...finished. What's a first act? Movies, whether you notice or not, are made in a 3-act structure. Nothing very provocative about it: Act One: setup. Establish characters, situation, set an objective in motion. Act One ends with a hint of difficulties to come. Act Two: introduce complications. Obstacles. Conflict is built. Act Three: resolution, one way or another. In a feature film of say, 90-95 minutes, you might have a 30 min act 1, a 45 min act 2, and a 15-20 min act 3. Our act one? Clocks in at a tidy 31:05. Curtain rises on act two today...
PS thanks for the comments to the last post. Don't worry, most of that was metaphorical hand-wringing. Part of it is also a little excitement that ours is definitely not a "dead" topic. I'd much rather have to struggle with where to cut off following an exciting story than ... well, you get the picture.
PPS Congratulations to us! (OK, to our producer Andrew, mostly): we just were awarded a $10,000 grant from the Illinois Humanities Council!
About Me
- Clayton
- Clayton is a documentary and narrative filmmaker interested in exploring the hidden stories and compelling characters that emerge when people pursue their passions. A graduate of Northwestern University's Master of Fine Arts program in film, Clayton has received several awards and seen his films screened across the country and internationally. His films explore what happens when fascinating characters, real or imagined, are caught in curious obsessions. He is co-director of the award-winning documentary "The Atom Smashers" which was broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens. Clayton teaches film production at Northwestern and is a co-founder of 137 Films, a non-profit documentary production company telling stories found in the world of science.
1 comment:
Congratulations, indeed! Glad to hear the excitement/hand-wringing ratio is in your favor. Good luck with act two.
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