In my NYU class last night, I taught how to use the Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting to encourage my students to reach the midway point in the middle of act 2, or the end of Act 2, part 1. The point I was trying to make was that many scripts fall apart at this point, because an escalation is needed. For example, in the film “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy is told by the Wizard that she must fetch the Wicked Witch of the West’s broom if she wants to go home. In some way it must be a disguised repetition of what happens at the end of Act 1. Again, using “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy “kills” The Wicked Witch of the East – so the repetition is the overcoming of a witch, even if the first one was not a direct challenge. This is a useful technique especially when designing concepts.
