Film Courage: Can you give us an overview of your four act story structure? Adam Skelter, writer, director, story artist: So what one of my
favorite instructors that I worked with his name is Ron Mita he taught a class
over in Valencia and he wrote SWAT and then I think he sold some stuff, he
developed robots for a Blue Sky or something, really good guy, very practical
great write,r very cool guy, amazing for pitching, as well. And he was
the one that introduced me to this idea of just twenty-four plot points and and
he said just you know literally just write down 24 just 24 numbers and just
put PP plot point plot by plot point and then break it down into you know the
first acts and then you know most people say first second and third but everybody
divides it at the midpoint now it really comes down to how do you define an act
and in researching when I was working on the videos I was trying to come up with
a good definition for act and you know I looked at Robert McKee Truby Trottier
a lot of the greats and I couldn't find a very clear specific definition of an
act so I you know I'm ridiculously pedantic so I really tried to come down
to this boil it down to its essence I tried to be as precise as I can with the
terms and definitions like for example inciting incident that words always that
terms always bothered me just because technically every single
sequence has an inciting incident has an incident that's inciting the next
behavior a Snyder will refer to as the catalyst a catalyst is where you take
two elements and a chemical reaction that's already going to happen and a
catalyst speeds it up so what you're saying is that the catalyst is going to
take something that's inevitable and enhances it that's why I call it the
impetus and impetus is a force that moves that motivates movement and that's
which is a very specific thing that happens once in the screenplay
so that and that's you know that's my terminology that I use I think whatever
metaphor helps people make sense of this story and take care of the essential
elements that's fine so Ron Mitas approach was basically
put the 24 plot points plot point six is end of Act one plot point twelve is a
midpoint plot point eighteen is your low point and then plot point I think it was
twenty one is your climax and then after that's falling action very simple and
it's like we would we would literally just sit there and plot out a story in
an hour and it's it's super pragmatic so from there it really came down to trying
to understand alright if we keep dividing everything in the
midpoint like Pilar for example should you use act a 2a and 2b and it kept on
begging this question what is an act so in your mind what is an act how would
you define what is an act okay well it's not really a scene but it time it sets
you up for one part of the journey okay so let's just say there's a story of
someone going to college and maybe they're a fish out of water and they get
a scholarship and they don't really belong in this world and so the first
act or the second act anymore the others say the second act would show them
arriving with their stuff at the campus and knowing how they're out of place
knowing how they're not going to fit in with the culture and so you see them
kind of scared with their box of stuff maybe being brushed aside by busy people
hmm and so that's establishing the world of that college and they don't feel like
they fit in and they kind of no they don't and everybody else knows they
don't fit in either but somehow they were been able to go there so that's the
long winded way of setting up maybe that would be the second act I don't know it
could be I'm jumping ahead too much but no I mean I think you just described two
acts okay okay so where would you divide it that's the big question
and when everybody says you know there's people like like Dave and friends Oney
he came to CalArts gave one of my favorite lectures on story ever and he
was like fuck three act structure there's no such thing as Acts you just
understand story you get into character and you throw a conflict at them and
they pursue their objectives and don't worry about Acts and that's fine now if
that works for you that's awesome I don't like to me all of its modular
all is use it as assets that help you write
and anything that's holding you back from writing let it go
you know has this kind of to me I like to understand his things as thoroughly
as I can I learn very slowly and thoroughly and then let go whenever the
story needs to take its own direction so the way I look at an act is essentially
defined by strategies so a character the the first act as a character has a
specific strategy which is their normal daily life this is the value systems
that they that have gotten them to this point in life so when the impetus comes
in and throws their life out of balance they find suddenly that they have to
they start to negotiate it and try and be like well I don't want to change my
life I don't want to do anything but the second they cross that threshold and
begin to shift into a new strategy then they've crossed into a new act so what
I've found every single time is that act 2 for example you usually have a
character that's you know trying something new like Tootsie you know I
watched that as a kid it's so great Pollock is brilliant so you have was
Michael Dorsey who's dressed as Dorothy Michaels and he's having success and
everything he's doing is bringing more and more success and it looks like hey
this new strategy is working before that a strategy was I'm gonna be a difficult
actor until no one will work with him so he hits his breaking point
alright I'm gonna just as a woman and commit completely to the role and and he
sees nothing but success until he hit the midpoint when everything that he's
doing feels like it's paying off but ultimately betrays his authenticity so
it's at the midpoint where basically you feel like you're getting everything you
want and this can come is completely subjective to the needs of the story
this is just generally how the how the structure tends to go but when you hit
the midpoint often you're you learn that you are as far away from your original
objective as you could be thinking that you're just about
to achieve it generally speaking and that realization whatever that is the
introduction of a new conflict or something like that creates a kind of
shift in strategy and usually that strategy is very like frantic and coping
and so all the value systems that had informed that earlier strategy of hey
everything's gonna work you hit the midpoint and it's failing and you just
come tumbling down the mountain till you get down to the low point because all
that the first two acts are all about setup and then the second two are all
about payoff so that's second that that third what I define is an act well what
is to be but I just call it act three it's easier that way is really just a
strategy of collapsing down the hill until you get to the low point so all of
those choices are paying off but for the bad what do you think a lot of new
writers kind of not go wrong but have trouble with the line in terms of maybe
two and three the line when when sort of that that moment where you think that
they're going to achieve this payoff that they came to see the movie for
mmm-hmm but actually that's the beginning of a new set of issues and now
it's going to take you in a brand new direction what do you think a lot of
writers have trouble when it comes to is it is it setting up the first act is it
is it where it's not compelling enough or it's too much drama and the first act
and we need a little bit of a build I we'd almost have to take out a case by
case scenario I'm generally speaking I'm not really sure like where so many
people hit the same problems but a lot of it comes down to generally speaking
yeah if you're paying attention if you've invested the most important thing
is if you've invested in a character and you care about what the character wants
you understand what the character wants and you understand what's at stake if
they don't get it you're free to do anything you want you can play with
start to throw away structure altogether as long as you have that like Sorkin
says worshipping at the altar of intent and conflict seven actually it might
quote sound a little bitter but it's it really comes down to understanding the
nature of character every scene has to have a kind of motion
no motivation and if it's not emotional then we're not we're going to disengage
it's not just it's not just conflict it should be conflict that's increasing as
we're going along so I mean you know I see a I see a lot of television a movie
I mean right now is a great time for writers there's so much good writing
there's so much really strong writing a lot of it comes down to pacing a lot of
it comes down to really making sure that the audience is with the main character
and that their choices are making sense and that that you care about how this is
going to affect the way they're moving forward but I think if you're tracking
that and most you know most writers we're all you know we're delving into
ourselves to try and pull out this meaning a lot of it like for example
working with with producers most of the notes that I'll get tend to be kind of
you know just tracking like does it make sense that this character would do this
at this time you know and it's about trying to project and project yourself
into the character and understand the intentions and if that's consistent with
your overall character profile
you