What you see above is an excerpt from what’s known as a sequence outline, the phase in script preparation that ordinarily follows writing of the treatment.
Next question: Just what is a sequence?
A motion picture is made up of a series of still pictures (each termed a frame) taken at the rate of 24 pictures per second.* The illusion of movement is the result of a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision—the fact that the image of Picture 1 lingers long enough in the eye to overlap Picture 2, thus making it seem to the viewer that he is observing continuous action rather than a series of separate photographs.
The piece of film resulting from a single camera run—that is, the series of still pictures taken between the moment a motion picture camera starts and the moment it stops—is called a shot.
A sequence is a related series of shots—a group of individual film cuts tied together by some element they hold in common. A sequence outline is a succinct list/description of the sequences to be included in a film.
Just as the film treatment fleshes out the proposal outline, so the sequence outline elaborates on the treatment. It translates the points the picture is to make into units of thought and/or action by forcing you to visualize how you’re going to present your material on film. It “sells” your basic idea/core assertion step by step, instead of just rehashing generalities on a “Gee, this is great!” plane.
This means that, to write a sequence outline, you must learn to think of your subject matter in terms of related groups of shots—more specifically, related groups of shots each group of which makes a point.
Thus, in the fragment of sequence outline at the beginning of this chapter, the point of sequence 7 is that Dr. Smith is doing valuable work which he enjoys. Sequences 8, 9, 10, and 11, in turn, show—that is, prove by visual demonstration—that Dr. Smith (and, by implication, all research scientists) remains an eminently normal human being who enjoys the same kind of things other men do—home, family, sports, music, TV.
Each sequence does this in a related series of shots.
But that’s just a beginning. Actually, to build an effective sequence outline, you need to understand not only how shots are related, the types of sequences, but how to outline a sequence, and how to break a treatment into sequences.
1. How shots are related.
In the fact film, shots may be related—that is, tied together—by such unifying elements as
a. Concept, idea, thought.
A sequence has sphericity as its topic. Footage of such divergent items as basketballs, marbles, world globes, and fortune-tellers’ crystals is incorporated into it. These dissimilar objects are tied together by narration which calls attention to the fact that all the articles filmed have the state of being spherical in common.
b. Action.
Last round of a prize fight. Champion comes out of his corner fast, hammering Contender into the ropes. Clinching, Contender heaves himself to one side. The maneuver momentarily frees his right arm, just enough for him to explode a short, jarring uppercut to Champion’s jaw. Then—
Film coverage of this action may involve two or three cameras; half a dozen or more shots. Cut together in proper order, these shots form a sequence, unified by continuity of action.
(In all likelihood, sequences 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in our opening example will each be developed in terms of such continuous action.)
The scene is a park. It unites shots of strollers, old men on benches, gnarled trees, a fountain, children swarming over playground equipment, riders cantering along a bridle path. The thing they have in common, the element which makes them a sequence, is setting.
d. Character.
A backpacker strides briskly down a grassy slope, clambers up rocky outcroppings, plods through loose shale, drinks at a spring, pauses and wipes his brow as he crests a rise and gazes out across a broad valley. The idea behind the action isn’t revealed, the action itself is far from continuous, the settings are divergent. But the focusing of attention on one character (it might equally well be a group) unifies the sequence.
e. Mood.
Slum streets around the world. Shots of sagging buildings, gutter filth, slumped shoulders, ravaged faces combine to create a mood that, simultaneously, ties together a sequence.
Obviously, there may be wide overlapping areas between these or other categories. An idea, a continuing flow of action, a setting, a character, and a mood all may join in one sequence. The proper label is a matter of context and decision, with no two writers or filmmakers necessarily agreeing.
Internal development of sequences may be chronological, spatial, familiar to unfamiliar, cause to effect, or any of the other patterns for building an entire film which we listed in the preceding chapter. Additional useful tools include
Dramatization: The film deals with marriage counseling. Here is a sequence in which a man and a woman, playing husband and wife, lash out at each other in simulated fury.
Analogy: Same film. A sequence features a snarling dog circling a bristling cat. The analogy to the angry couple previously cited is clear.
Example: An actual couple—the wife with a black eye, perhaps—discuss their problem with a counselor, while a hidden camera captures the moment on film.
Comparison: Here alternating sequences show two couples, one happy and one unhappy, or one unhappy in one way, the other in another.
Yes, there are a host of additional ways to develop sequences. Use your imagination.
2. Types of sequences.
Whatever your material, whatever your handling, each sequence you build will fall into one of two categories: continuity or compilation. An understanding of how these types differ will go a long way towards simplifying the issues involved in creating a solid sequence outline.
A unit of continuing action, the continuity sequence may include a host of shots, but ends when there is a break in time. Traditionally (but not always, these days, by any means!) its conclusion is marked by an optical effect—a DISSOLVE, a FADE, a WIPE, or such. Casual reference to a given continuity sequence quite possibly may term it “the fight sequence,” “the wedding sequence,” “the dinner sequence,” or such, thus tacitly acknowledging the fact of continuing action; the lack of break in continuity.
b. The compilation sequence.
A unit of information or thought, and sometimes called a newsreel sequence, the compilation sequence is particularly common in fact films. Often you’ll see it in coverage of a flood, a tornado, a travelogue, a tour of a factory, or the like. This is because it enables the filmmaker to use narration to tie together a wide range of divergent individual shots taken with no regard for continuing action. References to such a sequence frequently focus on topic, rather than continuity: “the manufacturing sequence,” “the growth sequence,” “the hospital sequence,” etc. Just as in the case of the continuity sequence, an optical effect frequently marks the conclusion of the compilation sequence. Unlike the continuity sequence, however, and because the compilation sequence’s scope ordinarily is too broad to be encompassed by continuous, no-break action, opticals may be used within it, to link the divergent times and places involved. It ends when discussion of the topic itself ends.
c. The combining of sequences.
Both types of sequence—continuity and compilation—often are used in the same film. Thus, a picture may begin with a continuity sequence of dramatized action designed to hook audience interest … follow it with a compilation sequence which introduces the film’s topic and emphasizes its scope … go to a second compilation sequence which establishes the broad outlines of a particular locale … move on to a continuity sequence which pinpoints a bit of dramatic action in that locale … and so on.
This technique is particularly useful in the fact film, since it makes practical the introduction of a heavy load of information, on the one hand, while permitting the building of viewer interest, on the other.
As in so many areas in film, there’s no set format for outlining a sequence. But a good many writers find it useful to follow a three-pronged plan of attack. For each sequence, they make sure to include:
a. Point to be made.
b. What’s seen.
c. What’s heard.
Items b and c are clear enough on the face of it. The main thing to bear in mind in their regard is that a sequence outline is, indeed, an outline—that is to say, it should be kept as terse and concise as possible.
Item a, however, is a frequent source of problems. Why? Because too often, a writer or filmmaker caught up in an intriguing bit of action tries to incorporate it even though it has no particular bearing on the issue at hand. (On one occasion, indeed, I recall an eager-beaver director on a tight budget burning nearly a thousand feet of 16mm film on the cavortings of a couple of stray dogs. Allegedly, they were going to provide “atmosphere.” Actually, they only wasted time and money and ended up on the cutting room floor.)
Let us state the issue loud and clear, then: A sequence should always make a point. If it has no point to make, it’s pure waste motion. If it has a point but doesn’t make it, it’s a bad sequence.
This should come as no surprise. As previously reiterated so tediously often, your film itself is designed to prove a point, establish the truth of a core assertion. To this end, you build in subassertions, proof points supporting your main point.
That proof must be set forth visually in a sequence. And if the subassertion is so complex as to require development in sub-subasser-tions, then each of them, in turn, should be presented in a sequence of its own.
So: Step 1 in outlining a given sequence is to decide what point it is to make … after which, you go on to the matter of what’s seen and what’s heard.
Beyond this, some writers and some producers like to have transitions between sequences indicated in the outline. It’s a matter of personal preference.
Here’s how all this works, where the outline of a compilation sequence is concerned:
Now we show that a Lakewood vacation offers fun for every taste. Mixed shots of young and old alike (including plenty of closeups of happy faces) pinpoint the pleasures of fishing, swimming, golfing, skeet shooting, indoor games, sunning, girl-watching, etc.
Narrator offers appropriate comments that emphasize (with sensory words in profusion) the pleasures of each activity, plus the release from nervous tension that freedom from care brings.
DISSOLVE TO:
Do you see the pattern? The very first sentence makes clear the point the sequence is to make: … a Lakewood vacation offers fun for every taste.
The remainder of the paragraph summarizes what viewers will see when the film’s completed. The description of the footage to be included makes it clear that the camera is going to be jumping all over the place, catching a flash of this, a few frames of that, a cut or two or three of the other thing. But all the shots are related, in that they deal with the same topic: a Lakewood vacation; and paragraph 2 sees the narrator pinpoint this in terms of what the audience will hear from the soundtrack.
Finally, the DISSOLVE TO: nails down the transition device designed to move the action from this sequence to the next.
Note also that while the writer covers the ground involved adequately, he keeps his presentation brief.
What happens in a continuity sequence?
Back to Bob and Jill. In the dining room now, they help their plates at the evening buffet …eat at a properly appointed table, complete with snowy linen, shining silver, flowers, and maybe even candlelight. Both of them (or narrator, if it’s decided to handle this sequence voice over) comment ecstatically on the wonderful variety and gourmet preparation of the food.
DISSOLVE TO:
There’s no jumping here, please observe. The flow of action is continuous, beginning to end—even though quite possibly the director will cheat a bit by compressing time, via one of the devices we’ll explore in the next chapter, when we deal with the shooting script.
The point? Here it doesn’t appear until the very end, where the characters “comment ecstatically on the wonderful variety and gourmet preparation of the food.” What’s seen and what’s heard proves it visually—seeing is believing—and we exit to the next sequence via a DISSOLVE TO:
But outlining a sequence isn’t all there is to building a sequence outline. Equally important is the matter of
4. How to break a treatment into sequences.
Allegedly, by the time you’ve finished your treatment, you have your film’s action clearly in mind.
Allegedly.
Yet more often than not, when the time comes for you to prepare a sequence outline, problems arise. In spite of all your previous work, you find yourself floundering through gaps, miring down in confusion, wandering off into a maze of false paths and dead ends.
Why? Frequently, because your original concept and line of development just don’t work out well in visual terms.
Solution: Go back over your treatment, and make a list of all the major and minor points to be made.
Then, devise a way of putting each across on film—that is, visually—via either continuity or compilation sequences.
I hate to tell you how much hard work this is going to take. Or how much additional research. Or—especially—how much creative imagination.
The reason is that it’s not going to be enough merely to come up with a disjointed series of fragments. What you’re after is a picture that’s a unified whole, with each sequence integrated smoothly into the film’s overall line of development.
This is why it’s greatly to your advantage to have worked out a strong information line and an equally muscular interest line back when you prepared your treatment. Now, out of the research that went into them, you can draw incidents, units of data or thought or action to plug holes, illustrate abstractions, drive home principles, or perform whatever other creative miracles you need.
On the other hand, I’d be kidding you if I pretended that the building of a sequence outline—or any other phase of a film script, for that matter—is entirely neat and logical and by the rules. More frequently, in truth, it’s a matter of flying by the seat of your pants, catch-as-catch-can, and then developing these ideas via continuing elaboration. Here’s an intriguing bit, there a block of solid information. Then along comes an incident or two; a colorful setting; a brisk exchange. Finally, you gather them all together, and somehow tie them into a package.
I still remember one such instance. The man was a former state politico, a powerful figure of yesteryear. Now his son had attained high office and officials of one governmental subdivision in particular were fearful that reprisals for past affronts might be meted out.
A short film honoring Politico for his place in history might help calm the storm-tossed waters, it was decided. The task of scripting the picture fell on me. All I had to work from was a back-of-envelope list of high points in Politico’s career.
Each note, clearly, was basis for an effective sequence. Trouble was, the footage available on Politico was strictly limited, to the point where it seemed impossible to make anything of it.
For days I paced the floor. Still no answer.
Then, one afternoon, someone’s private angel led him to thread up a reel of stock footage on the projector.
You couldn’t have found anything much more remote to politics. All it offered was a few hundred feet of color film shot from the front bumper of a pickup truck as it bounced and jounced down a narrow woods road. Lord only knows why anyone had taken it.
Yet there it was, the living, breathing answer to our problem: “It was a long, hard road old Sam Smith”—not his name, of course—“traveled on his way to state leadership and a place in history….”
Well, after that, the rest was easy. We did it with stock footage of hands, mostly: hands chopping wood, hands laying brick, hands holding law books, hands pounding gavels. Each bit made a point as we traced Politico’s career. Where footage of the old man was available, we used it, along with shots of houses, roads, state buildings, and the like that fit in. Where we had nothing that would fit, we fell back on our bouncy woods road color, with appropriate comment about Old Sam’s climb to glory.
The result was hardly a prize picture. But it did solve the immediate problem. And, to my amazement, not long ago I discovered that it’s still in circulation.
So what’s the lesson to be drawn from this epochal incident?
Would you believe “It’s easier to make an acceptable picture when you have points to make but no footage than when you have all sorts of footage but no points”?
Finally, a word of warning: Sometimes a rushed or sloppy producer won’t ask you to prepare a sequence outline. Do so anyhow; you’ll find it helps you build a solid script far beyond any time or trouble it may take.
Particularly, it’s vital when you come to the next stage of your job: preparation of a shooting script.
*This is the rate for sound film. Silent film ordinarily is shot at 16 frames per second. Film shot at speeds slower than 16 frames gives the impression of flickering when projected.