The Pigeon: Impossible Blog

Just like Act 2, Act 3 tends to vary quite a bit depending on the story you’re telling. In my experience, Act 3 is usually the easiest to write, but the hardest to write well. Many great screenwriters will tell you to come up with your ending first, and then write the rest of the movie to build up to that point, but when you’re actually in the process of writing, that’s easier said than done.

The way I like to figure out the 3rd act is to boil the whole movie down to its central conflict. The 3rd act should be the ultimate embodiment of that conflict. If your story is an escalating comedy about a spy vs. a pigeon, the 3rd act is where we have the ultimate stand off. If your movie is about an old prizefighter trying to make a comeback, the 3rd act is the title fight. Even in romance films, the central conflict is usually between the two partners in the relationship. Act 3 is where the lovers either make up for good, or split apart forever.

Another thing worth mentioning, is that its much more common to have short “tragedies” than in the feature-length world these days. In Act 2 I mentioned that the “All is Lost/Dark Night of the Soul” Moments happen right at the end of Act 2. However, if you’re writing a tragedy where things end badly for the protagonists, you usually want the end of Act 2 to be a positive beat. Act 3 is all about momentum, so the more room the heroes have to either rise from the ashes or fall from the tower, the more awesome it will be. You can also think of Act 3 in terms of the threads of your story. With an upbeat ending, the 3rd act will start with all of the threads in a tangled mess, but will be woven in one at a time to form a beautiful tapestry. In a tragedy, Act 3 starts with the beautiful tapestry and unravels to end in an utter mess.

So by now, you’ve probably noticed that its almost impossible to talk about the 3rd act without referencing what comes before it. Its important to remember that everything is relative. In PI, there was a really awesome action scene at the end of act 2 that was ultimately taken out and replaced by the showdown because it took too much of the energy out of Act 3. The musical analogy is if you want something to seem loud, play really soft right before the loud section.

Similarly, you want the stakes to be as high as possible. If the hero is fighting for his life and his job in act 2, in Act 3 he’s fighting for the fate of the world. Of course, there are limits. You don’t usually want a romantic comedy to turn into World War 3. (Although now that I think of it, that sounds like an interesting movie…) But there does need to be a clear escalation going into Act 3.

One of the things that helps escalate tension is the ticking clock. Its just some narrative device that forces the characters to either succeed or fail RIGHT NOW. I just saw Inception last night, and lost track of all the ticking clocks, both literal, metaphorical, psychological… actually, just about any adjective you can think of had a corresponding ticking clock in that movie. A lot of times the “clock” will start ticking before the 3rd act even begins, but if not, that’s the time to start looking for one.

As we get closer and closer to the end, its time for what I like to call the sucker punch. You never want the hero to waltz through Act 3, so the most surefire way is to ratchet up the tension to the point where the hero is about to fold, and then let him pull some bit of daring-do out of his back pocket to save the day at the last possible second. That final flip from awful to amazing is the icing on the emotional cake. Of course it works the opposite way too. In a tragedy, the best time to kill off a character is when it looks like the battle is won.

The last element of act 3 is the coda. This is the victory lap for the movie, and its really important to let the audience come down a bit and soak everything up before the credits. I’ll admit that on PI, the coda was just too long. It didn’t have the multiple ending problem like Return of the King, but it still overstayed its welcome.

Well that’s it for the three acts, I’d be remiss not to mention that if any type of film can get away with not following this structure, shorts can. However, its definitely the most pervasive structure out there so I still recommend that everyone “master the rules” before breaking them. I’ll be posting some breakdowns up here and looking at some films that both follow and break the 3 acts, in many different ways.

Every writer I know laments the 2nd act. Why? Because following our 25/50/25 split I talked about in the Act 1 breakdown means that Act 2 is the longest and has the most potential to derail. The good news is that since we’re talking about shorts, that “long” act 2 is relative to the running time of the short. The bad news is that its still a no-man’s land of possibilities. While the first act had lots of things on our structural to-do list, act 2 only has one: stuff happens. Pretty vague huh?

As a result of this, several strategies have been employed to help manage the 2nd act. None of them are absolute “musts” in the world of shorts, but they can help guide you through the 2nd act.

Strategy 1: Break act 2 into two parts. This relatively easy solution employs a “midpoint” so you’ve got an Act 2A and an Act 2B that are both 25% of the running time. In PI, the midpoint is around 2:50 where Walter uses the bagel to stop the pigeon from causing trouble. Just as the pigeon getting inside the briefcase was a major turning point that caused the story to go in a new direction, the midpoint performs a similar function. It puts a stop to the current direction of the story (the pigeon causing trouble with the briefcase) and creates a new scenario (the bagel/briefcase standoff).

Strategy 2: Fun and Games vs. Enemy Regroups. These are terms used by Blake Snyder in his Save The Cat books. (Awesome and highly recommended.) If we’ve broken down act 2 into two parts, Act 2A is the Fun and Games section. This is where we get to have fun with the premise of the movie. So, since the premise of PI is a pigeon wreaking havoc with a high tech briefcase, Act 2A is where that havoc is wreaked. However, the midpoint represents not just a turning point in the plot, but also a tonal shift. The stakes are raised and things suddenly get more serious. This leads us into Act 2B which Snyder calls “The Enemy Regroups” In PI, Walter has just put a halt to the pigeon’s destructive flight by threatening the bagel. He tries to get the pigeon out of the briefcase, but each attempt ends in things just getting worse. Hopefully since PI is a comedy, this section is still funny, but its definitely a very different tone than the unrestrained silliness of Act 2A.

Strategy 3: Aim for the bottom. Another big moment is the last section of Act 2B when things get really bad. Blake Snyder called this the All is Lost/Dark Night of the Soul. The All is Lost moment is the rug being yanked out from under our hero. In PI, Walter has finally succeeded in getting the pigeon out of the briefcase when he accidentally launches the nuke. The Dark Night of the Soul is what happens immediately after that as the hero reacts to the new threat and tries to figure out what to do next. The turning point into Act 3 is the moment when the hero gets an idea for a last ditch effort. Usually something crazy enough that it just might work.

Strategy 4: Use sequences. Paul Joseph Gulino wrote a book called The Sequence Approach. The basic idea is that conceiving an entire act by itself is pretty daunting, so you can break each 25% chunk down into two more parts, so that our 4 quarters become 8 sequences. I didn’t use this for PI because it was so short, but I just thought it was worth mentioning in the event that you have a longer short and need more help getting through act 2.

As I mentioned in the Act 1 breakdown, I’ll be analyzing some other shorts once I finish the 3rd act post, and we’ll probably find that Act 2 is the most varied between different shorts. Some won’t use any of these techniques, and some will use all of them. Its just more tools to have in your pocket to help things out.

The hardest part about shorts is usually keeping them short. Its so easy for things to get longer and stretch out, so I thought I’d do a series of posts about one of the greatest tools short filmmakers have at their disposal: 3 act structure. Most of the time people talk about act structure in relation to features, but it’s just as applicable to shorts. Basically…

• Act 1 is the setup, and takes 25% of the running time.
• Act 2 is the confrontation, and takes 50% of the running time.
• Act 3 is the resolution, and takes the remaining 25% of the running time.

So today lets talk about Act 1. In shorts, this is hands down the hardest part to get right because there is a LOT that needs to happen in a very short amount of time. You need to establish the world/genre, the characters, what they want, the conflict and the tone. By the end of act 1, the audience needs to know everything that’s crucial to the rest of the story. After I get through these posts I’ll do a breakdown of several shorts, but for now I’ll just use PI as an example.

Since PI is roughly 6 minutes long (usually you don’t include credits in the act breakdowns) the first 25% is 1:30. If you watch the film, you’ll notice that right around 1:30, the pigeon gets inside the briefcase. Everything up until that point encompasses the setup…

The genre/world is established in several ways. First, the music is reminiscent of early spy-fi music. Its set in Washington DC, the largest hub for spies in the world. The graphic design uses a circle following the main character walking, an homage to James Bond. Also, Once we go into the title sequence, the images shift to a high-tech motif, showing that there is some sort of technology angle to the spy genre.

The characters in shorts tend to be very simple and not too deep, but its still important to establish their personality before things get going. Walter starts off looking cool, then immediately reveals that he’s a bit incompetent because instead of the James Bond “turning to shoot” moment, he turns at the honk of a car to realize that he’s standing in the middle of oncoming traffic. This klutziness carries through the rest of the establishing shot, until he receives the briefcase which confirms that he’s some sort of spy.

The pigeon’s personality is set up when he begs for the bagel. Walter gives him a piece, but he wants the whole bagel. That shows that he’s more aggressive than most pigeons, a little greedy, and possibly a bit smarter as well. This moment actually pulls triple duty, because in addition to setting up the character, it also shows what he wants (the bagel.)

The “what the characters want” beat is often the most difficult to nail. Sometimes filmmakers are a bit worried about being too “on the nose” and spelling things out to clearly, but in my experience, this is the one case where you can never be too on the nose. If the audience doesn’t know what the character wants, then their actions for the rest of the movie aren’t going to make sense.

The third thing that the pigeon/bagel moment does is establish the tone. After all, the movie is a comedy, so if you don’t have at least one good joke in the first act, the audience isn’t going to be on board. If you were doing a thriller, you’d probably set it up with suspenseful music and eerie cinematography. Whatever it is, the tone needs to be established up front.

Another important thing that needs to go into the first act is what Walter wants. We know that he’s on some sort of a mission, but it needs to be something specific that we can clearly follow. In this case, the briefcase takes on that role. We also have to establish that the briefcase is capable of some pretty cool stuff, so the interior was designed to have some superfluous movement of the control surfaces, just to give it that high-tech gadget feel. We don’t have to know everything it can do, just an idea of what its capable of, and that Walter is in big trouble if he loses it.

And then of course the last thing to set up is the conflict. There’s all sorts of structures for this, but the two crucial pieces are an antagonist, and an obstacle standing in the way of what the character wants. If this were a kung fu movie, the antagonist and the obstacle might be the same, but in PI, the conflict comes from the pigeon being in control of what Walter needs, and Walter being in control of what the pigeon needs.

Phew, that’s a lot to fit into 90 seconds of screen time, especially if you’re trying to make it feel smooth and natural, but that’s why making a short is so hard. A good way to think of it is like loading a cannon. The setups… who the characters are, what they want, etc. are all the individual pieces that go into the cannon… wadding, gunpowder, ball and fuse. The conflict is like lighting the fuse. Without conflict, that cannon isn’t going to fire, but without any of the pieces, its not going to work either. If you do it right, everything will be clear and the audience will be on board, then the rest of the film can focus on the interesting stuff: what happens after the cannon fires.

The final 3 podcasts have just been released!

Podcast #021: Loose Ends includes several tips and tricks that didn’t fit into the other podcasts.

Podcast #022: Music is an audio-only interview with composer Christopher Reyman.

Podcast #023: Sound Design is an audio-only interview with sound designer David Bewley.

I got a great question from James Smith via e-mail and thought it would be worth posting on the blog: “How do you make a six minute short so epic? Is it just the script?”

I’m in the process of working on another script that needs to have that “epic” quality to it, so this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. As always, it does indeed start with the script. I think the common mistake is that people think epic means huge. Obviously that’s a part of it, but there’s an equally critical factor: a small hero.

What makes an epic feel huge is the contrast between the small hero and the huge world/scope of events they are caught up in. BTW, the “small hero” doesn’t necessarily mean physically small, although if that happens too, more power to you. Take the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. Trusting the fate of the world to a 3-foot hobbit who’s never left his hometown is about as big of a contrast as you can get. Another one is Gone With the Wind. Its set in the civil war, but doesn’t follow a soldier. Instead it follows a stuck up rich girl on the edge of the fighting: a perfect example of a heroine with little power over her situation. That leads perfectly to the next quality of an epic…

If you’ve ever been surfing or boogie boarding, you know the “washing machine” sensation you get when you’re pulled under a big wave and knocked about a bit. If you’ve never been, just trust me… no matter how good of a swimmer you are, that wave has you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just let it pass and try to figure out which way is up. That’s the next quality of an epic: the hero is swept up by the events of the story and BARELY in control of their situation. They’re teetering on the edge of oblivion and holding on by their fingertips. Its all about putting the character in a precarious situation, then allowing them a small victory before knocking them back down to an even worse place. In fact, most of the time, the hero takes quite a few beatings (physical and emotional) at the hand of whatever the larger than life opponent is.

So those are the two crucial story components to an epic. Make the opponent bigger, the hero smaller, and then beat up on them until the little guy finally pulls off a desperate, last chance effort to save the day. The next part of an epic is in the execution. Obviously music is a key factor. Its not about volume, its about scale. An 80 piece orchestra sounds bigger than even the coolest piece of techno-trance you can come up with. Its also important to remember the big opponent vs. small hero from a visual standpoint.

Try to keep the camera on the ground because things look larger and more ominous from the hero’s perspective. However, if you do want to pull the camera up and let it breathe, nothing says “epic” like showing how small your character is compared to the colossal forces he’s faced against.

This is big:

This is epic:

Just saw HTTYD. Wow. Absolutely fantastic. Definitely worth seeing in the theater if you haven’t already. Of course from a technical side, everything was pretty much flawless. I dug the art direction and the animation style. It felt very Kung Fu Panda in the way that they kept things simple and didn’t try to over-clutter the frame.

My only issue with it was the story. Not that it wasn’t good, quite the opposite in fact. I really felt for the characters and was pulled into the world, but I felt like the idea was so good that I wanted to see them milk it a little bit more, both in terms of humor and more heartfelt emotion.

—Spoiler alert—
Probably the best example of this was towards the end where Hiccup finally wins his dad’s approval BEFORE he goes into the final battle and defeats the big bad. I liked how the dad was the one who freed Toothless, but that resolution would have been so much more effective after the final battle because then when the dad is worried that he’s lost his son, it would be more powerful because they have unresolved tension between them.

A similar thing happened when Dad realized that Hiccup had befriended Toothless. Hiccup wanted a chance to explain, but that moment was snatched away by a little action sequence of the fiery dragon attacking and Toothless defending Hiccup. I really wanted Hiccup to get that moment to explain because it would have given the audience hope that he’d finally be able to get through to his father, and then it would be even stronger when the father rejected his explanation. That good old head-fake sucker punch to make things pop.

I don’t want to keep picking things apart because like I said, I really liked it as a whole. I guess I just saw some unrealized potential in there that could have been fixed pretty easily with some slight structural changes. The end result felt a bit like the cake had been iced before it had been fully cooked, and they had to fix the problems with frosting instead of really nailing the structure and letting the details decorate and enhance it.

I started this one off the same as the other breakdowns, focused primarily on the structure. However, the structure is pretty straightforward. The act breaks are extremely clear, the midpoint is textbook, and it hits all the key beats of a classic Hero’s Journey. In fact in the commentary, JJ Abrams even talks about modelling it somewhat after Star Wars so its no surprise that the same beats are there.

So, rather than do an in-depth structural analyses which would be very similar to past breakdowns, I’m going to focus on some of my bigger takeaways:

Two main characters. Sure, if you had to pick one, most people would say Kirk, but really, this is a buddy movie. Spock’s arc is just as important, and many of the more emotional moments are centered around him. I’m working on a script with a similar issue at the moment, so I paid close attention to how they handled this:

1. They had a strong theme that tied the pair together. (Intelligence vs. Emotion/Acting from the gut) Every single scene with Spock or Kirk either played these aspects against each other, or showed how they balanced each other out towards the end of the movie.

2. They took the characters to the extreme of these viewpoints. They didn’t just favor one approach over the other, Kirk was all gut and Spock was all intellect. No grey area.

3 They showed how each character suffered because of their extreme attitudes. Kirk got beat up and arrested because he acted emotionally, while Spock spent the whole movie wrestling internally with the dilemma of not being able to express his emotions.

4. In the end, the solution to these character flaws was not to “fix” the extreme views, but to accept each other as partners.. Kirk was still impulsive, and Spock was still intellectual, but by becoming a team the negative aspects of their character flaws are cancelled out and only the positive aspects remain.

5. (Bonus) they managed to express the importance of this partnership on screen through Nimoy’s older version of Spock. I call this a bonus because it could be a mistake to do this in other cases, but because they had the Spock Prime character who was from the future and had witnessed the partnership, they were able to stick it on the nose without it feeling like something that was forced in by the hand of a screenwriter.

Another thing that stood out to me was how they handled a really wide range of emotions. Loss, empowerment, sacrifice, anger, awe, and a whole lot of others. The scenes stacked up in such a way that the audience never spent much time in a specific mood. It changed quickly and made each moment seem fresh by not overplaying any single emotion. A big part of that was the music (which I loved), but you could easily tell that almost every single scene was constructed to impart a fairly specific emotion to the audience. Camera work, staging, sound design, everything went together to support that basic idea of “what is the audience supposed to feel?”

The final takeaway is more of a personal observation. I find myself really attracted to movies that have some aspect of “fate” in them. This is actually very different than my real-life views, but I’m always a sucker for a well written and performed “Do you feel like you were meant for something better?” scene. I have no idea why that idea of being destined for greatness is so powerful, but it taps into something on a very fundamental human level.

Breakdown:

Sequence A – USS Kelvin
1:00 Mysterious phenomenon in deep space.
2:00 Arrival of mystery ship.
3:30 Message for captain to come over for negotiations.
4:00 You’re captain now Mr. Kirk.
6:00 Do you know Spock? What is the stardate?
7:00 Captain killed by Nero.
7:45 The baby is coming
8:00 Autopilot malfunction
8:30 Leave without me
9:00 I have to fight them off.
10:00 Dad drives the Kelvin towards the enemy ship. & James is born.
11:00 Impact

Sequence B – Boys will be boys
12:00 Young Kirk driving dad’s car.
13:00 Cop tries to pull him over.
14:00 Car over cliff
14:30 My name is James Tiberius Kirk
15:00 Young Spock gets insulted by other boys
16:00 Spock beats kid up.
16:30 Intelligence vs. Emotion (Statement of Spock’s theme)

Sequence C – The path to Starfleet
18:00 Spock asks his mother if he should continue his Vulcan training.
19:00 Spock is admitted, but declines because of the minister’s insult.
20:30 Kirk hits on Uhura
22:00 Kirk fights with cadets. Loses.
23:30 Captain Pike tells Kirk to join Starfleet
24:30 I dare you to do better.
25:00 Kirk debates joining starfleet.
26:00 4 Years? I’ll do it in 3.
27:30 Kirk Meets Bones.

Sequence D – Kobiashi Maru
29:00 3 Years later… Nero captures Spock’s ship.
30:00 Kirk is trying the Kobiashi Maru again.
31:00 Kirk and the green girl.
33:00 Kirk beats Spock’s test.
33:30 Kirk is accused of cheating, he addresses Spock.

Act 2
Sequence E – The journey to Vulcan
35:45 The cadets are sent to respond to the Vulcan distress call
36:30 Kirk is suspended
37:30 Bones smuggles Kirk aboard shuttle.
39:00 Shuttle arrives at the ship dock
40:30 Leaving the dock.
41:00 Sulu fail
42:00 Checkhov introduction
42:30 Crew briefing
43:00 Kirk realizes something is wrong
45:00 Kirk storms aboard the bridge.
47:00 Shields up. Red alert.

Sequence F – The Drill
49:30 Nero hails the enterprise.
52:00 Pike puts Spock in charge and promotes Kirk to first officer.
54:00 Space Jump
56:00 Landing and fight
58:30 Drill is disabled, red matter is launched at planet

Sequence G – Vulcan Destroyed
59:30 The planet has minutes, Spock leaves to save Vulcan council
61:30 Kirk and Sulu beamed back on board
63:00 Spock’s mom falls
64:00 Vulcan is destroyed -MIDPOINT
65:00 Spock and Uhura kiss in elevator

Sequence H – Aftermath
66:30 Nero tells Pike about his plan and how Romulus was destroyed.
70:30 Spock and Kirk argue. Whatever our lives might have been… our destinies have changed.
72:00 Kirk is marooned on Delta Vega
75:00 Kirk meets Spock Prime.
76:45 Spock explains the backstory with mind meld
80:00 So you do feel… did I know my father.
81:00 Bones argues with Spock

Sequence I – Putting things right
83:00 Spock and Kirk meet Scottie
86:00 Spock tells Kirk he has to take command and stop Spock
87:00 That’s cheating. A trick I learned from an old friend.
88:00 Back aboard the enterprise.
89:30 Kirk and Scottie are captured.
91:30 Spock relinquishes command

Act 3
Sequence J – Pursuing Nero
93:00 Kirk assumes command. Either we’re going down or they are.
94:00 Spock expresses his anger to his father.
95:30 The crew forms a plan.
96:45 Nero arrives at earth.
98:30 Spock and Uhura kiss on transport pad.

Sequence K – On Nero’s Ship
99:00 Kirk and Spock reach Nero’s ship.
101:00 The drill starts and they’re stuck on the ship.
102:00 Spock has doubts. Kirk says the plan will work. Steal the ship.
103:30 Kirk and Nero fight
105:00 Spock destroys the drill
106:00 Nero warps after Spock
107:00 Kirk defeats Nero’s lieutenant
107:30 Spock flies straight at Nero’s ship. Enterprise saves the day.
108:00 Kirk saves Pike

Sequence L – Singularity
109:30 Block hole is created
110:00 Kirk hails Nero.
111:00 Nero’s ship is destroyed.
111:30 Enterprise is caught in black hole.
112:30 Scottie blows them out of the gravity well.
113:00 Moment of celebration

Sequence M – Conclusion
114:00 The two Spock’s meet.
116:00 Kirk relieves Pike
117:00 The enterprise gears up.
117:30 Spock is appointed as first officer
118:00 Space the final frontier.

I finally got a chance to sit down with my friend Michael Cawood to chat about animated short filmmaking. He’s currently working on a short film called Devils, Angels & Dating and recorded our chat for his audio podcast series. It was great to really dig into some of the more niche stuff that might appeal to other animators and filmmakers out there. Check it out!

I know I’m way behind on this one, but I just got a chance to finally check out Cloudy. I loved what they did with the story and how they managed to flesh it out while staying true to some of the iconic images from the book. The visual style was also spectacular and I think it set a new standard for “cartoon-ey CG.” The only criticisms I have are pretty mild: The near-frantic pace of the jokes and the action left me a bit exhausted by the end. I feel like I would have laughed even harder had they let it breathe a bit more. Part of that was also influenced by the numerous characters, all of whom had their own arcs. Probably the only one I didn’t like was the baby from the sardine can. He was a good joke, but I didn’t feel like he needed all of that precious time he took up in the third act. Again, all pretty minor issues and more a matter of taste.

The only thing that really stuck out to me was the whole “sentient food thing.” Maybe they just felt like they needed a topper to up the ante, but to me it felt absurd… I know, I know… giant food falling out of the sky… and I have a problem with sentient food? I think my problem was that it broke the rules of the world they had established. The quick explanation helped tie it in, and in fact I asked my girlfriend about it and she didn’t mind it, but it definitely felt like Double Mumbo Jumbo to me.

All in all, a very fun movie that I’ll definitely be buying when it comes out!

I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to screenwriting books. I own 3 or 4 and just picked up another one today. (Save the Cat by Blake Snyder) Now of course there were tons of epiphanies as I thumbed through the pages, but I had one big ah-hah moment that had to do with all screenwriting books in general: they’re better used for destruction than construction.

Now let me make it clear that I’m in no way knocking Blake Snyder or any of the other authors out there. After all, I wouldn’t have bought the books if there wasn’t a ton of valuable insight there. But, I found that some of my worst ideas have occurred while I was reading these books… plot devices that reek of formulaic writing, drastic character shifts without proper motivation, etc. Its no fault of the author, its just that when you’re trying to think of something to satisfy a particular story element, you’re using the analytical side of your brain instead of the creative side.

There’s a simple solution to this: when you’re in the process of writing, stay far away from screenwriting books. But, when its time to analyze and do some re-writing, the formulas and techniques are excellent litmus tests to see if your story is firing on all cylinders. For instance, I had already satisfied most of Snyder’s 15 beats, but they were in the wrong order. Shifting them around, I can already see that it is indeed MUCH stronger by following his order. Its going to take a fair amount of re-writing, but at least I’ve got some fairly unique source material to work from. If I had tried to write my first draft to follow his formula, it would have been technically proficient, but would be missing that spark of originality that you get by letting a story evolve organically. So from now on, I’m only going to indulge in my Truby/McKee/Campbell addiction when I feel like I’ve got a draft that works well. Its a great way to tear things apart so you can rebuild it and make it stronger. After all… writing is re-writing.