YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

The Hero's Journey

A hero's journey story has three acts. Three distinct feelings. The first act is 30 minutes, the second act is 60 minutes, and the final act is 30 minutes. If the movie is longer or shorter than two hours, adjust accordingly. But regardless, the second act is about twice the length of each of the other two. This is shown in Figure 2-4.

Figure 2-4. Approximate division of time per act in three-act format.

The first act takes place in the "normal world," the world the protagonist (hero) normally lives in. During this first act, we meet the hero, find out his (or her) problem, and see his call to action. This is him being called to act heroically, in a way that would lead to the rest of the story. The hero always refuses the call the first time. Then something changes, it becomes personal, and he has no choice but to answer the call to greatness and risk it all to become a hero. The hero is usually played by Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, or Wesley Snipes.

The hero meets a mentor, an older person who used to be at the top of the same game the hero wants to operate in, but the mentor is now retired or crippled in some way, so all he has to pass on is knowledge and wisdom. He also usually passes on some sort of talisman—an actual physical object—to the hero. The talisman seems useless at this point but will help the hero in some way in the third act. The mentor is usually played ...