Randall_Oelerich
Veteran
As I keep going deeper down the rabbit hole at David Bordwell's blog where I first encountered his essay on coincidences, I discovered a nice blog entry on 4 acts (which I adhere to, shedding Syd Field's 3 act structure some time ago), and also a blog entry on turning points / goals which I find very interested because in my current romcom I am writing the initial goal morphs at midpoint into a modified goal. Curious what you all think about 4 act structure, if you use it, and what you think about new or modified goals as a story occurs, as the hero's journey takes place?
"The mirage of the second-act desert: Twelve years ago I published Storytelling in the New Hollywood (Harvard University Press). It included a claim that most classical Hollywood feature films have four acts, lasting roughly 25-30 minutes each, adding up to a film of from 100 minutes to two hours. This claim ran counter to the old notion, popularized by Syd (Screenplay) Field, that Hollywood movies (and, according to Field, all feature narrative films) have three acts of 30, 60, and 30 minutes respectively. My book analyses ten films in detail, dividing them into their four parts: Setup, Complicating Action, Development, and Climax (usually including an epilogue)." (Cognitive Scientists 1, Screenplay Gurus 0)
"Most screenplay manuals consider goals to be static. To me, “Shifting or evolving goals are in fact the norm, at least in well-executed classical films” (p. 52). This doesn’t mean that the goal changes at every turning point. Instead, the end of a large-scale part may lead to a continuation of the goal(s) but with a distinct change of tactics (p. 28). One big advantage of talking about different types of turning points is that it allows the analyst to see how the different large-scale parts function. A well-done classical film doesn’t just have exposition and a climax with a bunch of stuff in the middle. (Field calls that long second act the “Confrontation” in the diagram above.) I believe that once the setup is over, there is a stretch of “complicating action,” which often acts as a sort of second setup, creating a whole new situation that follows from the first turning point. The third part is the “development,” which often consists of a series of delays and obstacles that essentially function to keep the complications from continuing to pile up until the whole plot becomes too convoluted. The development also serves to keep the climax from starting too soon. The third turning point is the last major premise or piece of information that needs to be set in place before the action can start moving toward its resolution in the climax." (Times go by Turns)
