Lesson 5

[Jan Lloyd]

Jan Lloyd: 4 Act Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment: Much of this four act structure is similar to the 12-step structure that can be found in New Novelist and other novel writing books. The 12-Steps fit into the four act structure. I like breaking things into simple organization. Otherwise, everything can become disjointed. I am writing this screenplay to go with my already published Book 1. But I would like to break it into a series.
1. Give us the following:
• Concept – fraternal twins find trouble, but an unusual trouble.
• Main Conflict The two are two trusting and get themselves in trouble, this gets them sent to juvenile court.
• Old Ways they are not bad kidsd, but something has got to change for them because they cant keep getting into trouble.
• New Ways They find a new group of students at their school and want to do what is right to find out information that has them questioning authoritiy.
2. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.
Act 1:
• Opening: The twins are in their ordinary world on the beach and they find an octopus.
• Inciting Incident: The two help, what they thought was an FBI agent hack into files. This lands them in juvenile courts
• Turning Point :They find information at their new school on an old computer that leads them to knowledge of hidden caves
Act 2:
• New plan: They now want to find the cave that they have coordinates for, but they don’t want anyone knowing what they are doing as they don’t know who to trust.
• Plan in action: They find the cave and make plans to explore.
• Midpoint Turning Point They explore and find a whole new world.
Act 3:
• Rethink everything: They question all these strange animals. What are all these creatures in the cave. They are almost killed in the cave, yet they find they are helped by some of the creatures they have met at the new school.
• New plan: They decide they will tell Professor NERD all that they have found in the cave and trust her.
• Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: They break into a gallery when they see a man they think could be tied to some of the questions they have. They are brought in by security.
Act 4:
• Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Professor NERD introduces them to JL. They learn much about this alien world that is in the caves. They also learn they are part of this alien world.
• Resolution: They will continue with their study buddies and in the next book/movie will learn more about their background.
3. Once you have created the 4-Act Structure for your Protagonist, go back over it to see if there is any big picture points you need to add to represent your Antagonist.

[Kenneth Johnson]

Kenneth Johnson – 4 Act Transformational Structure

Create a first draft of your 4 Act Transformational Structure.

1. Give us the following:
Concept – Michael Jones must convince his Korean War veteran father to tell his story of serving under fire in the last all-Black U.S. Army unit so he can sell it as a film script and save his home and his marriage.
Main Conflict – His father, Lee Jones, doesn’t want to tell his story because of the expected and unexpected painful memories.
Old Ways – Michael is arrogant, self-centered, and superficial in dealing with other people and their concerns. Only his needs matter.
New Ways – Michael becomes more accepting of who he is and how his actions affect the lives of others. By acknowledging his own feelings he is able to appreciate the feelings of others.

2. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.
Act 1:
Opening – Michael introduces himself through a montage with voice over narration, which leads to when Lee gets drunk with Michael while watching Monday Night Football and then telling him about the horrific battle where he watched his friends die.
Inciting Incident – In a studio pitch meeting no one is interested in the projects Michael has to offer and he pitches Lee’s story in desperation. The studio loves it.
Turning Point – Ignoring Lee’s gentle declines of his offer, Michael tries to get Lee to sit down for an interview to tell his Korean War story. Lee flatly and angrily refuses to tell his story, but tells a little of the story to show why it should not be told.
Act 2:
New plan – Michael get’s his daughter to change her History class report from the Vietnam War to the Korean War.
Plan in action – Lee tells some of his war experience story to his granddaughter until he realizes what Michael is up and angrily shuts it down. He then adds some innocuous parts of the story so she can finish her report.
Midpoint Turning Point – Through the American Legion, Michael is introduced to an advocate for Korean War veterans who wants to honor those vets before they die by bringing them to South Korea.
Act 3:
Rethink everything – Michael and Lee, along with 30 other Korean War veterans, are brought to Seoul with the highest honors and first class luxury. South Koreans believe they would not have a country without the bravery of these veterans.
New plan – Michael works with their hosts in South Korean to create a document for history to get Lee to open up about his Korean War service.
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift – Their South Korean hosts show upunexpectly in their hotel suite with an entire documentary crew. Lee feels completely betrayed by Michael and angrily storms out vowing to die with his story.
Act 4:
Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict – At the farewell dinner for the veterans the four-star General in command of all U.S. forces in South Korean is there and meets Michael. Michael tells him about his father, and the General knows the history of the 24th Infantry Regiment, knows how they were mistreated, and knows how they died. The General talks to Lee, renders a salute, shakes his hand, and thanks him for his service. Michael and Lee step outside and through tears Lee tells the final terrible part of his Korean War service.
Resolution – Lee writes the script and sells it, saving his home and perhaps his marriage. Michael leaves out Lee’s shameful secret. Lee finally gets a good night’s sleep.

[Ayesha Morris]

Ayesha’s Four Act Transformational Structure

What I learned with this assignment is to create a skeleton roadmap, laying a framework for how a screenplay could unfold.

Concept:
The year is 1892, and a time-traveling Caribbean coal carrier, Hilda, must lead a strike for fair wages against a wealthy steamship company exploiting its workers before the tokens they are paid expire.

Arrested and thrown into the dark hole before the protest even starts, a vortex catapults her back to 1848, when coaling was done under crack of whip, then teleports her to 1916 during one of the island’s worst hurricanes. With her superpower of the African bamboula dance, her mission is to find implements from each year to strengthen her current battle, as her nemesis Constable Gellerup follows her into every lifetime, in an attempt to restrict her freedom.

Main Conflict: Gellerup wants to keep Hilda enslaved, although the emancipation proclamation was signed almost 50 years earlier. From the first scene, she is thrown in jail. Every time she attempts to make money, Gellerup finds a way to restrict her freedom.
Old Ways:
Old Identity: A coal carrier like her grandmother, barely surviving.
Sees hard work as the key to success.
Her romantic partners are purely business transactions.
New Ways:
New Identity: Queen Coziah who stands up for others and uplifts herself.
Knows to get ahead, wounds of the past must be healed.
Develops a liking for Thomas Phillips, a kindred spirit
ACT 1

Opening: Hilda races up the gangplank, a 100 pound basket of coal on her head, wave action washing water over the way, mixed with a gush of wind, as she slips and bumps into the person in front of her, the basket tipping over and plunging into the depths below, setting off a chain reaction.
She’s carted off to jail, placed in a dark cell, and the door slams.
Inciting Incident: Hilda is locked up by Gellerup, for the loss caused at the coal wharf. She is known as the most clumsy of all at coaling.
Under a deadline of coal tokens declared illegal, Hilda along with the other coal workers must redeem the few she has before the new law goes into effect.
Turning Point: The deadline comes. She’s teleported to 1848, through the dungeon cell, body there but spirit traveling by the time they push the first bread and water meal through the grate
ACT 2
Hilda in 1848 assumes the body of her grandmother, and realizes instead of day time, it is night, and at the end of a five hour coaling shift, there is no money to be had at all, on top of having to do it at the crack of Gellerup’s whip.
She realizes, as bad as she had it, the coal workers of the time period had it even worse. The coal used at the time leaves a cloud of dust and irritates their eyes.
New plan: Instead of over-working for no pay, she decides to pass as a free Tortolian worker, but a rumor spreads that Tortolian workers plan to support the enslaved in the event of a revolution.
Turning Point/Midpoint: The plan fails when her true identity as an enslaved laborer is discovered. She is tied to a ladder to be beaten with a leather strap with a wire button at the end that removes pieces of flesh. She has to find a tool of resistance to escape and get back to the vortex.

ACT 3
New Plan: One more pass through the vortex, with the clock still ticking, Hilda ends up in the future, where the effects of a hurricane are still brewing in the harbor, yet they are expected to work in these conditions. Gellerup figure has made the baskets larger and heavier than before. A local labor leader has organized workers and a newspaper for the people to protest the injustice. She decides it’s best to level the playing field and fight for what they’re due. The best solution is to increase their wages.
New Insights: Gellerup is a reflection of each authority figure she has met along the way bent on holding on to power. Uniting in numbers is the best way to force the system to change.
Turning Point 3: She goes to a meeting led by labor leader George Moorhead who organizes 2,700 coal workers into a union. Gellerup figure cuts the electricity after mere minutes, and they move to torchlight. Facing sandflies, mosquitoes, and water running through the house, they demand double the pay that causes less profits for steamship agents. The island is on the verge of sale to the U.S. They have to work 7 days, on Sundays, and holidays, in all types of weather. She ends up back in jail for…vagrancy, not knowing she needed to be at work on a Sunday…
ACT 4
New Plan: Armed with a pen from 1916, and a Queen conch shell from 1848, Hilda must get back to 1892, she has to find a way to repurpose them to save the present.
Gellerup also brings back tools of oppression, spiked manacles or the mouth gag from 1848 and a scale, a reminder he is judge and jury.
Climax: Back in 1892, she awakes in the dark hole, and stabs the lock with the pen enough to loosen it and escape. With the conch shell, she calls her army of 200 coal workers…the sound bellowing louder than horn or rocket to the coal yard…Gellerup gets wind and mobilizes at the fort, sending soldiers and cannons in a fight for control. The sound of hundreds of feet down Main Street as the workers protest at every symbol of authority, breaking through the barricade with the bamboula, winning their demands.
Resolution: The clock runs out, and tokens tossed into the sea in celebration. Another day on the dock ends at the broker exchange. The workers are paid in Danish silver. Under questioning, Hilda eludes Gellerup about being the strike leader. She’s across from Thomas Phillips who looks at her adoringly, and for the first time, feels something in return. The Gellerup family business is forced to shut down.