Planning, Scripting & Ideas
Three-act structure
Also called: 3-act structure, setup confrontation resolution
Act one establishes the situation and the question. Act two is the attempt, the complication and the low point where it looks like the thing will fail. Act three resolves it and says what it meant. In a twenty-minute video the acts run to minutes rather than reels, and act two carries most of the length.
It suits any video with an outcome: a build, a challenge, an experiment, a review that ends in a verdict. It fits a tutorial badly, because there is no tension in step four of eleven. Forcing it where nothing is at stake produces a sagging middle.