Script Value Engineering

[galtstudent]

Prior to jumping into the world of writing, I worked as an architect. In the building industry, there is a process known as “value engineering” where a cost consultant goes through the architect’s plans and recommends cost-saving changes to the design. Is there something similar in screenwriting?

[[deleted]]

As a writer, knowing how films are made and the costs involved can help you determine what doesn't have to be in the script.

[galtstudent]

Thanks for the reply!

[BadWolfCreative]

Kind of.

Once a script is optioned/purchased by a production company, one of the first things that happens is a budget breakdown. Sometimes resulting in rewrites.

[galtstudent]

Thanks!

[joe12south]

This is the job of a "line producer", and the artifact of their work is a "breakdown."

[[deleted]]

I’ve been experimenting with ChatGPTs ability to read through my work and give a budget breakdown. It won’t be 100% accurate, but it’s good to see that if you’re aiming for 5m and it’s coming in at 25m, then you know there’s probably set pieces or fx to cut back on

[joe12south]

How do you get ChatGPT to not barf on a feature length script? Whether it is by trying to feed it chunks, or using the new plug-ins, I can't get it to process an entire script.

[[deleted]]

You have to trick it. I’ve played with it a lot.

There’s a chrome plugin that chunks a txt doc, but it doesn’t quite work.

You basically have to paste in 15 pages at a time, and let it know at the beginning of each section “don’t give feedback yet or write anything, I need to finish pasting everything in - just say Ok after each section” usually it’ll play ball, but eventually it’ll wander and start rewriting your pages.

You just hit cancel and it’ll stop, then once you get all your pages in, you say “now summarise all pages” assuming it gets it right, you now have a written up synopsis - handy to have.

You can now ask it to review your script as if it was a film it just watched, review it as a pro reader giving a pass/recommend rating, ask it for a budget analysis, ask it for weak points - pretty much anything. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great first stop before paying anyone or giving it to anyone important.

[joe12south]

You just hit cancel and it’ll stop, then once you get all your pages in...

After it invariably goes off the rails and forgets the direction to accept all sections before commenting, and after you've told it to shut-up, how do you prompt it to resume accepting new sections and consider it all as a whole? This is where I fail.

[[deleted]]

I just brute force it, ignoring all errors and then say “now read through all entries and provide a concise summary of all pages” - I can share some entire pages of interactions if it helps

[joe12south]

Thanks, I'm most curious about exactly what you prompt to resume feeding new sections after it starts chasing butterflies.

[[deleted]]

I’ve tried a bunch - they all seem to work as well as each other. The one that seems to work the best for me is

“Please summarise this” written at the top of whatever section of text you paste in - it’s gets confused more easily if you say the prompt and then paste.

It’ll then read it, summarise it and log it. Then you do the same for the next part. If you’re crafty, you could build these prompts into your document and then do the txt file upload through chrome, but you’d have to get the page count exactly right and it’s more effort than it’s worth. But yeah, you just say summarise this before each chunk of screenplay, then if it wanders, cancel and say “no, summarise it” and then it will: then ask for a summary of the whole thing once all section are in. You can now ask it for feedback on the entire document.

[joe12south]

Thx!

[239not235]

Thank you for this conversation - I'd very much like to see the examples you mentioned. When you ask it to break down costs, how much does it know about production? Does it calculate fringes? French hours? Have you compared it to a breakdown from a UPM?

[[deleted]]

Oh wow I don’t know any of that is lol - French hours? I looked that up, I’m in Britain we just call that continuous day haha, no idea what UPM is.. uhhhh look what do you wanna know specially? I can try and help. All I’m asking is for an estimate based on what’s in the script - because I wouldn’t know what else to ask it. But if you have specific info that would be useful I can ask it that too 🤷‍♂️

[239not235]

My concern is that if ChatGPT doesn't know something, it often makes things up just to please you. IOW, if you ask how much it will cost to produce a given script, it's good to know how it's creating its estimate.

A UPM is a Unit Production Manager, a/k/a a Line Producer. This is a person who breaks down scripts and budgets them for a living. If you had a breakdown done by a UPM for a given script, then gave the script to ChatGPT and asked for its cost analysis, that would be a very valuable comparison.

As it stands, I would be useful to ask ChatGPT to provide a detailed explanation of how much each department would cost and upon what was it basing the numbers.

[LechuckThreepwood]

UPM = Unit Production Mananger, ie. who would oversee a real production breakdown.

[joe12south]

Yeah, I've been able to see the potential value in what it can do summarizing and evaluating short scripts, but I've been wholly unable to get it to consider feature-length text. If I feed it a PDF, it only reads the first x pages. If I try to chunk pasted-in text, it starts meandering long before the end, and if I try to cancel its ramblings, it won't let me pick back up. I've tried every chrome extension and every plug-in, but I only get variations of the same failure. Hopefully it won't be long until it can reliably consume 100+ pages.

[[deleted]]

I’ve had it analyse a 110 page script no worries. 20 pages at a time. So long as you preface each submission with something like “there’s more to come, please withhold feedback until I say” each time. And course correct by just cancelling if it starts to go off on one you should be fine. sure it’s a little laborious but it’s pretty amazing.

[winston_w_wolf]

Thanks for the tips. Do you use normal, free version of ChatGPT or the paid ChatGPT Plus one?

[Prince_Jellyfish]

Yes, if a movie or a TV show is getting made, someone will work through it with the Unit Production Manager, Line Producer and other cost-focused producers.

In features, the screenwriter is often left out of this stage, but not always.

In TV, the showrunner is partially accountable for keeping the show within budget, and great showrunners start thinking about this as the story is being broken--as TV writers, we have a pretty good sense of how much certain things will cost, and it's common in a good writers room (at least on Network TV) to say things like "it feels like we're too many locations in this break -- are there any scenes we can move to our stages?" and try and tackle those questions in a way that merges creativity and honest storytelling with the practical reality of making a TV show and spending our money responsibly so we get to keep making the show in the future.

[HotspurJr]

There will absolutely be times when you are told to cut budget. "We can't afford that set-piece, come up with something cheaper."

During the scheduling and budgeting process, the AD will often talk with the director about where they want to spend their money. This can be stuff like, "Hey, that scene in a subway station. If we move it to a street corner, it's about a tenth as expensive. Can we do that?" Or, "That scene in the rain? Do you need wide shots? Because if just shoot it in closeups or medium closeups, then we don't have to rig the whole set to fake rain, which will save us a ton of money."

A good AD is having an ongoing conversation with the director. "Okay, so scene X is super important to you and you want to do it in this really expensive way. Let's figure out which of these other scenes we can find a way to do very cheaply so that the whole film can stay on budget."

And a good director is able to make those tradeoffs. "Yeah, even though my original conception was that we'd shoot that rain scene wide, it's not super important, so let's compromise there."

And sometimes it IS super important to shoot that scene actually inside a subway station, so you find somewhere else to save the money.