Proceeding with the Screenwriting Process for "AVZ"

I just finished my first pass study of David Trotter's The Screenwriter's Bible today [left]. Now I'm going through my book (The Amish vs. the Zombies) and marking the book's scenes which I will then copy descriptions of onto a 3 x 5 cards.

Then I will rearrange them, figure out how to consolidate them, or eliminate them for the screenplay. After that I'll write the screenplay treatment (synopsis). During this stage I'll be reading Save the Cat: The Last Screenwriting Guide You'll Ever Need.


Here's what follows:

A screenplay generally runs 110 pages and consists of three acts; the beginning (10-25 pages), the middle (probably about 60 pages or so), and the end (about 20 pages give or take). Each act is broken up by scenes and each scene is broken up by beats.

I speculate that the first draft and first revision of the synopsis to take about two weeks (about 80 man hours from the time I begin marking the book) after which time I will present it to my tutor for comment and suggested revision after which time I will do a rewrite. Assuming he then approves the rewrite at that time I will proceed to write the actual screenplay.

I expect the first draft of the screenplay will take me two months (nearly 300 man hours) which includes a couple rounds of revisions. After that there will likely be a few more rounds of revisions suggested by my tutor to get it polished and pitch presentable. Could be a couple drafts could be several, so the whole process could take anywhere from three to six months (?) depending on a variety of factors.

I'll keep you posted along the way.