Sold it! My screenplay--finalized deal this week!

Kyle,
First a huge congratulations on your sale!!!

Also another huge thanks on your posts and offerings like the scripts and your collection
of tips and guides and book lists etc., etc.

This has become an amazing thread on many levels!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND CONTINUED SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
You're welcome! And I'm pretty sure the collection of Award Winning Scripts will be available permanently on the Admin's site or here at DVXuser.
 
Sequence Approach

Sequence Approach

JBuddy(e-mail response)--

Kate Wright's book, Screenwriting is Storytelling, is very good. She has a section on the 12 Sequences of a screenplay. It'll definitely help you bang out a solid structure, if you're looking for more information on sequences.

To fully understand Kate's Sequence Approach, you should read her book, Screenwriting is Storytelling."

Gone with the wind.
 
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Kyle / others,
I just ordered that book, but I have a question or observation about the 12 sequences. It seems to me that many stories flip sequences 1 and 2, such that sequence 2 would precede what is listed by Kate Wright as sequence 1. Especially in horror genres, where the opening hook first reveals the antagonist in an opening hook kill scene. Then in the next sequence we would see the hero, her ordinary world, call to adventure, etc.
 
That "CREATING 12 SEQUENCES WITHIN 3-ACT STRUCTURE" thing looks like a plan you give to people who work on a conveyer, assembling different parts to construct the same product over and over and over again. Why would anyone use it? Where is the creativity in that, apart from puting in names, scenes and a little bit of emotions in that plan? It looks like those numerial pictures that you can paint. I don't get it.

I quess it works perfetcly, if your main goal is to make money...
 
As Robert McKee says, if you are content writing and making an art film and do not mind if your story is not commercially successful, then by all means make an art film, a miniplot or antiplot art film. But if you want commercial success, which also equates to many more people being moved emotionally by your story, then you should use classic story telling technique. It might seem constrictive, but in fact it can be liberating. Even with a structured "formula", it is really just a form that works, and takes a great amount of creativity to weave a plot, subplot, theme, arcs, unique characters, and move readers emotionally, within that structure.

The classic story structure works (movie goers like it) because it is a metaphor for life, our own life (hero) journey.

Donatas.Kaulinis said:
That "CREATING 12 SEQUENCES WITHIN 3-ACT STRUCTURE" thing looks like a plan you give to people who work on a conveyer, assembling different parts to construct the same product over and over and over again. Why would anyone use it? Where is the creativity in that, apart from puting in names, scenes and a little bit of emotions in that plan? It looks like those numerial pictures that you can paint. I don't get it. I quess it works perfetcly, if your main goal is to make money...
Click to expand...
 
If you read the sequence descriptions, you'll see that they are VERY GENERAL. You, as the creator of your story world, have to supply all the specifics, the details that make your story unique and make it YOUR STORY. I guarantee if two people from this forum used Kate's 12 Sequence approach to design and write a screenplay, they would come up with entirely different stories--each potentially very effective and moving in its own way.

The 12 Sequence steps aren't DOGMA, just guidelines. Change them, add to them. Do whatever you want. You're the writer!

Randall, you're absolutely right about moving the sequences around to suit your story's needs. Do it without hesitation.

In her book, she gives specific examples for each Sequence using three disparate, but highly successful Hollywood movies--proving the point that the approach is GENERIC but the end product is SPECIFIC and UNIQUE.
 
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kylekmd said:
If you read the sequence descriptions, you'll see that they are VERY GENERAL. You, as the creator of your story world, have to supply all the specifics, the details that make your story unique and make it YOUR STORY. I guarantee if two people from this forum used Kate's 12 Sequence approach to design and write a screenplay, they would come up with entirely different stories--each potentially very effective and moving in its own way.
Click to expand...

I've found that I understand these structural principles better the more I read a different teacher's description of them. Blake Snyder describes them one way, Robert McKee another, and so on.

I'm no doctor, but I liken it to a human body. We all have a skeleton that looks relatively the same which supports us so that we don't slump down into a gelatinous Jabba the Hut-like mess of skin, muscle, and fat. Then we have muscles and organs and so on. What makes us look different and defines our identities to others is the outer shell; our skin, clothes, eyes, hair style, way we walk, talk, age, etc. Sure, skeletal and muscular structure and what is underneath has a certain impact on it, but it is not the only deciding factor that makes everything on the outside appear the way it does to others.

Or how about a pizza? They all have a crust, cheese, sauce, and then a combination of toppings. Most of the choices of toppings are the same at just about every pizza place in the country. But yet, one place can make a really great pizza, and another a really awful one.
 
Or a house. If I buy a house sight unseen, or pay to have a home built, I and 99% of people expect that home to have a predictable general structure, and in a certain order. Frames, cubical, entry, square walls, kitchen attached to living room instead of bedroom, etc. Now some homes are more artsy, deviate from the norm, like geodesic homes, sod homes, etc., but they are not what most of the public wants and expects. Even classical homes (stories) allow for quite a bit of customization that makes them unique.
 
Thanks Kyle. I am still figuring it all out myself. There might be a way to introduce the hero along with the antagonist in sequence one. At least the hero perhaps as a child, then zing forward to more present day, hero's ordinary life, etc. I am just thinking of classic horror movie opening hooks that seem to introduce the antagonist moreso than the hero in the opening sequence, but yet often the hero follows the opening hook sequence or scene, or is part of the opening hook (e.g. protagonist in opening scene of "They" where as a child the protag is attacked by antag but lives; then next sequence is present day, hero grown up). Well, I am beat sheeting / sequencing a new horror story idea thus my comments about whether the hero or the antag are in the opening hook, which for horror is often an opening kill scene by the antag to show the genre, etc.
 
Randall you misunderstood me. I wasn't talking about art films. I simply believe that the plan itself might depend on the story. That's why I try to use the main consepts of drama when making some sort of a film. They are more flexible I believe.

It's strange to me, that you could worry more about money, than how is your idea going to be seen :\

By the way, I do understand that you can do different movies with one plan, but.... let's say movies like shawstank redemption or any other succesful film adaptions of novels. Do they fallow these plans? I'm afraid the answer will be yes, ofcourse they do :D What I mean is I don't say story shouldn't have structures. That would be ridicilously absurd.
 
Let me start off by saying I love the Horror genre. In fact, I’m currently working on a Horror script. Horror is a great way for screenwriters to break into the business. And your movie doesn’t need any A-list actors (though Jessica Biel in a skimpy white tank top surely didn’t hurt the 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre), just a unique story concept and, of course, a great MONSTER.​

One recommendation I have is based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous warning, "He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process."​

This potential "devolution" is exactly what you want to exploit during the second half of your script.​

Examples
2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Erin (Jessica Biel) mercy kills her friend Andy, who’s just "hanging around" the Hewitt basement, then grabs Morgan (another friend who's mortally wounded) from the bathtub and makes for a quick escape via the back stairwell. Later, she becomes an aggressive killer just like her attacker Leatherface, when she repeatedly plows over Sheriff Hoyt on the road in front of Luda May's store.​

2006 (US) The Descent: Sarah reluctantly "euthanizes" her friend Beth (who's near death from a pickaxe injury to the neck) by bashing her skull in with a rock. Later, she launches a grand assault on those freaky, bat-like humanoids--killing several of them--prior to escaping. Or does she? (The Director's Cut is the better ending IMHO).​

So many more examples... I’m just tired right now.​

And BTW, just because you're writing a Horror script doesn't mean you should forget about writing from theme or metaphor. For example, the fairly recent horror film Vacancy starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckensale is about the emotional vacancy in their marriage and the physical vacancy of their child following his accidental death, as well the recurrent vacancy at the Prairie View Motel created by the killers.​
 
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Hey Kyle,

Thanks for continuing to post stuff like this in your thread, I am finding it to be very helpful as I'm sure many others are. Cheers. :beer:
 
Regarding the 12 SEQUENCE APPROACH for the INTERNAL/Emotional Structure...

To fully understand Kate's Sequence Approach, you should read her book, Screenwriting is Storytelling."

Gone with the wind.
 
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Regarding the external sequences:

Is it me, or do two additional external setbacks in sequences 10 and 11 seem like overkill (no pun intended)?
 
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