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Language of Film 2: The Middle

© Ken Nared

Last time we saw how the opening or first act of a film gathers together all the elements necessary for a story to take told without actually being the story proper. We spend time with the characters learning about them and the problems they will face when the story gets started. But having spent thirty or so minutes with the characters the mind is saturated by the people and their situations. We want something to happen or as is natural for the mind at this point we start to get bored and our minds begin to wander.

Before the middle part of the beginning, middle, and end of a film can get started we need something to refresh us and renew our interest in the people on the screen. The most common term for this in film is the first turning point. An explosion happens, someone we though dead really isn't, two completely opposite people suddenly fall love. Luke Skywalkker is off on an adventure having been freed from all the constraints of his old life. The Red October submarine has suddenly disappeared to every one and the real hunt for it begins. This first turning point suddenly reinvigorates our interest in the characters and their problems and the story proper can begin. Without this clear definition between the first and second acts the film loses all dramatic structure and the emotional expectations we have for the story fall apart. The film will never reach the emotional highs it could have.

Having turned this corner into the second act of the film the characters begin to struggle with each other based on the information we were given in the first act. All the hopes wants and desires we learned about the characters deepen the fight for what the hero and villain hold dear. But in the second act the film is in danger of bogging down because of something called pacing. It is far more than how many explosions or emotional scuffles the director throws our way. Pacing involves the steady development of both the characters and the story. We've all seen films that have plenty of plot twist but still leave us bored because the twist and turns aren't tied to the characters development. In reverse we've seen characters who seem to grow beyond the problems they face and again we're bored because the character faces no real challenges.

As the struggle between hero and villain intensifies to the point where the hero looks like he is going to lose everything another turning point like the one that took place at the end of the first act happens and pushes us into the third act. We'll discuss this turning point and the third act next time.

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