Sequences

"I'm talking about the questions being posed in an act or a sequence and how those questions get resolved those to me sure stay very much the same throughout the process."

"I know that I personally really tend to use a five-act structure on anything that's longer than 20 pages. I just find it more helpful for me to have five acts and the turning points and the climaxes and etc within that."

"what does the second half of the movie look like? I think there's a lot of people that because writing second acts is so unpleasant that they want to skip to the, you know, the low point and then the, and then coming out the other side."

"I think there are three kinds of sequences, fundamentally. I think there are plot sequences, which are sequences that are driven entirely by the plot question, where character can kind of perform underneath, but really the sequence is driven by the plot question. Then you have what I would call plot character sequences, where you do have a plot question that's primary, but the reason that question is there is really more for the unfolding of character. Then you have a different kind of sequence altogether, which is unusual, much less frequent, but which is a character sequence, where there really isn't a plot question. The question of what will happen next is not being asked or even explored by the character."

"The question you always have to ask in these sequences is where's the intensity. It's either intensity of plot or intensity of plot and character in balance or it's intensity of character, but it always has to be intense. As soon as they get off the beach, suddenly who these people are begins to flower -- you know, suddenly you see Tom Hanks's character, suddenly you see the sergeant, suddenly you see there's a guy who gets given a dagger and he picks it up and he starts to shiver and he starts to break down and getting kind of hysterical crying. So suddenly all that intensity of action is translated to intensity of character."

"If you say my life makes sense, then what you're saying is the actions that I take have meaning. And if you say my life makes no sense, then what you're saying is the actions in my life are of no consequence. So in some way, plot at the beginning of a story like that is where the character kind of thinks that they are part of something -- society and a group of relationships, and they can make sense of themselves. Plot is important or has a value. And if they go through their journey and they begin to realize that actually no one cares for them, that society has no interest in them, that there is no way that they're going to fit into this world and there is no place for them -- by the end of that story you only have character. There's no plot. It doesn't matter what Johnny does. Nobody cares."

"The point about it being a plot character sequence is, you know, you couldn't do this kind of character work if Jason had the responsibility of driving the plot of the story. You have to give as it were the agency of the action to the opposition to allow Jason the space to start unfolding these questions about himself."

"The more characterful you get, the more it makes the audience introspective -- makes the audience ask questions about themselves rather than necessarily about what's going on on screen. Because in terms of plot there's nothing to understand; there's nothing happening. Johnny Boy will rant for the next 10 minutes and in terms of action of story nothing is going to happen."

"In Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it's reversed. The character question comes first, unlike Toy Story, unlike 90% of stories. The character question is, will Jean-Dominique Boby find a way to make this existence palatable to himself? Will he be able to reconcile himself to this life? And that question is asked first, and then the plot question comes after. Will Jean-Dominique Boby write a book? And because he writes a book, he finds a way of making his life reconcilable to himself. Most stories have the plot question asked first, made possible by the answer of the character question. If you are doing it the other way around, it's a character-driven story, which is to say the character question comes first and is answered last."

"This is not a recipe to write, it's a recipe to rewrite. You look at your scene and you say, okay, there is no plot question to this scene. The question that scene is really, what does the character have to understand? It's always about the audience. It's not about the writer, it's not about the characters -- it's about what do the audience understand now."

"I think the biggest thing that I've learned is that I think all these story beats are here. But I think what is actually an unhelpful idea and concept is that there is three acts."

"The mirror image is her on land, back on Earth, standing up and being surrounded by sound. And that's something that they've done a very good job of in the film. It's not as written as much on the script, but the sound plays a particularly important role in creating that contrast."