Learning Objectives
In this lesson on structuring your script, you’re going to learn how a 3 act narrative will make up the structure of your story.
What is a 3 act narrative?
You may have heard about the “3 act narrative” when it comes to storytelling. Every great story in history fits this structure in some way.
And the structure is..
Act 1 - Setup - This is a setup to the story of some kind. It’s usually an incident or a conflict that will take us into the second act.
Act 2 - Confrontation - This is the main chunk of the story where we add more context to the setup we’ve given in Act 1. The problem has developed in some way.
Act 3 - Resolution - The confrontation or problem from Act 2 has peaked, and we provide a satisfying resolution for our viewer. It could be sad, could be happy, could be funny - it’s just that it’s resolved.
Obstacles and twists in the story can occur at any point, but at its core, the 3 act structure narrative will apply.
I would pay close attention to, actually all parts really, BUT, I would say that the Setup is super important on YouTube. YouTube is an environment where within the first 30 seconds, a lot of people are lost and click away, so it makes sense to really focus on that section. The same goes for the other parts too really - I love a good resolution, and a message for the viewer to take away with them. Whilst there are less people at the end of the video, the ones that made it there, are more likely to have a stronger connection with you, so a good Act 3, is important for those people. And Act 2 is the core of the story, so yeah that wants to be good too! Ha ! Basically everything’s important!
Examples
This isn’t always a super defined thing in every video, but you should see this structure, even loosely, in most (if not all) good videos. Lets take a look at some as examples.
CASEY VIDEO
So in this video, which is a scene breakdown video.
Act 1 - We start with the setup of the story, which is giving context to what I’m about to say.
Act 2 starts here with the actual breakdown, which in this case isn’t so much of a direct confrontation, but it is a confrontation in a way because it’s actually confronting Casey’s process.
Then in Act 3, we have a resolution and a message where I bring my perspective.
Gawx Art - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaIpOTVTDEs
Act 1 - “no painting, no partying, and eat your vegetables” - “I don’t really have much time to do it”
Act 2 - Confrontation / problems. Can you imagine how boring this video would be if the entire thing was just him sketching and painting. Don’t get me wrong, his creative use of camera techniques and editing is holding our attention, along with a number of little jokes and cut scenes.
To break this up though we get a problem where the dad calls saying “we’ll be back early”. We have our problem / conflict (!).
Act 3 - Showing the dad - “Did you eat your vegetables”. We get the resolution, he wasn’t bothered.
So there’s no doubt that the dads lines weren’t scripted, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t actually even go away at all, and he was sat in the next room. Sorry! I’m here to ruin the illusion, because for you to make these things, it’s important to understand how they were actually made.
The title “Spray painting my room” is so much less interesting than “.. whilst my parents are away!” - it adds the conflict right in the title. And as humans, we love drama, and a satisfying resolution!
EXAMPLE 3 - Titanic
I was trying to think of a film most people have probably soon, Titanic?
Act 1 - Setup - Boat is the biggest, unsinkable ship ever designed. Jack and Rose are on the boat, but unlikely to ever meet because of their different social classes at the time.
Act 2 - Conflict - Jack and rose meet, fall in love, but are kept apart by the bad guy. Captain is warned of icebergs, but boat hits iceberg anyway - big problem there.
Act 3 - Resolution - Boat sinks. Jack is left on big door to die.
Ofcourse there’s a lot more to it than that, but as a simple summary, you can see how this story is built.
And this goes for every good story.
Round up
I think it’s really important to emphasize that these don’t have to be completely defined sections in your video. You might have some sort of sub narrative running underneath that is unique to your story.
For example, say you are telling a story about how your… i dunno, your sisters wedding day. Your main story might be about how her dress got something spilt on it, and you had to run off to find another one. But within that story, you’ve got your dad who keeps phoning you asking about how to get to the wedding. A second underlying plot can help keep the momentum moving, and keep the viewer's brain engaged in new parts of the story.
There’s many different ways to use the 3 act structure, it’s just that at the videos absolute core, that is what a story is made up of, so you should definitely be thinking about that whilst you’re scripting.
So, ideally a script will be written over a period of time. I prefer this because I can let my subconscious work on it, I can revisit it from new perspectives, and think about what I’m saying. Sometimes though, you don’t have that luxury, and you have an idea on the Wednesday, and you have to script, film and edit for Monday. You can still make something great, and often from my experience, some of the faster turnaround videos have been some of the better ones.
So this is one of my scripts (show My Camera and me (relationship)). This is genuinely untouched since I filmed it, so I’m actually going through this live right now.
Key points to make:
Visualise it
I have a very visual brain, so as I’m scripting anything, I’m imagining it in the edit. This is really useful because you can visualise how jokes will land, how you’re going to shoot something. So really, when it comes to shooting it, you kind of have something that you’ve already figured out, and you just need to follow it.
Your brain might work differently, and that’s totally ok. What I’m doing here is telling you how I do it, and you can take bits that you like, but ultimately you have to find what works best for you. And you do that by action, again and again.
