Beats & Turning Points

This is something that I'm looking at right now. Going through the scenes and picking out the beats and how they build up to turning points. If there is no turning point then it may just be that the scene is merely exposition, and in that case it could be cut. It also helps clarify what I'm wanting to achieve in scenes and how I can better communicate that to the audience.

The build up to the turning points is important too, that's why I'm really analysing the beats of the characters to ensure that there is escalating tension and gaps between expectation and what actually happens. An example is when Josh is outside his house in the street looking for Cicada shells. Rather than just have the bird fly over from nowhere, Josh goes to collect a Cicada shell, then sees the live Cicada, then sees it snatched by the bird. So that rather than jumping straight to the turning point, the audience can build up some expectations that we can hopefully break making the audience anticipate more and more the actions to come.

Something that I've been continually returning to during this process is Robert McKee's "Story". While I don't want to fall in the trap of simply following formulas and connecting the dots I still want to get a good grasp of the basic principles. McKee aptly says on the back cover "Anxious inexperienced writers obey rules; rebellious, unschooled writers break rules; an artist masters the form". When talking about McKee though I can't help thinking of the clip in Adaptation (featured below) that portrays McKee in a fairly harsh manner. I don't think this is a very accurate portrayal, it's more poking fun and presenting Kaufman's impression. Ironically McKee references Adaption in his seminars now which shows his versatility and how the basic principles can still be applied.