Chris Neilan

No Alarms & No Surprises: A Modern History of the One-Act Feature Film

Edinburgh Napier University

In Story (1997), Robert McKee stated confidently that three-acts were the minimum for a feature-length film, declaring that the one-act form was suitable only for the short story or the short film of five to twenty minutes.  He later updated his view in an article on his personal website in which he noted what seemed to him a new movement for one-act features, defined by inner conflict and ‘minimalism’ (n.d.: 1^st para).  He stated that whilst three-, four- and five- act films ‘dynamically progress their conflict around major turning points to an all-or- nothing climax’ a one-act feature ‘accumulates pressure gradually, often exclusively within the protagonist’s psychological and emotional life, and usually ends on a quiet release’ (para. 2). The lack of ‘major turnings’ is the key defining element.

In fact, theorists such as Dancyger & Rush (2002) had already identified one-act features, and today, the one-act form is flourishing in independent cinemas, garnering significant critical acclaim and even mainstream success: notable examples include Chloe Zhao’s Best Picture-winning Nomadland (2020), Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017), in additional to masterpieces of world cinema by canonical writer-directors such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Uzak (2002), Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielmann, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and Apitchatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).

This video-essay will examine a number of these texts at the level of narrative structure, exploring the techniques which the screenwriter can employ (and which they can avoid) to create successful screen dramas in the one-act form.  In doing so, it aims to help illuminate the role which the one-act feature film has played and continues to play in cinematic culture, and to combat the misinformation propagated by screenwriting handbooks like Story.

Chris Neilan is an award-winning author, screenwriter and filmmaker with a PhD in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University, focused on unconventional narrative structures.  He is a Lecturer in Screenwriting & Development at Edinburgh Napier University.  He was shortlisted for the 2016 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the 2021 Sundance Development Track.  His films have played at 16 international film festivals and won several awards.  He was awarded 2nd place for Short Fiction in the 2017 Bridport Prize, shortlisted for the 2020 Aurora Prize and the 2021 and 2023 Bridport Prize, and nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize, the 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards and the 2021 & 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology.  His hybrid novel, Stellify, was published by Broken Sleep Books in Jan 2022.  His screenwriting ‘anti-handbook’, Unconventional Screenwriting, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury.