Peter at 2011-09-22 18:39:25:

I've done 3-act structure on a 20-25 page shorts. I find my shorts work best, if I start with 1 solid scene with a theme. You can minor exposition the two other acts, and have just 1 solid Act, and technically it's still a whole story.. I've written a handful of 5 pager shorts that were pretty much just a 2nd Act or 3rd Act in a longer story. Since I start more visually, I think of the awesome scene first, then I make sense of it from there.

Emma at 2011-09-22 18:42:06:

The beginning/middle/end of a short is similar to a feature, but it's got to be more concise. With your first act, you take into account and use the preconceptions of your audience because you simply don't have the time to flesh out a complex situation. So first act should be, "okay, I get it." Second act is the wrench in the works. Something changes, a complication, every attempt to improve things only worsens the situation. Third act is resolution, and that can be one of a number of things: in a gag film, it's pushing the gag to the extreme, beyond what anyone would anticipate. In a character piece, it's the character changing their approach to solving the problem, or connecting to another person. The most effective shorts I've seen are built around a touching moment, and everything leading up to it is to provide context, to make the moment actually meaningful.

Jeffrey at 2011-09-22 23:16:49:

Even though my short film is currently a bunch of 1's and 0's spread out over a series of SD cards yanked from the gizzards of a Canon DSLR camera, I will certainly try and weigh in as best I can. Here's the deal - everyone should scribble a short film or two. I wish I had done this before tackling full feature film writing. Nothing forces your hand at economy of story more than the time constraints of a short. But these very constraints can just as quickly become very freeing. Because, as Scott stated above, story still is king. My film is four people, one room, and one ticking "timebomb." And prior to writing it, I was quite concerned about how I'd narratively pull it off. The answer, as usual, was to be found in STRUCTURE. Even though I adamantly strove for a 15 minute approximate runtime, I still mapped out a pretty solid and efficient structure. And it looked something like this: LOADED CHIT-CHAT/MACGUFFIN REVEAL/CONFESSION/CONCLUSION Without knowing the final product, I imagine that little abstract formula probably doesn't mean squat to you but it saved my bacon on this film. I've already penned a follow up short and have employed the same little trick and I'll be damned it worked again. I didn't really assign page numbers for these beats but I was acutely aware of the math. 15 pages divided by 4 = a beat every 3.5 page or so. Seems nutty, I'm sure, but it worked. After 25 years of floundering around with feature film writing, I can honestly say that etching out, producing, and directing this short film has been the most creatively gratifying experience I've had in this racket thus far. Can't recommend it enough. Of course only 50 percent of the work is done... film's in the can (or on the data cards, right?) but the cutting begins next week. And with that a whole new array of challenges and lessons. Trailer in two weeks, Milwaukee premiere sometime around Thanksgiving.

Dave at 2011-09-22 23:22:19:

I've written multiple produced shorts and given story notes on a lot of others; I've also read about 6-8 books on the subject. Here are my thoughts, which are of course by no means authoritative. Short answer: It depends what you want out of the short. Long answer: If you're using it as a sample of your filmmaking skills, a three act structure with the same characters and plot as a script you already have, or at least in the same genre, is best. It's the closest to the thing you're trying to prove you can do. If you just want to tell a good story, the most consistently successful short film structure is joke structure: setup, punchline. Favorite example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27Attendrai_Le_Suivant "Setup" is very similar to a regular film's setup + inciting incident in quick succession (or simultaneously), then a quick escalation til you get to a climax with an unexpected ending. Setup/punchline shorts tend to work better at a shorter length. Fifteen minutes is a long short (it's closer to a TV episode than a lot of other shorts), so if you have that much material an abbreviated three act structure may work better for you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with an abbreviated three act structure for a longer short, as the student Emmys and the Academy Awards will attest -- if that's what your material demands then that's what you have to do. Last few points -- I've also helped to program some very, very small film festivals before and we gave much more leeway to shorter shorts, as they were easier to slide into open spots. If your goal is to have your short film shown at festivals, a 15 minute short needs go be so good that it would make the programmer want to turn down 2-4 other high-quality shorts. Since it was impossible to watch everything, we also used to turn off a bad short 5 minutes in, but of course a 5 minute short we'd always watch in full, so keep in mind that your beginning still has to pull the audience in right away, just like in a feature. A shorter short also helps if your goal is to eventually have it online/on YouTube as it lowers the mental barrier for people to commit to it and will take less time to load. Hope this helps, and good luck!

Ferdinand at 2011-09-23 01:12:26:

I agree with Dave. I was part of a group of pre-screeners for a film fest. Does a short film need structure? Not necessarily if it's under 5 minutes. If it's over 10, you probably should. What did we notice as pre-screeners? The longer than 10 minute ones had problems with pacing. Some scenes lingered too long. Filmmakers fell in love with particular aesthetic shots that had nothing to do with the scene. The story took too long to setup. Some were dialog heavy with talking heads. My tip: Make sure something interesting happens every 2 minutes. What's the most important thing I looked for in a film I was pre-screening? Making sure it didn't bore the audience. To quote Julie Gray. "Just effing entertain me!"

Belal Khan at 2011-09-23 08:01:09:

Ditto! Thanks Dave for the great input. In the end it's depends on your goal with the film and where you want to showcase the end product. I wholeheartedly believe that structure is necessary whether you're putting together a 30 sec commercial, 3 min short, 15 min short or a feature film. Not just for keeping the viewer's attention, but also for our own sanity. However, what structure you decide to use, goes back to your goal with the film. I'm personally a fan of non-fiction story telling and been practicing telling my own real life stories in the 3-act, 12 steps of hero's journey format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5bUz6zhbqU

Amos Posner at 2011-09-23 11:45:35:

Can I sort of agree with both sentiments? I've dealt with a lot of shorts working in development (in the indie world, where writer/directors and first timers are prevalent) and made a few shorts myself. I think Dave is correct that structure is more important in longer shorts. In shorter ones, I think Munroe is right, BUT even a short that doesn't have time for a three act structure should usually have some sort of introductory image/thought/moment, as well as a concluding one. Something to bookend it, something to tell you why it's beginning and ending where it does. Mostly, make it good and interesting. Take chances and then polish it up as much as you can. You've got a few minutes to make someone want to see more of what you can do.

AlCielo at 2011-09-26 10:17:51:

Any human activity can be segmented after the fact into beginning-middle-end: (1) Go to store. (2) Buy bread. (3) Return home. (1) Purchase sandwich materials. (2) Make sandwich. (3) Eat sandwich. The "Beginning-middle-end" construct is so generic that it contains almost no information. What's important is audience reaction, and regular audiences do not use a grid to evaluate films. Does creating a structure map in advance and following it ensure a better sandwich? Probably not. Paradigms, beat sheets, etc. are useful tools for teaching writers how to organize their scripts, but they are not necessarily a prerequisite for writing a moving story. I've used a 25%-50%-25% 3-act model for some 6-page scripts and even a 3-page script. Did they succeed BECAUSE of the model or in spite of it, or was the model simply inconsequential? I have no idea. One thing's for sure: audiences have a greater tolerance for alternative structures in short films than in features. Full-length experimental movies are rare, but non-narrative short films are not unpopular (with their target audience). This is not to say that these experimental films have NO underlying pattern. Depending on your definitions, you could argue that the structure of "Ballet Mechanique" or "Rabbits" is actually more complex than that of "Miss Congeniality." Until we better understand the psychology of movie watching, the question is best answered (if at all) in terms of the individual story. As Ferdinand observed, the only rule is not to bore the audience.

AlCielo at 2011-09-26 17:23:37:

In the "Porcelain Unicorn" short, the ending could be changed so that the box contains the broken unicorn pieces, which the old man throws at the feet of the old woman and shouts "I suffered a beating for your sake, but you never thanked me." The structure would be identical, but the story (in terms of character) would be different, and the film would not appeal to such a large audience. Or the same ending could be used, but the sequence could be told in chronological order (with an additional scene to create a Middle section): (1) Boy saves girl from Nazis, (2) Boy grows up, searches for and finds replacement unicorn, (3) Old man takes unicorn to old woman. In this case, the story (in terms of character) would be the same, but the structure (in terms of sequence) would be different (there would still be 3 acts). This version would be far less powerful, however. Thus, the impact of the film doesn't derive from the story (in terms of character) independent of structure, or from a 3-act structure independent from story, but from an appropriate combination of character / story / theme and a framing / memory / flashback structure. The point of the old man carrying the box is that atonement is always possible. We see an old man carrying a box, but even an everyday action like this may redeem the world. As the plot unfolds, the audience (prompted by the title) anticipates what will happen and thus participates in the development of the theme--they help construct the meaning of the film; it isn't forced on them by the filmmaker. A chronological structure would inhibit audience participation and weaken the theme. It's not that there is no structure (there is a very complex and subtle one), and it's not that the structure fits a paradigm prescribed in advance by Aristotle or Cowgill, or McKee, but that the form and content meld seamlessly to convey the theme.

Scott at 2011-09-26 17:48:09:

Al, that is a terrific set of observations and you're talking my language. I see so many formulaic approaches to story floating around, everyone hell bent on discovering THE secret approach to writing a million dollar spec script... but there isn't one and certainly not a perfect structure. As you suggest, story is comprised of many elements: character, plot, theme, dialogue, pace, scenes, scene description, transitions, and on and on. Are there principles that can help to steer us? Yes. But story is fundamentally an organic entity, characters are living, breathing beings. Why would we willingly choose to restrict them to some simplistic formula when our hope should be to tap into the heart and soul of our stories, then let them speak to us? There is no short cut and no simple formula to sum up THE way to write. Sure, a writer may get lucky once using a formulaic approach, but that won't sustain them for a career (unless they are writing purely genre films for a specific audience that wants formulas). Like you suggest, imagine "Porcelain Unicorn" told in a linear fashion. It just wouldn't work as well, if at all. I am sure for the filmmakers that the story dictated to them to be told in the fashion it was. That's what can happen when a writer goes into the story and finds its soul. Thanks for your comments!