Learning Screenplay Story Structure - Eric Edson [Full Version - Screenwriting Masterclass]

Professor, Screenwriting Option, Graduate Program Coordinator, Eric Edson (CSUN - California State University Northridge): I'm delighted to be here with you tonight and meet you for the first time. I really am and I'm looking forward to working with you because on the outside we are very different, there are many of us, in many ways we are different, different cultures, different, I mean, there are people here from other countries, right, they are not well, yes, of course, but inside. We are all very similar and it is those similarities that bring us together in this room. We feel too much, too deeply, and we hurt too easily.

We seek out a lot of alone time that we tend to enjoy and that makes other people think. We're pretty weird and we're all obsessive-compulsive, aren't we? If not, we wouldn't have chosen it, you know, being drawn to the work that we do, but I'm really looking forward to it anyway and thank you, you know, for being here and being on time and all that. I really appreciate it, but I would like to introduce you to our guests. Karen and David collectively make an excellent YouTube channel called Film Courage. If any of you have ever been there or seen it well.

Film Courage. they reviewed guys and now they have over 200,000 subscribers roaring on their way to a quarter of a million and that's incredibly remarkable and what they're doing, you know, as an academic and all that, they're creating a library of our time that just somehow happened. here the way you started, anyway, they're creating this library of our time here, this part of life on planet Earth in a look at the creativity and just the hard work of film and television, that's what what are they doing. There are all these interviews and now, sometimes you know, classes like this will be.

I have a feeling it's going to be like Samuel Peeps' diary. So you know what anyone knows what that is? I mean, no, they're too dark. Well, it was Samuel. Peeps was a guy in mid-17th century London who kept journals compulsively and every day he wrote up an entire bookshelf, ultimately with you know, twelve volumes or however many, but what he was doing was recording and he loved the theatre, he absolutely loved it. and it has every detail of all the shows and the plots and what happened, what the people were like, it's all there and it's a treasure for scholars now to look back and really see and understand what life was like then and what theater was. .

I like it and that's what you guys are doing, whether you know it yet or not. Okay, my first task here as a general class is to do what I can to get us all on the same page. This is a room

full

of talent and talented people, but experience. of that talent, depending on their rank, ranging from the end to the almost novice or just starting to work as professional screenwriters, they are all here and what I am going to show you here is the journey that we are going to take. The screen

story

structure

can be seen in several ways for some of you, it will be new things for all of you.

I have something new, don't worry, but for some of you there will be a lot of new things and for some of you it will be a review, but there is another way to look at it: you are proposing and you are pursuing getting your master's degree in

screenwriting

and a master's degree in fine arts, a 42 unit master of fine arts is what is called a terminal degree and that means that in that field beyond that degree there is no other degree that is superior and that means, as many of you know, that the Master of Fine Arts and Screenwriting is a kind of license to teach in every college and every university, not only in the United States of Am

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a, but also in general in the world and that is something worth having.

I mean, I made them when I was a kid and I didn't want to leave college. I just loved it too much and the world was scary and from the beginning I was getting these things and I got these degrees and then life took its course and I just put it in a drawer and then there came a time when you know an offer came and I was qualified. I had this. things, so this, this, this, can be a powerful and important title for you, therefore, since you are putting the possibility of teaching in your closet, hiding it somewhere, another way of seeing everything that you see us do to your instructors. your mentors here for the next two years, this may become a study in how certain things are taught, each of us is different and each of us has a different approach, true, but pay attention, the whole hand I'm going to have. one person to hand them out and you will receive them as we go save your handouts have these notebooks for you for each topic because the day may very well come and I believe it will come for many, if not most of you, in which you will teach and You'll have this reference material right there and you won't have to start from scratch, okay, get ready.

I'm going to go ahead and show mainly, not all, but most of the conventional commercial Hollywood, well, a hero that we'll talk about later, movies that were big box office hits around the world, that's what we're going to discuss and the The only reason for a huge box office is that the size of the box office and the amount of money from any particular film is the only reason it matters. For us, it tells us that these were effective emotional initiatives that touched the hearts of millions of people around the world and that is what we are looking for, what we do is emotional, what we do is transmit emotion to an audience because that is what that they've come to experience, you go to the movies to feel deeply and then we'll see how you make that happen is how you make it happen right, first things first, historical perspective.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a playwright named Sophocles and he was a very hard-working playwright in his life. Consider that Sophocles wrote over 100 plays. I mean, Shakespeare only wrote thirty-seven hundred plays, that's a lot of plays and only three or four of them reach us today, what's called extant, you know. in its complete form, but thank God, what are those works? That Abyss Rex Oedipus Rex in the days of Sophocles was his great success, it was the most successful play he ever had and they loved it and they put on other productions of It's Something Like That in the future and he was honored for it in many ways and that tells us something and this is my point in starting here: the audience that responded to Oedipus Rex with such force and emotion for its own culture and time are exactly the same people. with the same thought processes and the same

story

processing functions as humans today, the body, the month we haven't changed in 2500 years, you don't really want to go back 200 thousand, that's a different story, okay, but there are no fables that have worked. the

structure

that worked and I have studied Oedipus Rex obviously for that, to concretize the structure, everything is there, everything is there and in relation to what we are going to see here tonight, so many people think or newcomers anyway they think.

Sorry, the structure is somehow overlapping and it doesn't, it doesn't talk about how the human mind processes the story that we came to this planet yearning for meaning, that's how our brains, our physical things, computers and search for a bit genetically well , have been trained to look for meaning in everything 150,000 years ago, you know the vague scent of a light breeze or the echo of an echo on the other side of a canyon or something, instantly knowing what these things meant could be the difference between life and death, so through millennia, it became embedded in the human brain.

We are all looking for meaning and that is what stories give us. Life is chaotic. Life is ambiguous, but we all love the ritual of history turning that into meaning. And that's what the structure does. Yes, the point is obviously structure. is your friend, you shouldn't dismiss it as dangerous to your creativity or something if you feel that way, it's okay because I've worked with many grad students who feel exactly that way and it's up to me to convince you otherwise, I know. that's part of my job and I take it on, you know, willingly and we'll have those discussions and arm wrestling if you want, that's fine with me too, but the bottom line is that structure is your friend and if you want to write art films and I can't stand Hollywood movies, we don't care about them and the point here is that now in the organization of elements and things like that, I understand Sun Tzu, The Art of War, know your enemy, know these things and then if you want go away go out and write independent cinema and all that is great, God with all our blessings, yes we need filmmakers and writers like that too, but know what you are not doing, it is important to know what you are leaving out, do it intentionally and not just you.

I know by mistake, okay, first let's build a specific story by arranging the elements and that's what the structure does, like I said, here we go back to basics, okay, there are three things that need to be established in your head when you say, oh , I have a great idea for a movie or when someone shows up at a cocktail party, put your ear up, it has to have certain elements to it to really be a good idea for a movie, it's not just a place where you don't just have to have a particular character. a hero, yes, a likeable and active hero, sympathy, there are nine, this is all in the book: there are nine basic sympathy tools that allow you to create a character, any type of character you mean, even if you like to write about seedy people, that's fine. but they still need that those people need certain qualities that make them empathetic, or at least understanding, so that we, the audience, very quickly and at the beginning of the first act, at the beginning of your movie, can identify with this hero that we have than to convert. emotionally involved and that's the window where you have to let your audience in and a hero has to be physically active, he has to be, that's the trick here in the end, but we'll get there how the conscious way you can build and maintain a hero active for two hours two hours a visual narrative that's a lot and there's a lot of things that need to happen there okay and a little bit aside a hero the word hero I use the word hero in the original Greek sense.

I don't know if you know where that came from hero was the name in Greek mythology hero was the name of a high priestess of Aphrodite actually hero was originally the name of a woman and the hero had a lover, but by the name of what It was Leander and every night, you know, the High Priestesses lived on this island and every night there was this little channel of ocean between them and every night Leander swam across the channel so he could spend the night with Hero one night when he swam across. through the great The storm hit and he began to thrash and drown.

The hero saw this, so the myth continues and she jumped in and swam in an attempt to save him. Unfortunately, in this myth, they both drowned, it was very Romeo and Juliet I guess, but the point is, that's how it is. it's not gender specific in its origins, maybe it got twisted later, but please let me use one word collectively, it's women, men and personifications and animated creatures, personified animals, one word hero, okay, okay, second one thing you should have is a visible high-risk physical target. This is the difference between novels that we'll talk about next week in another, you know, approaching it from a different angle than the difference between novels and movies.

Visual storytelling is about Cree adding visual metaphors for inner emotional states. what we write, people can't just sit idly by feeling that the way emotions and character are revealed in visual storytelling is through behavior, people making decisions and taking physical actions in pursuit of the goal, whatever that decision leads to, visually. In a sense, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but in that sense, plot and character are the same. A plot in a film in visual storytelling only exists so that a hero and other people can behave in a certain way in pursuit of something visual that allows us to enter. and it allows us to know what is happening emotionally within them.

There is no narrator that you meet, like in a novel that tells us what is going on inside them. We have to see it. Okay, all of this and the reason why these three are key, of course. Oh, and then a powerful adversary sorry, powerful adversary and I mean powerful adversary, your adversary is the character who is most committed to stopping the hero from getting what they want, whatever the goal or whatever the gender, etc. , and it is the adversary who creates. conflict, you know, the hero can't just say I think I want that chair. I'll walk over there and look for that chair.

No, you don't have a story until there's someone big and brutal or something like an obstacle preventing the hero from entering. chair they want and that, and the conflict should be as high as you can raise it under any circumstances, okay, that was a very quick sketch of the hero and the adversary. For any story, you must have a hero and you must have an adversary. That's because that's what I believe.conflict, that's at its most basic, but you're going to trust me for a while on this, there are 14 categories of characters that work in visual storytelling, only 14 and that's not a bad thing, actually.

Simplify your plot planning by knowing and knowing these categories well because each of these categories provides characters who must fulfill the function of hindering or helping the hero in achieving his objective if you have a character who does not fulfill either of the two things. they have no meaning to the story and unless they're just atmosphere people, who are essentially props, get rid of them, they can't just hang out there, although these categories get pretty broad and I'll be very specific next time Let's see each other. thecharacter categories, you really need to understand how to use them because one of the things I see in students in the early years and stuff when they start writing and creating their own plots is a dearth of subplots, it's character. list of categories that gives you on a silver platter subplots and subplots can take so much pressure off your plot when it's just one hero in just the adversary over and over and on and on, you have to keep changing the nature of the conflict and These other characters They will help you for now.

I put it here, so if you take a look, well, it's them. Those are the carrot categories. You don't have to rush and write everything down. I'll Have Handouts, not tonight, but I'll Have Handouts, it's in the book and it's all in the book too, but it's just kind of an overview of what it takes to build a plot that works for the audience and stays focused, There are the categories, now you have your idea and now we. start building a story structure on screen worth two hours and that's a lot let's see first of all you need to have an idea you have discussed three key elements they all need to be there for your idea to be viable for conflict in the future . a story, the second thing you have to think about is an ending, a lot of people, newbies, specifically say: leave me alone.

I'm going to take these people and move on. I'm going to start writing and doing scenes. and they tell me where they want to go and usually not always, but usually those scripts end, I mean, they get abandoned around page 48 and they get dropped in a drawer because they get lost. I mean, the writer gets lost in the weeds and that's another reason. why it is so important to organize there are tools here it is as if you know wood an electrical cable they offer you the tools to build a house it is a little difficult to discard them out of hand I think the end of the law in The scripts are largely written from behind forward or at least they are built from back to front.

Where do you want it to end? You have an idea for a character and a conflict. What is the emotion you want to seek? What is the feeling? of that final climatic scene and where it will take place, it's important that you think care

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y, choose something and write it in your outline while you build your outline here, which for now is the end and listen to all these things. Obviously you're not tied to them, if you get into this and say you suddenly find something that's a better idea for you and you want to go in that direction, well, rewrite your outline, all I'm saying is you need the basics. aligned. so you're going somewhere and because that's the way it is, if you don't know the ending or the possible ending you're going to, you're inviting writer's block, you really are and that's how people get lost in the swamps and until they just you know they can't face the headache and yeah, and they kept it, okay, the ending, surprisingly surprising, is also surprisingly surprising.

I'm going to spend a little time tonight with examples of surprising surprise one and surprising surprise two, now these. This is my name, my title for these key moments, you probably know them because they happen at the end of the first act and the end of the second act, they are the biggest changes in your entire story and you need to know where you are. You're going for them from the beginning, you need to know early, the planet because sometimes you have to work on them to make it really juicy and big. I used the words what is Syd Field?

I think I said they were first plot points one and two, that's all. that's what he called it and even Joseph Campbell said it's crossing the first threshold, you know, surprisingly surprised, all of which is true and all of which is great, but I think those are abstract terms and I prefer terms that aren't abstract even Yes You're a little bit over the top, like an awesome surprise, because that should be the impact of that moment that you're creating for your audience, really shocking, it should be emotionally visible and very impactful for the hero, okay, let's get to that right. . away here and from this first or business and what you're lining up on, you also have to decide from the beginning, you know, before you start writing script pages, weight on script pages because once you write script pages, It becomes increasingly difficult to throw them away. away, but we'll move on, you need to know where the beginning goes, where you're going to start, you know where it ends, you know roughly what some of the big moments are going to be, who's doing what, to whom, the nature of the conflict now.

Where do you start because you can still screw it up there too? And then if you start too early, you know, if you start too late, even with a couple of scenes, you push it because you want it to move and roll, but you haven't. giving your audience enough time to connect emotionally with your hero, that's really important, those things that happen from the beginning and unless it's an action movie, you know it was a James Bond or something, which always starts With your ordinary world, yes, it's run, chase and shoot. I mean, that's what he does, okay, that's his ordinary world and you start there, but you have to give your audience a few moments, a few scenes to emotionally connect with your hero before you can really get down to it. the work and make them accompany you and accompany you.

I've seen several European movies, British movies for some reason, specifically not all of them, but I've seen them start too early and they can be about 20 minutes long. There was one called Layer Cake, that was it. It's a great gangster movie, but I don't know if your ice. I remember the beginning, it's just there, I mean, they're just talking and hanging out and it goes on and on and on and you're waiting for the movie. to start, no, choose your beginning, I mean, yes, your beginning, the beginning is really important after that, you have three acts and I think it's useful to look at your three acts or think of them as three worlds and that's why I divided it this way. as an example, act 1 is traditionally called the ordinary world or the hero's life yesterday, what the hero's life has been like until very near, but not in the past, just before this, start what you are doing in the ordinary world in act 1 after the inciting incident the hero will have a general objective an overall objective in the first act of an ordinary world, for example, I will use Shrek here in just a second as an example, but Shrek's ordinary world, does How many of you haven't seen Shrek?

I thought that would be the case. I mention it and use them as examples. Please write down the titles of these movies. It is really worth your time and effort to get these movies and take the time to spend time with them and watch them. I choose them because they are very good examples of one thing or another, but Shrek is an ogre who lives in a swamp and is happy, thinks before the growth of the character, but then Lord Farquaad leads all these fairy tale creatures into his swamp and all of a sudden he's going crazy, he has to get rid of these fairy tale creatures because he wants to be left alone in his swamp, which is his overall goal in act 1, and he heads to Duloc to find Lord Farquaad and demand that get rid of it.

For them, this is all an act 1 thing, it's the hero pursuing a general goal and then something happens at the end of act 1 that lowers the curtain and raises the curtain immediately in act 2, where now the goal has become very specific, very specific and It is often called act 2 of the special world because it is a world that the hero has never experienced before due to the nature of the circumstances. Sometimes it's a physical difference, but many times it's like real life. Somewhat contemporary, you know he's still in Manhattan, but what the hero faces now makes him incredibly different and special and life or death.

In Act 2 and then Act 2, the hero forms a plan and follows it throughout Act 2, improvising it. as it gets torn apart and then at the climax of act 2 when you're shocked the plan totally flies out of the water and gets destroyed and suddenly there's no plan at all, it's the biggest change in the whole movie and then that throws the hero into act 3 where they have to improvise, there's no plan anymore, but I think the best really useful way to look at your three acts is this is adolescence, this is your hero's adolescence, age doesn't matter.

They are physically, but this is an emotional adolescence and then you enter a special world where they realize that they better grow up and they will never be emotionally or they will never be able to do what they need to do. to reach their goal and then the third act is their maturity now they are adults now they understand it now they have overcome some of the internal emotional reticence and are ready to face the adversary for all the marbles. I break one out here as an example, okay this is a guarantee, I don't mean to trap people, but how many of you haven't seen guarantees?

Oh, okay, okay, write it down. Okay, this is a thriller, actually, a relatively big-budget Am

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an thriller that was a hit with everyone. In addition, it won some CAD imme awards. I know, yes, there is a lot to study there, in fact, we may see it ourselves later in class. Okay, the hero is a one-hero movie and the hero is max max, the taxi driver. ordinary max, but in act 1, his ordinary world, he has been planning and dreaming of starting his own limousine company for 12 years, which you know, he doesn't understand the fact that it's ridiculous that he should have launched it years ago, but he has afraid to accept. that risk, the plans had to be perfect, so basically the underlying emotional problem that Max has is that he has no courage, then a shocking surprise happens and suddenly a boom hits the teapot, flies into act 2 and has been kidnapped by a coup.

A man is forced to drive it for the rest of the night while killing people and suddenly the lack of courage becomes the month of monstrosity that hinders Max from being alive tomorrow morning if he doesn't get the guts to do something to confront this killer and take the attendant risk and all that, he's not going to live the night so now there are reasons why he better start growing fast and he does and it's really cool when he gets to act 3 Believably, the arc is so beautiful, the character growth arc and believably, in act 3, max becomes a genuine hero.

You don't know, he's not a superhero, but he's fighting the bad guy because he's trying to save the woman. You'll see, you'll see, but that's another one. way of looking at it and as an example of basic structure, that particular movie is fine, the inciting incident these are the dramatic acts 1 2 3 and the point is that they need to keep escalating, you know they have to or you're going to lose your audience . They can't just float two main things happen in act 1, the inciting incident and the surprising surprise 1 that ends the act, there are some of these things that I'm not going to get into tonight, but the inciting incident, a lot of people confuse The inciting incident was a surprising surprise and we will talk about that in the future and we will see many examples, but for example, the inciting incident for the alien which most of you I am sure have seen and that is why I would like to take my examples from a few ago years, assuming most of you have seen these things.

What is the incident that incited ET the alien? Any ideas hmm, yes, yes, yes, it's about that, but first, yes, well, we are. not in the shed, but close, very close, yeah, the thing is, a lot of people have said that, well, it's when ET is left behind and a spaceship takes off, that starts this story, the definition of the inciting incident is that This story begins and no. another well, no that is not the time because number one ET is not the hero as you know, many of you have already discovered it ET is not the hero ET is what is called the innocent Elliot in danger of extinction the child is the hero and the inciting incident that starts all of this is when the thing in the shed and all that and he goes out to look for something strange in the tall grass and weeds and they open up Louise and they see each other face to face for the first time within inches away and they're both terrified and they scream and they turn around and they run, they run away, that's the inciting incident because then from that moment on Elliot is obsessed with finding that wonderful strange looking puppy and making him his pet and there it is the only one in terms of the character.

He keeps talking about the growth arc like he's a puppy and then suddenly surprises you when he asks CT where he came from.You come and all the blobs of plasticine rise up and, with mental power, you show it to him. things in the air and you know, pointing at different planets and things like that and at that moment and that's why I think about what he says, what Elliot says is of all the things he could say, oh no, in other words, what I had. your assumption about e8e was all wrong this is not a dog this is the most advanced and intelligent incredibly powerful creature currently on the face of the earth that's what he's gotten himself into and that requires Elliot to kick his ass over the teapot in the second act where the focused objective is to get that creature home, save its life and get it home, so there's an example, okay, that's the nature of the incident that caused it, study the surprise, well, let's see what go on, yeah, okay, surprising surprise, these are the basic factors of surprising surprise, the usual.

There's usually some wiggle room here, folks, but usually 25 to 35 minutes, it usually depends on how long the movie is. If the movie is two hours and 20 minutes, 44 minutes may pass. It depends on 25 to 35 minutes of the movie. It must happen to the hero and it happens in an instant. It is one of those. It is not a scene that develops and reveals. It happens in an instant. it shocks and surprises the hero and us and the audience and introduces what the story will be about, like eating Elliott, when they know it, he gets kicked in the second act, very quickly it becomes clear that he knows and we know the story will be about save ET, okay, okay, that's it.

From this it is clear that this incredible film was an incredible launch of careers here it really was, but that is a moment of surprising surprise, often the eyes are wide open, with the mouth open, it is a real shock, it has to be a shock for the hero. okay, here's an example, so Shrek left, he's really mad at fairy tale creatures and he runs off to go find Lord Farquaad, he's going to do the Locke thing. There is no one in the city and then he hears people clapping in the arena inside the palace. he heads there to find out why this is hmm, there's some kind of contest about to happen and whatever C's Lord Farquaad is on top of his curtains or whatever and but Shrek is Shrek, he's not afraid of anything or anything.

Nobody, it just keeps breaking in. there to take his complaint to Lord Farquaad, get rid of the fairy tale creatures, but remember, as soon as Lord Farquaad sees him, he says, oh, that hideous ogre, how horrible, how ugly, new plan, the knight I killed the ogre will be the champion, of course, Shrek is completely. unfazed because, oh, can't we discuss this over a pint, whatever it is, and all the gentlemen come after Shrek and Shrek makes it a very comedic sequence, very enjoyable and a perfect climatic action sequence to end an act , the ax rises even in the first act? it rises to a climax and then the second act rises to a bigger climax there has to be a climax in the act and the audience is having a great time, they are cheering him on and they are among the ladies who give him the chair The reference is the references to professional wrestling and all that kind of stuff, one by one and three by three, he knocks out all the guards and then people applaud and Shrek is having a great time and he doesn't eat it, that's why his donkeys. proud too, but suddenly a bunch of upside-down crossbows are cocked and pointed at them, which changes the situation, whoops, and then the captain, the guard, says: Lord Farquaad, you know, so I give you the order, sir. hmm, being the consummate politician, all idiotic authoritarians are him.

He says wait, I have a better plan and give the audience what they want people from Duloc I give you your champion what am I saying what is the look is the reversal eyes mouth the classic surprising surprise a look and what do you do now general from Shrek The goal of getting rid of the fairy tale creatures has become the next scene and he and very quickly Farquaad tells him that if you go to the dragon fortress and bring me the princess, I will give you your swamp back, now it's hers. The desire to get rid of fairy tale creatures in general has become something specific: Go to the dragon: the Dragon's fortress save the princess and bring her back to Farquaad.

It's very specific what he has to do now, which is the function of a surprising surprise for everyone. of these apply to Shrek twenty-five thirty-five minutes into the movie I think it happens at 26 minutes must happen to the hero always always must and takes place in an instant I give you your champion uh yeah, it takes place in an instant. and surprises of the hero heavens and heavens yes and presents what will be the story this surprising surprise one does everything meets all the requirements okay here is another just one more for a surprising surprise one OK taxi driver Max is a sweet guy and very understanding on several levels and we know that he is one of the most accurate taxi drivers anyone has ever met.

His cab is spotlessly clean. This is something else about your hero. Whatever you do. They have to be very skilled at what they do now. I don't care what they do. Yes, I don't do it at all levels. It's subtle, but it's very important. They can't just make a mistake. Damn, you're not going to get a hearing that way, okay, so another guy got in his cab, he still doesn't know that Vincent is a murderer, but if she's just dumping him, she had an affair and she's dumping him, but then he comes Vincent. I accepted his offer of $600 and told him to stay with me for the rest and took me around.

I have a few more places to go and then I'll get to the airport on time in the morning, right, and Max complains and says he's against it. regulations, but he says it's okay, it's a night shift for him, you know, $600 is pretty good plus a bonus when he gets in there, so he takes the deal in this movie, that's the inciting incident when Max unknowingly , but in retrospect we will see. When he accepts the deal that unites him with Vincent and that leads him to stun Mr. Pipe, don't stun, surprise two, very fast, I'm a very fast one, he says, go and wait for me in the alley and like a good hero, he doesn't waste At any time, the hero should always be doing something, so you use the waiting time to have lunch to see the need to change this bit and look at your catalogs for the cars you are going to rent for your limo service that you have been doing this for.

He hasn't launched it in 12 years yet, but while he's deep in his reverie, out of nowhere, kaboom, something big and squishy hits the top of his cockpit and I happen to be still pointing at the screen instead of the computer at the one that is directed. Being a human being who is pretty crushed, the effect it has on Max is pretty strong and he immediately goes into shock and is terrified and staggers and stumbles and gets out of the car, falls to the ground, crawls around trying to make sense of it. It's, this is not a surprising surprise, it's not a surprising surprise, but the reason is this surprising surprise, one has to change everything, change the hero's life forever, go back to Shrek, he goes to find a princess, he believes that only you know how to get rid of it.

The traveling fairy tale creatures will change his life forever, ultimately he will fall in love for the first time in his life and that will change everything right here, he is a taxi driver and it is quite scandalous that a dead body falls on top of his taxi and en It's a little scary, but it's not really outside of what normally happens in a city. Could you know that you are going to tell a great story? Maybe he'll write himself in the papers and tomorrow night he'll be driving a new taxi, just like his old life would be. continues, yes, it's creepy, it's big and dramatic and loud, but it still doesn't change his life, so Vincent comes out mumbling with a lot of self-control and Max is flustered and says it's Ron.

I think he's dead, I guess Vincent plays low. key and at that moment the thought finally crosses Max's mind: you killed him. I think Vinson says you know I shot him, it was the bullet in the fall that killed him. I mean, he's kind of a cynical, sarcastic guy, he's for a killer, right? This is not the surprising surprise yet because he has to tie it to one more factor before it changes his life forever and it is this Vincent, who tries to stop him from escaping, pulls out the gun, points a gun at him and now it's a surprise surprising and look at the expression, it's a surprising expression of surprise because now he knows the whole story, is that he is a captive of a murderer and that means, and he knows, I mean, you can see his face, he said conversations. with the murderers they don't let those people live, so now you see this is called, you know, ass over the kettle here and in act 2 because now, for the first time, you are in the special world of being held hostage by a man killing. people for a living that he has to drive around for the rest of the night and the chances of Max coming out on the other side of this, you know, in the morning to get away from this guy, are pretty much not impossible, so now Max has faced a situation he has never faced before and that is called a special world, in fact, how is he going to achieve this peacefully and Max will face this guy with life and death?

The second act begins and the difference here is where it is there, it's five minutes in collateral I think the first act is nineteen minutes long nineteen minutes long pretty shit, pretty short for the first act, yeah, but think about why this story is about a taxi driver. The first act, his ordinary world almost falling apart, takes place inside the taxi. This is a suspense movie. a thriller you have to get something going you have to get the story going quickly not in 25 minutes you know people won't stick around you have to do it as soon as possible a lot of things are set up in act 1 and in those 19 minutes and it We'll see more closely in a few weeks.

Oh, the brilliance with which this was put together in this first act, but that's why it has to be shorter and that's another statement of the paradigm being flexible in some ways. Well, that was surprisingly surprising, so there's a middle ground, We're not going to get into the middle ground tonight, the middle ground is juicy and there's a lot to discuss about the middle ground, the middle ground is not a moment. as a surprising surprise, it's not just a moment of shock, it's a series, like not always, but as a general rule, it's a series of short scenes in which several key things happen that move the story forward, including one of them , is a key. moment of character growth and we'll talk about that another time, but now I want to move on to the other key, the most important one, which is a surprising surprise for some of the same things and some new things, a surprising surprise for this, this is the climax and and the curtain for the end of act 2 and a lot of things, I mean most of your movie, I mean, act 2 can be 70 pages even more of your script and that's why it deserves a lot of attention and a lot reflection and planning and we'll get there it's the biggest change in the entire movie this is the biggest dramatic event in the entire movie it takes place in an instant yes shocks and surprises yes but here the hero's plan is destroyed that means at the beginning of In act 2, the hero dusts himself off and now has a very specific and difficult task ahead of him, a goal, so he begins to formulate a plan and sometimes begins to gather allies, as Campbell says, classifying enemies and allies in that. first section of act 2 and get down to earth by forming a plan and moving forward with it and towards the end of the second act, yes, you know, the action increases towards the end of the act and the climax could be It's possible that the hero achieve this, it seems more and more feasible and then BOOM, surprising surprise, two hits and the plan is completely destroyed.

The plan no longer exists and it is called the hero's darkest hour. Now it seems that the hero is finished. and let me remind you this, sometimes it sounds like I'm just talking about action movies, that's not the case, to varying degrees they are all genres, family dramas, this is what they are, it's just that these things, these contests, these conflicts become between two people, one person trying to dominate another or convince them of something, all this is true for all genres that work and that work for the public, okay and it is often called the darkest hour of the heroes, but I include this because I have an example coming up.

It's up to you again to show you a variation of about five or ten percent of all the movies that work have a positive investment; In other words, at the end of the second act, the hero is a little depressed and then it has to be the biggest investment. You can't lower your honor too much if you're already a little bit down and it goes up and the big difference is when you do that and that's okay, I mean, there are a lot of romantic comedies and other things and dramas and other things. So, bridesmaids are like that.

Erin Brockovich is like that, but what that means is that the third act has to be very short because the hero is already a C, so the obligatory scene and a new mall, you continue with that and you finish it and you're out, your story is over, okay, let's take a look at an example, ah, not yet, this is a surprising surprise two from The Matrix. Okay, this is a more traditional surprise surprise. Okay, how many haven't seen The Matrix? Okay, write it down. Very good, Megan. oh this was a genre changing movie. I mean, we've seen all kinds of moviesI learned from that movie, but this is where it starts.

The hero's goal one in gravity is the hero's ordinary world. The hero of that film is Sandra Bullock, who plays Dr. Ryan Stone, who is in space working on the Space Station due to a deep wound she received when her four-year-old daughter fell from a climber and died, she lost her daughter and the meaning of her life in a strange accident and she is so deeply grieved that what she has done has been as far away from life and earth as possible, remaining in total silence, in the depth of the silence of space, so you're up there, you're doing your job and your goal is to work in space. without thinking or feeling new news and that sequence also establishes other members of the crew and establishes her, her mentor character, George Clooney's character, Kowalski.

I think it was his name and the new news after X minutes is that Houston suddenly calls and says to abort the mission. Come back immediately a wide swath of space junk is heading straight towards you now they are fighting and trying to get in with the other astronauts there. I think there are three of them working at the time and she's caught up in what she's doing, she's trying. to finish and restart you know she's concentrating on that and Kowalski keeps saying get in now and you can't move too fast with space suits and all that and new news so get in the spaceship and come back right away and there will be new news. becomes that they fail to survive the debris storm and they are right in its path, then that becomes a hero 3 objective sequence which is to do everything possible to survive the debris storm, see, those are actions that accumulate among themselves.

This is just a sample. I mean, this is it. I'm going to have your head. Maybe you'll think too much about this stuff in the future of the course, but these are the tickets guys, this is a secret and here's the weird part, this is what I wanted to get you guys finally, thanks for hanging in there for the technical disaster and everything was fine. This is what Act 1 looks like Act 1 I'm still amazed at this, but this is true of Act 1 in any movie that works for audiences and it was a hugely successful act. One of them, regardless of gender, has six hero objective sequences.

There are six, not five, not seven, six and surprising surprise, one always appears here ago. Watch six, every time, it never fails, if the movie doesn't work, then that's not the case. I mean, I mean Minaya and I've done a lot to you. you have to watch bad movies too, but from now on when you watch bad movies, I don't want to listen to them, I just didn't like it, it sucks, you have to tell me why it sucks, where did they fail in their mission? To bring you excitement, how did they screw it up? I want you to be able to detect and soon you will be able to detect exactly why it didn't work.

That's fine and the weirdness continues. Here is the graph for act 2. Act 2 is split in half. In the midpoint sequence, the first half of act 2 contains 6 other hero objective sequences and the midpoint sequence in every good movie has a really good midpoint sequence and that says a lot because they are not easy at all and the Midpoint sequence always appears here. oh, objective sequence number 12 always and in the second half, second half of act 2, like another guess what other 6 hero objective sequences and a surprising surprise also always appears in hero objective sequence 18, not 19 , not in 17 or 16 in 18 in every movie that works emotionally for the audience act 3 is the only place it can do that.

Act 3 contains between 2 and 5 hero objective sequences. There is a minimum of 2 because remember there is the obligatory scene and the new day. 2 things are critical and have to happen in Act 3 and each one needs its own sequence of objectives, that's why the minimum is 2 and the maximum is five, but please hear me out, there are some really good movies. I mean my favorite romantic comedy of all time, as good as it gets, it's five. but it has to summarize a lot of things and there are so many important relationships that have to be summarized in the third act.

Okay, let's leave it a little. I'm asking you, without actually begging, not to include five hero objective sequences in your third act. it makes the act too long and your audience gets restless, it made those stories in movies that we watch and feel like they regret it, that keeps ending over and over and it still ends, that's the feeling you're in danger of creating. keep the third act short, that's what the average should be for a hit Hollywood movie that is loved around the world, the average is 21, in other words three hero objective sequences in act 3, here's a graph of everything and here is your challenge, I think this is extraordinarily good news for you, now you know in advance exactly how much story your script will need to be a success with the public, to affect them and connect with them emotionally, this is what it's meant to be and I mean, believe me, I intend to prove it to you and I'll prove it to you this semester in spades that it's true and it's true across all genres because it's about, you know, this takes us back to Greece.

It's talking about how your audience absorbs the whole ritual of the story, that's what you're talking about, but here's the problem. I mean, I think it's enormously useful and valuable knowledge, but take a look at how many little surprises it has. "I've had graduate students, you know, working on some of the actual writing courses and working on things, and I only have four sequences in the second half of the second act, that's all I can think of, that's all that I can". t I just had four in the second half of the second act and the old foreman shakes his head.

No, sorry, if you could only find four, that means you have to go back in your story to find out why that's true. Telling you that your previous story was not built in such a way that it can be provided as you go, you have to go back to the basics, that kind of thing, in other words, this is your challenge, it is an incredible challenge to fight. Grit your teeth because those are the facts, guys, and this is what knowing this accomplishes, which I think is enormously helpful. It shows them in advance exactly how much plot they need exactly how many times they know the changing sequences they are going to do. having to organize and invent, yes, one of the things is in the book and we will talk about this later as well, but, for example, another thing about hero objective sequences that you can't repeat, you can't have two objective sequences of the hero that are basically the same, if you have one that is more or less the same as something that preceded it, then you have to add something important to it that changes it and makes it unique before you can use it.

It shows you exactly how much plot you need and sometimes this. It's chills at night because there's a lot of plot It ensures that the hero will always be the active one One of the two or three deadliest things that killed so many neophyte scripts It's a passive hero Think about the type of story in which things happen The hero and the hero doesn't happen to the story driving the story on his own it doesn't work like that if you do this the hero is always active 21 times they are pursuing a physical goal they can never be passive and the interesting thing is that that's what happens in movies that connect with the audience, the heroes are not passive, they never do anything that advances the story, the story will never weaken, that is built in and what we know is that this is the best thing you are building. something for the best possible emotional involvement of your audience, we're talking about psychology here, really, that's really what it is, this is a kind of finger on a certain type of absorption of another ritual, this is what brings the emotion and the pleasure to an audience and that's what you have to fight with oh yeah and this is good too a lot of people talk about this there are a lot of grad students who go back to their closets and pull out old things you know you have half a script here and there You gave up and In high school there is something like that.

Add in that you thought we were going somewhere or you pulled out old scripts, finished a draft, maybe a couple of three drafts, but it never quite worked out, it never clicked with you. I know a couple of people read it and you know they weren't there to save it. Get it out. Take this paradigm and imply that you know. Place it over your previous script and it will show you exactly why that script didn't work. show you that only two or three interesting things happen in the first act, you know that well, maybe only three or four interesting things happened in the second act, no, that's not enough, I think you're finally off the hook, you know, okay, you're right, say you survived.

Thank you for your patience through glitches and all and for allowing me to get through this. I know it was a lot to sit and answer questions, any questions, let's take a break, you can finally go to the bathroom and when you come back. It'll be just us and we can relax a little bit and talk about some of this stuff and any questions you want to ask me, okay, so thanks for the time off.