put some light on this

This is a common problem. The Act II blues. The page 60 roadblock. Whatever you want to call it.

Some screenwriting gurus focus on this and break things down so Act II doesn't appear such a monster. Just one example, take a look at:

SCREENPLAY STRUCTURE by Michael Hauge
The Five Key Turning Points of All Successful Scripts
http://www.screenplaymastery.com/structure.htm

(This and other links are listed in the screenwriting tips thread.)

I've seen a couple of pro screenwriters argue that the Three Act structure is better viewed as a Four Act structure, with Act II broken into two separate acts. They just don't mention this when they're pitching to prodcos lest it causes brain meltdown.

Looking at the problem from a different angle might get you something, is all I'm suggesting.

-Derek

I have read about the "Mini-Movie Method" of screenwriting which models itself after the old silent films from the pre-sound era of the 1920's. Back then, reels of film were much smaller and only held about 15 minutes of footage, so when a reel was done, they had to change to the new reel, which could take several minutes. If the audience was bored by the previous reel, they might just leave during this reel-changing period, not trusting the next reel to be any better. This led to screenwriters needing to think in terms of 15 minute blocks of time where they would engineer a cliff-hanger at the end of each reel to keep people in their seats.

The structure goes like this:


| ...... ACT 1 ....... || .................... ACT 2 ................. || ....... ACT 3 ...... |
.
| . MM 1 . || . MM 2 . || . MM 3 . || . MM 4 . || . MM 5 . || . MM 6 . || . MM 7 . || . MM 8 . |

The appeal of this method is that it lends an organic flow and rhythm to the overall work. The movie Alien has a perfect structure to it that follows the MM method (although I don't know if the writer intentionally modeled it that way with the MM method in mind). There is literally one death every 15 minutes in that film.

Possibly better known as "sequencing"

Lemme see, dgl recently posted links to his Script Cafe site... yeah it's in the tips thread. Take a peek at Using Sequences

I've also got Paul Gulino's book, "Screenwriting - The Sequence Approach" which is worth a read.

-Derek

dpaterso said:

Possibly better known as "sequencing"

Lemme see, dgl recently posted links to his Script Cafe site... yeah it's in the tips thread. Take a peek at Using Sequences

I've also got Paul Gulino's book, "Screenwriting - The Sequence Approach" which is worth a read.

-Derek

Click to expand...

Smarty pants!

Check out this link guys,

see if this poster's name rings any bells.

http://p083.ezboard.com/Questions--Advice-2/fscriptsecretsfrm37

Do I need to say more?

The most difficult part of writing on any given day for me is just getting started. Once I write that first word of the day I can just fly, but getting that first word down each day... uggg... I'll spend an hour just looking at the screen.