Super 8

The 3 Act Structure is a old maxim widely used for storytelling and chronological of the scripts according to Elements of Cinema .Com. The three labeled acts are:

1. Setup (Act 1)
2. Confrontation (Act 2)
3. Resolution (Act 3)

as shown in the table below. 

Making the movie "Super 8" as an examples, the story was beginning with its introduction as SETUP. It begin with explaining the main character live and history, what is the little boy doing with his friend. For the setup of this movie, it introduce the time and all characters relationships to start talking about the story, not yet before telling the audience what genre is this movie going to present, nor horror, fiction, comedy, romantic neither any else. "Super 8" start its story by telling a group of teenage is working together to film with super 8, a camcorder widely used in the 1970s and the background of a small US countryside.

 

And when the kids witness a train crash tragedies, everything have changed. It reach the 1st Plot Point where the story stopped the introduction and start to tell the story. The story then come with more and more interesting scene, for instance, all dogs in the town went missing and found in all over of the neighbor district, people went missing, blackout, and some more unusual thing is happen in the small town which make the story creating more and more questions to its audience. And this is when the Confrontation (Act 2) take place as the action is rising and the stakes get higher.

 Until the 2nd Plot Point, where in this movie, the female main character is taken by the aliens and witness by her father, the story is now holding our hearts on its palm. As audience being more and more curious and a sudden "attack" like this will make them nervous. So now here come the Resolution (Act 3) where the story is getting to its peak.

 When the movie get into the peak, where the kids was heading back to town saving the girls, the whole movie is also about the end. The resolution part does not need to be long, instead it maybe the only last 20 minutes for a 2 hours long movie, but for sure will be the most important crucial part of it. In this scene, the hero will be in life or dead or risking their life or anyhow attracting audiences cannot missed the part. And for adventures movie like "Super 8", the scene is breathtaking as they are going to face to face the aliens for rescue the girls.

 

But when they succeed to save the girl, and the crisis is over, so do the  peak of the movie flow. According to the 3 Act Structure, after the peak, there will be falling action, which means it slow down the speed of all heart breaking, heart beating or breathtaking. So before the ending of the story, the scene turning after the nervous rescue action, it was a warmed-heart scene where the aliens finally found its way back home and both the kids and the girls reunion with their family. Compare to the previous, its is more slow or falling actions showing some controversy of it.

Refrences:
1. Elements of 3 Act Structure .com, The Three-Act Structure, retrieved from http://www.elementsofcinema.com/screenwriting/3-act-structure.html
2. Super 8 Movie Trailer 2 Official, retrieved 20 April 2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRQQCKS7go