Film Courage: Can you explain the 8-sequence template?
Paul Joseph Gulino, Associate Professor at Chapman University Dodge College of Film and
Media Arts: Sure.
This originates in two ways, two places.
It originates in Hollywood history by the ancient of the one reel film (35 millimeter
film) that became standardized by the first decade of the 20th century.
The first movies by that time (by 1910) they are single reel experiences that are 10 minutes
long.
And for various reasons in the 1910 era Hollywood split in two directions from the single reel
film to what we call full length features (multi reel films - hour and a half to two
hours) and in the other direction to the serial which is a reel or two installment series.
The reason you have the origin of sequences is that in the US the distribution system
was so rigorously one reel a week or two reels a week that when the start to change that
when the started to generate full-length feature films they were still distributed a couple
of reels a week.
So if you look at manuals of the time (screenwriting manuals) there were about 60 titles that came
in the 1910’s on how to write a photoplay because the market was wide open and people
wanted to write these things.
You’ll get instructions about making sure each reel has a climax to it so that the audience
will be interested in seeing the next reel and then they will see the next one after
that so it was almost like a limited series (a feature film).
By the late 1910’s you are seeing the distribution system is changing and you are seeing in theaters
what we would normal experience as a full-length feature.
But the idea of writing by the reel survived into the 20’s and 30’s and you can see
it the way that the continuity scripts are marked.
They are often marked by sequence letter.
Sequence A, B, C, D. And that is where what we call sequences (the nomenclature) comes
from.
What Frank Daniel discovered in teaching in the eighties he discussed the three-act structure
in terms of developing it and paying it off but he found that the students struggled with
the middle part of the script because it’s intimidating.
How do you fill up 60 pages in the middle?
And usually 30 pages to set it up, 60 pages in the middle, and 30 pages in the third act.
So he revived this idea of sequences.
He said well don’t think of it as one act of 60 pages.
Think of it as four 15-minute scripts that each one builds on the last so thus the sequence
approach is born.
You’re not going to tackle the whole 120 pages.
Just figure out the first 15 minutes (the first one) and then the next 15 minutes.
That’s going to lead to some kind of major problem for our character.
So then they are going to try to explore that for the next 15 minutes.
And the effect is actually very liberating because you end up not worrying about how
you are going to fill up these pages but about how you are going to trim down because now
you have all of this material.
But it also helps you explore a premise really fully.
You have a character, let’s just take a classic dramatic instructions, a character
wants something and there are obstacles okay?
At the end of the first act we know what they want and we know what the obstacles are going
to be.
What is the character going to do?
The character doesn’t know what the movie is about.
The character just thinks “This is easy, I can solve this.”
So they try something and this is in your conceptualization of the story.
The character tries the easiest thing they can try.
And then the filmmaker, the screenwriter comes up with an obstacle of why that doesn’t
work and that’s maybe 10-15 minutes.
Alright now they’ve got to try something else.
What’s that going to be?
And you can develop it and each sequence has its own integrity ideally that what the paradigm
is that each sequence is going to have three acts also.
It’s going to have some kind of set-up.
You don’t have to have as much set-up because you know the characters but you are going
to have to introduce new circumstances.
They are going to try to get something and then it’s going to end with some kind of
resolution usually negative because if it’s positive then the movie is over.
But it leads to the next sequence and then the next one.
So you wind up with actually kind of a nested structure because the dramatic scenes have
the same three acts.
That’s why we tend to like three acts.
It depends on how you define it.
But if you understand it as working with tension were tension is just putting something in
the audiences mind (hope and fear).
Your character wants something, are they going to get it or not?
That’s what I’m wondering about.
And if I care about the character then I’m going to stay tuned because I’m going to
want to see the answer to that.
So you don’t need more than three acts for that, you just need to set that up and then
you need to develop it and then you get the answer.
So each act set up the whole thing.
Then each sequence has its own…okay the character wants something and then there are
problems.
And then each scene has something the character wants something and then there are obstacles.
So it’s like this iterative structure that keeps the audience involved because we’re
constantly wondering about how that’s going to come out for the character.
And one thing that we cover in the book The Science of Screenwriting: The Neuroscience
Behind Storytelling Strategies is this process of connection to a main character and what
the theories are about why we have that.
It’s certainly important if you come into a park and you come up on a tennis game and
two people are really battling each other it may be interesting but it’s not going
to be dramatic to you because you don’t know them.
But if you do know one of them, if you love one them and you know that they just mortgaged
your house and put everything on this game and then you know the other person is a hustler
then every…Oh my gosh!
You’ve got something that is transformational.
But you’ve got to make that connection emotionally.
To get back about the sequence structure you have many versions of the three acts in the
sequences and then in the scenes.
And that is the suspense (the tension) that keeps us interested.
We also have a chapter on contrast in the film.
And that plays also into this approach which is in order to maintain audience attention
the stimulus has to be changed frequently otherwise you zone out, you lose connection,
you will think about other things and you need reset the audiences brain periodically.
And filmmakers do it you can see evidence of it in changing light and dark, loud and
soft, fast and slow.
But you also see it in tension and release.
Tension maintained for too long gets tedious.
But if you release it and give it a chance to reset then you can go on to build it up
again and again and again until you reach the culmination of the picture and then finally
you try to release it entirely and get people to say “Yes, I want to see that movie again.
I’m going to tell all my friends I’m going to see it.”
Film Courage: Is it based on a time limit?
Is there an actual science down to the minute of what we can handle in terms of when our
mind wanders?
Professor Gulino: My understanding is (and this is something that Dr. Connie Shears might
be able to confirm) but our attention can maybe last about 3 to 5 minutes.
And then we need to reset it somehow.
And dramatic scenes tend to be about 3 minutes, usually about three pages.
And before you need to have some new character enter, you cut away, you have a new development,
something to scramble it up.
The basic premise of this book, the inspiration of doing the The Science of Screenwriting:
The Neuroscience Behind Storytelling Strategies was if you see patterns in movies and you
see patterns in the advice about movies is there a deeper reason for it?
Is there a physiological basis for it.
There is a New Yorker [Magazine] cartoon that kind of illustrates that idea.
There’s a movie theater and it’s filled with cats.
All of the cats are the whole audience.
And on screen is a shoe with a shoelace that is loose.
Okay, a cat is going to find that completely enthralling, a human being maybe not so much.
But what we do find enthralling, you’re going to see the patterns.
We are going to look for certain things and be satisfied by certain things.
The physiology kind of determines what we’re seeing on screen.
I kind of see the book (as I mentioned) as an argument settler.
What’s fashionable.
What advice is essential, what isn’t.
What do we need to know?
What do we not need to know?
Go back to the scientific basis for things and see is there something there that dictates
it or is it just an option?
That’s part of the inspiration for it.