Screenwriting | Cyber Film School

The Rhythms of Act One

In a three-act screenplay Act One needs to accomplish a lot in very little time, with a “call to action” that moves the main character into the story’s spine.

By Charles Deemer, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

The Hook

The first challenge of the screenwriter is to get and hold our attention. I give my university students “the popcorn test.” It goes this way.

A couple sits down in a movie house the moment before the feature begins. The woman leans to the man and says, “We should have gotten popcorn.” The feature begins. The man looks at the screen. Can he go out and buy popcorn or is he so riveted by what’s happening on the screen that he stays put?

Your job, as a screenwriter, is to make sure no one can leave to buy popcorn.

In ‘Jurassic Park’, we open with a guard being killed by some sort of strange, caged creature. What is going on? We want to know. We are hooked.

Look at the first minute or several minutes of any movie — and then ask yourself, “Why am I watching this?” If you have an answer, the movie has a good hook. So should you.

The Complication

With the attention of the audience “hooked” to our opening, it’s time to move quickly to the spine of our story. What I call “the complication” is an important story event that begins this movement.

In ‘Jurassic Park’ the complication is the scene following the guard’s death when a lawyer reveals that the accident may delay the opening of the theme park of cloned prehistoric animals.

What is needed is the endorsement of a respected scientist that the park is safe, despite the accident. Notice how this moves us to the participation of the main character, the scientist.

Sometimes the complication involves the protagonist directly, as in ‘The Graduate’. Here we have a “soft hook” – a quirky main character whom we meet at the film’s opening moment.

Who is this guy? At the complication, Mrs. Robinson makes her first move on him. This request for a ride home, and later a more explicit proposition, propels us to the focus of the story, which is their affair and its consequences.

This post is a support article for the chapter “Screenwriting” in
Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.

The Call To Action

Perhaps the most important moment in the structure of Act One is the “call to action.” This is an action by the main character that moves him or her directly into the spine of the story, that dramatic area of focus that locates what the story is essentially going to be about.

In Jurassic Park, the scientist is given such a good deal to check out the theme park that he can’t refuse. He says “Yes,” and the story reveals its focus. In The Graduate, Benjamin hems and haws about the possibility of an affair with Mrs. Robinson and finally, in his bungling way, says “Yes.” Again, the story finds its focus.

A call to action is usually the protagonist saying “Yes”, doing an action that is affirmative, to a question that moves us into the central focus of the story.

End of Act One Plot Point

Once “in the story,” the hero reaches a point where normal life (how the protagonist lived before the story) gives way to extra-normal life, the “new life” in the story.

Mythic critics call this the move from the ordinary to the extraordinary worlds. The scientist moves from his usual life on a dig to the extraordinary experience of being among cloned prehistoric animals. Benjamin moves from uncertain, bored college graduate to a man having an affair with a married woman and friend of his family.

The journey of the main character is from ordinary life into the highly charged, unusual experiences represented by the story. The story has begun in earnest.

Summary

Let’s look at the rhythms of Act One again, with another example.

The Hook. We get the audience’s attention. In Shakespeare in Love, a debtor is being tortured. He promises the pay off the debt with monies from Shakespeare’s new play.
The Complication. Time to move toward the focus of the story. But Shakespeare has writer’s block. He needs a female muse.
The Call to Action. The hero says, “Yes.” First, Shakespeare says, “Yes” to the wrong woman – he catches her in bed with someone else. Then he meets Viola at a dance. He wants her. He starts writing like crazy, even writing her a sonnet. We have found the focus, their love story and the play this energy creates.
Plot Point. The hero moves from the ordinary to the extraordinary world. Will puts his new play in rehearsal and casts the disguised Viola. He’s falling in love with Viola and impressed with the actor at the same time, not realizing they are the same. He is at the top of his powers.
The life of this play is his new world, and in it, he will meet all the coming surprises of the story.

These are the rhythms of Act One, all of which must be established in 20 to 30 pages.

Let’s move on to Act Two, which most screenwriters believe is the most difficult to write.

The Grunt Work Of Act Two >>

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5. Script Evaluation & Feedback

Evaluating your own screenplay depends on the quality of questions you ask yourself, making the difference between pulling the plug or moving forward.

Contributed By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

Important Concepts

• Wait until the script is ready
• Know yourself
• Writing is re-writing

As we toil through the lonely landscape of the screenwriter, we often discover that translating certain concepts into viable, exciting stories is not easy. Certain ideas we come up with simply do not translate well into film – not immediately. They require more thought and more background work.

Some aspects of the idea are compelling, but other parts wanting. The solution is to invest time, exercise patience, and persist. Keep working toward solutions that make your idea work. Sometimes it just takes time to find creative inspiration, to find the right key that unlocks the creative puzzle that’s been trading your mind.

Be Patient

Do not let those around you pressure you into moving to pre-production with an idea that you feel is half-baked. Instead, pitch it to people you trust, talk through it, and ask for feedback.

You will know when you are ready to move forward. Sometimes, though, we don’t have the luxury of waiting – projects most often have deadlines. That means working with limitations and constraints.

As you get more practiced, the quality of the questions you ask yourself can make the difference between pulling the plug or moving forward.

What To Look For

Begin looking for the central idea. Does your script fully express a central idea, or is it reading like a short lead-in to a yet unwritten longer piece?

This is an easy pitfall to fall into if you are writing a short script. If your short cannot clearly articulate that idea, at least to yourself, you do not have a script worth producing.

This post is a support article for the chapter “Screenwriting” in
Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

Evaluation Structure

Applying an evaluation structure will help you find what it is you are trying to say. It is a method of introspection that helps the writer look inside themselves and see what it is they want to express. An evaluation includes a study of:

Conflict and Resolution
Main Character’s Motivation
Depth of character
Formatting: balance between Action and dialogue
Visually clear action that aids the reader in visualizing the film the action

When you read your or someone else’s script, look to see what the story’s conflict and resolution say about their idea.

You can also read your main character’s motivations and arc through the story and make an evaluation of the script. Is the character real, believable, and three-dimensional? If the character is unbelievable and one-dimensional, does it fit well with their concept? If you can’t get a handle on the character and why they do the things that they do in the story, chances are the writer doesn’t understand the character either.

Remember to watch formatting and the balance of dialogue vs. action. Is it told cinematically through action or does it depend on heavy dialogue like a stage play? Has the writer considered that this script will actually need to be shot? Is it written in such a way as to communicate clearly the vision of the film so every member of the crew can envision it, especially the producer, director, and actors?

Answering these questions helps shape your script. Showing your script to others, like pitching an initial concept, is part of the feedback loop that can help guide you in finding answers to problems with your project.

How to Handle Feedback

Knowing what feedback to incorporate and what feedback to ignore is a valuable skill for the writer to develop.

Too many times, writers ignore helpful feedback – they don’t want to hear the problems with their work. But those problems get amplified down the production line and a smart producer will task a pass on a flawed script.

Other writers tend to incorporate all the feedback they get and lose some of their own spark and conviction that gave life to the project at its inception.

Incorporating all feedback will lead to a weak and watered-down script. In the film business, every person has their own take on the material, so a good writer must be able to find some balance and work with notes that enhance the work.

Know yourself. Do not take feedback personally, but do listen and consider their words carefully. If you are eager to get direction from others, you need to incorporate their suggestions, if sometimes reluctantly.

Writing Is Rewriting

Remember: writing is rewriting. Get the first draft down on the page so you have something to work with, but consider it a paper-maché sculpture.

It’s only a sketch that you will adapt and change and mold into its final form. No one puts words on paper perfectly the first time, especially not a script. Write a draft, get feedback, and rewrite. Work on it until it is flawless.

You’ll never please everybody but if you are demanding of yourself and your idea, you will know when it is done.

If you get so stuck with an idea that you don’t know how it will work and none of the feedback you get is leading you in the direction that is going to improve it, scrapping the idea and starting over is always an option.

If the concept is important to you, you will come back to it. The answer to making it work may come to you in a dream three years from now.

If you cannot make it work now, you can make it work later. Ramming your head against a wall isn’t going to solve anything. Set it aside and come back to it.

In the meantime, strike out a new idea that flows better onto the page. Your second script will be better than your first script, your third better than your second, and so on. The important thing is to write and get them done.

Summary

• Do not allow your script to go to production until all of the problems have been addressed.

• You have to know yourself, know what feedback to incorporate, and what feedback to reject.

• No one puts words onto paper flawlessly the first time. Be hard on your idea and work through every aspect until it is perfect.

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The critical importance of a properly formatted screenplay,
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2. Story Structure Clarifies The Concept

Films that suffer from a lack of clarity and confuse an audience can usually trace their problem to poor story structure.

If you have trouble shaping your film’s concept into a narrative, think of how your screenplay should be structured and what you’re trying to say. If we still can’t get to the end of the story – that’s likely a structural problem.

Contributed By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

Important Concepts

Start with a premise
Do your Research
Structure Clarifies the Concept

Although there are different schools of thought on the sections in a story, we will be discussing Aristotle’s Three Act Structure. This structure dictates that every story has three acts: a beginning, middle and end. I know this sounds elementary but each act has particular properties.

This structure can be described with a diagram called The Dramatic Curve.

The Three Acts

In the First Act, the main character, or protagonist, is introduced and the location is set. This description of the character and the setting is called Exposition.

Bridging the First and Second Act, the protagonist is confronted with some kind of obstacle. The presentation of this obstacle, or conflict, is the inciting moment or incident.

This second act is mainly comprised of the protagonist’s attempts to overcome this obstacle. The protagonist cannot accomplish their objective easily, for if they did, there would be no story. Complications arise, and tension increases as the protagonist attempts to overcome this obstacle. This rising action is what drives our story forward.

The Third Act contains the climax of the story, where this conflict is resolved and final obstacles overcome. If the story works out in favor of the protagonist, it is comedy. If it works out against the protagonist, it is a tragedy. Denouement is a French term that literally translates to the unravelling of a knot. In the denouement, we see the aftermath of the resolution and how it affects the characters in the story.

It is in the resolution of this conflict that we find whatever it is that we are trying to say. Most times, writers have difficulty with how their story ends. They may have an interesting setting or conflict but it is in the resolution that we find the content of the story. If you do not know how the story ends, you do not know your story.

This post is a support article from Cyber Film School’s
Multi-Touch Learning System, 2022 Edition

Contract With Your Audience

What do we want the audience to leave the theater with?

We do not have to create works that will change the world but we should know what idea we want to put forward. It doesn’t really matter what the content is of the story you decide to make but you do have an obligation to tell a story.

You cannot ask the audience to sit and spend time with you if you do not deliver something that will engage them. You have a contract with the audience. They spend time with you, you will entertain them. The subject matter can be serious, it can be odd, it can be comic, or it can be sad. It doesn’t matter what it is but you must deliver.

You must say something or you are wasting your time and energy.

Find an idea that intrigues you and then find what about it is important to you. Then you can build a story around communicating that idea to others.

Summary

• The concept of your screenplay should be reducible to a few sentences. Without this clarity, you cannot build a story.

• Invest time in determining how your concept is different from others and how it might be the same. This will save you from unwittingly remaking another film.

• Many independent films suffer from a lack of clarity, which can almost always be traced to poor structure. Breaking from the convention is encouraged but if the result is confusion, look at your story structure.

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Protagonists, antagonists, anti-heroes and their relationship to the story

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