Act One is where the set up of the film is shown. Usually at the beginning of the film, however, some non linear films may not have this at the beginning. In this section of the film we see the equilibrium, which is the moment in time the characters are currently living peaceful before anything happens. There is then an inciting incident which kick starts the plot and gets the film moving towards the first climax at the end of Act one.
Act Two starts when the climax of act one has just happened. The main protagonist then runs into the first of many obstacles during the film. Each of these obstacles get increasingly difficult for the main character to overcome. These obstacles help the film on the rise path of the ascending action up to the mid point of act two, The Big Twist. This is the point in the story where a twist is revealed to the audience and the protagonist. Twists can usually be something as simple as a character not being who they said they where to much larger and story changing things such as the McGuffin the protagonist was chasing is intact not the correct thing. This then leads to some more obstacles for the character to over come and a disaster, such as a main character being killed off, or the objective looking to be impossible. This then leads to the climax and end of act two.
Act Three begins when the many character is getting through the crisis from act two and is starting to fight back and regain control of the situation in the story. The climax of Act three and the main climax of the film is reached about half way into act three. This is the main battle between our protagonist and antagonist, as the batter goes on the action starts to descend through an obstacle and eventually to the wrap-up. This is when our main character is successful in his mission. However, sometime this can be flipped and the climax may be the main character being killed in a subversion of expectations. Finally the new equilibrium and how the characters are now living is shown before the film ends.
This theory links with most films that are made today and even can be used to describe the film we are making. Even thought the film is an Experimental piece it still loosely follows this structure. Act one would be when we first see the subject sat in a chair with a blind fold on with the idealistic images playing on the blindfold. The inciting incident will be the when the bad footage begins to be projected and as this goes that will be the ascending action. Then the twist is when all the sounds start to merge and become a jarring noise. Finally the climax is when the subject sews the blindfold to his face to block out the bad images and the new equilibrium is the subject sat there with the mask on and blood running down his face. This shows that even an experimental piece can be deconstructed by this theory to make it more understandable.
Comments
Post a Comment