Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
Syd Field was not a great screenwriter. But he was a very influential writer about screenplays. He’s generally credited with recognizing and subsequently popularizing the ‘three act’ narrative structure of films.
The narrative structure of movies evolved very slowly up until about the 1970s. Good movies told stories, but they varied wildly in how they told them. It was during the 1970s that a ‘three act’ structure became the default formula for films.