ACT 1

By Darrell J. Banks Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved

Movies are essential to life, but like most art forms, people have varying tastes. Some people like them, others prefer television. As a screenwriter your movie sale is dependent on the first fourteen pages. Why? Readers, and development people are enveloped with words. Many studio executives carry their work home. From the moment they get to work to the time they go to bed, most are reading something. Act one is the beginning.

This and the next article will cover the first fourteen pages of your script. To ensure that your movie is read Act one one must inform the reader this person can write. Act I consists of thirty pages. From "Hamlet, Detective Story and the Sixth Sense" each movie involves the element of death and murder. Murder is good for any drama.

The sense of right and wrong and moral outrage is always present within a good murder mystery and action movie. In a good drama the audience wants to see the victim killed.

It's a deep primal strain that runs within mankind, life, death and murder. Since Cain vs. Abel we want to see the victim killed yet avenged.

As a screenwriter you utilize common and dramatic life events. You transform them to create tension in ACT 1. Sometimes that job is easy when the character has his own persona as the Rock in "The Run Down."

If you have developed your characters then you know, they will perform under pressure. they will fit the movie, you have created from beginning, middle to end.

In Act I you must ensure the audience knows they are strapped in for a bumpy ride. Life to many is boring, they find school, work and the relationships they are in trivial. Your job as a screen writer is to ensure your audience and reader are entertained from the trivial. Unfortunately, your audience consists of many demographic groups, each member seeking relief from the aspects of earthly existence. As a writer, you cannot know the individual audience member, but you must know human beings.

What makes them laugh or cry? This is maintained in a way that the subconscious and conscious mind interweaves.Good drama's like "Finding Nemo" involve characters with a flaw. Within the first fourteen pages that flaw must be revealed. "Nemo" the name itself reflects the tradition of Jules Vernes and Captain Nemo. The viewer knows that something is not quite right with the character. At least the screenwriter knows something is wrong. Go see this movie. A cross between a fairy tale, children's movie and comedy (Ellen De Generes) the movie features the tension of the father and son relationship, society and the environment.

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