Jasmine's pond of dreams

Jasmine's pond of dreams

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Back to the future part 6, Act 3 storybeat functions

Once again, sorry for the delay but here is Back to the Future ACT 3 beats.

ACT THREE Back to the Future Storybeats and their functions.

91. ANTICIPATION OF ACTION:
At the night of the dance, George waits for Marty to arrive. 

92. WARNING;
Marty writes Doc a letter warning Doc about the Libyans in the future. He slips the note into the pocket of Doc's coat.

93: ACTION- PLAN TO GET PARENTS TO KISS STARTS;
Marty arrives at the dance in Doc's car with Lorraine and asks her if they can "park" for a while. 

94. IRONIC DIALOGUE AND CHARACTERIZATION, FUNCTION BUYING TIME FOR GEORGE TO ARRIVE ;
Lorraine brought liqour and begins to smoke. Marty chastises her and she dismisses him, saying he sounds like her mother. 

95. UNEXPECTED ACTION IN PLAN;
Marty’s plan takes a wrong turn when Lorraine comes on to him strongly.

96. EXPECT PLAN FOLLOWUP ACTION;
The door opens and Marty is pulled out.

97. SURPRISE TWIST;
However, it’s not George, it’s a drunk Biff who wants revenge. 

98. OBSTACLE TO PLAN;
When Biff sees Lorraine, he gets in the car with her and starts to molest her. 

99. OBSTACLE;
Biff’s gang tosses Marty into the open trunk of a car, slamming the lid. 

100. RESCUE;
The Marvin Berry’s band scares Biff's gang off. 

101. OBSTACLE;
But they realize that the keys are in the trunk with Marty.

102. GEORGE FOLLOWS PLAN BUT MEETS SURPRISE;
At Doc's car, George arrives and pulls Biff from the car. George tries to hit Biff, but fails. 

103. ACTION IN CHARACTER;
Biff roughly pushes Lorraine away.

104. PLAN STARTS TO WORK;
George stands up for Lorraine and punches Biff, knocking him out.

105. MARTY RESCUED;
Marvin frees Marty, who sees Biff knocked out. 

106. PLAN CONTINUES TO WORK;
George takes Lorraine's hand and they go to the dance.

107. OBSTACLE;
The dance stops when Marvin can’t play with his hurt hand. 
108. OBSTACLE;
Marty knows they still need to kiss during the dance. 

109. PLAN ACTION;
Marty plays guitar in Marvin's place playing a romantic song. 

110. OBSTACLE;
Marty begins to fade when a student cuts in between George and Lorraine on the dance floor.

111. PLAN WORKS;
George regains his courage, takes Lorraine back and kisses her passionately. 

112. SIGN OF ICON- PLAN ONE FINISHED;
Marty reappears in the photo and finishes the song.

113. SIGN OF PLAN ONE FINISHED;
His father and mother dance happily in each others arms.

114. COMIC RELIEF;
Berry asks Marty to play another song and Marty get carried away with music from the future.

115. GOODBYES;
Marty leaves and runs into George and Lorraine. Lorraine asks if it's OK for George to take her home and Marty agrees. 

116. ANTICIPATION OF ACTION;
At the town square, Doc impatiently waiting for Marty. 

117. WARNING IGNORED;
Doc discovers the note in his pocket. Fearing knowing the future, he tears up the note.

118. OBSTACLE:
A fallen tree limb disconnects the cabling he has installed. 

119. ACTION;
Doc climbs the clock tower to reconnect it. 

120. WARNING;
Marty tries to warn Doc about his future, but is drowned out by the storm and the clock bell.

121. ACTION;
Marty runs back to the DeLorean and races to the starting point.

122. REALIZATION:
While waiting for the timer Marty realizes that he has a time machine, he can go back early and warn the Doc. 

123. OBSTACLE & FORESHADOWING;
Just then, the car stalls and Marty frantically tries to start it again. 

124. ACTION;
It restarts, the timer goes off, and Marty begins speeding toward town square. 

125. ACTION;
Doc reconnects the cable just as the lighting bolt surges through the line.

126; PLAN TO GET MARTY BACK COMPLETED;
The DeLorean connects with the electricity and speeds off into the future. 

127; SIGN OF PLAN COMPLETED;
Doc celebrates in the street.

128. SIGN OF PLAN COMPLETED;
Marty arrives safely in 1985. 

129. FORESHADOWING OBSTACLE PAID OFF;
The Delorean stalls again and Marty has to run to the mall.

130. TRAGIC ACTION;
Marty’s too late and sees Doc killed again.

131; ACTION- TIME LOOP?;
He also sees himself race off and disappear in the DeLorean. 

132. REACTION;
Marty is devastated that he couldn't arrive in time to save Doc.

133. SURPRISE ACTION;
Doc, however, sits up.

134. REACTION AND REVALATION:
Marty is shocked until Doc reveals his bulletproof vest. 

135. AFTERMATH;
Doc drives Marty home and telling his plan to travel 30 years in the future.

136. CHANGED WORLD;
Marty wakes up the next morning to find his whole family has changed to become more successful and happier. 

137. SETUP;
Lorraine asks Marty about his camping trip with Jennifer, but he replies the car is wrecked.

138. REACTION;
Everyone reacts it until George shows them Biff is waxing the car in the driveway.

138. POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF MARTY’S ACTION;
Biff brings in a box of George's first published sci-fi book. 

139. MORE POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES;
Marty doesn’t understand when Biff hands him the keys until he learns it’s for his new truck.

140. REUNION;
Marty’s glad to see Jennifer.

141. NEWS;
Suddenly the DeLorean appears. Doc tells Marty he has to come with him, something’s wrong with his and Jennifer's kids in the future!

142. VISUAL PROOF OF HAVING BEEN IN FUTURE;
Doc, in wild clothes, gathers garbage as the new fuel for the new engine.

143. WARNING;
Marty tells the Doc he needs to back up further to get up to 88 mph.

144. WARNING UNNECESSARY, NEW ACTION- SETUP FOR SEQUEL;
Doc has converted the car to a hovercraft and flies them into the future. 


THE END

This was exhausting analyzing out all these storybeats and their functions also because there was a lot of other things going on in my life concurrently. So before I take on the next BIG task of mapping all these beats on the dragon spine I'd like to share some other insights about back to the future. When I was at Disney Feature, I was asked by Jack Bossom, the head of artist development, if I would talk to a group of trainees. He said it could be about anything I wanted. So I chose time and editing in film. And what better movie to analyze about time and editing than Back to the Future? This is one of the things that lead me to future teaching and lecturing at Disney. I also told you that I'd share some trivia about Back to the Future. So without further ado, here are the secrets of time travel...

How long does it take a Delorian to get from 0 to 88 miles per hour?

Let’s look at how the” race with lightning” is structured. Back to the Future is smartly structured in that it gives the audience the necessary information about how the race with lightning will work well before the climax of the movie. The Doc explains how it will work to Marty (and the audience) in his lab with a scale model of the scene. This is wonderfully demonstrates visually how the plan is supposed to work and additionally, because of the mishap during the simulation, we get to see what’s at stake- the whole thing could go up in flames!

By the time we arrive at the climax of the movie, we already know that Marty has to accelerate the DeLorean to 88 mph and arrive at the wire where the lightning will strike at 10:04 generating the necessary gigawatts to send Marty back to the future. With the audience having this information, the filmmakers could dive right into the action.

There are ticking clocks in the scene, one in the car and another on the clock tower. This made it interesting to analyze because I could compare how the chronological time was different from the emotional time.

The overarching question in the narrative question hierarchy is will the plan work and Marty get back to the future. Within the larger question are a series of smaller ones that delay the answering of the larger one.

The sequence opens with a night shot of the clock tower, Doc walks up the camera, looks at this watch and asks the first narrative question for us, “Where is that kid?” A police officer asks the Doc what’s he’s doing. Will the officer stop the plan? Marty shows up and tries to warn the Doc about the future. As they argue over the letter, time is ticking away. Marty has to leave or risk losing being stuck in the past.

Now to build maximum excitement, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The DeLorean won’t start and the cable plug pulls out. Now as the clock ticks we want to know will Marty be able to start the DeLorean and will the Doc connect the cable? Marty starts the car and begins the race against time intercut with Doc struggling with the cable.

The story time, as related by the Doc, tells us that the lightning will strike in seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. From the start of the engine to the lightning bolt hit it takes eight minutes and nine seconds of chronological time measured with a stopwatch. This is a difference of 57 seconds longer than it should have taken! Does it feel like it? No, the story races along. If fact, it races along so fast that most people don’t notice that there’s one shot of the car supposedly going almost 88 miles per hour where it’s not moving! The narrated emotional time was longer than clock time, yet feel like it’s shorter.

In analyzing Back to the Future, I discovered that a takes over a DeLorean 90 seconds to accelerate to 88 miles per hour. What was really amazing was that it took almost 30 seconds to travel one block going 88 miles per hour. This was a great example of understanding the enemies of design. They cut out boring parts and slowed down time in the moment of greatest excitement so you could drink it all in and enjoy the moment- story-delaying at it’s finest.


The sequence concludes with a wonderful shot that acts as a bridge to the future. The Doc cheers and looks up at the clock tower. We hear a helicopter approach and suddenly we’re back in 1980. It’s as if Doc had looked up to see the future.

How is time manipulated?

The filmmakers have added extra little delays in the presenting of the narrative that suspend time. Remember the narrative has us speaking each of these ideas one at a time in an effort to find the answers to the expectations and questions that it sets up. This keeps us very busy. The secret to this magical transformation of time is that time changes occur in-between the cuts. That's why it’s not obvious that it’s happening. This is also why it can be so powerful. Cuts must match on actions so as to appear as one flowing action. 

This section is from my book, Directing the Story; Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation published by Focal Press.

Directing the Story


Till next time...

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