5 Principle Study (6): Three Act Structure

The process of compiling a story using the Three Act Structure, seemed to be an extension of the Beginning, Middle and End, but made out of a more constructive form or like a sinus rhythm of the heart beat.

The way that this principle structure is likened to this analogy is through its procedure of development through progression. It starts slow; increasing in strength and becoming more forceful, before finally peaking and settling down from fulfilling its purpose of reaching a fitting conclusion.

Many of my illustrative work is structured in a manner that can be seen as having a coherent beginning, middle and end, purely from the way the eye views the lines of the illustration’s central features, and its included surrounding elements (if they are present).

For a similar example in film, i’ll again use my stop-motion animation done in college, “Gastropod” where a classic use of the Three Act Structure is implemented.

The general plot and set-up, follows a quite stereotypical frenchman, playing the role of the gardener, as he becomes displeased with a group of snails, and 1 lonely slug, snooping around inside his greenhouse. The Inciting Incident is introduced when the lead snail’s girlfriend is eaten by the gardener, giving the remaining snail great grief and inciting revenge!.

After that, the snail and slug escape from the greenhouse, while from inside the gardener tries out a special type of seed thats manages to make his vegetables grow to twice their original size (tested on 2 pumpkin’s). The Rising Action starts to take hold when the gardener goes to collect some more seeds from the sack outside. As he pours them into his bucket, some fall out onto the ground, where the snail and slug are cautiously watching, witness from around the corner. The action continues to rise as the two characters approach a cluster of fallen seeds, when the lead proceeds to eat one.

Once eaten the lead snails begins to act up, causing the slug to panic and flee. As the snail struggles onward away from the greenhouse, this is where we hit the Climax of the film, the transformation from tiny snail, to one twice the size of the greenhouse.

We then come to the Falling Action, where the gardener, contempt with his gigantic vegetables, fails to see the danger he is in until the last moment, where he is eaten up within his greenhouse by his own accidental creation. The final resolution comes as the giant snail looks onward towards the viewer for the last few frames on film, inciting those viewing to make judgement on what has occurred.

For an example of work involving Narrative Techniques in Context, i’ll also once again showcase the themes and setting for my character Tippett within the short trailer/film “Dreaming Conundrum”.

Though it may seem as though Tippett is in some sort of nonsensical navigation of equally nonsensical dream landscape; There is context within the features show in each dreamscape, as the purpose of the narrative was to have Tippett travel through the dream accounts that people, made up of friends and associates, had actually had, and had some sort of profound meaning specifically to them and them alone.

These shots from the short promotional trailer were not constructed out at random, but were based upon descriptions of dream events; which were then given to me to piece together in a way that seemed intriguing. 

Though the dreams of each person may not link to each other solely by themselves, a useful narrative strand was created with the introduction of Tippett, who is the main feature linking each dreamscape together.