The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: 13 Conversations About One Thing

written by Jill & Karen Sprecher

(based on a single theater viewing)


13 Conversations About One Thing is a cinematic exploration of what it means to be happy. Literary and philosophical, it has several inter-twining plots and uses 3-act structure in a non-traditional way -- but still retains it.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook
    • In a bar, a prosecutor celebrating victory argues about happiness with a disgruntled customer at the bar. What is happiness?
  2. Complication
    • The prosecutor, driving home from the bar in a rain storm, hits a pedestrian and flees the scene.
  3. Call to Action
    • The accident changes the prosecutor's life. He decides to stop driving.
  4. Act One Plot Point
    • He sells his car and changes his flamboyant lifestyle. He is serving self-imposed penance, even to the extreme of keeping his facial wound from the accident open.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point
    • The disgruntled customer (from the hook) fires the office's "happy man", in part to see the smile disappear from his face. But the man keeps smiling, seeing the glass half-full, now he'll have more time for his kids, he can take an overdue vacation.
  6. Act Two Plot Point
    • The prosecutor is giving everything he owns to the family of the girl he believes he killed. The disgruntled customer is laid off.
  7. Climax and Resolution
    • The prosecutor learns the girl is alive, he can make amends personally. The customer and a betrayed wife (from one of the other stories) meet on a train. From a safe distance after he disembarks, they wave to one another. This is the closest human communication they can do right now. Is it a start? Or a sad commentary on their limitations?

Notes

Four characters dominate this story, all of their stories converging in some fashion. In terms of structure, the prosecutor drives the first half of the story, the disgruntled customer the last half. All characters move in a trajectory of mini-structure, all experience changes. This keeps the story moving and fascinating, if character-driven and slower than the usual Hollywood movie.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

[BACK TO TEXT]
1/02