Frameworks · 5 of 8
The Sequence Approach
Eight sequences of 12 to 15 pages.
Where it comes from
Frank Daniel, who taught it at Columbia, USC and AFI; written up by his student Paul Joseph Gulino in Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach (2004). It descends from the silent era, when a film was shipped on reels of about ten minutes and each reel had to hold on its own.
Who uses it
American film schools (USC, Columbia), and writers who find beat sheets too prescriptive. Common in independent film.
What it is good for
Best for solving Act 2: each sequence has its own question, so sixty pages become four twelve-page problems. Works for almost any genre. Weak as a first-draft generator; it describes rhythm more than content.
The stages
- 1Sequence 1: status quo and disturbance
Establish the protagonist and the world, then the point of attack. Each sequence works like a short film with its own tension that resolves into the next.
- 2Sequence 2: predicament and lock-in
The main tension of the film is set: "will she...?" The lock-in is the moment there is no easy way out.
- 3Sequence 3: first obstacle
Often the fun of the premise. The hero's plan meets the world, and the world pushes back.
- 4Sequence 4: first culmination
The hero seems close to success or to failure; the midpoint changes the nature of the problem, not just its difficulty.
- 5Sequence 5: subplots and rising action
The place subplots earn their keep. New information or relationships raise the cost of the main line.
- 6Sequence 6: main culmination
The lowest point or the hollow victory. Whatever the hero wanted at the lock-in is now won or lost, and it is not the end.
- 7Sequence 7: new tension and twist
Act 3 begins with a new, sharper question. Gulino stresses the twist: something the audience did not expect that follows from what they knew.
- 8Sequence 8: resolution
Resolves the new tension and, through it, the original one. A short coda shows the changed world.
Seen in
- Toy Story
Gulino's example. Seq 1: Woody's world and Buzz arrives. Seq 2: jealousy, Buzz out the window, lock-in: Woody must bring him back. Seq 4: captured by Sid at the midpoint. Seq 6: Buzz learns he is a toy, the lowest point. Seq 7: the escape from Sid's house. Seq 8: the moving truck and the rocket.
- North by Northwest
Each sequence is a set piece with its own question: the kidnapping, the UN, the train, the crop duster, the auction, Mount Rushmore. Hitchcock built films in reels before anyone named the method.
- The Fellowship of the Ring
Gulino uses it to show sequences at feature-plus length: the Shire, the road to Bree, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlórien, the breaking of the fellowship, each closing one question and opening the next.
Try it
Add these 8 stages to your film as plot beats