Mahler's Script Beat Calculator

Interesting.

Mysterious tool aside -- like it or not, story beats are the language of the film industry. Call this slavish bean-counting if you like, your first act is still too long. The Turning Point/Change of Plan beat is expected to happen around or just before Page 30. And before then, perhaps around midway through Act I, you have the New Situation/Something Unexpected Happens beat. (Labels differ from guru to guru, but you know what I'm talking about.) Both these beats are intended to ensure the audience remains interested in what's happening. If they come too late, if your sequences appear overlong, you run the serious risk of boring people. It's not a conspiracy, it's not incompetence on the part of development execs, it's how screenwriters tell their stories, because the human audience has a limited attention span and has to be nudged every now and again to stay awake. But you already know this... so maybe that's not the problem? Maybe the problem is that you're having a frustrating time cutting your beloved narrative and dialogue so they fit within the absurdly limiting structural template everyone expects you to use. So dammit, everyone else better change! Wild guess.

-Derek

A lot of it is just Blake Snyder's beat method.

Plot Device said:

Anyone tried this tool?

::ETA::


My own worst fear is that this calculator might cause a hair-splitting bean-counter mentality to take hold of "a few" Hollywood development execs. And so they'll all be rejecting scripts that DON'T fall into this mold, or when they DO accept a script, they'll start writing development notes along the lines of "push the dark moment of decision back by one more page." So they'll be slavishly trying to make ALL the scripts in their development clutches PRECISELY fit the calculator.

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Don't worry, it'll never happen. That would take a lot longer than just rejecting everything.

i agree w/dragon - no need to get your panties in a twist.

the hollyweird execs don't give 2 pence to this kind of mold and would most likely reject any script that came in touting that it's story structure fit it to a T.

and major company who has specific guidelines will make it public -- ie. Warner Bros has their own script guidelines in the final draft program and if you submit to them then you should definitely reform your script to fit it.

it's really only network (and some cable) tv that has the most specific guidelines when it comes to structure b/c they have to insert commercial breaks at specific times and they want that tiny cliffhanger before each one to keep people tuned in. feature flicks are much more freestyle.

I really liked Save the Cat, but I think it did more harm to my creative mind than any other book has ever achieved.

I read the book, absorbed the information, but now I do what feels right to me. The industry has been changing and people are getting tired of the formulaic films that hollywood is churning out. If you look at recent popular films (despite what Blake may claim) they do not fit into his mold, ie Superbad, Pan's Labyrinth, Across the Universe, etc.

So...structure is important only when it presents a problem. Gaps of time where nothing "new" happens can be problematic, but not for every character and not in every story.

My own worst fear is that this calculator might cause a hair-splitting bean-counter mentality to take hold of "a few" Hollywood development execs.

Click to expand...

Christ, I hope THAT never happens.