Write a feature film: two hours in one file

In one line: a feature film is one .script file. How to start it, where the structure lives, how to read the runtime, and the one real reason to split it up.

The shortest possible start

1. Right-click in the file tree → New Script. It's on the first level of the menu.
2. The file arrives called Untitled Script. Back in the tree, right-click → Rename.
3. Fill in the title and the name under Written by at the top of the paper. Leave the episode number and subtitle empty — those are for series.
4. Pick a format on the right of the toolbar: Hollywood (contests, anyone overseas) or Taiwan (a Taiwanese production company).
5. Set the target minutes. Click the Est. / target readout and type 110.

Two hours in one file — is that too big?

There's no cap. "One episode, one file" is a series convention; a feature is simply one file.

The real question isn't size, it's how you find your way around two hours. Four things:

• The outline panel (Ctrl+Shift+O). Three tabs: Scenes / Characters / Locations. The Scenes tab puts a ~N min beside every scene; Characters ranks people by how many scenes they're in; Locations does the same for places. Click any scene to jump there.
• Board view (the Board button in the toolbar). One card per scene, draggable into a new order.
• Ctrl+Shift+↑/↓ for previous/next scene.
• Ctrl+Shift+[ to collapse the scene you're in.

Where the structure lives

A 4.0 screenplay file has no acts, and there is nowhere to create one — the old structure-template picker was removed. A new file shows a flat list of scenes in the outline panel. (Only files copied over from the old Script Studio, which already carried acts, still group by act.)

What replaced it is two layers, each with its own place:

Before you write, or alongside writing: a .beats board. Right-click → More → New beat board, and lay the beats out. An empty board offers four ready-made templates. If you like, drag this screenplay file onto the board as a card — the card shows how many scenes it currently holds.

While you write, inside the file: the beat field on each scene. Switch to Board view and every scene card has a dropdown underneath, reading + Beat when it's empty. Inside are fifteen options:

The Beat dropdown on a scene card

• Opening Image
• Setup
• Catalyst
• Debate
• Break into Two
• B Story
• Fun and Games

• Midpoint
• Bad Guys Close In
• All Is Lost
• Dark Night of the Soul
• Break into Three
• Finale
• Final Image
• Custom

That last "Custom" is only a label — picking it does not let you type a name of your own. This field is a plain dropdown with no inline create. For kishōtenketsu or any other frame, lay the beats out on a .beats board, where you name every beat yourself.

The same card also carries a one-sentence scene summary, cast chips, a weather/annotation field, and a density button at the top right of the list (it reads Compact while the cards are detailed, and Detailed once they are compact).

How a beat board works: What a beat board is, and when to use one. The four templates: Choosing one of the four structure templates.

Runtime: how long is this draft?

The right-hand end of the toolbar is the whole film: Est. 98m / 110 m 89%.

• How the estimate is built: dialogue at roughly 280 words a minute, action at roughly 200, plus 15 seconds per scene for the cut. It's an estimate, not a stopwatch — it tells you whether this draft put on ten minutes, not how long the film will run.
• The colours: green under 90%, amber 90–99%, red at 100% and above (the number caps at 100).
• Past an hour it reads 1h 38m.
• Every scene heading row carries its own: that scene's estimate, and its own target minutes.

How it feels to write

The element-flow table is in Enter and Tab: the element flow, and the full list in Screenplay shortcut cheat sheet (and the slash palette). Three that earn their keep on a feature:

• Ctrl+1…5 types this line as action / character / dialogue / parenthetical / shot outright, instead of waiting for the flow to walk you there.
• Focus mode: the toolbar button cycles off → line → scene (or press Ctrl+Shift+1/2). It only fades the other lines; it never scrolls the page. Worth a lot in a ten-page scene.
• The / palette (type it on an empty line): the six element types, plus quick-insert — this book's five most-used characters and five most-used locations — and /note to leave a note on this line.

The one real reason to split the file

Short version: don't split without a concrete reason.

There is one concrete reason, and it's practical: the watermark exists only in Merge Export (This Folder), and that section only appears when there are at least two screenplay files in the same folder. So a single-file feature cannot be watermarked. If you must hand over a PDF stamped CONFIDENTIAL, you have to split it into two or more files in one folder — at the cost of a cover page, a divider page between each part, and scene numbers restarting at 1 in every file.

After a split, all of these become per-file too: the runtime estimate, the target minutes, the outline panel, and those four fields at the top of the paper.

The commonly suggested "split it into three act files" buys you nothing in 4.0: paper view never rendered acts anyway, and the outline panel won't group by act just because you split the file.

For delivery: Handing the screenplay over: one episode, one season, or the whole book.

On a phone

You can write a feature on a phone: tap a line to edit it, Enter moves to the next line, character lines have a quick-pick (the names already used in this file, up to twelve), there's an add-scene button at the bottom, and deleting a whole scene asks first. The duration row is there too.

Structuring two hours, though — dragging scenes, the board, the outline — hurts less on a desktop.

When this approach isn't the one

• Don't expect the outline panel to group by act. It only does that for old files that already carried acts; new files are always flat.
• Don't treat a .beats board as your screenplay's table of contents. It's a beat sheet; a card pointing at a file is a reference, not the content. Deleting the card doesn't delete the file.
• Don't use the beat field as progress tracking. It's a label. It doesn't add up, and it won't tell you which beat you're missing — noticing that is still your job.

Related

• Docs: Opening a screenplay file: layout, toolbar, status bar
• Docs: Scene heading: interior/exterior, location, time
• Docs: The outline panel: an episode by scene, by character, by location
• Docs: Ask the AI to rework a scene, and review what it did
• Docs: Write a TV series: one folder per season, one file per episode