THURSDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
ACT 2 - IT'S CONFLICT!
Everyone seems to have problems with Act 2,
but I've learned the solution to all Act 2 problems is just to
remember what it's there for...
The three act structure has been around for about 2,350 years (it was *not* invented by Syd Field)
- Aristotle noticed that every story that worked followed a
simple pattern:
Act 1: You get your hero up a tree.
Act 2: You throw rocks at him.
Act 3: You get him down from the tree.
(That was the way Billy Wilder described the 3 Act Structure...
and Wilder's last movie was almost a decade before Field's book.)
So...
Act 1: Sets up your conflict.
Act 2: Is the conflict. (and escalation of conflict)
Act 3: Resolves the conflict.
Act 2 can't begin until the conflict fully involves your
protagonist. Usually in an action script, the hero gets in the
way of the villain's plan. Act 2 begins when the villain tries to
remove the hero from his path - that's conflict. The hero and
villain tangle through Act 2, the villain trying to get around
the hero - but the hero just keeps getting in the way.
In DIE HARD Act 2 kicks in when McClane kills his first
terrorist... and ends up with the detonators. Hans NEEDS the
detonators. His plan will fail if he can't get those detonators
back. So McClane has gone from being a stray party guest to a
MAJOR PROBLEM for Hans. McClane is right in the path of Han's
plan - there's no way to escape - it's like a freight train
headed at him at 90 mph. Now Hans sends the guys out to find
McClane and get the detonators back.
Act 2 is a dangerous game of hide and seek, with machine gun
battles when McClane and the badguys cross paths. Conflict,
conflict, conflict!
Keanu Reeves is the luckiest man in Hollywood... or maybe the smartest. While other stars decide not to do heavy effects heavy films in favor of more realistic or more dramatic material, Reeves ends up starring in high concept action flicks like SPEED and THE MATRIX movies and CONSTANTINE. The film is based on the HellBlazer graphic novels, about demon hunter John Constantine - rejected by both heaven and hell - fated to roam the streets of (London or) Los Angeles, maintaining the balance between good and evil. As the MATRIX movies were winding to a close, Warner Bros. Began searching for a new franchise for Keanu. Heck, even I was called in to pitch ideas. CONSTANTINE was the answer - a cool supernatural noir film that seems to have all of the elements... but still seems to sag in the middle.
The film opens with a cool exorcism scene where Constantine (Keanu) captures demon in a mirror, then breaks the mirror (and the demon) into a million pieces. Then we get to the story - a woman with psychic powers jumps from the roof of a hospital. Her twin sister - a Detective with the LAPD (Rachel Weisz - who also ends up in high concept hits), thinks her sister was murdered. Detective Dodson and Constantine keep crossing paths - at the crime scene, at the Cardinal's office (she is trying to get her sister a Catholic burial, he's got a meeting with Gabriel the angel), and at another crime scene where Constantine's alcoholic exorcist buddy is killed. Eventually she decides to go to Constantine for help... and he refuses. Eventually he decides to help her, and she admits that she was psychic as a child, but repressed the gift when she saw how much pain it brought her twin. Eventually she decides she needs to see the demons who walk among us, and Constantine performs the ceremony. Meanwhile, weird things are happening - demons are walking around on Figeroua Street, the sky is black with flying demons, and a dude gets killed in a bowling alley. Though most of this is fairly normal in Los Angeles, Constantine thinks something is wrong on a cosmic level. Some demon is breaking the rules. Eventually there's big battle between Constantine and the higher power behind all of this... but that battle happens at the very end of the movie.
Until then, it's a whole lot of great special effects and nihilism and noir... but not much actual conflict. Sure, the alcoholic exorcist is killed, as is that dude in the bowling alley... but these conflicts don't involve Constantine on a physical level. Bad things happen to his friends, bad things happen to the Detective... but Constantine is still a bystander to the story. There is no actual Act 2 struggle - and that's why it seems to drag. Everything that happens is peripheral to Constantine. It's still setting up the conflict between Constantine and the antagonist... and the stuff that sets up the conflict is ACT ONE material. ACT TWO is the struggle - the conflict - between the protagonist and antagonist (or force of antagonism). But the conflict doesn't involve Constantine until the end of the movie - ACT THREE. So the middle of the film seems a little cold and uninvolving. It's great to look at, but often not as exciting as it should be.
Act Two can't begin until the *protagonist* is LOCKED into conflict with the antagonist. Act Two is the conflict act - all struggle. The protagonist and antagonist locked in conflict. Act Two *is* the conflict.... and Constantine doesn't really get locked into the conflict until the end. Everything up until that point is Act One.
I suggest you pick your three favorite movies. Watch them and
take notes. Use the clock on your DVD player to keep track of when
things happen.
Somewhere on this website I have a couple of films broken down
into 5 minute segments - I tell you what happens every 5 minutes.
I think I have T-2 and 48 HOURS. Eventually I'll put up some
more. I take apart films like this to see how they work - look at
the pacing and the structure. If you do this with films similar
to the one you're writing you can see how other writers handled
their Act 2s and how those Act 2s worked.
Remember - Act 2 is CONFLICT. If the protagonist isn't fully
involved in the conflict, you aren't in Act 2 yet. I've read
scripts that didn't get to Act 2 until page 70! You want to get
to the conflict at around page 30. Maybe page 25, maybe page
35... but not page 70!
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