming out, I want to learn all about the movie and production before the film comes out and when it is on dvd, I throughly enjoy looking at the special features and listening to the commentary. All this I feel is a good way to gain insight into filmmaking. My goal is to create stories that will excite people and for the time they are watching my story, they forget about bills, work, problems and become part of the experience.

There are many people in the world who talk about writing, but to me there is a division between the people who WANT to write and those that NEED to write and I NEED to write. I could never be 100 percent happy if I never suceeded in becoming a screenwriter.

The obstacles are these:

1) In order to sell a screenplay, an agent is needed, which means numerous query letters sent, months are spent waiting for a reply, then the screenplay is requested, and months are spent waiting for a reply.

It is very frustrating to spend months sometimes years on one story and not even be able to try and sale it because of the difficulty in getting an agent. It's is doubly frustrating to sit in a theater and watch a preview for yet another movie that is so low and uninspired that I cannot believe it got made.

I received my M.B.A on Friday and during the graduation I thought of the end of my school career and saw my life beginning anew and that it was time to make my dream of being a screenwriter come true. I saw that I had acomplished a lot education wise, so if I could get an M.B.A then why couldn't I accomplish my goal of becoming a screenwriter.

The Challenge: To see if I can get an agent this year.

All I need is one yes to start a career......