Wow. I am shocked at how bad the video and audio quality was on this first video of mine. My gear was definitely not up to the task yet. But judging by the comments and likes, most of you like the content enough to put up with the poor quality, so I thank you.
Hot take, this is why the story structure of musicals is better, act 1 and act 2, that's all. It's much more easy to get an interesting story when you see the stucture that way.
This is a year late because I just got recommended your channel, but I think what Syd Field was missing was that he thought he’d discovered the structure of film through reading screenplays, but it’s something that had already existed for a long time-in post-production. After a movie is done shooting, the scenes get split up into reels, which make loading the film onto a projector much more convenient. In the early days of feature films, a reel was 1,000 feet and 10 minutes long. In the 50s it was increased to 1,500 feet, and in the 70s it was 2,000 feet. When you’re forced to choose what scenes go into what reel before they’re even cut, you’re going to make sure that each reel has something interesting happening, to make sure you have good pacing. Many movies in the early days already had the screenplay broken up into reels. It’s no wonder then that Syd found that scripts written by people who had seen their fair share of movies instinctively breaking their stories up into 30 minute chunks, with 20 minute cliffhangers. The best way to think about a screenplay would probably be in 4 two-part acts with 6 plot shifts.
From 1999 and Harvard University Press, Kristin Thompson's STORYTELLING IN THE NEW HOLLYWOOD: UNDERSTANDING CLASSICAL NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE takes apart several well-known films to see how they set up their mid-points in a four act structure. Makes a lot more sense than three!
You're right that story (and scene) structure is a four-part affair.. However, Syd Field isn't the originator of the supposed "three act" structure. That apparently came out of the world of literary criticism sometime in the 1950s. Literary criticism is analytical of fiction rather than informed by production, so, of course, its theories have never been the most practical. A good example of the opposite -- production-oriented instruction from before literary criticism muddied the water -- is Willam Foster-Harris's *Basic Formulas of Fiction* published in 1944. In that book, story structure is broken into four parts: situation, complication, crisis, and climax. This wasn't just Foster-Harris's personal approach, but a paradigm you can find signified in fiction published prior to the mid-20th century by actual breaks or markers between those _four_ sections.
Thought provoking critique, I loved this! This reminded me of John Yorke's "Into The Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story." Main difference being that the "2nd" act within a 3 act structure is broken into 3 pieces, and the midpoint has an act all on its own. I'm being a bit reductive, but Yorke calls to attention how the number of acts a story is broken up in is ultimately arbitrary, and any specialist has an equally valid model of creation so long as it follows the unified goal of making a statement through the act model of storytelling. If you've read that one, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!
The "arbitrary" notion does have some truth, but with certain caveats. What many screenwriting manuals fail to mention, or are completely unaware of, is that movie stories are structured in SEQUENCES: anywhere from 5-6 to 12-15 minutes long apiece, depending on the pace of the story. An "Act" is really nothing more than a series of consecutive sequences which together constitute a larger movement of plot. So, any author who talks about "3-Act" structure but does not mention sequence structure is putting the cart before the horse. (In his second book, Syd Field comes close to grasping sequence structure, but he leaves it undeveloped.) As such, an "act" may in fact be any length; that is, composed of any number of sequences. But, like I said, there are two caveats: First "structure" denotes a viewing experience made more pleasurable through balance and symmetry. If your first act is one sequence long, and your second act six sequences, then that is a very imbalanced structure. Second, feature films are more or less unique in that they have a required length, unlike a novel or (to a point) theatre. The 4-part form of feature films seems to have evolved to fit that Goldilocks sweet spot of not-too-much, not-to-little story development to fill the required length. BUT you will occasionally find films (like The Godfather, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship, Rocky or Raiders of the Lost Ark) that open with an additional Prologue Act - a mini-story that runs its course before the real "Act 1" commences to introduces the main storyline. Far less common, you may also find an "Epilogue Act" which adds another mini-story after the main story has been resolved. (It's rare, but the end of Shawshank Redemption and Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can are good examples) Cheers.
You're right. It's four acts. In fact, I've been teaching a four-act structure for 30 years -- what I like to call The First Quest and The Second Quest. It's the only way to keep the story moving and engaging. Dan Harmon's "Story Wheel" takes a similar approach: The hero gets what he wants at the midpoint, then has to deal with the consequences. It's a great way to look at story structure.
The problem with describing a movie in terms of it having 4 Acts, is you instantly confuse it with Theatre stage play structure, which of course, usually come in 4 Acts. The first half of the play all takes place in one set, (let's say a front room). Then after a certain amount of time, there might be a lighting change and we're into Act 2. The same front room but now it's night, or has different cast members in it, or more often than not, is simply set, an hour or two later. The mid point, in Theatre terms, is the interval when everybody rushes to the bar. When they return the set has completely changed. Now Act 3 is say, in a Garden. Act 4 like Act 2, is a variation of the garden set. At night, a few hours later, the policeman gathers all the suspects together, etc. I believe this one of the main reasons why film makers and screen writers will never consider movies to be a 4 Act play.
Well, screencraft borrowed the term "Act" from the theatre, but the similarities end there. It's actually not that useful to talk about "act structure" unless one also knows about sequence structure, as a cinematic "act" is really nothing but a group of 2-4 consecutive story sequences which together constitute larger movements of plot. Cinematic "act" structure really comes down to the placement of the story's five major structural events (inciting incident, End of Act 1 turning point, Midpoint, End of 2B Turning Point, Climactic resolution) (BTW, I thought long-form theatre traditionally used 5 acts? All Shakespeare is 5-act, isn't it?)
Love the video and the tread. One interesting thing about scene sequences, from a novel writing perspective, is that a sequence is roughly similarly in length to a short story, and likewise a sub plots total word count is similar in total length to a short story. So a sub plot is just a scene sequence broken up. I find that whole notion interesting because story would just be a chain of short stories make a larger overall story, and where the short story is the minimum comfortable length to convey a story in -- just sharing a thought.
I’ve been watching your content and appreciate you breaking this down for an uneducated idiot like myself. I’d really love some suggestions from you on what I should read/listen to (audio books are my primary source of information, as I’m a truck driver) in order to become well versed in this subject field. My focus would lean toward anything to do with animated tv, but I’m interested in all the things you discuss. Thanks! Hope you get this!
Any interest in dedicating a video on Kishotenketsu, the four-act plot structure common in Asian storytelling, favored by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Bong Joon-ho and Wu Wenguang?
@@SCRIPTMONK at the very least if you are familiar with Japanese media like The Seven Samurai, or Anime and Manga that has been or become popular in the West, it makes the flavor or the rhythm of their work make a lot more sense, I've come to really enjoy this plot structure for its flexibility and ability to allow more character-driven stories. Bty thanks for the good work you do here, looking forward to the next video!
Everyone is human. Since creativity comes from the unconscious mind, we don't automatically understand it consciously. Certainly not all that quickly. Those of us who go on a quest to learn complex, complicated things such as 'how art works' learn that a bit at a time, and when we think we know a lot, we try to codify it into something, bc that helps us get a grasp on the understanding. But motivated, then we learn more, and we learn that what we codified might be more complicated or different, or just plain incorrect. This is how human learning works. So what happened with SF is simply what would be expected. It happens all the time. Story Grid in 2015 embraced the 3-act structure and proposed 5 'commandments' (story elements of a scene-'commandments' turned out to be an unfortunate choice of terminology). Fast forward to 2019, and now they've embraced the entire 'Act 2a-2b' concept, and 'Commandment 2' is no longer 'progressive complications' (which it turns out are not absolutely required), and is now 'turning point' (which, really, should have been obvious to them, well before Lebron learned the crossover). But the concepts are complex. No one can be faulted for not immediately having a full understanding of something that derives from the domain of the unconscious and is not explicitly clear to our conscious awareness. If it were, we wouldn't need folks like SF or SG doing the Lord's work to help us understand. But that's what dedicated people do, is learn more all the time and modify what they have, correct it into better thinking. Nothing wrong with that when things are complex and complicated. The second you start to think you know everything is the second you stop learning. Kudos to SF and Story Grid for keeping on thinking and trying to improve their paradigms into better concepts over time. What is problematic, though, is that once a 'guru' proclaims something, it's difficult to later admit, 'I had things a bit wrong, and here's a better way to look at it'. Books can't be unpublished. No one is going to call a press conference to tell us how much they effed up, even when how human learning works makes not having everything nailed down at first completely normal. SF, to his credit, was pretty candid about that. Also problematic, is 'Maga-level' thinking that goes viral which embraces the earlier concept over the better, later concept, and prevents the better concept from becoming what we should be understanding. The dire state of H-wood (as well as the entire music industry) stands as a testament to that sort of stupidity and wishful thinking. That can't be blamed on SF or any other 'guru'. They are only trying to help. Put the blame where it belongs. On those who embrace the inchoate early concept, won't give that up in the face of damning evidence that there are better ways to look at things, and have wishful thinking that they can phone it in by trying to use it as a shortcut. There are no shortcuts.
I'm very conscious while I'm being creative. Occasionally ideas may come to me while I'm asleep, or thinking about something completely different, but generally, most good work happens, while I'm wide awake, sat at my desk, trying to create. It's nearly always through trial and error. For instance, if I need an great ending, or a new character, or a funny one-liner, then I might write ten different versions, then go with the best one. There's nothing subconscious or mythical about that. It's just hard work.
One of the things that makes story structure confusing is that the sections are referred to as 'acts'. What exactly is an act? It's not an easy thing to define. The way I tend to describe an act is a section of a story in which the situation of the protagonist dramatically changes, in relation to their ultimate goal. Personally, I view the denouement as a seperate act. I know most people just view it as the end of the final act, but I think it's helpful to differentiate it from the protagonist/antagonist showdown which precedes it, even if it's only a very short section, because it's a distinct section of the storytelling unto itself.
Well, you can't REALLY talk about act structure unless you first understand story sequence structure. Feature films structured in sequences, typically 6-10 minutes long depending upon the pace of the story. An "ACT" is really nothing more than 2-4 consecutive story sequences that together constitute a larger movement of plot. (Like in Star Wars: "Getting off Tatooine" "Escaping the Death Star" "The Big Battle & Aftermath") But most "gurus" never mention story sequences or don't seem to know about them. So only talking about "acts" is like telling someone to build a house by beginning with the second floor.
@@SCRIPTMONK Agreed. Simply talking about acts is far too simplistic.. Also, the order in which scenes occur within a sequence or act differs depending on the story. For example, one story may begin by introducing the protagonist, where as another story may begin by showing the inciting incident. There are so many variations on the order in which things can happen and it's a real skill to find the order which best serves the story.
Fun Fact - Shrek has a 5-act structure. Also, I wonder if this written-in-stone dedication to the lopsided 3 act structure is why so many 80's and 90's films, specifically family films and quiet social dramas (The Sandlot, Look Who's Talking, The Great Outdoors), would start with a fast first act, then spend a long time in the middle which, because of the genres, were the best parts that would marinade in the vibes and character stories. Then out of NOWHERE this 3rd act happens that has a completely different tone, usually involves an absurd amount of danger, people screaming, someone dies or almost dies, etc. It was SO WEIRD. Why does Beethoven, the silly dog movie, end with a gun-weilding scientist getting impaled with 50 syringes in front of children?
I never saw Beethoven, but that ending sounds like you made it up. That was a weird feature of a lot of 80s movies. Like "Twins." Why couldn't it just be about the relationship between two brothers? Why did it have to have a criminal murder plotline?
@@SCRIPTMONK Why did The Great Outdoors end with twin toddlers being rescued from a flooding basement? Why did Look Who's Talking end with a baby steering a car into traffic? I brought up Beethoven because it's the most outlandish one I remember. It's worth seeing just by how batshit insane it gets. At least it didn't have an attempted rape of a minor scene like the sequel did.
The classic three act structure, in terms of action, is surely... Set Up, Confrontation, Resolution. Act 1 Put someone up a tree, Act 2 Throw stones at them, Act 3 Get them out of the tree. Now if you add a fourth Act it becomes. Set Up, Confrontation, More confrontation, Resolution. Act 1 Put someone up a tree, Act 2 Throw stones at them, Act 3 Throw more stones at them, Act 4 Get them out of the tree. I understand breaking Act 2 in to different equal length parts makes the writing easier, but the 3 Act paradigm makes defining your plot and pitching it, much simpler. - For me at least.
Yes, but that ignores the vital importance of the Character Arc to movie structure. A character who digs themselves into a hole by doing things the wrong way, and then tries to climb out of that hole through new types of action is the defining difference between Acts 2A & 2B. And, more often than not, the Midpoint marks the crucial moment in the Character Arc.
Has it really become four acts, though? You've just added another plot point that doesn't transform the two parts into something more independent like what the prologue, epilogue, and main body represent. It actually makes a lot of sense as to why they're considered "2A and 2B", as they're divides within the main body of text
Hi, new subscriber here. I like your brain. Can you cover how Bollywood movies hold attention for 3-4 hours? What's the differences in the structure... or is it just social expectations?
Theatre and cinema are two different forms of drama, each with their own strengths and weakness, capabilities and limitations. So the ideal methods of structure and storytelling differ between them. Don't let anyone tell you playwriting and screenwriting are the same.
One problem with trying to call it a 4-act structure is that that already refers to network TV shows designed to put commercial breaks between 4 acts (e.g. with cliffhangers at the end of each act).
And then Quentin Tarantino came along, looked at the typical three act structure, and proceeded to set it on fire. (okay, nonlinear storytelling in movies appeared before Tarantino came about, but it is his signature style.)
Well, Pulp Fiction is what you would call an "omnibus narrative" -- a collection of short stories connected by a shared theme. Its a form that has existed for centuries in literature, but only rarely produced in cinema. BUT, all four main story segments in Pulp Fiction individually develop with a classic "3-Act" structure. As for his other non-linear films, the diegetic non-linearity actually isn't an issue. The movie is still presented in four sections of relatively equal length, separated by major turning point events.
@@SCRIPTMONK Oh, definitely Tarantino does follow the three act structure in his movies, he just loves moving the pieces in the order he deems viable for the movie he makes outside the obvious.
This is like everything else. It's the same thing repackaged. The attempt to make this sound new brings us back to the 90s so we can ignore what little actual innovation there's been. In this case, specifically it's the midpoint and the first and second halfs of the second act, which gets its name from Aristotle. The Asian 4 act structure is something different, but this isn't. Your discussion of what these sections entail can be useful to a student, but the names of the phases are just names. And everyone is doing this. Same thing, different name. It is so exhausting.
Baby steps, my friend. There's a lot of junk theory out there to disentangle. This was my first video, so I chose something very basic. If I give too much too fast, a lot of beginners get confused.
Wow. I am shocked at how bad the video and audio quality was on this first video of mine. My gear was definitely not up to the task yet. But judging by the comments and likes, most of you like the content enough to put up with the poor quality, so I thank you.
I've always structured my scripts in 4 acts because it intuitively felt better to me anyway. Thanks for the validation!
Hot take, this is why the story structure of musicals is better, act 1 and act 2, that's all. It's much more easy to get an interesting story when you see the stucture that way.
This is a year late because I just got recommended your channel, but I think what Syd Field was missing was that he thought he’d discovered the structure of film through reading screenplays, but it’s something that had already existed for a long time-in post-production. After a movie is done shooting, the scenes get split up into reels, which make loading the film onto a projector much more convenient. In the early days of feature films, a reel was 1,000 feet and 10 minutes long. In the 50s it was increased to 1,500 feet, and in the 70s it was 2,000 feet. When you’re forced to choose what scenes go into what reel before they’re even cut, you’re going to make sure that each reel has something interesting happening, to make sure you have good pacing. Many movies in the early days already had the screenplay broken up into reels.
It’s no wonder then that Syd found that scripts written by people who had seen their fair share of movies instinctively breaking their stories up into 30 minute chunks, with 20 minute cliffhangers. The best way to think about a screenplay would probably be in 4 two-part acts with 6 plot shifts.
Very interesting. Yet another way the technicalities of moviemaking influence how it tells stories that I hadn't yet considered.
From 1999 and Harvard University Press, Kristin Thompson's STORYTELLING IN THE NEW HOLLYWOOD: UNDERSTANDING CLASSICAL NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE takes apart several well-known films to see how they set up their mid-points in a four act structure. Makes a lot more sense than three!
You're right that story (and scene) structure is a four-part affair.. However, Syd Field isn't the originator of the supposed "three act" structure. That apparently came out of the world of literary criticism sometime in the 1950s. Literary criticism is analytical of fiction rather than informed by production, so, of course, its theories have never been the most practical.
A good example of the opposite -- production-oriented instruction from before literary criticism muddied the water -- is Willam Foster-Harris's *Basic Formulas of Fiction* published in 1944. In that book, story structure is broken into four parts: situation, complication, crisis, and climax. This wasn't just Foster-Harris's personal approach, but a paradigm you can find signified in fiction published prior to the mid-20th century by actual breaks or markers between those _four_ sections.
Thought provoking critique, I loved this! This reminded me of John Yorke's "Into The Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story." Main difference being that the "2nd" act within a 3 act structure is broken into 3 pieces, and the midpoint has an act all on its own. I'm being a bit reductive, but Yorke calls to attention how the number of acts a story is broken up in is ultimately arbitrary, and any specialist has an equally valid model of creation so long as it follows the unified goal of making a statement through the act model of storytelling. If you've read that one, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!
The "arbitrary" notion does have some truth, but with certain caveats. What many screenwriting manuals fail to mention, or are completely unaware of, is that movie stories are structured in SEQUENCES: anywhere from 5-6 to 12-15 minutes long apiece, depending on the pace of the story. An "Act" is really nothing more than a series of consecutive sequences which together constitute a larger movement of plot. So, any author who talks about "3-Act" structure but does not mention sequence structure is putting the cart before the horse. (In his second book, Syd Field comes close to grasping sequence structure, but he leaves it undeveloped.) As such, an "act" may in fact be any length; that is, composed of any number of sequences.
But, like I said, there are two caveats: First "structure" denotes a viewing experience made more pleasurable through balance and symmetry. If your first act is one sequence long, and your second act six sequences, then that is a very imbalanced structure.
Second, feature films are more or less unique in that they have a required length, unlike a novel or (to a point) theatre. The 4-part form of feature films seems to have evolved to fit that Goldilocks sweet spot of not-too-much, not-to-little story development to fill the required length. BUT you will occasionally find films (like The Godfather, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship, Rocky or Raiders of the Lost Ark) that open with an additional Prologue Act - a mini-story that runs its course before the real "Act 1" commences to introduces the main storyline. Far less common, you may also find an "Epilogue Act" which adds another mini-story after the main story has been resolved. (It's rare, but the end of Shawshank Redemption and Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can are good examples)
Cheers.
You're right. It's four acts. In fact, I've been teaching a four-act structure for 30 years -- what I like to call The First Quest and The Second Quest. It's the only way to keep the story moving and engaging. Dan Harmon's "Story Wheel" takes a similar approach: The hero gets what he wants at the midpoint, then has to deal with the consequences. It's a great way to look at story structure.
Nice. Thanks for sharing.
The problem with describing a movie in terms of it having 4 Acts, is you instantly confuse it with Theatre stage play structure, which of course, usually come in 4 Acts. The first half of the play all takes place in one set, (let's say a front room). Then after a certain amount of time, there might be a lighting change and we're into Act 2. The same front room but now it's night, or has different cast members in it, or more often than not, is simply set, an hour or two later. The mid point, in Theatre terms, is the interval when everybody rushes to the bar. When they return the set has completely changed. Now Act 3 is say, in a Garden. Act 4 like Act 2, is a variation of the garden set. At night, a few hours later, the policeman gathers all the suspects together, etc. I believe this one of the main reasons why film makers and screen writers will never consider movies to be a 4 Act play.
Well, screencraft borrowed the term "Act" from the theatre, but the similarities end there. It's actually not that useful to talk about "act structure" unless one also knows about sequence structure, as a cinematic "act" is really nothing but a group of 2-4 consecutive story sequences which together constitute larger movements of plot. Cinematic "act" structure really comes down to the placement of the story's five major structural events (inciting incident, End of Act 1 turning point, Midpoint, End of 2B Turning Point, Climactic resolution)
(BTW, I thought long-form theatre traditionally used 5 acts? All Shakespeare is 5-act, isn't it?)
@@SCRIPTMONK
Sorkin says that most plays are two acts. Which is what I thought as well.
Love the video and the tread. One interesting thing about scene sequences, from a novel writing perspective, is that a sequence is roughly similarly in length to a short story, and likewise a sub plots total word count is similar in total length to a short story. So a sub plot is just a scene sequence broken up. I find that whole notion interesting because story would just be a chain of short stories make a larger overall story, and where the short story is the minimum comfortable length to convey a story in -- just sharing a thought.
I’ve been watching your content and appreciate you breaking this down for an uneducated idiot like myself.
I’d really love some suggestions from you on what I should read/listen to (audio books are my primary source of information, as I’m a truck driver) in order to become well versed in this subject field.
My focus would lean toward anything to do with animated tv, but I’m interested in all the things you discuss.
Thanks! Hope you get this!
Any interest in dedicating a video on Kishotenketsu, the four-act plot structure common in Asian storytelling, favored by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Bong Joon-ho and Wu Wenguang?
I'm not very familiar with it, but it sound worth checking out more closely.
@@SCRIPTMONK at the very least if you are familiar with Japanese media like The Seven Samurai, or Anime and Manga that has been or become popular in the West, it makes the flavor or the rhythm of their work make a lot more sense, I've come to really enjoy this plot structure for its flexibility and ability to allow more character-driven stories.
Bty thanks for the good work you do here, looking forward to the next video!
Everyone is human. Since creativity comes from the unconscious mind, we don't automatically understand it consciously. Certainly not all that quickly. Those of us who go on a quest to learn complex, complicated things such as 'how art works' learn that a bit at a time, and when we think we know a lot, we try to codify it into something, bc that helps us get a grasp on the understanding.
But motivated, then we learn more, and we learn that what we codified might be more complicated or different, or just plain incorrect. This is how human learning works.
So what happened with SF is simply what would be expected. It happens all the time.
Story Grid in 2015 embraced the 3-act structure and proposed 5 'commandments' (story elements of a scene-'commandments' turned out to be an unfortunate choice of terminology). Fast forward to 2019, and now they've embraced the entire 'Act 2a-2b' concept, and 'Commandment 2' is no longer 'progressive complications' (which it turns out are not absolutely required), and is now 'turning point' (which, really, should have been obvious to them, well before Lebron learned the crossover). But the concepts are complex. No one can be faulted for not immediately having a full understanding of something that derives from the domain of the unconscious and is not explicitly clear to our conscious awareness. If it were, we wouldn't need folks like SF or SG doing the Lord's work to help us understand.
But that's what dedicated people do, is learn more all the time and modify what they have, correct it into better thinking. Nothing wrong with that when things are complex and complicated. The second you start to think you know everything is the second you stop learning. Kudos to SF and Story Grid for keeping on thinking and trying to improve their paradigms into better concepts over time.
What is problematic, though, is that once a 'guru' proclaims something, it's difficult to later admit, 'I had things a bit wrong, and here's a better way to look at it'. Books can't be unpublished. No one is going to call a press conference to tell us how much they effed up, even when how human learning works makes not having everything nailed down at first completely normal. SF, to his credit, was pretty candid about that.
Also problematic, is 'Maga-level' thinking that goes viral which embraces the earlier concept over the better, later concept, and prevents the better concept from becoming what we should be understanding. The dire state of H-wood (as well as the entire music industry) stands as a testament to that sort of stupidity and wishful thinking.
That can't be blamed on SF or any other 'guru'. They are only trying to help. Put the blame where it belongs. On those who embrace the inchoate early concept, won't give that up in the face of damning evidence that there are better ways to look at things, and have wishful thinking that they can phone it in by trying to use it as a shortcut.
There are no shortcuts.
I'm very conscious while I'm being creative. Occasionally ideas may come to me while I'm asleep, or thinking about something completely different, but generally, most good work happens, while I'm wide awake, sat at my desk, trying to create. It's nearly always through trial and error. For instance, if I need an great ending, or a new character, or a funny one-liner, then I might write ten different versions, then go with the best one. There's nothing subconscious or mythical about that. It's just hard work.
One of the things that makes story structure confusing is that the sections are referred to as 'acts'. What exactly is an act? It's not an easy thing to define. The way I tend to describe an act is a section of a story in which the situation of the protagonist dramatically changes, in relation to their ultimate goal.
Personally, I view the denouement as a seperate act. I know most people just view it as the end of the final act, but I think it's helpful to differentiate it from the protagonist/antagonist showdown which precedes it, even if it's only a very short section, because it's a distinct section of the storytelling unto itself.
Well, you can't REALLY talk about act structure unless you first understand story sequence structure. Feature films structured in sequences, typically 6-10 minutes long depending upon the pace of the story. An "ACT" is really nothing more than 2-4 consecutive story sequences that together constitute a larger movement of plot. (Like in Star Wars: "Getting off Tatooine" "Escaping the Death Star" "The Big Battle & Aftermath") But most "gurus" never mention story sequences or don't seem to know about them. So only talking about "acts" is like telling someone to build a house by beginning with the second floor.
@@SCRIPTMONK Agreed. Simply talking about acts is far too simplistic..
Also, the order in which scenes occur within a sequence or act differs depending on the story. For example, one story may begin by introducing the protagonist, where as another story may begin by showing the inciting incident. There are so many variations on the order in which things can happen and it's a real skill to find the order which best serves the story.
Fun Fact - Shrek has a 5-act structure.
Also, I wonder if this written-in-stone dedication to the lopsided 3 act structure is why so many 80's and 90's films, specifically family films and quiet social dramas (The Sandlot, Look Who's Talking, The Great Outdoors), would start with a fast first act, then spend a long time in the middle which, because of the genres, were the best parts that would marinade in the vibes and character stories. Then out of NOWHERE this 3rd act happens that has a completely different tone, usually involves an absurd amount of danger, people screaming, someone dies or almost dies, etc. It was SO WEIRD. Why does Beethoven, the silly dog movie, end with a gun-weilding scientist getting impaled with 50 syringes in front of children?
I never saw Beethoven, but that ending sounds like you made it up. That was a weird feature of a lot of 80s movies. Like "Twins." Why couldn't it just be about the relationship between two brothers? Why did it have to have a criminal murder plotline?
@@SCRIPTMONK Why did The Great Outdoors end with twin toddlers being rescued from a flooding basement? Why did Look Who's Talking end with a baby steering a car into traffic?
I brought up Beethoven because it's the most outlandish one I remember. It's worth seeing just by how batshit insane it gets. At least it didn't have an attempted rape of a minor scene like the sequel did.
Lester Dent's Master Plot Formula.
It makes A. E. Van Vogt the man
Ok! Nice.
Kinda funny that Japanese writers figured it out by themselves by creating their own kishotenketsu structure.
The classic three act structure, in terms of action, is surely... Set Up, Confrontation, Resolution. Act 1 Put someone up a tree, Act 2 Throw stones at them, Act 3 Get them out of the tree. Now if you add a fourth Act it becomes. Set Up, Confrontation, More confrontation, Resolution. Act 1 Put someone up a tree, Act 2 Throw stones at them, Act 3 Throw more stones at them, Act 4 Get them out of the tree. I understand breaking Act 2 in to different equal length parts makes the writing easier, but the 3 Act paradigm makes defining your plot and pitching it, much simpler. - For me at least.
Yes, but that ignores the vital importance of the Character Arc to movie structure. A character who digs themselves into a hole by doing things the wrong way, and then tries to climb out of that hole through new types of action is the defining difference between Acts 2A & 2B. And, more often than not, the Midpoint marks the crucial moment in the Character Arc.
I legit re-read it again recently- so much bad advice- thanks for your video! Makes me think im not the only one
this is such a great video
Thanks! Its my first video ever. I hope you like my future stuff as well.
Thank you
Yes just add pinch points on either side of the mid point. Solved 😊
Has it really become four acts, though? You've just added another plot point that doesn't transform the two parts into something more independent like what the prologue, epilogue, and main body represent. It actually makes a lot of sense as to why they're considered "2A and 2B", as they're divides within the main body of text
Hi, new subscriber here. I like your brain.
Can you cover how Bollywood movies hold attention for 3-4 hours? What's the differences in the structure... or is it just social expectations?
I'm not too familiar with Bollywood movies, and I'm surprised to hear they can have such marathon run times. It seems worth checking out.
But what about Shakespeare’s 5 Act structure?
Theatre and cinema are two different forms of drama, each with their own strengths and weakness, capabilities and limitations. So the ideal methods of structure and storytelling differ between them. Don't let anyone tell you playwriting and screenwriting are the same.
Ever thought of making a teachable course
Fan-tasting breakdown. Damn.
One problem with trying to call it a 4-act structure is that that already refers to network TV shows designed to put commercial breaks between 4 acts (e.g. with cliffhangers at the end of each act).
And then Quentin Tarantino came along, looked at the typical three act structure, and proceeded to set it on fire. (okay, nonlinear storytelling in movies appeared before Tarantino came about, but it is his signature style.)
Well, Pulp Fiction is what you would call an "omnibus narrative" -- a collection of short stories connected by a shared theme. Its a form that has existed for centuries in literature, but only rarely produced in cinema. BUT, all four main story segments in Pulp Fiction individually develop with a classic "3-Act" structure.
As for his other non-linear films, the diegetic non-linearity actually isn't an issue. The movie is still presented in four sections of relatively equal length, separated by major turning point events.
@@SCRIPTMONK Oh, definitely Tarantino does follow the three act structure in his movies, he just loves moving the pieces in the order he deems viable for the movie he makes outside the obvious.
What's up with all those Lindas?
I know. Weird, right?
This is like everything else. It's the same thing repackaged. The attempt to make this sound new brings us back to the 90s so we can ignore what little actual innovation there's been. In this case, specifically it's the midpoint and the first and second halfs of the second act, which gets its name from Aristotle. The Asian 4 act structure is something different, but this isn't. Your discussion of what these sections entail can be useful to a student, but the names of the phases are just names. And everyone is doing this. Same thing, different name. It is so exhausting.
Baby steps, my friend. There's a lot of junk theory out there to disentangle. This was my first video, so I chose something very basic. If I give too much too fast, a lot of beginners get confused.