How Act Structure Sculpts Shot Lengths and Shot Transitions in Hollywood Film

Abstract: Cinematic tradition suggests that Hollywood films, like plays, are di-vided into acts. Thompson (1999) streamlined the conception of this large-scale film structure by suggesting that most films are composed of four actsof generally equal length—the setup, the complicating action, the develop-ment, and the climax (often including an epilog). These acts are based on thestructure of the narrative, and would not necessarily have a physical manifes-tation in shots and transitions. Nonetheless, exploring a sample of 150 Holly-wood style films from 1935 to 2005, this article demonstrates that acts shapeshot lengths and transitions. Dividing films into quarters, we found that shotsare longer at quarter boundaries and generally shorter near the middle ofeach quarter. Moreover, aside from the beginnings and ends of films, the arti-cle shows that fades, dissolves, and other non-cut transitions are more com-mon in the third and less common in the fourth quarters of films. Keywords: cinemetrics, film acts, Hollywood film, shots, transitions