Estimating runtime and shoot days from a script: can you trust a page a minute?

Where "a page a minute" comes from

The English Wikipedia article "Screenplay" says the Hollywood screenplay format is designed so that roughly one page equals one minute of screen time, but this is only a rough estimate and often differs a long way from the length of the finished film. The format uses 12-point, 10-pitch Courier type with margins of at least one inch, usually wider on the left to allow for hole punches.

The same article notes that this rule of thumb is "widely questioned": a page of dialogue usually takes up less screen time than a page of action description, and much depends on how the writer writes.

American screenwriter John August (writer of Go and Big Fish), answering a reader's question on his website, says plainly that the rule does not hold up to close inspection. He uses his own work as examples: the script of Go was 126 pages and the film runs 103 minutes; the script of Big Fish was 124 pages and the film runs 125 minutes. Same writer, similar page counts, and the runtimes differ by more than twenty minutes.

Why it cannot be applied directly to Chinese scripts

The rule depends on a fixed layout: the same font, the same type size, the same margins and line spacing. This site's demo script, for example, uses a 場／時／景／人 (scene, time, set, characters) header, action lines starting with "△" and dialogue written as "character: line", but it does not specify font, type size or line spacing. Change the font, the line spacing or the paper size of the same script and the page count changes, while the runtime does not.

So page counts for Chinese scripts can only be compared within the same script and the same layout, for example to see how much longer one draft is than another. They cannot be converted into minutes.

Three ways to make a rough estimate

Method 1: read it through and time it

John August mentions that when a film goes into pre-production, one of the script supervisor's first jobs is to time the script: read through it with a stopwatch, estimate how long each scene will play, add them up, and usually read it twice and take the average. His advice to writers is to read the dialogue aloud themselves and allow time for the moments without dialogue.

A short film team can do this during the table read: one person keeps time, the dialogue is read at normal speed, and the reader pauses for action description for as long as they picture it on screen. We consider this the closest to reality of the three methods. John August also notes that how accurate the timing is depends on whether the script supervisor can anticipate the director's style; his example is Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, where long shots of sheep herding might have been cut entirely by a different director.

Method 2: work it out from dialogue character counts and action lines

When there is no time for a read-through, you can work from the numbers. The runtime estimate in this site's script breakdown demo uses this method:

• Dialogue: count only the characters after the character name and colon, and divide by characters per minute.
• Action: multiply each action line starting with "△" by a number of seconds.
• Take a fast and a slow value for each of the two parameters, giving a lower and an upper limit.

The demo's defaults are 180 to 300 characters per minute and 3 to 8 seconds per action line. These four numbers are the demo's defaults, not an industry standard of any kind, and users can change them to suit their own team's pace.

Here is the calculation with a hypothetical scene: 600 characters of dialogue and 10 lines of action description. The lower limit is 600 ÷ 300 + 10 × 3 ÷ 60, that is 2.5 minutes; the upper limit is 600 ÷ 180 + 10 × 8 ÷ 60, about 4.7 minutes. The result is a range whose two ends differ by nearly a factor of two, which reflects exactly how uncertain the estimate is.

Method 3: sort scenes by difficulty

Since a page of action and a page of dialogue differ in length, another rough approach we suggest is to sort scenes into a few types and estimate them separately: dialogue-led dramatic scenes, action-led sequences, and transitions with pictures and no dialogue. Action sequences are the hardest to estimate, so ask the director to estimate them from the storyboard, and use Method 1 or Method 2 for the other two types.

Estimating shoot days from runtime

The link between shoot days and runtime is even looser. One general practice StudioBinder mentions is to insert a day divider every 3 to 5 pages for a dialogue-driven independent film. That figure is also based on English-language script pages and does not apply to Chinese scripts. This note does not give a ratio for converting Chinese script pages into shoot days.

We suggest working the other way round: arrange the scenes into a stripboard first, check the workload day by day, and the number of days you count is your estimate (for the method, see Building the stripboard). When arranging, general experience says to allow extra time for the following types of scene (the English Wikipedia article "Production board" also mentions the effect of company moves, child actors and weather on scheduling):

• Company moves: moving the whole unit to another location takes time in itself.
• Night scenes, and shots only possible at dawn or dusk, have a short usable window.
• Action, stunts, effects, and scenes that need rehearsal.
• Child actors, animals and crowd scenes.
• Weather-dependent exteriors, which need backup days.

State clearly that the estimate is rough

Estimates for producers, funding bodies or venue owners are best written as a range, stating which method was used and with which parameters, for example: "Estimated from dialogue character count at 180 to 300 characters per minute; runtime ○ to ○ minutes; to be updated after the read-through." Once the read-through, rehearsals or storyboard are done, update it with the new information.

Frequently asked questions

Is one page of script really one minute?

It is only a rough estimate under the standard Hollywood format. English Wikipedia notes that the rule of thumb is widely questioned, because a page of dialogue and a page of action run for different lengths, and it also depends on how the writer writes.

Can page counts be used to estimate the runtime of a Chinese script?

We do not recommend it. The page count of a Chinese script changes with font, line spacing and paper size. Page counts are only useful within the same layout, for comparing the length of two versions of the same script.

What is the most accurate estimation method?

Of the three methods, we consider a timed read-through the closest to reality: read the dialogue at normal speed, pause for the action as long as you picture it on screen, read it twice and take the average. John August notes that a script supervisor's timing is generally close to the actual runtime, though it is still affected by the director's style and is only a rough estimate.

Is the demo's runtime estimate accurate?

The demo works from dialogue character counts and the number of action lines, and its default parameters are not an industry standard and can be changed. Treat the result as a rough range, and update it with timings from a read-through or rehearsal.

References

1. Wikipedia, "Screenplay" (English): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenplay
2. John August, "How accurate is the page-per-minute rule?" (English): johnaugust.com/2006/how-accurate-is-the-page-per-minute-rule
3. Wikipedia, "John August" (English): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_August
4. StudioBinder, "How to Make a Better Shooting Schedule with a Stripboard" (English): www.studiobinder.com/blog/shooting-schedule-stripboard/
5. Wikipedia, "Production board" (English): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_board
6. GET SHOTS DONE, interactive script breakdown demo (runtime estimate; Traditional Chinese): getshotsdone.com/demo

The pages above were accessed on 31 October 2026.

Published 25 September 2026. Last updated: 31 October 2026.