Ideas & Structure: Three Act Structure

The 7^th ITAP lecture was focused on the Ideas and Structure in moving image, and discussed the ‘three act structure’ where at the beginning of the movie the plot is ‘established’, the audience gets familiarised with characters, location, relationships, the next part is the most important as there will be a change in the main character’s life, there is the ‘crisis’ which disrupts the balance we had before. The rest of the film will be the development and adaption of the characters to ‘resolving’ the crisis. Bringing the whole film together at the end with the right balance restored. An example of a film that follows a three act structure is “Taken”.

At the beginning we are established with a perfect family balance, Bryan is a retired agent who has a 17 year old daughter Kim, who lives with her mother and stepfather. Kim manages to convince Bryan to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend.

Until the crisis begins when they share a taxi with a stranger, who finds out where they are staying and that their alone, resulting in them being kidnapped by an Albanian human trafficking gang. Kim manages to hide under the bed to phone her dad but doesn’t give enough information before she is taken. He has 96 hours to find her before she is gone for good.

The crisis is resolved when Bryan pieces the clues together and races over to France to save her, brutally killing anyone who stands in his way. He has all the skills necessary and rescue’s her safely, bringing her back to her home.