BASIC STORY MAP - Act Four Screenplays · Story Map by Dan Calvisi actfourscreenplays.com FULL...

Story Map by Dan Calvisi actfourscreenplays.com

GET OUT

Written and Directed by Jordan Peele

99 Minutes

-Story Map by Daniel Calvisi-

BASIC STORY MAP

The Protagonist: CHRIS, 20s

Skill: Photography

Misbehavior: Too trusting

Achilles Heel/Flaw: His mother’s death

External Goal: To survive the weekend at the Armitage home.

Internal Goal: To get over his mother’s death.

The Main Dramatic Conflict: The Armitage family.

The Theme: Hidden racism.

The Central Dramatic Question: What is going on? / Can Chris escape the house alive?

The Ending: Chris kills the whole family (except for Rose?) and gets away with Rod.

The Arc of Change: Chris goes from a trusting boyfriend to a skeptical outsider to a killer of necessity.

LOGLINE: A young black man visits his white girlfriend’s family for the first time, and slowly realizes that

he is the reason why a group of strange people have come to the house asking him so many odd

questions.

ALTERNATE LOGLINE: When a white man loses his slot on the Olympic team to Jesse Owens in 1936, he

sets out to get revenge on the black race.

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FULL STORY MAP

STORY ENGINES:

ACT ONE: Chris meets the family and keeps a cool head, despite odd happenings. [35 minutes]

ACT TWO-A: Chris navigates the party, until it is revealed that he is being auctioned off. [25 minutes]

ACT TWO-B: Chris tries to escape but he is caught, while Rod leads his own investigation. [27 minutes]

ACT THREE: Chris gets his revenge but struggles to get away. [12 minutes]



BEAT SHEET

ACT ONE

1-3 OPENING: A YOUNG BLACK MAN walks at night in an affluent neighborhood. He’s lost. A white car

pulls up. A masked man grabs the young black man and puts him in the trunk of the car.

3-4 CREEPY MUSIC OVER OPENING CREDITS.

4-8 CHRIS’ apartment is adorned with his beautiful, black-and-white photographs. He and his girlfriend

ROSE are packing for a weekend trip. He asks her if she’s told her parents that he’s black. She says no,

but she swears they are not racist. He looks dubious.

8-9 Chris calls his best friend ROD and reminds him to

feed his dog while they’re away. Rod is a TSA agent at

the airport.

10 INCITING INCIDENT (INTERNAL): Rose and Chris hit

a deer with their car! Chris looks at the dying deer,

transfixed. [This is the Internal I.I. because this will

relate later to Chris’ mother dying of a hit and run.]

11-12 A COP tries to get Chris to show him some ID,

even though he wasn’t driving. Rose objects and the

cop stands down.

12 INCITING INCIDENT (EXTERNAL): They arrive at the Armitage home, meeting Rose’s dad, DEAN,

and mom, MISSY. The groundskeeper WALTER stares at them.

13-18 Dean is a bit overzealous and embarrasses his daughter. He gives Chris the tour of the house. He

points out a photo of his father whose claim to fame was losing his slot on the 1936 Olympic team to

Jesse Owens. He says his dad “almost got over it.” Chris meets the high-strung maid, GEORGINA, a

black woman. Dean acknowledges the optics of the house:



DEAN

I know what you’re thinking. White

family, black servants, it's a

total cliché. We hired Georgina

and Walter to help care for my

parents. When they died, we

couldn't bear to let them go. Boy,

I hate the way it looks. By the

way, I would have voted for Obama

for a third term.

19-20 STRONG MOVEMENT FORWARD: Dean recommends Missy’s hypnosis to Chris, to get rid of his

smoking problem. Missy reminds Rose that tomorrow is their big annual party. Rose can’t believe she

forgot. Georgina spills the iced tea.

21-25 Rose’s younger brother JEREMY arrives, tells drunken stories about Rose in high school over

dinner. Jeremy tells Chris he’d be great at MMA because of his “genetic makeup.” He tries to get Chris

to do jiujitsu with him, it’s awkward.

26-27 Chris and Rose in their bedroom. She apologizes for her family, he says “I told you so” but it’s

okay. They kiss.

28-30 Later, as Rose sleeps, Chris goes out for a smoke in the backyard, sees Walter sprinting across

the yard and Georgina acting creepy in the window. There is a sense of danger here.



31-35 END OF ACT ONE TURN: Missy hypnotizes Chris, getting him to tell her about the day his

mother died, preying on his guilt. She sends him to the “Sunken Place,” a silent, dark dream world.

Chris wakes up in his bed in a cold sweat, thinking he just had a bad dream.

ACT TWO-A

36-39 Next day, Chris takes photos on the grounds, sees Georgina in the window fixing her wig, and

talks to Walter, the gardener, who seems especially interested in Rose. Walter reminds Chris that he

was in Missy’s office for quite some time last night. Chris can’t remember what happened in there.

Chris pulls out a cigarette but doesn’t smoke it.

40-41 Chris tells Rose he thinks Missy hypnotized him to be sick of cigarettes.

42-46 FIRST TRIAL/FIRST CASUALTY: The garden party. Rose takes Chris around to meet all the old

friends of the family, many of whom are flat-out racist, seemingly crazy or both. Everyone seems very

interested in Chris. Chris meets LOGAN, the one other black guest. Logan is the same man from the

opening who was kidnapped. He is in odd clothes and married to a white woman who is 30 years his

senior. There is definitely a very odd vibe at this party.



46-47 Chris meets JIM HUDSON, a famous gallery owner. He’s blind but he still knows Chris’ work from

the detailed descriptions told to him by his assistant. He knows that Chris has a great eye and he

admires him for it.

48 Chris finds his phone unplugged and battery dead. He thinks the maid Georgina did it on purpose.

Rose thinks he’s just being paranoid.

49-51 Chris calls Rod to tell him about all of the weird people he met today and how Missy hypnotized

him to quit smoking. Rod thinks Missy is hypnotizing all the black people in town to make them sex

slaves! Chris thinks he’s nuts.

52-53 Georgina apologizes to Chris for unplugging his cell phone, then wigs out. She looks like she

wants to say something, but something inside her is holding her back.

54-55 MIDPOINT (EXTERNAL): Chris takes a photo of Logan with his phone, and the flash drives Logan

into a fit. Logan grabs Chris and yells at him to “Get out!”

56 Later, Chris is upset and confused. Missy has helped Logan to recover.

57 MIDPOINT (INTERNAL): Chris tells Rose that he felt like he knew Logan. Things are just getting too

weird. He believes Missy got in his head and screwed him up. He wants to go home.

58 ONE HOUR WAR/BIG BOOM (EXTERNAL): In the garden, Dean stands in front of the party guests as

they hold up Bingo cards. He is holding an auction for Chris! Jim Hudson wins the auction. Missy and

Jeremy look on. They are all in on it.

59-60 ONE HOUR WAR (INTERNAL): Chris opens up to Rose about his mother’s death. She was hit by a

car and he stayed home and just watched TV. Maybe he could have saved her life if he had acted.

Rose agrees to leave with Chris. They profess their love for one another.



ACT TWO-B

61-62 Chris walks back into the house as the guests leave. There is a creepy vibe.

63-64 Chris emails his photo of Logan to Rod. Rod calls back to tell him that Logan is actually Dre, a

guy from their neighborhood! Rod still thinks there’s sex slave action going on, tells Chris to get out of

there.

65-66 ASSUMPTION OF POWER (CHRIS): Chris finds photos of Rose with a bunch of black men, her

former boyfriends (even though she told him he was the first black guy she ever dated). The last two

photos are of her with Walter and Georgina, back when they were normal.

67-69 As Rose fakes like she’s searching for her car keys, the family blocks Chris from leaving. Missy

knocks out Chris with her hypnosis. They pick up Chris’ body and carry him to the basement. In Chris’

mind, he is trapped in the Sunken Place!

70-71 Rod keeps calling Chris, gets only his voicemail. He

searches for Andre Hayworth online, finds out he’s gone

missing! Oh, shit.

72-74 Chris wakes up in a room in the basement,

strapped to a chair, facing a television. A video plays on

the TV. Roman Armitage (Rose’s grandfather) introduces

the “Coagula” procedure, which will make Chris “one of

the family.”

75-78 ASSUMPTION OF POWER (ROD): Rod talks to the

police, telling them his theory about how rich white

people are abducting black people, brainwashing them and making them sex slaves. The police laugh

at him. [Note: I include Rod’s AOP even though he is not the protagonist because this beat falls in the

classic AOP range, and Chris is a largely passive character until the end, as per the conventions of this

genre. Rod is definitely feeling his own power here as he faces three cops, even if he ultimately fails to

sway them. But as we will see, he was (mostly) right!]



79-81 Rod talks to Rose on the phone. She says Chris took off two days ago. Rod knows she’s lying.

82-84 Jim Hudson comes on the TV and explains

the details of the procedure. It is a brain

transplant where Jim will take over Chris’ body

and consciousness. Chris’ brain will remain in the

Sunken Place. Jim wants Chris’ healthy eyes, but,

most importantly, his photographic eye. His

talent.

85-86 END OF ACT TWO TURN: As Chris is knocked out in his chair, Dean begins to operate on Jim

Hudson’s head. He cuts open his cranium and removes the top of his skull, exposing his brain.

87 DECISION: Chris escapes and knocks out Jeremy with a croquet ball. (Chris was feigning sleep,

having put cotton in his ears so he couldn’t hear the hypnosis sound.)



ACT THREE

88-91 TRUE POINT OF NO RETURN (KILLING THE FAMILY SEQUENCE): Chris kills Dean with the antlers

from Dean’s stuffed deer. Chris fights with Missy and she stabs his hand. He kills her. Chris battles

Jeremy and kills him. He takes Jeremy’s car keys.

92-93 Chris drives off in Jeremy’s car (the white car from the Opening) – he accidentally hits Georgina!

He can’t leave her in the street. He puts her in the front seat and keeps driving, but she attacks him,

causing him to crash the car. She’s dead and Chris is injured.

94 Rose fires a rifle at him! She refers to Georgina as

“Grandma” and Walter as “Grandpa!” (We realize the

brains of her grandparents have been transplanted into

Walter and Georgina. Looking back, there are several clues

that set up this revelation.) Chris tries to run, but Walter

tackles him.

95-96 Walter fights Chris, and Chris startles him with the

flash of his phone. Walter shoots Rose in the stomach and

then shoots himself in the head.

97 Chris tries to strangle Rose, but he can’t. He’s not a killer. A cop car pulls up! Rose calls out for help,

thinking she’s saved.



98-99 The car door opens...it’s Rod! Chris is safe. In the car, Chris asks Rod how he found him.

ROD

I’m TS motherfuckin’ A. We handle

shit. That’s what we do. Consider

this situation fuckin’ handled.

99 They drive off as Rose lay on the pavement...dead or alive?

CREEPY MUSIC PLAYS OVER CLOSING CREDITS.


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