Act I->II Turning Point : % ?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
I watched Apollo 13 last night, noticed that the turning point happened at 50 minutes, of a 150 minute film. That is 33.33%. Most of the books and "gurus" seem to tout 25% as the holy value for that turning point (TP). Curious what you all think, what you have observed in movies/scripts for that TP?
 
All I can really say is that things work differently for different films. 25% is not a rule, it is a guideline. I think it especially works in Apollo 13 for numerous reasons including we needed to really get time to know all the characters so we would care once something goes wrong, and the fact that basically everyone goes into watching that movie having a good idea of what's going to happen, and therefore aren't as antsy about "when is something exciting going to happen!"
 
Watch "Sixth Sense" -- Act 1 to Act 2 happens about 7 minutes in.

It's a guideline, not a hard and fast fixed rule, as jghenderson said.
 
Also Aliens.... how damn long were we just building suspense. I think it was close to an hour but then the shiz hit the fan.
 
Barry_Green said:
Watch "Sixth Sense" -- Act 1 to Act 2 happens about 7 minutes in. It's a guideline, not a hard and fast fixed rule, as jghenderson said.
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I completely agree as to the % being a guideline, not a rule.

As to that 7 minute mark, I interpret the story structure of Sixth Sense a bit different. Just my take on it, use or lose. At 7 minutes in (10 min on the DVD/BluRay timer, allowing for 3 minutes of titles) Bruce Willis (Protagonist) and his wife discover a break in in their bedroom, the INCITING INCIDENT, perfectly timed close to the formulaic 10% mark, where at 7'30" into the story (10'15" on DVD) the crazy ex patient states "You failed me!" and shoots our Protagonist. This puts the protagonist's life completely off balance (he is dead), starting the hero on the most important story of his life, as all screenplays should.

The SETUP continues as the Protagonist reads the patient chart of Cole Sears (Haley Joel Osmond, HJO ) in his basement and on a bench outside. We are not exactly sure why as a viewer. The GOAL is going to be to help Cole/HJO, but that has not been made clear, yet.

20-25 minutes into the story the Protagonist is in Cole's/HJO's home, watching him interact with his mother, and then the GOAL begins, the turning point of Act I to Act II: Bruce asks Cole if he wants to play a game, a game designed to start Bruce on his goal of helping Cole, so Bruce can redeem his failure with the other patient, the one that shot him. Bruce tells Cole that if Bruce wins the game then Cole has to sit down, and begin ACT II and Bruce's pursuit of the goal, to succeed (not fail as he did with the patient that shot him) at helping Cole, which we will see resolved by the end of the story.

That is my take on the ACT I to ACT II turning point which I see as being pretty close to the 25% mark, perhaps closer to 20%. But I see the shooting incident as an inciting incident, and setting up an emotional need of the protagonist (to redeem himself). The "want" of the hero is at 20-25%, to see Cole overcome his intense fear of seeing dead people and the trauma that is causing Cole.

Use or lose, my five cents of thought.
:) randall
 
My breakdown is far simpler: Act 1, Bruce and his wife. Ends with Bruce being killed.

Act 2, Bruce helps Cole. Ends with Cole being accepted by the kids at the play, and ends Cole and Bruce together.

Act 3, resolution -- Cole resolves his relationship with his mother, Bruce resolves his relationship with his wife.

I used to get caught up in trying to track down various incidents and such, but it really is much simpler than that to find act breaks. Look at Star Wars. Act 1: Luke's a farmboy on Tatooine. Act 2: Luke goes on a grand adventure, rescues a princess and learns to become a jedi. Act 3: Defend Yavin against the Death Star.
 
Personally, i think a lot of these methods are outdated. Cinema isn't on it's own planet. We have the internet now. Kids are growing up watching media that follows no rhythm.
The audience has been evolving for some time now.
I didn't even really consider 3 acts while writing my SP, i wrote it scene by scene. For me, it's about keeping people interested, not following some model.
 
"Cellular" is another movie that went straight from Act I to Act II - zip.

The more you write the more organic the story grows and it finds its way all on its own. Keep writing and you'll 'feel' what should go where and when.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
I completely agree as to the % being a guideline, not a rule.

As to that 7 minute mark, I interpret the story structure of Sixth Sense a bit different. Just my take on it, use or lose. At 7 minutes in (10 min on the DVD/BluRay timer, allowing for 3 minutes of titles) Bruce Willis (Protagonist) and his wife discover a break in in their bedroom, the INCITING INCIDENT, perfectly timed close to the formulaic 10% mark, where at 7'30" into the story (10'15" on DVD) the crazy ex patient states "You failed me!" and shoots our Protagonist. This puts the protagonist's life completely off balance (he is dead), starting the hero on the most important story of his life, as all screenplays should.

The SETUP continues as the Protagonist reads the patient chart of Cole Sears (Haley Joel Osmond, HJO ) in his basement and on a bench outside. We are not exactly sure why as a viewer. The GOAL is going to be to help Cole/HJO, but that has not been made clear, yet.

20-25 minutes into the story the Protagonist is in Cole's/HJO's home, watching him interact with his mother, and then the GOAL begins, the turning point of Act I to Act II: Bruce asks Cole if he wants to play a game, a game designed to start Bruce on his goal of helping Cole, so Bruce can redeem his failure with the other patient, the one that shot him. Bruce tells Cole that if Bruce wins the game then Cole has to sit down, and begin ACT II and Bruce's pursuit of the goal, to succeed (not fail as he did with the patient that shot him) at helping Cole, which we will see resolved by the end of the story.

That is my take on the ACT I to ACT II turning point which I see as being pretty close to the 25% mark, perhaps closer to 20%. But I see the shooting incident as an inciting incident, and setting up an emotional need of the protagonist (to redeem himself). The "want" of the hero is at 20-25%, to see Cole overcome his intense fear of seeing dead people and the trauma that is causing Cole.

Use or lose, my five cents of thought.
:) randall
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The ACT I to ACT II turning point of The Sixth Sense is whenever it is that Cole tells Malcolm that he sees dead people. I haven't seen the movie in a while, and I don't know exactly when or where that happens, but that's the the first major turning point of the film.
 
You don't think Bruce getting killed is a major turning point? :)

IIRC, "I see dead people" happened about halfway through the film. But it's been a long time since I've seen it.
 
"I see dead people" happens on page 56 of the 109 page screenplay, just past the 50% mark, far too late for a start of an Act II. I would see that statement by Cole as a turning point, but not the TP for Act I to Act II, but rather as a midpoint-- an escalation of the plot, a 'no turning back' story point point, and a false defeat moment (opposite of victory when Cole's problem is resolved at the end of the story.

agcohn said:
The ACT I to ACT II turning point of The Sixth Sense is whenever it is that Cole tells Malcolm that he sees dead people. I haven't seen the movie in a while, and I don't know exactly when or where that happens, but that's the the first major turning point of the film.
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I would say the first turning point is when Cole goes into treatment with Malcolm, around the 20 minute mark. I think it's easy to miss because there is no SCENE where Cole's mother agrees to treatment because of the tricky nature of the story. We infer she does because we see Malcolm and the mother sitting in chairs together when Cole comes home, but we later realize they weren't really talking, Malcolm as a ghost was just sitting there waiting for Cole. The entirety of the second act is Malcolm trying to get Cole's trust and get to the bottom of the kid's problem. That's the primary conflict of the story. It's a familiar "treatment" storyline (Ordinary People, Good Will Hunting) with a supernatural angle. Malcolm getting shot is the inciting incident as others have said, it kicks off the story, but him being dead is not a conflict. The conflict is in what happens between Malcolm and Cole, between psychiatrist and patient. The reversal is that Malcolm is the one with the real problem that needs fixing, although Cole gets helped too. That said, there are films with unusual structures. Jaws comes to mind, which has an almost 50 minute third ACT. Some people like McKee also make the case stories can have more than three acts. He claims Speed has something like 11, but that movie can be easily put into three if you want. I think three is natural simply because any story has a beginning, middle and end, and the separation of those three parts is what comprises the acts. As Geoffrey Rush says in Pirates of the Caribbean, they're more like guidelines than actual rules, and as such are flexible to the needs of the story.
 
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Barry_Green said:
You don't think Bruce getting killed is a major turning point? :)....
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Major plot point, yes. But not an Act I to Act II division (where the Hero's "want" becomes clear). Bruce getting killed sort of reminds me of Clint Eastwood getting strung up in the movie Hang 'em High -- the inciting incident, then later (after Clint is hauled into town, nursed to health, given a badge) the turning point into Act II happens (as the Judge asks Clint to become a lawman again) with the protagonist's / Clint's goal of finding and bringing in the men that hung him so they can face the Judge.

Bruce (Dr. Crowe) getting shot propels him into the story world. I mean, hey, he is now dead, a ghost, only he does not know it. As discussed, around page 20-25 Crowe/Willis starts his external story goal of working with Cole as a therapist, to help Cole work through his demons. Crowe's need (inner journey, emotional need) runs parallel, to redeem himself after failing the patient that shot him.

An inciting incident starts the story, propels the Hero into the story world, but does not yet define the Hero's goal that will visually be resolved by the end of the story. It is easy though to misinterpret inciting incidents for the goal; some stories even have two inciting incidents to propel the Hero to the turning point (or so I have read).
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
It is easy though to misinterpret inciting incidents for the goal; some stories even have two inciting incidents to propel the Hero to the turning point (or so I have read).
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Inciting incidents can even happen offscreen. The inciting incident in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the US government intercepting a cable from Cairo to Berlin about Abner Ravenwood, which leads them to Indiana Jones. We don't see this, only hear about it when they speak to Indiana.
 
CB_Radio said:
how about that. I only saw it once when it came out. my residual sense was that the film was about the kid.
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I'm sometimes amazed at how we remember things, vs. how they actually were. Remember "Home Alone"? How much of that 103-minute film was spent on the burglars in the house, and Kevin duking it out with them?

Or "Alien" -- at what point in the film did the alien burst out of the dude's chest?
 
Batutta said:
Inciting incidents can even happen offscreen. The inciting incident in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the US government intercepting a cable from Cairo to Berlin about Abner Ravenwood, which leads them to Indiana Jones. We don't see this, only hear about it when they speak to Indiana.
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But Indiana Jones is the main character, so the Inciting Incident is when the G-Men approach Indy about finding the Ark.
 
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