How to Write a Short Film: An Analysis

Last summer, a filmmaker friend asked me to write a short film for her to direct. Her only guidelines were that she wanted it to be filmable on a shoestring budget in a single weekend (one location, no more than 2-3 actors, no special effects or period costumes) and she wanted it to be no longer than about 8 minutes (because films under 10 minutes have a much greater chance of making it onto festival programs).

This turned out to be incredibly hard! Every idea I came up with either had too many characters or unusual locations or required complicated effects or was just too complex of a story to tell in eight minutes. I’d also never written a short film before and hadn’t even really watched that many, so I was really starting from zero.

I started by watching 40 or 50 successful short films that were under 10 minutes. I define “successful” here as getting into well-regarded festivals, making it onto “best of” lists, or achieving some level of viral popularity online. I took notes on how each film was structured and any similarities and differences I noted between them.

The short film I wrote is in post-production now and the screenplay placed in several contests and even won first place in one! I’ve written another short screenplay since then which also won and placed in a few contests and now I’m working on a third.

Elements Almost All Shorts Had in Common:

  1. A memorable ending. Pretty much all of the shorts I watched had a similar structure of being a fairly simple story with a surprising twist or “punchline” at the end. I’m actually not sure if I saw a single short film that didn’t end that way, even if the story overall had a pretty loose narrative. Maybe one or two.

    A good way of thinking about a short film ending is to ask yourself how an audience might expect your story to end and then ask yourself what would be the opposite of that. What would be an ironic ending given your setup? What would be a shocking ending? Is there an assumption the audience would likely have made that you can subvert?

  2. A distinct midpoint. Nearly every short I watched had a three-point structure of setup, midpoint escalation or reversal, and satisfying conclusion. The midpoint is especially worth thinking about. At pretty much the exact midpoint of nearly every short, there was some sort of major escalation or reversal that took the story in a new or more extreme direction.

    Even if your short doesn’t have a midpoint bisecting it, it’s useful to think in terms of reversals or escalations that divide the story into sections. This is useful because even eight minutes can feel interminably long without a sense of progress or surprise.

  3. A three-act structure. Beyond the midpoint, which is where the story often completely flips, most shorts I watched also had a more subtle reversal or escalation around the 25% and 75% mark. These points don’t need to land mathematically perfectly, but I was surprised how often they fell right around those timestamps.

    A loose structure that most shorts seemed to follow was about 25% setup (introduction of the characters and situation), then an introduction of a new problem around the 25% mark, then a major reversal around the midpoint, then a surprising twist introduced around the 75% mark.

    It’s better not to get too hung up on those exact timestamps because not every short followed that exactly, but that general structure was very common in these shorts and might be a good general map to try to hang your idea on. It’s probably less important that your reversals/escalations fall at those exact timestamps and more important that you have them built into your story somewhere.

    Without reversals or escalations or surprising reveals built into your story, even a 3-minute short can feel like it’s dragging on forever.

Elements That Varied Between Shorts:

  1. Diegetic sound vs. non-diegetic. Sound is one of the hardest things to get right in filmmaking and is probably the #1 thing that makes a film seem unprofessional or hard to watch. One way some filmmakers get around this is by not using diegetic sound! Diegetic sound means sound that originates from the story world of the film: dialogue, sound effects, ambient sound, etc.

    While many short films I watched had normal dialogue or recorded sound in the environment of the film, quite a few of them didn’t have any sound at all except for music or a recorded voiceover narration. This can be a really smart way of making your short look and sound more professional on a budget.

    A good example of a short with non-diegetic sound is “August” by Caitlyn Greene.

  2. Atmospheric vs. narrative. Most short films I watched had a very clearly structured story but there were a couple that were more atmospheric than rigidly structured. It’s tough to make an atmospheric short film work. Most filmmakers fall back on “atmospheric” shorts because they don’t want to put in the work to tell a great story and it ends up feeling boring and trite, but when shorts like this work they really work. The trick seems to be having very strong visuals and often an unusual setting or characters.

    A good example of a short I’d consider more atmospheric than rigidly structured is “The Masterchef” by Ritesh Batra.

  3. Visual vs. non-visual. Obviously film is a visual medium so you’d rightly expect most short films to take advantage of strong visuals, but I found a few shorts that were actually more dependent on dialogue than visuals. If you’re a strong writer and you have strong actors, this can be another way to cut down on costs.

    A good example of a short film that relied more on language than on complicated sets or cinematography is “Operator” by Yann Heckmann.

Ordered by length, here are some short films under 10 minutes that I thought were worth watching. The ones in bold were my favorites. Some of these are a bit “adult” in nature, so FYI if you’re watching in a public place, especially without headphones.

  1. FOURTEEN // 5.5 minutes: limited locations, a small story with a twist ending, no dialogue
  2. OPERATOR // 5.5 minutes: 2 actors but one is voice only, 1 location, lots of rapid fire dialogue, clear story with beginning/middle/end and a small twist
  3. HELLION // 6 minutes: short and simple story with a twist ending, a few characters, a few locations in and around one house
  4. CARGO // 6.5 minutes: clear story with beginning/middle/end, no dialogue, 6 actors including a baby, a few outside locations — this one was recently turned into a feature-length film on Netflix!
  5. QUEEN // 6.5 minutes: super short, cute, 4 characters, one location, very small and simple story
  6. A SONG FOR YOUR MIXTAPE // 6.5 minutes: long voiceover monologue like a poem but with a story with a protagonist and a twist at the end, 3 main characters + background, a few locations, no diegetic sound
  7. GOGURT // 6.5 minutes: a few locations, several characters, mostly sort of atmospheric with a little bit of story, not much structure to it
  8. NEVER HAPPENED // 7 minutes: 3 actors, 5 or 6 locations, very clear story with beginning/middle/end
  9. AUGUST // 7.5 minutes: long voiceover monologue like a poem but with a story with a protagonist and a midpoint and an arc, no dialogue
  10. EMILY // 7.5 minutes: one long monologue with a tiny scene at the end – one location, two actors – strong story but not visual at all, it’s all told through monologue
  11. MASTERCHEF // 7.5 minutes: 4 or 5 actors, a few locations, dialogue and diegetic sound, very small and simple story with only a subtle beginning/middle/end but beautiful details
  12. SNAKE BITE // 8 minutes: one long scene in one location with 4 child actors — crazy intense story with incredible tension and a very clear arc
  13. CRACKED SCREEN // 8 minutes: entirely filmed as snapchat stories on a phone – mostly just one actor with a few background actors and a few locations – VERY dramatic story with a clear arc, totally gripping and horrifying
  14. A REASONABLE REQUEST // 8 minutes: two characters, one location, very clear story structure
  15. THE TALK // 8.5 minutes: two characters, one location, very clear story structure
  16. MOTHERF*CKER // 8.5 minutes: 2 actors, 1 location, lots of rapid fire dialogue, all filmed in one shot, clear story with beginning/middle/end and midpoint
  17. PRONOUNS // 9 minutes: several speaking characters + background, 3 or 4 locations
  18. SPIDER // 9.5 minutes: a handful of characters, a few locations including driving in a car, very clear story structure, very tense

Thanks to Nathalie Sejean of Mentorless for sending me a few of these and for the great email conversation about short films!

 

The 3-Point Escalation: What “Heat” Teaches Us About Character Introductions

I’m interested lately in learning how to quickly establish distinct and intriguing or empathetic characters. I’ve been getting feedback that my screenplays dive into plot too quickly without giving the reader a chance to understand the world and care about the people in it. This is an unusual note since usually writers err on the side of taking too long to get to the plot!

My challenge now is to not overcorrect and create the more common problem: stories that are too chatty and lack forward motion (keeping in mind that “forward motion” doesn’t have to mean shootouts and car chases; it just means that something changes, however subtle).

The goal is to get into the plot quickly but to do so while setting up a rich world and introducing distinct, memorable characters. One way to do this is to show what the character is like through their actions that are part of the plot. As I’m watching movies and TV shows lately, I’m paying special attention to how the writers do this.

Heat (1995)

Heat (1995)

This week I watched Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), a movie that’s full of heists, bank robberies, and action-packed shootouts, but is also very long, very slow, very moody, and very character-driven. It’s also a movie that’s widely referenced by film buffs as one of the best crime movies of all time.

There’s a lot that can be said about this film, but what I want to write about today is how Mann introduces characters. Each character has a distinct personality that will bear relevance for the plot later, so it’s important that the audience gets the gist of them quickly. One tool Mann uses to accomplish this is what I’ve decided to refer to as the “three-point escalation.”

Each character has a moment pretty much immediately upon meeting them that gives a subtle indication of their personality. It’s enough to make us, as the audience, sit up and think, “This person seems like they might be <character trait>. I wonder if I’m right.”

Then, either later in the same scene or in that character’s next scene, they have a moment that’s a slightly bigger version of that. Now we’re putting the pieces together and we’re invested in solving the mystery of what this character is like. We now have a second clue that we’re on the right track. We’re paying attention.

Finally, either later in the same scene or in that character’s next scene, there’s a third moment that is much more dramatic and makes it unmistakably clear that we were right. We’re now fully invested in this character (even if we hate them) because we’ve solved the mystery of what makes them tick.

Mann does this to varying degrees with several characters, but I’m going to walk through the clearest example of this escalation with Waingro, the movie’s primary villain.

Step 1: When we first meet Waingro, he’s coming out of the outdoor bathroom of a cheap Mexican fast food place. He’s pulling on a shirt as though he’d changed clothes in the bathroom, or maybe bathed at the bathroom sink. He’s moving quickly, like a bull in a china shop. He shakes the liquid out of a to go cup he’s carrying and pokes his head and arm fully through the takeout window and demands “another” refill.

Waingro wants a refill

“Now he wants a refill,” one employee says to another, implying this guy was already a pain in the ass before we even got here. They take the cup. But instead of waiting for the refill, Waingro notices a semi-truck idling at the corner and he takes off without explanation.

This is a seemingly odd moment to include in the film but despite what a long movie this is, it doesn’t waste space on moments that don’t serve a purpose. Think about how differently this tiny interaction could have gone if Waingro was a different person. He could have come out of the bathroom fastidiously cleaning his hands, disgusted by the facilities. He could have asked for a refill apologetically and then told them to cancel it when he realized he needed to leave. He could spoken fluent Spanish to the cashier or flirted with him.

Instead, based on this very quick interaction, we already get the idea that Waingro is sloppy, impulsive, wired, and inconsiderate. But it’s not enough information for us to be sure we understand him.

Step 2:  Waingro approaches the passenger window of the semi-truck and knocks. He tries to jump in, but the driver stops him and asks his name. The driver looks him up and down, clearly skeptical. Waingro introduces himself enthusiastically, but the driver is standoffish.

On the drive, Waingro chats loudly about the job they’re on their way to, constantly moving in his seat, asking too many questions. Finally the driver says, “Stop talking, ok, Slick?” After being so gregarious, Waingro now whips off his sunglasses and gives the driver a shockingly murderous glare.

Waingro glares menacingly at Cerrito

This is an escalation of what we saw in the previous beat. It’s further confirmation that Waingro is sloppy, impulsive, wired, and inconsiderate. Now he also seems dangerous.

Step 3: During the heist, it’s clear to the audience which of the masked robbers is Waingro due to his signature long hair. It’s Waingro’s job to hold the three security guards at gun point while the robbery is completed, but he gets it in his head that one of the guards is looking at him funny, though the guard is clearly just in shock and has lost his hearing from the explosion. Waingro attacks the guard, and Cerrito (the driver from the truck) tells him to “cool it, Slick.”

Waingro kills the guard

Waingro begins breathing heavily, losing his cool, and finally kills the offending guard, turning this heist into a murder charge instead of just armed robbery. This forces the team to kill all three guards so as not to leave witnesses. Not part of the plan.

This third beat is a dramatic escalation that cements our understanding of Waingro: he’s a loose cannon who can’t tolerate any perceived slight and he doesn’t clear the bar of this highly disciplined and talented team.

If this third step (the killing of the guard) had been our first encounter with Waingro, we probably would have gotten the same general idea that he’s a loose cannon, but it would have felt out of nowhere and we might not have been sure how to interpret the scene. Maybe the guard was looking at him funny?

But by having those two previous beats first, we’re actively engaged in understanding his character, rather than passively observing him, and when this final escalation occurs, his character’s identity is now completely distinct to us from the others, which will be important for following the rest of the story.

I suspect that a lot of stories do a similar three-point escalation when introducing important characters. I’m going to be on the lookout for it.

The 5 Types of Opening Scenes: An Analysis of 80 Films

The opening scene of a screenplay is a sales pitch to convince the reader to stick around for the rest of the script. Is there a formula to writing a great one? Are there common elements they all share? Are they usually a particular length?

To answer these questions, I watched the opening scenes of 80 movies from a wide variety of genres. Most of these films are critically-acclaimed. Some were recommended by friends because their first scene was especially memorable.

What I learned was interesting. Of course there isn’t a single unifying formula for a great opening scene, and length varied a lot more than I expected, but almost every opening scene I watched did fall into one of five categories and almost all opening scenes shared several common elements.

What is a Scene?

Before we can talk about great opening scenes, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what a scene is.

A scene is the smallest unit of story1 in a script. Here are some common elements often used to define a scene:

  • It takes place in a single location
  • It takes place in a single block of time
  • It represents a single problem with a beginning, middle, and end that can stand alone as its own understandable mini-story

But there are many counterexamples to these definitions.

For example, you could have a single conversation start in a parking lot, continue in the car on a drive, and resolve when the characters arrive at their destination. It’s a single block of time and a single problem with a beginning, middle, and end, but it takes place across multiple locations.

Similarly, you could have two unrelated conversations taking place in a single room at a party. It’s a single location and a single block of time, but it’s two unrelated problems with their own beginnings, middles, and ends.

Last, you could have a conversation that starts in bed, then the characters fall asleep, eight hours pass, and we come back to them in the morning as they wake and finish their conversation. It’s a single location and a single problem with a beginning, middle, and end, but it takes place over two blocks of time.

In each of these examples you’d need to call these separate scenes in a script for production purposes, but for storytelling purposes, you might think of them as a single scene. This gets even more complicated with montages, which we’ll see below are a surprisingly common form of opening scene in movies.

Scene vs. Sequence: What’s the Difference?

Beyond a scene, we also have something called a sequence. Again, this gets muddy, but a sequence is a slightly larger unit of story, composed of multiple scenes that link together continuously to show the introduction and resolution of a problem before the story cuts away to a new problem. (Note that when I say “resolution,” I don’t mean that the problem is solved, just that the question the problem raised now has at least a tentative answer.)

You could argue that a montage is really a sequence not a scene, or that some of my examples above of rule-breaking scenes are actually sequences. It’s all semantics, so define these terms in the way that’s most useful for you. At the end of the day, we’re trying to tell a good story, not pass a pop quiz.

The Godfather Part II (1974)

For an example of what I would call a sequence, look at the beginning of The Godfather Part II (1974). The first scene of the movie is a very short, almost wordless scene in which young Vito’s brother is killed by a local mafia lord during his father’s funeral in Sicily. In the next scene, Vito’s mother brings him to Don Ciccio, the mafia lord who killed Vito’s father and brother, to beg for mercy. Don Ciccio refuses, Vito’s mother attempts to take him hostage, she is killed, and Vito escapes.

This entire sequence is only about four minutes long. It’s two separate scenes because the events take place in two separate locations and some time has passed offscreen between them (though maybe only an hour or so). But most importantly, it’s two separate scenes because each scene has its own beginning, middle, and end. The first scene starts with a funeral procession and ends with Vito’s brother being killed by Don Ciccio. The second scene begins with Vito’s mother begging Don Ciccio for mercy and ends with her being killed as Vito escapes.

But together these two scenes make up a larger sequence that involves the introduction and resolution of a single question. The question is: “Will Don Ciccio spare Vito’s life?” The first scene introduces the question when Vito’s brother is killed by Don Ciccio at his father’s funeral; the sequel answers the question when Vito’s mother begs Don Ciccio for mercy and he refuses. The problem isn’t solved, but it’s resolved — we now have an answer to the question. The answer is no.

You could argue that the section after these two scenes (Vito escaping Corleone with the help of townspeople) is part of the same sequence, but to me that’s a new sequence with a new question that was not introduced in the previous sequence. The question the second sequence asks is: “Will Vito successfully escape Corleone?”

Who Cares?

Does it matter how we define a scene or a sequence? In a way, no, it doesn’t matter at all. If you’re telling a great story, it doesn’t matter if the whole movie is a single scene or five acts or a hundred sequences or however you want to think of it.

But it can be helpful to think about these things if part of your story feels unsatisfying and you can’t figure out why. You can ask yourself: does this scene have a beginning, middle, and end? Is it part of a larger sequence that asks and answers a question? Does the end of my scene or sequence pose a new question to pull us into the next scene or sequence? If the answer to any of these questions is no, that might be the problem.

It’s particularly important if the scene or sequence that feels unsatisfying is the very first one of your script.

Types of Opening Scenes

After analyzing the opening scenes of 80 movies, I found they all (with just five exceptions) fit into one of the following categories:

  1. Prologue (32%)
    • Prologue montage with voiceover (16%)
    • Prologue scene without voiceover (16%)
  2. Inciting incident (25%)
  3. Day in the life (24%)
    • Exciting day in the life (13%)
    • Uneventful day in the life (11%)
  4. Cold open (11%)
  5. Flash forward (8%)

Note: almost every movie I watched had a long string of wordless shots that ran under the opening credits. I did not count this section of the film as part of the opening scene.

Prologues

For this purpose, I define a prologue as a montage or scene that’s meant to succinctly communicate important backstory that occurred before the events of the film.

Prologue Montage with Voiceover

Sometimes this prologue is a montage with voiceover narration that dumps a ton of exposition on the audience at once. Just about every screenwriting guru on Earth will tell you to avoid voiceover like the plague, but it’s surprisingly common even in critically-acclaimed films and can be effective when used thoughtfully.

Prologue montages with voiceover are especially common in fantasy movies and epics because there’s so much complicated history and world-building that the audience needs to understand, but they’re also common in films that hinge on the unique voice and point of view of the main character, especially if the main character will turn out to be a somewhat unreliable narrator.

Raising Arizona (1987)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of Raising Arizona (1987). This montage is entertaining due to the unique style and character voice. This opening makes it very clear what kind of movie you’re about to watch and it really adds something to the film instead of just feeling like a lazy way to dump a bunch of info on the audience.

Interesting side note: Ready Player One (2018) begins with a 10-minute prologue montage with voiceover, but I read an earlier draft of the screenplay a few years ago that opened with an inciting incident scene instead, which I liked so much better.

Examples: Raising Arizona (1987), Legends of the Fall (1994), Clueless (1995), A Simple Plan (1998), American Beauty (1999), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Amélie (2001), Love Actually (2003), The World’s End (2013), Arrival (2016), Love, Simon (2018), Ready Player One (2018)

Prologue Scene without Voiceover

Prologues don’t always have voiceover. Sometimes instead it’s a flashback scene that reveals a pivotal moment in the past (usually childhood) of an important character.

Flashbacks, like voiceover, are dangerous territory — they almost always lack tension because the events of the scene have already transpired so the outcome has no sense of immediacy. They also often involve characters that won’t be present in the rest of the story (or are played by different, younger actors), which can be confusing to the audience.

But when done well, these types of prologues can be very effective at catching us up on important backstory and building sympathy (or lack thereof) for a character.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds (2009). It’s an incredibly long scene, but it’s extremely tense from start to finish. This scene introduces the antagonist, sets up the motivation of a main character, situates you in the world and tone of the movie, and expertly wields subtext to create suspense and interest.

Examples: The Godfather Part II (1974), The Sixth Sense (1999), Capote (2005), Zodiac (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Star Trek (2009), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Lion (2016), Manchester By The Sea (2016), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), and Black Panther (2018)

Inciting Incident

In many movies, there are about ten minutes or so of setup before the movie’s inciting incident (the first event that kicks off a profound change in the protagonist’s life), but in some movies (more than a quarter of the ones I watched), the inciting incident happens on practically the first page.

This type of opening scene introduces the inciting incident that sets the story into motion. It could be a wedding, a funeral, or an apocalypse. Maybe the main character is released from prison, they start a new job, they move to a new house, or they learn about an opportunity. Maybe they win the lottery or meet the love of their life. I was actually surprised how often this inciting incident happened in the very first scene of a movie without any setup before it.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of There Will Be Blood (2007). In the first minute of the film, the main character discovers silver in his mine, which leads to everything else that happens in the film, but there are a few special things about this scene:

  • It sets up the plot of the movie very efficiently and everything is communicated visually, not through dialogue.
  • It’s incredibly tense. There’s a part in the scene in which a literal stick of dynamite is counting down to an explosion. There are also elements of mystery and surprise.
  • Though there is almost no dialogue (he says a few words out loud to himself at one point), by the end of this scene you understand exactly who this character is, including his strengths and weaknesses that will drive the rest of the story.

Examples: Back to the Future (1985), Aliens (1986), Die Hard (1988), Dead Poets Society (1989), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Se7en (1995), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Training Day (2001), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Gift (2015), Moonlight (2016), The Witch (2016), Nerve (2016), Hello, My Name is Doris (2016), The Big Sick (2017), The Florida Project (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017)

A Day in the Life

A “Day in the Life” opening scene is a scene that introduces the main character — usually revealing a key strength and key liability — and shows what their life is like before it’s changed by the events of the film.

Like prologues, there are two subtypes within this category.

Exciting Day in the Life

Some movies open with our main character or characters in media res in an exciting situation that is typical for them before the events of the film change their life forever. But when I say it’s a “typical day,”  I don’t mean a scene of them eating cereal in front of the TV. It’s an especially exciting or dramatic moment in their everyday life. Sometimes this scene will turn out to tie in with the larger plot of the movie but often it has no relation to the main plot, or has only a tangential connection.

You most often see these types of scenes when the main character has an exciting job: a spy, a cop, an assassin, a bank robber, etc., but not always.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Offensive stereotypes of indigenous people notwithstanding (yikes), this is one of the greatest opening scenes in the history of cinema. It sets up the tone and genre of the movie beautifully, tells you just about everything you need to know about the main character, and is very exciting and well paced. You know Indy survives the ordeal because there’s an entire film franchise about him but even still you’re on the edge of your seat worrying whether he’ll make it out alive.

Examples: The Wizard of Oz (1939), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Men in Black (1997), Out of Sight (1998),  Bad Boys II (2003), Spectre (2015) (in fact, pretty much any Bond movie), Green Room (2016), Baby Driver (2017), Lady Bird (2017), Logan (2017)

Uneventful Day in the Life

Other times, a movie opens with a “day in the life” scene that’s not that dramatic or exciting at all. It’s difficult to pull off an uneventful scene like this in a way that’s interesting and suitable for the movie. Many writers open their stories this way by default (a screenplay starting with a character waking up in bed is overdone to the point of cliché) but it’s better when chosen with intention.

The key to making these scenes work is to have something fresh and unusual about the setting, situation, dialogue, or characters. The scene usually introduces one or more main characters in a way that makes them sympathetic or at least intriguing. Scenes like this usually (but not always) establish the tone and genre of the movie and illustrate the overall theme of the film.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

I didn’t especially love any of the opening scenes I screened in this category, but if I had to choose one it would be The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). This is almost a cheat because this scene proves the distinction between “exciting slice of life” and “uneventful slice of life” can be blurry. The movie begins with a closeup of a real open heart surgery, which is shocking to the audience and has life or death stakes for the patient, but it’s not presented as suspenseful in the movie. In the context of this story, it’s just a day at the office for the main character. We don’t even find out if the surgery was successful, and the scene ends with the surgeon having an intentionally mundane conversation with the anesthesiologist about watchbands. The scene isn’t about stakes; it’s about theme and character and setting an expectation of tone for the movie.

Examples: Gone with the Wind (1939), Carrie (1976), Blue is the Warmest Color (2013), Fences (2016), Logan Lucky (2017), Landline (2017), A Ghost Story (2017), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Cold Opens

When we think of cold opens, we usually think of television. A cold open in television, sometimes called a teaser, is the section of an episode that’s shown before the opening credits. (Not all episodes have a cold open; some start with Act 1.)

Most common in horror movies, crime thrillers, and action flicks, the main purpose of a cold open is to grab the audience’s attention and establish genre elements before beginning Act 1, which will be a “before picture” of the characters’ lives and therefore the least exciting part of the film. But even outside of these genres, a cold open can demonstrate the strength of a powerful antagonistic force, as it does in Spotlight (2015).

A cold open in film almost never involves the movie’s main characters; this scene is narratively separate from the events of the story, though it provides important context.

The Lobster (2016)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of The Lobster (2016). It’s unique, it’s surprising, it sets the tone of the movie, and it creates a question in the audience’s mind that will be answered later.

Examples: Jaws (1975), The Last Boy Scout (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Scream (1996), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Spotlight (2015), The Lobster (2016), Get Out (2016)

Flash Forward

A “flash forward” opening is when a movie starts with a scene in the present (or at least the “present” in the timeline of the film) and then the rest of the movie (or most of it) takes place in the past leading up to that opening moment.

This has become common to the point of cliché in television pilots, though it’s a gimmick I personally enjoy. It was probably made most famous on television by the pilot of Breaking Bad (2008). These flash forward openings often have voiceover narration, but not always.

The Prestige (2006)

My favorite example of this type is the opening scene of The Prestige (2006). That scene makes great use of voiceover narration to establish a theme of the film, while also teasing the audience for an exciting climax and presenting some mysteries to be solved later (like what’s the deal with all the hats).

Examples: Titanic (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), The Prestige (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Carol (2015), Wonder Woman (2017)

Elements of an Opening Scene

There is no set length for an opening scene. Of the scenes I watched for this analysis, the shortest was about 30 seconds and the longest was 19 minutes. The median length was three minutes and 70% of them were five minutes or shorter.

Almost half of the scenes I watched were structured like a short film, by which I mean they had a setup in the beginning, a middle with rising tension or complications, and at the end usually some sort of twist, surprise, or reversal.

The first scene usually introduces at least one main character, but sometimes the characters in the first scene aren’t in the rest of the movie at all.

Common elements in most opening scenes (this isn’t a checklist — every opening scene doesn’t have to have all of them):

  1. Introduces the protagonist in a way that communicates their main skills, qualities, quirks, and weaknesses efficiently and visually.

    This one is very common for scenes that feature the protagonist. By the end of the first scene, the audience can often see the good and bad of this character and is already getting an inkling for how they are going to screw things up and why they need so badly to change (which they may or may not ever successfully do, depending on what kind of story you’re telling).

  2. Introduces the world.

    Where are we? When are we? If it’s a period piece, indications of the time period are introduced in the first scene. If the world has a geography that the viewer needs to understand (even if it’s just the hallways of a high school), the first scene will sometimes intentionally orient the audience to this map. If there’s magic in the world or strange rules or customs, we’ll likely see those right away too.

  3. Offers audiences a “before” picture to later compare with the “after.”

    Some screenwriting gurus will tell you this is required, but it’s not. It is common though. Very often the first and last scene of a movie will mirror each other in some way to illustrate how the protagonist has changed. So if you know how your movie is going to end, that might give you an idea for how it should start.

  4. Presents a “save the cat” moment for the protagonist, even if it’s very subtle.

    You’re probably familiar with the concept of “saving the cat,” which comes from the late Blake Snyder. It refers to a moment in many movies in which the protagonist does something kind or selfless (like saving a cat) to show the audience that they are a good person, even if they otherwise act like an entitled jerk. About 27% of the opening scenes I watched had a moment like this, even if it was very subtle.

    For example, in the opening scene of Baby Driver, Baby is literally a getaway driver for a bank heist — not a noble occupation — but there’s a brief moment when he lowers his sunglasses to get a better look through the window at the heist because Griff is waving his gun around and you get the sense from Baby’s expression that he might be concerned about the hostages. It’s quick and subtle but it’s enough.

  5. Tense and suspenseful.

    Over half of the opening scenes I watched (even some quiet indie dramas) were tense, suspenseful, or dramatic, but what’s really surprising is that almost half of the scenes were not tense and suspenseful! Opening with a scene of conflict or danger can suck people into your story quickly, but it’s not the right start to every movie.

  6. A surprise or big reversal.

    It’s common for opening scenes to contain at least one surprising revelation or an unexpected reversal of fortunes — a character isn’t what she seems, a character seems like he’s going to get what he wants but then he doesn’t, etc.

  7. Sets the tone and genre of the film.

    Almost all opening scenes I watched established the tone and genre of their film but occasionally you’ll see one that doesn’t. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Logan Lucky (2017), both of which have opening scenes that don’t really reflect the genre and tone of the rest of the film.

Cliché Ways to Begin a Screenplay

  • Main character waking up in bed
  • Main character having breakfast with their family and/or getting the kids off to school
  • Main character jogging
  • A fake-out (we think something serious is happening but it turns out to be a dream or a drill or a scene from a movie-within-the-movie)
  • A therapy appointment, a job interview, a parole hearing or some other similar way of getting across a bunch of exposition through dialogue
  • A newscast, an office PowerPoint, a debriefing, or some other similar way of getting across a bunch of exposition through a presentation
  • Childhood flashback
  • Voiceover narration

It’s not that any of these are inherently bad and should never be done. There are great movies that use each of them. Just make sure it’s really serving your story and isn’t just the first cliché idea that popped into your mind.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

For example, a “main character waking up in bed” opening can be a good choice for a movie that’s about sleep or waking up or monotonous routines. The key is to choose it thoughtfully.

As another example, nine out of ten screenwriting gurus will tell you to never open a script with voiceover narration because it’s lazy, but it’s surprisingly common in commercially-successful and critically-acclaimed movies. There was voiceover narration in the first scene of more than 20% of the movies I watched. That’s more than 1 out of every 5 movies!

I still don’t recommend it because so many readers have a knee-jerk negative reaction to it and most of the time it really is being used out of laziness. Find a more creative way to communicate your exposition (or question if it really needs to be communicated at all), and let the studio convince you to add in voiceover later, after they’ve given you lots of money.

What to Do With This Information

If you’re struggling with the first scene of a script you’re writing, go through each of the types of opening scenes above and brainstorm one for your script that would fit in that category. Go ahead and list the most cliché ideas first, but then try to push yourself to think of a few more that are more surprising. You might come up with something interesting that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought to do.

Also, remember that you can always go back and write a new opening scene later. It might be easier to see what that opening scene needs to be after you’ve finished a first draft of the entire screenplay.

Finally, if your first scene doesn’t fit any of the categories above but it’s working for you and your readers, that’s great. Out of the 80 films I watched for this analysis, I came across five opening scenes that didn’t neatly fit any of the above categories. Those movies were The Karate Kid (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Schindler’s List (1993), Election (1999), and The Truman Show (1998), and three of those movies had an over 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so though it may be rare, it’s definitely possible to write an opening scene that doesn’t fit in any of the above categories and still have a great script.

6 Surprising Ways to Make Better Use of Your Villains

It’s a lot of work to craft a compelling, complex, and truly formidable antagonist, so once we’ve put in that time, it makes sense to wring as much value out of those characters as possible. Here are six surprising ways I’ve found to make effective use of an antagonist:

  1. Use delayed gratification of an antagonist’s punishment to increase narrative tension.

    The more your villain wins, and the more he deserves to lose, the more desperately we’ll be turning every page (or hitting that “next episode” button) to see him finally get his comeuppance. This is especially effective if the villain is pretending to be a good guy and some of your protagonists haven’t figured it out yet.

    The first time I realized the power of this dynamic was while watching The Sopranos. In the third season, there’s a character that everyone on the show loves but who the audience knows is terrible. It is enraging to watch this character be coddled and cheered in every episode when you know he’s secretly a villain. I was glued to my screen that entire season, desperate for the satisfaction of seeing this character be found out and brought to justice.

    Similarly, I’m watching Game of Thrones now for the first time and this line in a season 1 episode recap, referring to Joffrey, sums it up perfectly: “I will watch this show even if it goes on for a hundred seasons if they promise me gruesome violence against that little kid.”

    Joffrey is another great example of a character who continually gets what he wants when he doesn’t deserve it while doing increasingly despicable things, building narrative tension in the audience as we froth at the mouth to see him get what’s coming to him.

    Are there ways you can ratchet up the tension in your story by making things easier and easier for your terrible antagonist, delaying our gratification in seeing his eventual punishment?

  2. Use lesser antagonists to take some of the load off your Big Bad.

    Whether you’re writing a TV show or a feature film, you almost certainly have multiple layers of antagonists, not just a single villain. And I don’t just mean a “Big Bad” and his three henchmen, I mean other types of antagonists who are causing problems for our hero on all sides.

    Some of those antagonists are mere nuisances or even well-meaning characters who are nevertheless blocking your heroes from doing what needs to be done, but others are more serious threats that will help the hero train for her eventual climactic fight against the Big Bad.

    You can find examples of this in pretty much any movie or TV show, but one great example you’ve probably seen is Die Hard (1988). Of course Hans Gruber is the Big Bad and John McClane will have to defeat many henchmen before he can fight Hans, but there are several other antagonists to contend with as well: Harry Ellis (John’s wife’s arrogant coworker who reveals John’s identity to Hans), Dick Thorburg (the irresponsible reporter who carelessly exposes the identity of John’s wife and children), and Dwayne Robinson (the police chief who doesn’t believe John that the building is under siege or that John is a cop).

    Hans Gruber

    These “lesser” antagonists can do some of the dirty work of your Big Bad, which helps your main villain retain an aura of mystery while still keeping your heroes under constant threat.

    One of the movies most famous for a mysterious antagonist is Jaws (1975) — so much of what made that shark terrifying is that we rarely actually see it. If every time something bad happened in that movie it had to be the shark eating someone, that would get old very quickly and the shark would lose his power to frighten. By having other, lesser antagonists in the movie, we were able to have continuous conflict and obstacles without getting burned out on shark attacks.

    Is your Big Bad doing dirty work in your story that steals some of her menace? Can you farm out those conflicts to lesser antagonists instead?

  3. Use a lesser antagonist as a more narratively satisfying deus ex machina to save your hero from another, worse villain.

    You’ve probably heard this famous writing advice from Pixar story artist Emma Coats: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.”

    But sometimes you really do need a satisfying way to get a hero out of an impossible jam. Even the best stories need an occasional deus ex machina, but we’ve all felt that disappointment when a sidekick just happens to ride up at the exact moment a hero needs help. We wanted them to get out of trouble, but not like that!

    Another benefit of having multiple layers of antagonists is that you can have a lesser antagonist be the deus ex machina that saves our hero from a much deadlier one.

    A movie that does this to great effect is Attack the Block (2011) which has its heroes running scared from cops, a murderous drug dealer, and aliens all at the same time. There is at least one moment when a well-timed attack from one antagonist gives our heroes a means to escape another.

    This is much more narratively satisfying because it’s not completely fixing the hero’s problem — they still have to deal with this new problem, it just saves them from a truly impossible one.

    Do you have an unsatisfying deus ex machina in your story that you could make more satisfying by having an antagonist come to the rescue instead of a helper?

  4. Use an antagonist to make a challenging protagonist more palatable.

    Your protagonists don’t have to be innocent Pollyannas for the audience to care about them, they just have to be not as bad as the antagonistic forces against them.

    On another series, a conceited mean girl would be the antagonist, but because Sansa Stark is the victim of much crueler characters on Game of Thrones, we empathize with her. You can make even the most horrible character empathetic by putting them at odds with someone even worse.

    This is a good opportunity for those smaller antagonists who aren’t quite to the level of Big Bad Villain, but are thorns in the side of your hero.

    In your story, is there an opportunity to make an unlikable character more empathetic by giving them an even more unlikable opponent?

  5. Use your villain to help the hero see her own dark side.

    Someone told me once in a job interview, when I’d failed to find a satisfactory answer to the question “what is your greatest weakness,” that weaknesses are usually the excess of our strengths.

    Often, a great villain is simply the hero run amok; it’s someone with the qualities of the hero taken to their terrible logical extreme. This can create a great opportunity for your hero to look inside herself and see her own flaws and the danger that awaits her if she doesn’t change, as it does in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and in The Last Jedi (2017).

    Is there a way you can make your Big Bad a better “upside down” reflection of your hero, or make better use of that reflection?

  6. Use a secret antagonist to upend the audience’s expectations.

    I can’t give examples of this without spoiling the stories, but there are several extremely successful movies and TV shows in recent years that involved an antagonist initially posing (to the hero and to the audience) as someone who was on the protagonist’s side.

    This is tricky to pull off without pulling the rug so hard out from under the audience’s feet that they have nothing left to stand on, but when this works for a story, it really, really works. Is there an antagonist in your story who you could initially portray as good? Or a protagonist in your story who you could make secretly bad?

 

Your Story Has Two Stories Inside It: Complicating Your Plot

About a year and a half ago, I started writing a blog post called “Your Story Has Two Stories Inside It.” In that post, I looked at three popular and acclaimed movies that I chose basically at random from IMDB and examined how in each movie the protagonist’s goal at the beginning of the story is actually achieved fairly early in the film, at which point a complication sends the protagonist on a new mission which they pursue for the rest of the movie.

This is interesting because often when we’re plotting a story, we pick a goal for the hero and then assume they’ll spend three acts pursuing that goal and that they’ll achieve it (or in some cases emphatically fail to achieve it) at the denouement. But that actually isn’t how most successful stories work.

I never finished writing that post.

Flash forward to this week. I’m working on a new feature and I’m head over heels in heart-eyes-emoji love with it but I have this nagging feeling that something is off about the structure. It feels a little… thin. Like, it’s a cool idea, it has a meaningful theme, I love the characters, and I found a powerful resolution to the plot, but there’s some part of me that keeps thinking… is that really it?

That’s the whole movie?

And then this morning, Monica Beletsky (a writer/producer of many beloved TV shows such as Fargo and The Leftovers, and someone you should follow on Twitter because she posts awesome tweet threads like this) posted this tweet thread:

And oh man, it sucks how right she is, because it means that the kick ass Act 3 climax I just wrote? Is probably actually my midpoint. Or even the end of Act 1! Crap.

What’s funny is this is probably the most common feedback I give people when I read their scripts — this awesome ending you just wrote? I hate to tell you this, but it’s your midpoint. It’s your end of Act 1. Sometimes it’s even your inciting incident! (Sorry.)

Let’s think about Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), which is a movie I use a lot as an example because it’s so satisfying and well-structured and it was both commercially successful and critically acclaimed.

(Some spoilers will follow if you somehow still haven’t seen that movie. I will also talk about Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963) with some spoilers for the first half of the film. I later reference Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Annihilation (2018) but don’t reveal any big spoilers for either.)

In Guardians, Peter Quill’s initial goal is to sell the stolen Orb (aka the Infinity Stone) for money. He already has this goal when the story starts (after the quick childhood flashback) and he pursues it relentlessly through the first half of the movie.

But that is not the goal he achieves at the end of the movie.

He actually achieves this initial goal (with the help of his new friends) at the midpoint, but it turns out this was the wrong goal for him to pursue because the Infinity Stone is incredibly destructive (he and his friends learn this the hard way when it blows up The Collector’s lab). They learn that Ronan plans to use the Orb to destroy the planet Xandar, so now their goal is to get the Orb back from Ronan and save Xandar.

This becomes their true goal and the one they pursue for the rest of the film.

Imagine if the entire movie had just been about Peter trying to sell the Orb. That’s an interesting enough problem for the first half of the movie, but having that goal turn out to be the wrong goal is a huge complication that makes the story more interesting and creates an opportunity for each of the main characters to grow as they learn from their mistakes.

Alternately, imagine if Peter’s goal the entire movie had been to stop Ronan from blowing up Xandar. A worthy goal and one that could probably string together enough action set pieces to fill two hours, but it would be very one-note. And where’s the growth then for Peter? In this version, he would have already been pursuing a noble goal from page 1.

This isn’t only true for commercial blockbusters like Guardians of the Galaxy. Another movie I analyzed that follows this pattern is Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963). The protagonist’s goal at the beginning of the movie is to assemble enough money to buy majority control of his company to save it from ruin. This could be a whole movie in itself (maybe not a terribly interesting one), but then his son is kidnapped and he must use the money he’s accumulated as ransom instead of using it to buy stock. New goal: get his son back.

But the real twist comes when he finds out that the kidnappers took the wrong boy — it’s not his son they have, it’s his chauffeur’s. So now he has to decide whether to use the money he needs for his company to pay the ransom for a son that isn’t even his. The protagonist’s goal was originally control of his company, but now it’s about something much more primal and forces him to confront and reveal the person he really is.

This is definitely more interesting than 140 minutes of a guy trying to raise funds to take control of his shoe company!

That said, I’m not sure that every movie follows this pattern, even though all the thrillers Monica Beletsky analyzed did. For example, I recently watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) in theaters, which I (in perhaps slight exaggeration) called last year’s “best movie of the year.” I’d have to rewatch it to be sure, but I think the goal in that movie is the same from the inciting incident (when they get sucked into the game) as it is at the climax, though there is a major complication introduced at the midpoint which shifts their approach.

Another counter example is Annihilation (2018), which I also just watched in theaters. The goal in that movie is introduced in Act 1 (enter the Shimmer and make it to the lighthouse) and though there are several complications along the way that change our understanding of the problem, that goal remains the same for the entire movie through Act 3.

I’ll have to think more about this to decide if it’s true, but my hypothesis is that movies like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Annihilation are actually a different kind of story with their own separate structure.

Something those two movies have in common is that they both have an ultra-clear goal from pretty much the start of Act 2 (if not a bit earlier) with a literal map to get there. Like, an actual, literal map! In both cases, if the story is working well, we’re so oriented to the journey that we understand at any given moment exactly where we are on our path to the final goal.

Annihilation goes so far as to have actual title cards delineating each story beat. We get an “Area X” title card at the inciting incident, a title card that says “The Shimmer” at the start of Act 2, and a title card labeled “The Lighthouse” at the start of Act 3.

In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the characters continually refer back to the map of the game world so that we always understand how far we’ve come and how much of the journey is left.

So maybe these movies have a different structure because they’re almost their own separate type of story.

So, like most writing tips, this is less of a Rule and more of a Tool. If your story feels a little thin, like it would be a better episode of a TV show than a full movie people pay $16 to watch in a theater, maybe the answer is taking your Act 3 climax and making it your midpoint, or even the end of Act 1.

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How to Avoid Plot Twist Fatigue

Plot twists in a movie are great. There are few greater joys in a film than that moment when you are truly, satisfyingly surprised by a twist you never saw coming, but in retrospect realize was inevitable.

But sometimes… there’s too much of a good thing.

We’ve all seen a movie like this. There are so many plot twists and reversals that after awhile, you’re not so much surprised as you are confused, and not so much on-the-edge-of-your-seat as you are put at a distance. The spy wasn’t just a spy, she was a double agent! Actually, she was a triple agent! Actually, she’s been dead the whole time! Actually, the whole movie was a dream! It’s not fun, it’s annoying.

I don’t ever like to name and shame movies on this blog, but I will say that I saw a movie in theaters recently that had so many never-saw-’em-coming twists and turns that by the end of the film, there was nothing left in the story to believe in or care about. Nothing could be trusted, nothing was real. Every aspect of that story I’d invested in had been a lie, from the big, important themes down to the smallest, stupidest facts. It made me feel cheated and like I’d wasted my time.

Here are two ways to avoid that:

  1. Keep your big reversals to the ends of acts. End of Act 1, midpoint (end of Act 2a), end of Act 2, and probably one more at the end of the movie, depending on what kind of movie it is. That’s it. If you have giant twists happening in every scene, the audience will get confused and exhausted. (If you’re writing for TV, then it’s even more straightforward because it is probably unmistakable where your acts end.)

    If you must do the thing where there’s a twist at the end of the movie and then there’s a second twist the audience didn’t see coming because they were still reeling from the first, I would not deprive you of that. Those can be fun. BUT YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE EXTRA TWIST. Don’t then have a third twist and a fourth, unless you’re writing a parody because that might actually be really funny.

    This is not one of those things where one twist is great so fourteen must be amazing. More is not better. Better is better.

    Also, when I say a reversal at the end of each act, I don’t mean that each of those reversals is an M. Night Shyamalan style shocker. They can’t all have been dead the whole time. When I say a reversal or a twist, I just mean something that changes the audience’s understanding of the situation and spins the story in a new direction.

    I think sometimes writers are afraid to put reversals at the end of an act because that’s where the audience expects it. But it’s actually satisfying when a story delivers what you expect! The key is to deliver it in a way that’s unexpected. So, yes, do put a big twist at the end of the act (or a small reversal if it’s a quiet, contemplative story), just don’t make it the first, most obvious idea that popped in your head.

  2. Have a few things in your script that you keep sacred and do not let any reversals undo those things. A classic example of this would be a primary relationship if your story has one (and it almost certainly does). It could be your protagonist’s love for her daughter, or it could be a romantic relationship you want to hold sacred in your story. You may want to make that bond untouchable by plot twists so the audience has something to hold onto throughout all the twists and turns of the story.

    Or, if you do want your primary relationship to be undone by a twist because that’s what your whole movie is about (you lovable cynic), then have something else be your Untouchable Truth — maybe it’s your protagonist’s loyalty to his country. Maybe it’s your mentor’s inherent goodness. Maybe it’s the way your magic system works. Whatever it is, have a few important things in your film that are core to what the movie is about and make sure those things are never upended in a twist.

    In fact, if anything, any twists should cement those things. Underline, not strikethrough.

What else am I missing? What makes for an especially good or bad twist? How much is too much?

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Black Panther Did Something I’ve Never Experienced in a Movie

Major spoilers below for Black Panther.

Like most people in the world, I saw Black Panther this weekend. Given the reviews, I expected to like it, assuming the hype machine hadn’t built it beyond reasonable expectation. And in fact I did like it.

But it also emotionally wrecked me. I not only cried more during the movie than I think I’ve done since Life is Beautiful 20 years ago, I kept thinking about it hours after the movie ended and crying again.

What devastated me in this movie was not the (supposed) death of T’Challa, the film’s hero, or the death of Zuri, T’Challa’s beloved uncle and mentor. It was the death of the villain, Erik Killmonger.

Disney obviously has a thing for humanizing its villains (see: Kylo Ren or Maleficent) and we’ve certainly seen villains before who are a little sympathetic or who make a decent point, but what was so bold about Black Panther is that it didn’t just make you feel bad for Killmonger or give him a line or two that made you think — the movie made a powerful argument for his point of view.

When another character tells Killmonger, “Your heart is full of hatred; you’re not fit to be a king,” they’re right. He’s not. But his approach, however hateful, did achieve results. Wakanda wouldn’t have opened their borders if he had never burst through their gates. In some ways the trial by fire he put T’Challa through is what made him the worthy king he was destined to be.

Even though Wakanda “wins” in the end, there’s a powerful sense of loss for the man that Killmonger could have been if T’Chaka had made a different choice that night in 1992, and though his violent, self-centered approach made him unfit to be king, it did open T’Challa’s eyes to a perspective he sorely needed.

That said, Killmonger is not a good guy. It’s important that he’s presented as a worthy and frightening adversary to T’Challa. This is why it’s crucial that Killmonger wins (or seems to win) his initial battle with T’Challa so that we see him as a formidable opponent. If he had only been presented as a wounded young man, he wouldn’t have made a strong villain.

An important moment for his character as a villain is when he kills his love interest. He does it in cold blood, with barely a thought, because she’s disappointed him and is in his way. This is almost like a reverse “save the cat” moment – instead of a moment that drives empathy for his character, it’s a moment that cements him as frightening and beyond reach.

Another critical moment like this is when he orders all the heart-shaped herbs burned. It’s an upsetting moment because we know how important this plant is to Wakanda. He even physically attacks an innocent woman when he orders it done. Most movies with a villain have a “burn the heart-shaped herb” moment – something the villain does that has seemingly irreparable consequences and truly drives home their power and menace.

I don’t know if every villain needs to be this sympathetic or if every argument in a story needs to be this complex, but as our world grows more and more divided, I find I’m less interested in stories that paint conflicts as a simple right and wrong.

A TV show I’ve been loving, CW’s Black Lightning (coincidentally also about a black superhero with a cast that’s almost entirely people of color), does this really well. Almost every argument between two characters on that show, no matter who it’s between or what it’s about, makes a solid case for both sides of the conflict. It makes the story more engaging because I genuinely don’t know who is going to win, or even necessarily who I want to win.

My takeaway for my next script is to create a villain who doesn’t just have a sympathetic backstory or a decent zinger or two, but has a truly understandable point of view, even if the story ultimately rejects it. I also want to make a point in scenes of conflict to give both sides of the argument some solid ground.

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The Surprisingly Conventional Narrative Structure of “Arrival”

If you haven’t seen Arrival (2016), this is the plot description from Wikipedia:

“Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.”

This is an exciting, persuasive, and technically accurate description of the film, but based on this description, you might expect the movie to be a nonstop action fest of alien attacks, space battles, and explosions, a la Independence Day.

You would be wrong.

A look at the structure of 'Arrival' - a great movie that feels like it's breaking every structure rule in the book, but actually isn't. Click To Tweet

I finally watched this movie after hearing raves since last year (it has a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). My analysis below contains only vague, mild spoilers – I’d consider it safe to read before watching unless you want absolutely zero prior knowledge.

Arrival is an Alien Invasion Art Film

Arrival is a beautiful, sad, slow, contemplative movie that feels more like an art film than a big budget blockbuster. There are dozens of lingering, moody shots of the misty green hills of Montana (actually Quebec in real life) and lengthy, silent close-ups of Amy Adams Feeling Things.

It would be easy to watch a movie like this, love it, read a hundred rave reviews, and think “To hell with structure! I’m going to write a BRILLIANT ART MOVIE like Arrival!”

Please do write a brilliant art movie like Arrival. We need a million more of these and we need them yesterday. But before you burn every dog-eared screenwriting book on your Kindle, let me make one small point:

This slow, quiet, contemplative art film follows the three-act structure covered in most screenwriting books pretty much to the minute.

To be clear, we’re making art here, not playing The Price is Right, so hitting exact page numbers from a self-styled screenwriting guru should not be your objective. But understanding how the vast majority of great movies are structured – even ones that feel like they’re breaking the rules – can be helpful if you’re getting feedback that your own script feels too slow or too rushed.

So let’s look at the structure of Arrival: a great movie that feels like it’s breaking every structure rule in the book, but actually isn’t.

We're making art here, not playing The Price is Right, so hitting exact page numbers from a self-styled screenwriting guru should not be your objective. Click To Tweet

Arrival‘s Structure (It’s Less Subversive than It Seems)

Act 1

While this movie feels slow and meandering, it’s actually not. The aliens touch down on earth a mere four minutes into the story. Though it feels wandering and dreamlike, that first four minutes turns out to be plenty of time to comprehend the tone and theme of the movie and to understand our protagonist’s world before it changes forever.

The moment that Blake Snyder refers to as the “catalyst” in Save the Cat (he says it’s typically a phone call or a knock on the door – in this case, it’s Colonel Weber walking in the door of Louise’s office) is expected to take place about 12 minutes into this 109-minute runtime. In Arrival, it actually happens a bit earlier than that, at 9.5 minutes.

Syd Field (in Screenplay) calls a similar beat the “inciting incident” and would have expected it a hair later, around minute 14, which is exactly when Weber rings Louise’s doorbell in the middle of the night and she gets on the helicopter to go to Montana.

Either way, this is the moment in a screenplay where the protagonist receives a “call to adventure” of some sort, and it happens in this movie in a very standard way and at a very conventional time.

I want to make a note here because it’s something that’s confused me in the past: Snyder refers to the second half of Act 1 (after the catalyst) as the “Debate” section. I used to interpret this quite literally to mean the section of the screenplay where the protagonist is actually deciding whether or not to accept the offer that was made to her in the catalyst.

So, for example, I might have previously expected the “Debate” section of this movie to be the period between Colonel Weber showing up at Louise’s office and Colonel Weber showing up at Louise’s house, even though the Debate section is usually 12-15 minutes and that would be a stupidly long time to kill between those two events.

That is not what the Debate section is.

The Debate section is just the part of the story after the catalyst and before the protagonist “steps over a threshold” from which she can never return, one that literally or metaphorically takes her into an “upside down” version of her former world. In some movies that means going to another planet. In others, it just means switching lunch tables in the cafeteria or starting a new job.

In Arrival, it’s when Louise gets on that spaceship for the first time – because up until that moment, she could still call the whole thing off and go back to her old life, but once she steps into that (literally upside down) world, there is no going back.

Act 2a

Snyder thinks Act 2 starts around minute 25, and that this act break is marked by the moment our hero leaves the old world behind, and enters an “upside down version” of that world. 25 minutes is exactly when Louise and Ian enter the spacecraft for the first time, and they are quite literally (and figuratively) turned upside down.

Field would have expected that moment a few minutes later, around the time when Louise and Ian meet the aliens for the first time.

Act 2b

Both Snyder and Field think Act 2 is divided in two parts at the midpoint, which is halfway through the film (around minute 54), which they both say is a pivotal moment when the story changes and the protagonist experiences either a “false high” or a “false low” which will mirror the end of the movie.

In a louder, splashier movie, this moment would likely be marked by a huge explosion or a dramatic death. But Arrival is not a loud, splashy movie. Without going into spoiler-y detail, I believe the midpoint in this film is the conversation Louise and Ian have in the back of the truck outside the camp. It happens exactly halfway through the movie (at minute 54) and it fits both Field’s and Snyder’s descriptions. It’s a very subtle mirror for the end of the movie and is a moment when a pivotal part of our protagonist’s story (very quietly, very subtly) changes.

Act 3

Syd Field expects Act 3 to start around minute 82 in a film of this length, while Blake Snyder expects it around minute 84. Field calls this the “final showdown” while Snyder says it’s a moment when the character achieves “synthesis” by combining all that she’s learned and deciding to make one last crazy attempt to accomplish her goal.

It’s 85 minutes into the movie when Louise goes back into the spacecraft (by herself, without permission) to try one last idea that’s come to her as a result of all she’s learned. This is pretty much the literal definition of a “break into three,” and it happens when you’d expect it.

Conclusion

This movie leaves a lot of room to breathe between big moments, which I think is part of why it’s so deeply affecting – but if you look under the hood, it’s actually very conventionally paced.

And while it certainly subverts some storytelling rules (for example, I’d argue that the protagonist doesn’t truly “step over the threshold” of the story until almost the very last page – which makes perfect sense for this unique film – and subverting that expectation actually makes a powerful point) it also hits a lot of typical story beats at pretty much the exact moment we’d expect to experience them.

On a more artistic level, Nerdwriter’s video below beautifully analyzes what makes this movie so good and I recommend watching it, but be warned: the video is 100% Spoiler City. This is a film I recommend watching unspoiled, so consider watching it first. It’s free on Amazon Prime Video (as of this writing).

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7 Things We Can Learn from John Boyega’s “Attack the Block”

I finally watched Attack the Block, John Boyega’s film debut from 2011 about kids from a South London housing project who become the world’s first line of defense against an alien invasion. It has a very 1980s feel, like those movies from your childhood that made you wish your friends could have thrilling adventures.

It’s a nearly perfect movie, in my opinion, and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend watching it2 before reading any further. If you want to brave the article below, the spoilers are pretty mild and vague.

What makes this movie so great? Here are seven takeaways:

1. There are Enough Villains to Go Around

Our heroes in this movie are outrunning, outgunning, and outwitting three major opponents: the aliens, the police, and Hi-Hatz (the drug boss of the Block). A lot of stories have just one antagonist, or a main antagonist and his henchmen, but having multiple, separate antagonists makes for a richer story with more opportunities for tension and surprise.

For example, a common pitfall in thrillers is that any time things get a little quiet, the audience knows the bad guy is about to pop out from behind a corner. Having multiple villains allows for more surprise – when we think the kids are about to get jumped by the aliens, it turns out to be the cops, etc.

It also creates richer conflicts. There are several scenes in which the kids are being detained by one villain (the police or Hi-Hatz), only for that detainment to make them vulnerable to an even bigger threat (the aliens). It makes their predicament feel that much more impossible as they become boxed in from threats on all sides.

Having multiple, unrelated villains risks making a story feel unfocused but it works in Attack the Block because (a) there’s a logical (and connected) reason why each villain is after our heroes, and (b) there’s a clear pecking order between them, with the aliens being the scariest, the cops being the least scary, and Hi-Hatz being somewhere in the middle.

It’s also worth noting that characters in this movie only die at the “hand” of aliens, never by police or Hi-Hatz. I think that’s important because it keeps the aliens as the “Final Boss” the kids will have the hardest time escaping or defeating. It would muddy the story if characters also died from other causes.

2. The Kills Matter (or At Least Some of Them Do)

This is an action-adventure-monster movie, so there are several kills to let us know the aliens mean business.

These kids open the movie by mugging an innocent person, but as the film goes on, we realize how young they are and how they look out for each other even in the face of grave danger, and they each get at least one brief moment to show some vulnerability or generosity. They’re also pretty funny.

We grow to care about these kids, so we genuinely worry about them, and when a few of them die, the loss is sincerely felt. (And luckily most of the kills are characters we aren’t invested in, so it’s not overly depressing).

3. Everything Gets Called Back

Some call it Chekhov’s gun. In Save the Cat, Blake Snyder calls it “the six things that need fixing.” Whatever you want to call it, this movie has it. Problems and opportunities set up in early parts of the movie are paid off later.

When Biggz brags early in the movie that he can jump from one flight of stairs to another and his friends doubt him, you can be sure that later he will need to do just that to escape the aliens. When we learn that Brewis took a zoology course in college, you can bet that information will come in handy by Act Three. When we see inside every kid’s apartment except for Moses’s, the movie is setting us up for an emotional payoff later when we finally catch a glimpse.

I could go on with a dozen more examples. Some of these setups and payoffs are small and some are huge; some are predictable and some are surprising, but they all make for a more cohesive, satisfying movie.

4. It Takes Place in a Specific, Fully Realized World

The entire film takes place inside – or just outside – a giant South London housing project they call “the Block.” At the beginning of the movie, we learn everything we need to know about this location: (1) all of our characters live there, except for Brewis and Ron, (2) the elevator is very slow, (3) there is a complicated series of outdoor stairwells, and (4) Ron’s weed room is on the 19th floor and is locked down “like Fort Knox.”

There are almost no other locations in this movie – a brief scene or two in a park across the street and a couple of scenes in the alley outside the building, but otherwise everything takes place inside the Block.

Obviously it’s not necessary for good storytelling to restrict your locations, but sometimes limited locations can actually make a story feel richer instead of thinner because we feel fully immersed in the world. We see a hallway and we recognize it like we’ve been there before ourselves. We know to say, “no, no, don’t go in the elevator” because we know how slow it is.

This movie has a lot of similarities to another near-perfect film3, Die Hard, which makes similar use of a single location.

5. The Protagonist is Not “Nice,” But He Is Redeemed

John Boyega’s Moses is one of the most empathetic heroes I’ve come across in awhile, which is impressive given that he opens the movie by viciously mugging a defenseless woman. Part of that empathy comes from the actor’s innate charm, but it’s also built into the text.

First, Moses is trusted and beloved by his crew, which gives him some cred with us right away. There must be a reason these kids follow and trust him, so we extend him some faith.

Second, he’s good at things. We see his bravery and leadership immediately.

Third, we see glimpses of his vulnerability at multiple points, driven home to emotional effect in the final act when we learn three simple facts that crack open that sliver of empathy into a heartbreaking chasm. These points are not overplayed to saccharine effect but merely presented, allowed to breathe for the merest moment, and then left behind.

Last, and most importantly, he’s allowed a small but powerful character arc as he realizes the effects of his actions and chooses to risk his own life to make amends. It’s not a grand, sweeping change in his outer life, but it’s clearly a powerful shift in his inner life. We believe it, and we care.

6. There’s a Larger Point

This point isn’t belabored, but there are several moments throughout the film that address police brutality against black boys. The movie isn’t “about” that – it’s about a violent alien invasion –  but it’s a theme that courses through the veins of the story, and by the end it has made a subtle but important point. Attack the Block is a fun, silly, exciting action-adventure movie, but the story is deepened by the broader point it is subtly but powerfully making.

7. There’s a Clever Explanation

Sometimes invasion movies like this end with the heroes blasting away each monster one by one until they’re all gone, or perhaps the old “round ’em up in a central place and then torch it” approach. These are both fine, but what elevates the story here is a twist – the characters figure out what’s driving the aliens and then use that knowledge in a clever way to outsmart them. The clues were there all along and it’s a surprising character who manages to put them together. The final moments of the film are like a heist story as we slowly piece together the plan the characters have devised and realize just how crazy – and brave – it actually is.

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Story Structure Breakdown: Guardians of the Galaxy

Story Structure Breakdown Series

In this series, I’ll breakdown the timestamped story beats of several critically acclaimed, commercially successful films and TV episodes and see how they stack up against four popular narrative formulas:

(The last two are both based on Joseph Campbell’s concept of the Hero’s Journey.)

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy

The first film I’ll cover is the 2014 Marvel hit Guardians of the Galaxy. I chose this movie because it was commercially successful (it earned $94,320,883 its opening weekend) while also being critically acclaimed with a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 8.1 out of 10 on IMDB.

When I saw this movie in the theater, I was struck by how well plotted it was – it’s funny, exciting and emotionally moving with no boring parts, and it has a satisfying resolution. So I was curious to see how the story beats would line up with popular story structure timelines.

For timestamp and story percentage purposes, I excluded the opening and closing credits, including the bonus scenes that play during the closing credits, and also the short prologue that plays before the opening credits. While important for the viewer to see, I felt that the prologue existed outside the main narrative arc. I started the film when adult Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) lands on the planet Morag to search for the orb. Based on this cut, the movie “starts” at timestamp 04:24 and runs for 110 minutes. My timestamps came from the version streaming on Amazon Video.

Syd Field’s Three-Act Structure

I’ll start with the basic three-act structure as interpreted by Syd Field. In this structure, Act I should fill the first 25% of the story, which means it should end at minute 32, and the Inciting Incident should occur halfway through Act I (at the 12.5% mark).

Syd Field defines the Inciting Incident as the event that sets the main story in motion. I felt this moment was when Gamora, Rocket and Groot all simultaneously jump Peter on Xandar (Gamora to steal the orb, Rocket and Groot for the bounty on Peter’s head). This is when the four of them meet and it’s what leads to them being arrested and taken to the Kyln space prison together.

Based on Syd Field’s formula, this moment should take place around minute 18, which turns out to be exactly when it happens.

Syd Field says that Act I ends when the protagonist makes the decisive choice to pursue the first major goal of the story. At this point, the story twists in a new direction that the hero can no longer turn back from.

I felt this moment was when Peter chooses to save Gamora from Drax and suggests that she, Rocket, Groot and he should join forces to break out of the prison and sell the orb to the highest bidder. This is an important moment for the characters’ inner journeys because it’s when all four go from going it alone to trying to work with a team. It’s also a moment when the protagonist makes a definitive choice that sets a story in motion that he cannot turn back from.

Syd Field thinks this moment should happen at minute 32, which is exactly when it happens.

Guardians of the Galaxy

According to this formula, Act II should run from minute 32 until minute 87, with the Midpoint occurring at minute 59 and what Field calls First Culmination happening just before it.

The first part of Act II is when the protagonist pursues his goal, encountering obstacles but not yet aware of how truly difficult the journey will be. The First Culmination is the moment when it seems like the hero has achieved his goal, then everything falls apart leading to the Midpoint.

The First Culmination is when the teammates finally arrive at The Collector’s lab and are about to sell him the orb. He’s explained the significance of the item and is about to pay them for it and it seems like the story could be about to end. This scene happens between minutes 56-59, which is exactly when Syd Field says it should.

The Midpoint is when it all goes south – something unexpected happens that twists the story in a new direction, proving just how difficult this journey will really be. In the first half of Act II, the protagonist tries to solve the problem in a way that’s similar to how he normally would, but after the Midpoint it begins to become clear how much the hero will need to learn and grow to achieve his goal.

I felt the Midpoint was the moment when The Collector’s attendant grabs the infinity stone, blowing up the lab and killing herself and The Collector and nearly killing everyone else. This is the moment when the heroes learn how powerful and terrifying this orb they’re carrying really is. It’s also the moment that ruins their chances of selling the orb as planned. The story has twisted in a new direction and they will need to take a different approach. Stakes are raised and the story’s direction changes. This moment happens at exactly minute 59, just as Syd Field said it would.

Guardians of the Galaxy

The rest of Act II is predicted to last from minutes 59 to 87. Screenwriter Doug Eboch says that this half of Act II often contains what he calls fireside scenes, chalkboard scenes and emotional revelations. All three of those appear between minutes 59 and 82 in this movie.

Syd Field says that Act II ends with another reversal that spins the plot in yet another new direction. Typically, this is the moment when the hero finally realizes the true solution to his problem and it’s a solution that involves the synthesis of everything he’s learned. It’s also a solution that seems nearly impossible, but is unfortunately his only hope. This moment occurs when the team sets their plan in motion to warn Nova HQ of Ronan’s attack and then kill Ronan themselves. This happens at minute 82, which is a few minutes earlier than when Syd Field thinks it should happen (minute 87).

The rest of the film is Act III, which Syd Field says includes the Climax (Second Culmination), which is the point at which the story reaches its maximum tension (the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist) as well as the Denouement, which is the brief period of calm at the end of the film. He thinks this act should last between minutes 87 and 114 in this film, but it actually begins at minute 82. This act includes the Climax (the moment when the team joins forces to defeat Ronan once and for all) as well as the Denouement (the calm period at the end when the team reflects and looks forward to their next adventure).

In a future update of this post, I’ll analyze the structure of this film based on Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat formula, Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and Dan Harmon’s Story Structure 101.

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