December 3, 2012

Act 2

The Midpoint - the Point of No Return

That point in the movie when the protagonist is facing the realization that, “hey, I am really in this!”

Sometimes that can be an Oh no!

Sometimes that can be a confrontation with the enemy

Sometimes that can be a moment of intensity that makes the audience go “GASP!”

After the Midpoint, the movie usually gets darker

Things aren’t going so well for the hero.

There is a racheting up of the tension as it looks like the negative elements are winning.

Remember Taken? He finds the wrong girl? He realizes it goes deeper? He thought he had her?

The second half of Act 2 will build DOWN to something called The Low. The Loss. Or the Touch of Death. Or the Separation.

This is about 77-83 minutes (pages) in and it is the moment where we feel the hero’s lost it all. The darkest moment for the hero.

Remember that the idea of a movie is to take the audience for a ride - an emotional ride. Even in comedies there is an attempt to get some feelings out of us. The Proposal -

In Act III, we get a whole new flava!

Act III is about the hero pulling up his/her bootstraps, digging down deep and coming out of the low and saying, YES! I can do it!

Then, there is some kind of chase or forward action or roller coaster or acceleration or storming the castle or final battle or final test or you get the picture.

This is often the weakest part of a movie because it feels like there are no surprises left - it is all inevitable.

You can imagine that there is often a feeling by the filmmaker that he/she HAS to give the audience what they want - that is - good guys win, girl gets guy, fish finds dad, dad finds daughter, team wins, or team loses and learns to love, etc

HOWEVA!

They will often try to “surprise” us by the false ending - Jason wasn’t really dead yet! and so on - this is just another kind of expectation we have

Another thing you’ll see if many movies is a kind of “timer” at work

ie - girl going to airport - guy better hurry!
detonator - 10 minutes!
truck - heading for the bridge!
spaceships - invasion imminent!
etc...

This is a bad stereotype that is ALWAYS there and is hard to avoid.

This is also called ratcheting up tension and raising stakes.

Movies end with one of two things:

We are satisfied and satisfied OR we are satisfied and crushed.

Either way, the HERO MUST HAVE FIXED HIS/HER PROBLEM FROM ACT 1!

The character arc must be fully developed and fulfilled.

We must leave the theatre having seen growth that most of us will never experience. How sad are we to watch other peoples’ positive change and yet we remain pathetic wretches, passively observing, working for the weekend and not really living at all... waiting to die. pointlessly. contributing nothing. just. watching.

November 26, 2012

We are building a character - rich, developed sense of identity - developed arc of change (transformational arc)

The plot line of a movie - what happens? Why? What makes it good? What makes it bad? What makes it more exciting than Movie B over at the other cineplex?

Setting and scenes and times and places

Techniques of making movies - lights, camera, action

Sound, music and noise

Editing and Special Effects

The First Ten Pages or Less

this is how you make somebody care
within the first couple of minutes, you have to HOOK the audience, the reader, the producer, the person who makes decisions
you have to find a way to make somebody HAVE to read in and read on
it’s like a question that we NEED to see answered
open with a murder, a terrible moment, a bizarre thing that we can’t believe, a strange sighting, a scary thing, an end point that makes us say, how the hell did they get here?

The First 15 or so Pages

there is a lot of work to be done here
who? where? when?
problem? what is the character’s broken state?
What needs to get fixed in this character?
who is the enemy? (or what?)
why do we love to follow this character?

The Movie Takes Off!
around 15 - 23 minutes (or pages) there is an event that changes the main character’s path - there is a NTB moment
something has altered the path so that character A goes out into an area of newness and potential discomfort

Once the character begins the new path, we are in Act II

Act II is ALL ABOUT OBSTACLES
the audience feels the wheels lock down and the movie actually starts
that opening was showing Life A for the character
the second act is about the unexpected Life B that we get to watch
Life B is a series of escalating problems that take the character through unimaginable problems and crises
eg - Spiderman - Peter Parker’s Life A = being bullied and no girls, no fun, no good
Life B = SPIDERMAN!
the bigger the difference between Life A and Life B, it could be that the movie is better.

 

 November 21, 2012

Character Arc

movies begin with the character in a broken state
the movie ends with the character in “fixed” state
That fix may be negative or positive

In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks’ character dies in the end.
He is dead, and we are sad, HOWEVER, he is fixed because - he fulfilled his mission, BUT there is an even more powerful change that has occurred -

He was in war, he was in struggle, he was damaged by war, he reminisced about his wife and his life as an English teacher, he was a man of words and learning, and war made him a killer and a tormented soldier who suffered the deaths of the men beneath him.

What change and “fix” did he get at the end? THINK about opposites - characters go from X to the opposite of X

This is character arc and this is what makes movies particularly satisfying.

This is the key to movies being good.

In the sample (The Equalizer), the lead character doesn’t undergo enough struggle for the H’wood readers - he is never trouble, never in danger, never stressed and never has to overcome something horrible or terrifying - this is a problem

Here’s why - the thing about movies and character arc (and our stupid little lives) is that we only move forward by struggle - we only change by force or opposition, we only get anywhere by going against something

This is the dialectic of plot and character development.

Think of a baby - babies love to drink milk from their mothers’ breasts and poop their pants.

They do not want to stop! You have to force these hideous little creatures into stopping, or they will do this FOREVER.

Movies are a little microcosm of the opposite of this.

We want to WATCH other people (represented by little Denzels and hobbits and cute guys with abs with superpowers) struggle and deal with change and then change.

We want to watch them suffer and win and adapt and survive.

We want to do this as we sit on our lazy asses and eat popcorn and giggle and poke the people in front of us that we know. Or maybe at home, eating other stuff.

Character is the process of all that misery and suffering and struggling forcing change into a character’s development.

This little 110 minute journey of forced change is what movies are all about.

A microcosm of our stupid little lives. It’s nice!

What gives out lives meaning is that change. That struggle and success.

Hey, that actually IS your life!

Character Arc as a model.