8/26/23
Newsletter #439
The Crack of Dawn
Not only do I believe that stories work in three acts, I think that life also works in three acts. In a screenplay the three acts work like this: Act One is the setup, and generally runs about 35 pages; Act Two is the confrontation and is about 50 pages; Act Three is the resolution and is about 35 pages. All together you have a standard-length script of 120 pages. Although it’s not always true (particularly with action), but for the most part, a page equals a minute. Both acts one and two must end on a definitive moment that’s irreversible – whatever it is, it can’t be taken back. The length of the acts is only an approximation. Some stories need more of a setup, others need more of a confrontation, although most don’t need more of a resolution, and often need less.
So, replacing minutes with years, I believe that life also functions in three acts, and that’s probably why we like our stories told that way. Let’s take my life for example (please). I think that the end of act one for me was making my first feature film, Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except (1985). It was a definitive event that couldn’t be taken back. Once the film was released, it was my first feature film no matter what I might say or do thereafter. I was 27 years old, so that’s bit short of 35, but in the right range.
As the years went by and I struggled to make another movie and another movie and another movie, ad nauseum, then TV shows, I couldn’t help but wonder, “What’s my second act finale?” In my limited imagination I could only see it as the result of one of my films becoming a hit. As the years went by and I kept making movies, the hit never came.
If indeed the inevitable end of my act two was my big hit film, sadly it came with a whimper. Alien Apocalypse (2005) had an audience of 2.7 million viewers, which was a record for the SyFy Network, a division of Universal, for whom I had previously worked with all of the Hercules and Xena stuff. Anyway, my employers considered the product that I had turned in to them to be a “hit,” and they were Universal, so I guess it was a hit. But it was certainly no kind of Second Act Finale. It didn’t change my life in any way. Did my three-act theory suck?
My truly uninspired response was to drink more and more alcohol. Then one day I found that all I did was drink alcohol. That had miraculously become my job. Due to that, I only vaguely recall the second term of George W. Bush, and really none of the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama. I hear there was a financial collapse during that period, but I don’t remember it happening. I was renting at the time.
Starting in 2015 I got three DUIs. Count ‘em. Three. That’s a lot. All together I spent six months in the county jail. For five years I went in and out of jail, pissed in a cup a thousand times and went to a thousand AA meetings. But any chance I could find to drink again, I took it, then drank a lot of water, etc. As hard as they were trying to stop me, I was trying even harder to hold on to my cherished bad habit, which had become the definition of me, as well as my downfall, but was honestly nothing more than an addiction. A very strong addiction. A strong, bad, and inevitably fatal, addiction.
I quit drinking on January 3, 2020, three years and eight months ago.
I’d like to believe that sobriety was the end of my act two. It certainly wasn’t having a “hit,” if indeed that was what I had, with Alien Apocalypse. More people watched than usual? Who cares?
If indeed getting sober is my Second Act Finale – I can relapse at any time, so it’s not a terrific act ending – then act one was 27 years long; act two was 35 years long; and act three is really just starting.
And, if nothing else, I have already written 439 Crack of Dawns, equaling 352,765 words (not including this one). Gone With the Wind, Pulitzer Prize-winner of 1936, is 418,053 words.
Look out, Margret Mitchell, I’m comin’ on through.