Blog 5: Three act structure (Aristotle's poetics)

                                    

                    Three act Structure of the hollywood movie The Hangover.

The movie " The Hangover" is about three friends supporting there friend Doug which is getting married in a week. The friends decide to go on a road trip to Vegas for a bachelors party.  Little do they know that night of endless drinking ends up going terriblel wrong. The problems don’t really start to occur until the morning after. The characters wake up to find themselves surrounded by evidence of a night of mischeif. Coming to their senses, they soon come to realize that their best friend, Doug Billings a.k.a the groom, has gone missing. With only one day until the wedding, they have precious little time to find him. Only problem is, no one can remember exactly what happened.  The three friends end up slowly remembering what happened and they find Doug and arrive at the wedding just in time. The story ends with the four friends recovering their camrea from the backset of dougs car and looking at all of the pictures that were taking that night.  

The three acts within an narrative and it is with those three parts that proper stories are made.  These three acts can be broken down as beginning (Act One), a middle (Act Two), and an end (Act Three).   Alll of these steps are the basic backbone for proper storytelling. 

(Act One) Beginning       

This first part always contains these elements, the main character, location and mood, genre, the premise,  the incident and transation to act two.  

In this first act the three friends decide to take their friend doug to Vegas for a bachelors party.  The main chacters are astablished Phil, Stu, Alan and Doug. The mood and the location are set once they arrive in Vegas.  The genre is obsivously a comdey due to the joke throughout the beginning of the movie.  The primse of the movie is uncovered the minute they arive at Vegas along with the "incident" which is what kicks off the story.  The transation is when the three friends wake up in the morning and can not find their friend doug thus leading to act two where they set off to find them.  
                                                                                                            

(Act Two) Middle

The middle part of a movie is all about  conflict and confrontation.  Everything that could go wrong does.  It is with this conflict that gives birth to the mid point of the movie.  Which is the interduction of a character which sharpens the focus of the main character to acompish his goals. 

In this act the thre friend began their journey to find their friend Doug.  They run into minor characters along the way that either aid them eirth with their search or end up getting them in trouble. A new character is introduced in this act and he goes by the name of  Mr. chow, he ned sup sending the three friends on a wild goose chase to win back the casino money that they stole for them in return he will give Doug back, which Chow has Doug for hostage. The transation occurs when they win the money with Alans gambling talent and return the money to Mr. Chow in the dessert, only then realizing that chow kidnap the wrong Doug which leads to act three. 

(Act Three) End

In act three which is the final act, this is where the climax of the story can be found.  The constant big up created by act two is finally overcame the obsticles and resolve the problem thus taking bringing the story to a end. 

After the misunderstanding and mix up with chow, the three friends head to a playphone and call Dougs soon to be wife and tell her that they lost Doug.  The climax is when Stu finally remembers where Doug was.  They head back to their hotel and go on the roof thus the climax starts.  They finally find Doug passed out on the roof and they began to pack up and get Doug to his wedding before its to late.  Doug ends up making it to the wedding with mintues to spare and gets married that evening.  Alan ends up finding his camera undering the seat and the three guys promise to look at the pictures once and then delete them.  The movie end with seeing the four friend facial expressions as they look at the pictures.   

All hangover photos by All movie photos.com