Screenplay Structure - The Three Act Onion

Generally speaking, most screenwriting classes, books and teachers will tell you that all (successful) screenplays are written in Three Act Structure, where Act I (the set up) is 25-30 pages long, Act II (conflict) is 45-60 pages long, and Act III (resolution) is 25-30 pages long, with the shorter page lengths for a 90 minute movie and the longer page lengths for a 120 minute movie. The origin of Three Act Structure came from the early days of film where studios would analyze the films that did well and those that didn't, eventually deducing that audiences responded better to films that fell into this one-quarter, one-half, one-quarter format.

I'm not going to tell you any differently. I've seen many articles about screenplay structures that are alternatives to Three Act, but in my opinion, they're all just a Three Act skeleton in different skin. "Memento," told backwards, follows Three Act Structure. "Pulp Fiction," told disjointedly, follows Three Act Structure.

Not only does Three Act Structure work, but what I'm going to tell you today is that you should use more of it. I'm going to suggest that you apply Three Act Structure to your overall script, to each act, within each act there are "sequences," within the sequences are "parts," within the parts there are "scenes," within the scenes there are "beats," and even within the beats there are the sub-atomic particles of story-telling, "words."

Screenplay Structure - The Three Act Onion

I call this layering the Three Act Onion.

What is Three Act Structure, anyway? Essentially, all we're saying is that a movie should have a beginning a middle and an end. So, if a beginning, middle and end apply to the overall script, shouldn't the concept of setup-conflict-resolution apply throughout?

It does.

Let's start with Act I. For ease of numbers, we'll say we're working on a 120 minute drama and Act I is 30 pages long. That's a lot of white space on your monitor, 30 pages. And it's a lot of screen time. We want to fill it up meaningfully, in a way that grips our audience, pulls them in and doesn't let them go.

Just like your overall script, divide your Act I into three sequences, Act 1a (Setup), 1b (Conflict) and 1c (Resolution). You have a little leeway here in page count. You could do an 7-8 page 1a, 15 page 1b, and 7-8 page 1c, or three 10 page segments. We're looking for a compelling skeleton but not one with rigidity. Let's compare this initial idea to many screenwriting texts that recommend the "Inciting Incident" coming in the first 7-10 pages or so of a script. What does that mean? It means the beginning of Act I is a setup, establishing location and character, but around page 7-10 we want to see the story introduced.

Such a notion falls specifically within the Three Act Onion, but instead of calling it an "Inciting Incident," I'm just saying it's the break between Act 1a and 1b. Where the "Inciting Incident" idea falls short and the Three Act Onion succeeds is the rest of Act 1, because just like in an overall script when the audience is waiting for "something to happen" toward 90 minutes into the film that launches them toward resolution, so too will they be feeling a similar need for redirection two-thirds to three-quarters through Act I.

Let's see how this applies in a real movie by taking a look at the Academy Award winning screenplay by Ted Tally, "Silence of the Lambs."

Act 1a introduces Clarice Starling as an FBI agent in training summoned to Jack Crawford's office where he tells her about the serial killer called Buffalo Bill and instructs her, as a training exercise, to go interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter to see if she can convince him to give some insights into Bill. All of that takes about 10 minutes. Act 1a.

Act 1b sees Clarice going to the psychiatric institute, meeting first with Lecter's psychiatrist, then with Lecter, and right around 20 minutes into the film she leaves, with a little hint from Lecter to pursue. End of Act 1b.

In Act 1c we watch Clarice solve Lecter's clue which sends her to the storage facility where she finds another body, proving to Crawford that she is capable enough to be a full part of the investigation, the complete resolution of Act 1.

Act II of "Silence of the Lambs" then follows Clarice on the investigation into Buffalo Bill, but we're not going there. We're going to continue to breakdown Act I.

Let's go back to Act 1a and break our sequence down into parts.

The first part of Act 1a is Clarice jogging on the skills track in the woods. It's the title sequence but it's also a story sequence, ending with another agent telling her the boss wants to see her. This film happens to have one character and one scene in the first part. Your script may have six scenes in the first part, introducing several different characters, or three scenes with one character, or whatever. The idea is to have the first one-quarter to one-third of Act 1a be a set up (beginning) of the first Sequence the same way the first Sequence is a setup for the Act and the first Act is a setup for the movie.

After the agent tells Clarice to go to Crawford's office, we are into the second part of Act 1a, the "conflict" of the sequence, where Clarice walks nervously through the halls and into Crawford's office where she sees photos and clippings of the Buffalo Bill killings. Crawford enters and tells her about the case and Lecter, segueing into the third part of the first sequence, when he tells her to go visit Lecter, adding the final warning of how cunning and dangerous he is. This is the final "part" of the first "sequence" of Act I.

Act 1b falls into the same "beginning-middle-end" structure. In part one, the setup, Clarice talks to Dr. Chilton who doesn't want her there. In part two, the conflict, she goes down to the basement to see Lecter who is standoffish and distant, then for the "resolution" of part two, he changes and lets her in, offering to look at her notes and send her off with a clue.

Act 1c, part one: Clarice does research to figure out Lecter's clue. Part two: She finds the storage facility, creeping around in the darkness, frightened, and finds a severed head. Part three: She goes back to Lecter and learns that the victim was Bill's first and that he was a patient of Lecter's.

Of course, there are other scenes in Act I. Clarice's flashbacks to her childhood, classroom scenes, etc., and those are the added dressing that makes a great screenplay really stand out, but the concept of the Three Act Onion holds tightly together.

If you were to go through the movie in Acts II and III you'll see a similar pattern, and the same would hold true if you were to break the "parts" down even further. Each scene of a great script will be made of "beats," a beginning, middle and end to the scene (the first Clarice / Lecter scene is a particularly great example of how the scene has beats, the beats have beats, even the dialogue has beats.)

Overall, the idea is to take the concept of Three Act Structure, a beginning (setup), middle (conflict) and end (resolution) and ask yourself if it is holding consistently true throughout your script on a macro and a micro level. If you find an area where it's not, that might be a good place to look at for improvement.

It's one thing to have a great story to tell, but telling it in a way that is compelling is the craft of the screenwriter.

On a closing note, over the course of my filmmaking career I've often been asked my opinion of different screenwriting programs. I've used many of the products on the market, from Movie Magic to Final Draft, and find that each offers a unique set of tools and functions. Final Draft I like very much when going into production on a script, as it has many features that interface with budgeting and scheduling software. However, when I speak to beginning screenwriters, many express that they don't need all the functions of Final Draft and other production level programs, and ask if there is a more affordable program that offers the basic screenwriting functions at a lower price. For those of you who fall into his category, I like "Writing Screenplays." It is an add-in program for use with Microsoft Word (Mac and Windows) that converts the word processor you probably already own into a screenwriting program for only about . For more information, see the link in the resource box below.

Screenplay Structure - The Three Act Onion
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Kenny Golde is a screenwriter and filmmaker. His credits include "Uncross the Stars," featuring Academy Award nominee Barbara Hershey and "Hellboy" star Ron Perlman, "The Job" starring Daryl Hannah, and "Keys to Tulsa," with Cameron Diaz, Eric Stoltz and James Spader. Please visit http://www.KennyGolde.com, and for more information on the Writing Screenplays software, http://www.WritingScreenplays.net.

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Script Analysis - Where the Wild Things Are - Archetypes and Emotional-Symbolic Screenplay Structure

Script Analysis: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't yet seen "Where The Wild Things Are," you may want to check it out before you read this article. Let's set aside the question right now of whether or not Where The Wild Things Are is a good movie. Let's set aside the question of whether you liked it or not (or were a little bit embarrassed for liking it as much as you did).

And if you feel like you wasted your twelve bucks on a movie in which essentially nothing happens, let's set that aside too. Love it or hate it, Wild Things is a movie worth studying, because of the bold and unique ways it is structured to reflect its authors' premise, both in its most wonderful, and its most problematic elements.

Script Analysis - Where the Wild Things Are - Archetypes and Emotional-Symbolic Screenplay Structure

PREMISE? WHAT PREMISE?

Wild things is governed by a simple idea-- or at least a strong suggestion-- that we are seeing the whole world through the perspective of a young boy-- as he works out his rage over his isolated life (and more importantly, his parents divorce) by playing with a bunch of stuffed animals in his room.

The writer-director team of Jonze and Eggers make a very strong (and very risky) decision that nothing in the world of the Wild Things is going to exist outside what a boy Max's age could reasonably imagine. This is embodied in every element of the film:

In the dialogue and actions of the Wild Things (who reason and dream and play and rage and even accept the impossible just like children). In a plot limited to events that a moderately intelligent child could be expected to dream up--more interested in reflecting the way children play (with exaggerated simplicity, loose ends, and non-linear and non-sensical elements) than it is with telling a linear narrative story.

In the production design-- which looks a lot more like what a child like Max might think was "cool and magical" than what we've come to expect from the grown up Hollywood minds that bring us movies like Harry Potter or Pan's Labyrinth. In Where the Wild Things Are, boats to magic lands show up out of nowhere, Wild Things instantly accept little boys as Kings, and torn off arms drip sand and not blood. We are in a little boys world of stuffed animals, and if things seem cheesy, overly simple, or just plain goofy, it's because they're supposed to.

Because of these choices, the experience of Where The Wild Things Are completely violates almost everything we've come to expect in a Hollywood movie. We come expecting magic and spectacle, and are given only the simplest special effects. We come expecting a smooth ride, that's safe for kids, and fun for adults, and instead are taken on a chaotic journey that floats along the impetuous currents of Max's joy and rage. We come expecting a "well-made" film, and instead experience the inner world of a child at play.

STRUCTURE? WHAT STRUCTURE?

Most Hollywood movies are built around simple structural rules. If a character shows up at the beginning of the movie pretending to be King, the movie isn't over until he's learned what it is to be a real King. If a character shows up at the beginning of the movie in a land where a bunch of otherwise lovely creatures are filled with rage and misery, the movie isn't over until he's healed their pain (and his own) and found a way to bring them peace.

As you probably noticed, Wild Things doesn't play by these rules. Max doesn't heal the Wild Things. Max doesn't learn how to be a good King. Max doesn't even "finish" the story. Rather, he leaves abruptly (if reluctantly) abdicating his crown like a child called inside for dinner.

For the most part, nothing happens in Wild Things. And yet, from a character perspective, so much happens. The difference is that unlike almost every other Hollywood film of its genre, Wild Things builds its structure not linearly and logically, but emotionally and symbolically, through the use of archetypes.

WHAT THE HECK IS AN ARCHETYPE?

Archetypes are an idea derived from the work of psychologist Carl Jung, and later seized upon by Joseph Campbell and a slew of his disciples as they sought to better understand story. You could spend years studying the different ways different critics, professors, and authors of screenwriting books have described and categorized archetypes.

Fortunately, you don't have to.

Your job as a writer is not to categorize or memorize archetypes, but to understand them. And understanding them begins with this simple concept:

An archetype is a character who embodies some repressed element of your main character's psyche, and exists structurally in your movie to force your character to deal with that repressed element. All movies have archetypes. Big Hollywood movies. Tiny independent movies. Broad Comedies. Serious Dramas.

Even big dumb action movies. They all have archetypes. They have to. Otherwise, your main character would never have to deal with the repressed elements in his or her psyche, and wouldn't have to go through the story. The difference is that within Wild Things, instead of existing in a traditional linear plot, these archetypes exist within an emotional and symbolic one.

THE NORMAL WORLD

One of the truly remarkable things about Where The Wild Things Are is how quickly screenwriters Jonze & Eggers establish all of the real world emotional and symbolic elements that will comprise the structure of Max's mythical journey. His isolation and loneliness. His emotional and physical pain. His feelings of betrayal by his sister and his mother. HIs feelings of being left behind as his mother and sister build relationships with new people that he doesn't like or understand. His shame at being out of control. And most importantly, his violent and destructive reactions to those feelings.

These emotional elements have symbolic counterparts: The Snowball Fight That Ends In Tears. The Destroyed Fort. The Heart He Made For His Sister (which he destroys when he trashes her room). And the moment in which he Bites His Mother after seeing her with her new boyfriend.

THE EMOTIONAL/SYMBOLIC WORLD OF THE WILD THINGS

On a metaphorical level, Max's journey in the world of the Wild Things is quite simply an attempt of a child's mind to make sense of his own destructive rage. Each emotional and symbolic element of the normal world has its Wild Things World equivalent, creating a system of metaphorical mirrors through which Max ultimately can see himself and his world more clearly (as he self soothes his way through the guilt and trauma).

The Wild Things bite, just as Max bit his mother. The Wild Things destroy their homes, Just as Max destroyed his sister's room. Max attempts connect with the Wild Things by building a fort and throwing dirt clods, just as he once built a snow fort and threw snow balls at his sister's friends. The connections are simple, giving the movie the clarity and through line it needs to take the audience along for the journey. But also complex, honoring the complexity of Max's pyschology, as he navigates the complexities of his parents divorce and his feelings about it, by navigating his relationships with one archetypal Wild Thing after another.

CAROL: The loving, but violent father, with whom Max's mother no longer wants to live despite Max's love for him, and whose behavior Max is emulating in his own.

KW: The perfect mother figure, who "inexplicably" no longer wants to live with Carol, and is instead enamored with "boyfriends" Bob and Terry, the owls that neither Max nor KW can understand.

JUDITH: The embodiment of his jealousy and discontentment-- who feels like it's Max's job to make her feel better, just as Max wants his mother to do for him.

Even Max himself is an archetype: the quintessential Jungian "Hero". The developing Ego that wishes to be King of his own world.

Over the course of the story, by interacting with his archetypes and attempting to do for them what he wishes to do for himself, Max develops empathy and understanding that prepares him to return to his new world. He is forced to confront who his father really is, who his mother really is, and even who he really is. He is forced to confront the consequences of his choices, and the terrifying idea that he may not be in control, that he may not be King, that he may, in fact, just be a "boy, pretending to be a wolf, pretending to be a king" and that in fact Kings may not exist at all.

It ends with the gift of a heart that Max has made. Not coincidentally, it looks a lot like the one he once made for his sister, and destroyed at the beginning of the movie. Linearly, not a darn thing happens. But metaphorically, emotionally, and symbolically, Max undergoes a profound change. He must, otherwise he wouldn't need to go through the story.

THE WRITER'S JOURNEY

On an archetypal level, Max's journey echoes the journey of every writer. We must reduce ourselves to children, allow ourselves to play, breathe life into our own archetypes through the words and actions of our characters, create metaphorical and symbolic equivalents for the confusing and contradictory events of our own lives, and ultimately create a structure that forces us to unearth our own repressed emotions, and takes us, and our main characters, on a journey that changes us both forever.

Though your own work may not be as structurally radical as that of Where The Wild Things Are, if a movie in which so little happens can create such a profound journey for its main character, imagine what exploring these emotional, archetypal, and symbolic elements could do for your own work.

Script Analysis - Where the Wild Things Are - Archetypes and Emotional-Symbolic Screenplay Structure
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Have a question about screenwriting?
Ask award-winning screenwriter Jacob Krueger, and your question could be featured in an article like this one. You can email Jacob at jake@screenwritersmind.com. For more information about screenwriting, or to find out more about Jacob's screenwriting classes in the New York City Area, please visit his website: http://www.screenwritersmind.com.

Copyright (C) Jacob Krueger 2009

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