What do T-Shirts and the 3 Act Structure have in Common?

Are you hesitant to use the three act structure? In this video we discuss a metaphor likening the three act structure to T-Shirts. We discuss why you should use the three act structure and how the structure itself doesn't really restrict the art, the art itself is what matters. A follow up to why you should use the three act structure and also a defense of the three act structure.
The 3 act structure is like photoshop:
• Why you should use the...
Film Riot - How to Start Writing your Screenplay:
• How to Start Writing y...

[@luckyboy5nu]

Man these videos are so good and valuable, sucks that youtube's algorithm never pushed them

[@harrysanders818]

Wow, this is mindblowing! What an analogy. It makes sense also out of artistic fundamentals. Rythm is something people respond to. And having a template like this forces your story to have that. There is also a video called "every story us the same" here on YT about that. But this t-shirt analogy certainly takes it a bit further. Albeit the risk of getting generic, it is somewhat reassuring. Im not yet totally in or against it. But as I learned with most art fundamdntals and principles like this, I suspect you use them wether you are aware or not. Similar to if you dont know notes and cant read them... you could still play music, but a knowledge of notes would greatly benefit you in writing songs. I think formal knowledge and theory about anything is much more empowering than trying to do the "oh so individual uniqe and never seen before path" entirely, which, out of my experience, is rather twisted, damging and born out of the desire to be something special, even though you lack fundamental knowledge of subjects. Its like the bad drawing, where the author says : " this is just my style, i wanted it to be like this". Imo, you can only have something be what you want if you gain the knowledge about it and then practice it.

[@harrysanders818]

That said, generic-ism is really a plaque nowadays in games and movies, so i guess there is some truth about not to too rigidly rely on formulas. It think all this generic content we see in games is a by product of formulaism, marketing and sales statistics. So i think using this as a tool is great. But as a rigid guideline and then lay back,,... not so much.... maybe

[@gamedesignwithmichael]

In regards to the art techniques, you hit on some good points. And to echo that thought and expand on it, this is a tool you can use, but if you take something like leading lines for art, making every line in your image a leading line will produce pretty bad art. I think using this like this intelligently or as aids is the way you should think about them rather then as every single work should be exactly on all the beats.
Which leads to your comment about generic-ism. 100% use it as a guideline and then lay back. That's where the creativity comes in. And if you are making a game with lots of these little stories, change it up once in a while. Red Dead 2 was excellent, but every single sidequest (except Marys???) was a rigid formulaic representation of the 3 act structure and it got tiresome after a while. It's okay to be a video game once in a while too.

[@bunnyrabbit443]

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[@gamedesignwithmichael]

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