Thanks for the kind words. Your options are limited, because the interval must be placed approximately half way through the movie: it cannot be too close to the beginning or the end. I would recommend placing the interval after the midpoint of Act 2, when the attention of the audience is high.

Thanks for following my work!

Ed

My hypothesis is that the three-act structure is intrinsic to the human brain in general, not to the Western mind in particular.

What the other commenters in this thread also ought to understand is that I am an observer, not an activist: I have no personal interest in pushing the three-act structure, but I do have an interest in understanding why it is so fundamentally important in screenplays.

Thanks for commenting!

Ed

The truth is, this structure is easy and works because it’s easy but it’s a mere template. Yes you can get away with that every single time. So the question becomes… should you? It’s about personal growth and wanting to do more than the basics.

I write stories without structure and people love them (it is my understand of the basics that allow me to do this). I make documentaries with no conflict and people buy it. The point is, we should try to take our art beyond the basics when we can.

I also don’t agree that this is how the human brain is hard wired. The human brain is very capable of abstract thought (have you ever watched a video on computer programming and understood it?) Our natural instinct to find patterns does not apply here, I’m sorry. When the average viewer is watching a film, they aren’t looking for or recognizing a pattern. Only filmmakers/writers do because we tend to have a hard time becoming a “viewer” once we become filmmakers. The same phenomena exists for wedding professionals who have a hard time enjoying weddings as a guest after they’ve become a wedding professional. They don’t experience weddings the same way after that.

What viewers do know is if they have been taken on an emotional journey or not. So now when I teach people how to write, I come for a different perspective… an emotional one with the basics (structure) in mind but not the primary method for delivery.

Anyway, it’s very sad that folks can make blatantly incorrect statements about how human beings are “hard wired” without seeing all of the ways in which this can’t possibly be true.

I just feel that in terms of screenplay analysis, you can find however many acts as you arbitrarily decide to look for, but in terms of writing a screenplay – which as you suggest yourself “is so important that words cannot do this issue justice” – sticking steadfastly to a basic three act structure will lead to producing scripts and stories that over simple and predictable and uninteresting. Three acts are “The hero lives in a world. The world changes and the hero responds. The hero is victorious in the end”. Clearly a feature film requires more plot than that. Even to add two points – “The hero lives in a world. The world changes but the hero refuses to act. Someone close to the hero is directly affected by the changing world. The hero finally answers the call to arms. The hero is victorious in the end” improves matters, but depending on how efficiently the story is written, and how much action is involved, can still barely fill an hour long TV slot.

I’m sure you’ll conflate some of those story beats to fit it into your three act structure, but as a writer there are worlds of difference between the two breakdowns. Even as a director or an actor these are important considerations. My point is, if you have to spend as long as you do to describe the many different actions that occur within your “Act II” in the Crucible or Macbeth, then the writer most likely did not write that sequence of events under one heading on their whiteboard that simply said “The Confrontation”.

Hollywood is fond of the three-act structure because it serves the the story well; we do not say that it works well just because Hollywood happens to like it.

is it not obvious to three year old homosapiens and older that every story has THREE parts?

beginning middle end
problem exploration solution

a SPINE is just the steps and attempts to solve the problem. you’re telling me if they try fifty things its fifty acts. which if related you could divided into how ever many sequences. COME ON PEOPLE. ONE STORY, THREE PARTS, BUTTLOAD OF SCENES, COWBOY SHOT AND CALL IT A WRAP

Thanks for the discussion…good stuff!

I certainly don’t wish to pass off my cognitive-science hypothesis as a well-established model — it is only a hypothesis — see above. For me, however, it is exceedingly compelling and useful.

If nothing else, the three-act structure forces the writer to give serious thought to plot points and moving the story forward. I have found it a very useful construct.

Ultimately, my contention is that if you pick as many movies as you can think of, analyze those that “work” and those that don’t, the majority of those that “work” will be found to have three-act structures, whereas those that do not have a three-act structure tend to be self-indulgent, amorphous and spineless (in the literary sense of the term). This is a field observation and not a criticism of those who attempt five-act screenplays; it is observational rather than prescriptive. By all means push the envelope — it is the only way to realize one’s potential!

Of course we tend to forget weak movies so the second sample might be under-represented, but hopefully you see my point