movie paper

Choose a feature film that you know well, with a good story, watch it again, with a stopwatch in hand, and write down the following moments in the story structure:

Movie is the hangover

ACT I

• How many main characters does the movie have? Who is a protagonist? Who is an antagonist?

• How quickly have they been introduced? (In the first very shot? 3 minutes into the movie? 10 minutes? Etc.)

• When did you understand a main conflict between them?

• Total length of the Act I (from the first very frame till the moment when the main conflict became totally clear)

ACT II

• How many obstacles (that develop the conflict) do main characters face? How often do these problems happen? Which ones (almost) resolve the conflict? Which ones make it worse, deeper? (Try to track down the items in a story from pp.47-51 in our “required” chapter “Screenwriter”, as many as you can.

• When did the climax of the whole story happen? (the climax is usually the biggest, loudest and most active scene in the movie – a fight, a chase, a big court scene, etc.)

• Did you notice any additional conflict in the movie (a subplot)?

• How long the subplot was developing before it got resolved?

• What’s the structure of the subplot? Does it echo the structure of the main story? Is it totally different?

• Total length of the Act II? (Between the end of the scene where the conflict became clear and the end of the climax scene)

ACT III

• How long was the ending? (After the climax scene is over till the end of the movie, before the closing credits)

• Is it a happy ending, a tragic ending or an “open question” ending?

In your paper, In addition to timing you should briefly describe all the major points of the story using as many terms from the required text “Screenwriter”.

Then you should question whether the story structure works or not (for example your opinion might be that the story “ doesn’t really work: the events and characters are too predictable or vice versa too confusing).

And finally, you should analyze all story’s elements and answer the main question “why it works? Or “why it doesn’t work?”. For example, if the structure works well, in your opinion, describe which moments of the story were clear, memorable, intriguing. If it didn’t work well, at which parts did you get confused, or lost interest. And again, don’t forget your main analytical question “why?”…

The paper should be 3 pages (or longer), typed, regular fonts (size 12), 1.5 space. Bibliography is required.The paper must be submitted with the link(s) to the movie excerpts or at least a movie title via YouTube, Netflix, imdb, Amazon.