Three act structure & Binary Oppositions

Three act structure & Binary Oppositions 

Three act structure

The writer Syd Field has identified what he calls the ideal Paradigm three act structure.

1) The Set-Up

In this structure, a film must be set-up within the first twenty to thirty minutes before the main character or protagonist experiences a 'plot point' that gives him or her a goal that gives him or her a goal that must be achieved.

2) The Confrontation

Approximately half the movie's running time must then be taken up with the character's struggle to achieve his or her goal: this is the confrontation period.

Field also refers sometimes, to the midpoint a more subtle turning point that happens in Act II- the Confrontation  which often has an apparently devastating reversal of the main character's fortune.

3) The Climax

The final quarter of the film (the Three Acts) depicts a climactic struggle by the protagonist to finally achieve (or not achieve) his or her goal and the aftermath of this struggle.

Claude Levi-Strauss and Binary Oppositions

Levi-Struass argued that a structure of narratives was a dependence on Binary oppositions on Binary oppositions.

It is a conflict between two qualities or terms.