Lesson 7

[Rae Rodgers]

CONTAINED MOVIE – LESSON #7

RAE’S FOUR ACT STRUCTURE

What I learned this lesson was it organized the script in my head. Now I can refer to this 4 Act structure to answer formatting questions from others. It also mapped out the story clearly in my head and will help with future pitching sessions.

4 ACT STRUCTURE

CONCEPT: Jesi is dumped at the altar, then suffers the loss her father resulting in a Tsunami of grief. She’s also inherited her father’s debt, needs to ramp up her earnings, and so commercial real estate seems like the answer. But this field is competitive, male dominated, and could be way out of her league. Also, Jesi’s company of choice has a “single women only policy” issued by their female CEO.

MAIN CONFLICT

Jackson’s death plagues Jesi with grief, followed up with huge medical bills. Even the IRS is stalking for taxes owed on Jackson’s unreported gambling wins. A big income job is what she needs, and fast. West Coast Investment Real Estate seems to be the answer, but the competition is feirce, Jesi is not getting leads, feeling pressured to prove herself, while running her father’s construction truck for survival.

ACT 1 OPENING

Abandoned by love, Jesi moves in with her father Jackson. But he soon dies in a freak accident, leaves behind a huge amount of medical and gambling debt. Dr. Gerard LeBlanc, Jackson’s surgeon, is struck by Jesi’s humanity and her beauty, tells office manager, Mrs. Mehta, “Jesi is the woman I will marry.” But Jesi’s busy honing her real estate skills. Locked into a “single females only” job she vows never to walk the aisle again.

INCITING INCIDENT

Jesi’s new job is grueling, the male competition relentless. She begs the broker Jason for leads but loses every time to top producer Henry Woo. Jason insists it’s out of his hands, restates the company rule, backed by the CEO. But when Henry snakes Jesi out of a listing the game is on!

TURNING POINT

Jesi breaks the downward spiral and finally sells a building. The seller is Harold, her father’s good friend, who then introduces her to a band of old men “The good old boys”, all wealthy apartment building owners. Jesi has an immediate breakthrough, starts listing their buildings.

ACT2: NEW PLAN

Top producer Henry Wu slams Jesi, insists the good old boys are HIS clients, says Jesi knows nothing, she’s just a Rookie. All the while she keeps listing and closing sales. During all this Gerard the doctor is in hot pursuit, calling, sending her flowers.

PLAN OF ACTION

In the middle of all the new sales activity, Jesi agrees to meet Gerard for coffee. He tells her she’s captured his heart. She tells him she’s interested too, but never wants children – shares that her mother deserted her at four. Gerard gets her to agree to a dinner date – can’t help himself, proposes to Jesi in the heart of a romantic olive tree setting. His friend, a wedding celebrant, appears by chance. He marries them – tells them their vows are real. They’re married all but for the license.

MIDPOINT TURNING POINT

Gerard pressures Jesi to go to City Hall. She promises she will but her business is exploding! She gets a private office, hires two assistants Michael and Giselle. Meanwhile the business keeps pouring in. To date, Gerard has not disclosed to Jesi he has a twelve year old boy, worried this might cause him to lose her, for she wants to remain childless.

ACT 3:

RETHINK EVERYTHING

Jesi’s making the big commissions, most of her paychecks usurped by the medical and IRS debt. She feels she’s working for them, not keeping her word to her husband Gerard, but until her big sales are closed, she’s keeping the wedding secret.

NEW PLAN

Jesi hardly has time for Gerard – he gives her two months to seal their wedding vows with a license. When she does not deliver Gerard blows up, tells her to get her priorities straight. Finally, Jesi drives to him – but sees him kissing another woman. She calls the marriage off!

TURNING POINT: HUGE FAILURE/ MAJOR SHIFT

Jesi is still closing the big deals, alienating her male competition, namely Henry, but miserable without Gerard. Jason learns of the marriage, discloses this to Jesi, adds that his daughter babysits Gerard’s son Julian. He’s surprisingly sympathetic.

ACT 4:

Jesi is targeted for Rookie of the Year. The company CEO finally makes herself known to Jesi – discloses that she is her estranged mother. Jesi wants nothing to do with her.

FINAL PLAN

Jesi pays off her father’s one hundred thousand IRS debt but is left without resources to pay property taxes and the final medical bills.

CLIMAX/ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF THE CONFLICT

Gerard forgives the medical debt, gives Jesi new financial freedom. She agrees to meet his boy Julian, also go for a sale on his yacht. The day goes very well.

RESOLUTION

Still torn between sales and closings and her commitment to Gerard, Jesi finally agrees to meet him and Julian the next day at City Hall – but that morning she’s sabotaged by a plumbing disaster in one of her recent sale buildings. The new buyer is threatening to sue – so she throws on her coveralls, grabs her plumbing gear, man’s Jackson’s truck, rushes to handle the emergency. While Gerard and Julian wait outside City Hall. She calls, apologizes, promises to them she will be there the next day.

GO BACK – SEE IF THERE ARE ANY BIG PICTURE POINTS YOU MUST ADD TO YOUR ANTAGONIST

I still need to add Jesi’s childhood, deserted by her mother, and the reveal that her estranged mother is the company CEO.

[Karen Angermayer]

Karen Christine´s 4 Act Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is that this structure helped me to stay clear and focused on the story itself. Going several times over my first draft of the structure refined the plot more and more, and added one more layer.

1. Concept and Main Conflict:

Concept: A young family with 2 kids, one suffering
from a serious illness, goes on vacation in the woods. What is planned as
a relaxing and much needed out-time ends up in a life-or-death struggle.

Main Conflict: Their lives are threatened by the
surrounding trees that behave strangely, and a crazy biologist´s vision to
save the world by killing people.

2. The 4-Act-Structure:

Act 1:

Opening: Mark, his wife Judy and the kids Lori
and Max arrive at a beautiful forest resort. Mark hides that he is about
to lose a big project in his pharmaceutical company because of his partner
using falsified studies. Lori did not want to come with them onto this
trip. Wife Judy has emotional problems. The only one who seems happy is
Max who is facing death because of a serious illness. He needs a wheelchair.
Their cabin is decorated lovely but secluded. The young landlord seems
nice but strange. In one of the beds lies a little tree, reminding of a
sleeping person. A bracelet has grown into one of its twigs. They think
someone just left it there.

Inciting Incident: Some of the trees have remarkably
grown since they arrived and seem threatening. How long can they stay in
this cabin? The landlord does not answer the phone, and as they want to
leave, a tempest starts.

Turning Point: Son Max suffers from breathlessness,
and the trees outside have grown remarkably. The landlord appears wearing a gas mask as they want to leave again, holds them back and warns them. The air is poisoned from the carbon dioxide the trees emit. They won´t make it to leave the forest. He locks all doors and windows.

Act 2:

New plan: They try to call and text somebody, but
there´s no Internet.

Plan in action: They seek from roof to cellar to
find a way out of the house. Just as they are about to give up, daughter Lori
discovers a secret room that wasn´t visible from the outside. Inside the
room they find notes, lab equipment, two gas masks and pictures of dead people
that look like they are half human, half tree. A girl on one picture is
wearing the same bracelet like the tree in Max´ room. Are the other trees
lying outside the cabin in strange positions dead people?

Midpoint/Turning Point: Their landlord is coming
to look after them. As he discovers that they found the secret room he
tells them about his brother, a biologist and environmentalist, who vanished
several weeks ago. The brother was doing research on crossing human beings
and plants “to save the world”. He is always seeking for probands to
inject them sort of a synthetical DNA with the aim of turning them into trees.
More than that: His experiments have run out of control. The trees outside
have started to emit carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. Better for the family
to stay here and not to go outside!

Act 3:

Rethink everything: They have to think about a
plan to escape safely without being caught by the maniac, and overcoming
the oxygen problem.

New plan: In the lab of the landlord´s brother
they find a sketch showing the radius of trees that are affected. Behind
them the forest seems to react normal. If one of them makes it to these trees
with enough air to breathe, and find help in the resort they could be
saved. Lori wants to go, but her father holds her back. He is the one who will
go.

Turning Point: Father Mark is caught in a trap,
obviously designed by the landlord´s brother. After nothing happens Lori
leaves the cabin and follows her father´s traces (They managed to build some
oxygen tank with what they found in the house.

Major shift: Lori finds a tree with a man grown/woven
into. He can say some last words, then he dies. She thinks it is the
landlord´s brother – but he isn´t. He was a former guest in the cabin. And
he warns them. It´s his brother who is the maniac. He is a multiple personality.

Act 4:

Final plan: Lori cannot free her father from the
trap. He wants her to leave him instead, because of the oxygen running
out, and run back to the cabin to warn her mother and Max. Too late. The
landlord already has taken them hostages.

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Oxygen
becomes less and less, her mother and brother are facing losing their consciousness,
while Lori tries to keep the landlord from killing them all. He reveals
his crazy theory to them while he prepares the injections for all three of
them. What he has in mind sounds reasonable in some ways, and in other
ways totally crazy. And what already has become clear: Nature is fighting
back, and does not react the way he planned it, which is shown by the 180
degree change of the photosynthesis.

Resolution: Mark has managed to break free from
the trap and returns with help. The family is taken care of and is relieved
to be able to drive home safe. Mark and Lori have realized how much they
still love each other. Stubborn Lori has found a new connection to her
parents. Max, though dying soon, is happy he can leave them all in this
way, changed but happy. And Mark is calling his business partner to tell him
he will leave the company.

GO OVER IT:

I will make further adjustments in the course of the coming lessons, and also during the coming horror class of ScreenwritingU 🙂