There was a discussion of this over at WriterAction. A couple of showrunners reported that, yes, there is a deliberate choice at some networks to change the act structure. The idea is to get rid of the ads at the end of a show, so that people don't change channels before the next show starts.
Of course, those ads have to go somewhere. And where they go is into a newly created act break.
Best,
Jacob Sager Weinstein
All righty, then.
This is not happy news in Sticksville. I've been going through an old sitcom/old TV drama phase lately, watching a lot of older shows. It's interesting, because the old drama model, with slower moving stories, is hard to watch. But with the comedies, it's amazing to see the amount of space one had to tell a story, and be funny. These days, a half hour is barely 21 minutes. An hour is 44 or 45 if you're lucky. It's hard to craft any kind of meaningful story in that amount of time.
Of course, in this context, we're talking about ACTS as simply the amount of time before a commercial break comes in. Maybe this move toward five and six act dramas, and three act comedies explains the growing number of 'soft' outs I've been seeing lately.
Time was, you only went out on two things: jeopardy or new information. But if the days of even 12 minutes of story before a commercial are over...if you have to come up with six turning points in your stories, I start to wonder at one point the weight of the structure starts to turn in on itself. Six turning points in forty-odd minutes? How you do that?
Maybe MOW writers will be the new series writers. I don't know.
Anyway, food for thought.
As for me, I've just had the crappiest salad in creation. Now it's back to the room.
No comments:
Post a Comment