Don't try to put plot points on specific page numbers, says the screenwriting guru.br br Question: What's the worst screenplay-writing advice br you've ever heard? Robert McKee: That there are br certain points, certain pages in fact, in which certain things must br happen.  You got 120 pages—although screenplays are getting shorter, br because the emphasis on spectacle becomes greater and greater... And so, br anyways, say 100 pages.  And properly typed in the right format, a page br is equal to a minute of time.  And so they say, at a certain page, br therefore at a certain minute, more or less in the film, there must be a br major turning point of some kind, or expositional point, a revelation br of some kind perhaps.  And that the worst advice is to—many, many books br that say certain events must happen at certain pages in a screenplay.  I br mean, that is the most destructive possible thing to say to a young br writer.  And to actually destroy a young talent by actually convincing br him that he has to pretzel his work into these page counts, that is just br terrible.  But there is a rhythm, and in order to reach br anything like a satisfying limit of experience for these characters, br generally, you need a minimum of three major reversals.  Okay?  And you br spread those... it could be four or five, I mean "Raiders of the Lost br Ark" was in seven acts.  It could be seven, eight, nine acts structures, br I mean in "Speed," if you counted the major reversals in a chase film br like "Speed" or whatever, it's probably nine.  Every ten minutes br something explosive happens.  Right?  But three is a minimum.  And if br the film is, again, 100 minutes long, and you're going to space those br three out in some kind of fashion, then clearly one of these is going to br happen, perhaps at the very beginning.  There may be another one br somewhere in the middle and maybe one toward the end, or it could be the br first one happens like 30 minutes in, and the next one happens like 90 br minutes in, or whatever.  Okay, so you can have, obviously if they have br 100 minutes of storytelling, you can't have three major events happen, br bang, bang, bang, in the first 15 minutes and then leave 75 minutes br worth of resolution.  Okay?  Nor can you make somebody sit there for 75 br minutes in which nothing happens and then bang, bang, bang three things br happen in the last 15 minutes.  So, obviously these events have to be br distributed with a certain rhythm.  Exactly what that rhythm is, is so br idiosyncratic to the nature of the story that is being told that you br cannot predict, or demand that they happen on certain pages, but you can br point out to the writer, of course that there is a rhythm and that you br have to hook the audience's interest, hold it, and progress it for up to br 120 minutes, two hours, even more in many films.  And to do that you'll br need at least three major reversals and then you've got to work out how br to distribute them.  So, there's certain forms.  There's a br form, but by the page is a formula, and that formula kind of thinking is br very destructive.