I am doing a beat sheet/scene count index cards. I have act 1 (first 10 cards) and act 2 (next 20) but no Act 3. I am doing a sort of movie that I sort of call Escape From LA with shape-shifters. Basic plot in a nut shell: FLINT, a divorced detective is retiring. He ends up forced into one last mission by the very questionable businessman MAXAMILLION. He must go to the shady undercity in order to find the "last QUEEN of the old world", disprove her as a fraud and rescue some hostages from the ANARCHIST. He of course finds the QUEEN is real and he falls for her. Stuff happens that is sort of liek The Thing where everyone is shapeshifting and he needs to figure out who is teh spy, while keeping his cover. His cover is blown but his relationship saves him. Then when the villians capture the QUEEN, we find out that the ANARCHIST is the real one, and teh ANARCHIST assassinates the fake queen in order to jumpstart a revolution. Now....I'm drawing a blank. I need FLINT to get to his family, defeat MAXAMILLION (preferably by a train crashing into him. It makes sense in story context.) and....something with ANarchist. But I can't figure it out. Does anyone have a movie/book/anything sort of similar to what I'm doing so I can see how they allotted time for their third act? Because how it is going right now, I'm looking at a 30 page/10 page riot and I think that will get tiresome for audiences very quickly.
syd field's 'workbook' is the best how-to for structuring a script... you can order it from amazon, or the writers store...
What's wrong with a 10 page riot? That might get to be fun, if you show enough broken skulls, a lot of tear gas and...a lesbian couple making out in the back! Sorry, I'm joking... Then again, I'm not joking. Why not. Have Flint fight his way through riots and make the phrase 'all hell breaks loose' make sense. Having a confusing mass scene, with your hero's life constantly in danger, which in turn leads into final confrontation... Might be fun.
