Act and Sequence Bridges – THE SHINING (and others)
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
I got a request for the sequence breakdown of The Shining, from a writer here who’s done his own breakdown (the very best way to learn story structure!) and wanted to check his own sequence breakdown against mine. I understand completely why he wants to discuss it, but we’ll get to that at the end of this post.
First, we need to recap basic Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure.
Movies are structured pretty rigidly in three half-hour ACTS, with six 15-minute SEQUENCES (for a 90-minute movie), or four half hour ACTS, with eight 15 minute SEQUENCES (for a 120-minute movie). Both are still called the Three Act Structure
(When people talk about a FIVE ACT STRUCTURE, they are almost always using the classic structure above, but adding a TEASER, PROLOGUE, or INTRO sequence, and it’s usually shorter than 15 minutes..)
This Act and Sequence structure is extremely helpful to adopt when you’re writing novels, and the best way to really imprint the structure on your brain is to —
Do your own Act and Sequence breakdowns of several movies you know well.
If the Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure is new to you, you’ll want to start with some of these posts:
The Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure – with VIDEO
Also -
—The Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks go through the process step by step in detail: Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love, and I’ve done ten full story breakdowns of well-known movies in lots of genres as examples in both workbooks, as well as shorter Act and Sequence breakdowns of others.
—My Substack Table of Contents lists the corresponding Substack posts in order, following the workbooks, with updated examples, and links to more movie breakdowns for paid subscribers (toward the bottom of the post).
Now let’s talk about -
Act and Sequence BRIDGES or TRANSITIONS
Accomplished filmmakers often use a RECURRING IMAGE or DEVICE to indicate the end of each sequence and the beginning of another (not always for every sequence, but very frequently for the transitions between the four acts).
It’s useful to watch a couple of films that do the work of breaking down the act and sequence climaxes for you with the technique of ACT AND SEQUENCE BRIDGES (or TRANSITIONS).
When I was teaching film in college, I’d show several films in a row with clear Act and Sequence Bridges to get my students comfortable with the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure,
It was always fun to watch that lightbulb moment for my students - when they realized they’d been watching the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure in action their whole lives, without knowing it.
And so have you!
So let’s look at some examples.
Some bridges are very obvious, easy to spot, like:
- The still shots of wedding invitations that set up each act of Four Weddings and a Funeral, by inviting the audience to the central wedding of the act.
Full story breakdown of Four Weddings in Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love.
- The six stages of a con that set up the sequences of The Sting: are delineated by still paintings on title cards at the beginning of each sequence. The Set-Up, The Hook, The Take, The Wire, The Shut-Out, and The Sting. (Yes, that’s just six sequences that are named out of eight sequences total— the first sequence is the incident that compels Hooker to want to do the long con to begin with, and the eighth is the wrap-up.)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark first uses old newsreel-style shots of the map of the globe with the superimposed plane flying and the red line marking the journey as its sequence transitions in the first act, then uses visuals of other forms of transportation to bridge the sequences: boats, a truck, a U boat….)
Any of the above examples of devices or images could be used in a book to delineate Acts and Sequences.
Another technique filmmakers use for transitions is
Chapter title cards.
Chapter title cards have surged in popularity in the last few years - here are just a few recent ones:
The recent, mindbending thriller Strange Darling breaks its action into six Chapters, indicated on title cards, and presented out of order to create the movie’s very effective twist. It’s one of the better indie genre films I’ve seen in a long time – definitely worth a look!
I’m not a fan of the recent horror movie Longlegs, but some people may have seen it - it uses Chapter cards as well, with titles — 1. His Letters 2. All Your Things 3. Birthday Girls, etc.
Nope also uses Chapter titles: each title in the film refers to the name of a horse (and one chimpanzee), and by the end of that sequence, the animal is killed: Ghost, Clover, Gordy, Lucky, and Jean Jacket.
Furiosa uses Chapter names for its five acts: "The Pole of Inaccessibility", "Lessons from the Wasteland", "The Stowaway", "Homeward", and "Beyond Vengeance".
Other film examples of bridging devices are more subtle, but easy to spot if you train yourself to look, as in these classic films:
- The long overhead shots of Jamie Foxx’s cab cruising through the streets of L.A. between each sequence of Collateral. (There are similar long shots of the spaceship Nostromo gliding silently through the vast emptiness of space that mark the sequence breaks in the first Alien.)
- The shots of seasons (fall, winter, spring) and specific holiday decorations in the Great Hall that delineate the sequences and acts in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
- Another film I just love, The Princess Bride, cuts away from the main story of Westley and Buttercup to the framing story of the grandfather reading the book to his grandson at each sequence and act break, slyly demonstrating the power of cliffhangers.
- And in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, after the climax of each sequence, there is a cut to a short scene of the team of scientists, led by a mouth-watering young François Truffaut (just saying), racing to yet another spot on the globe to investigate another UFO sighting. These scenes appear every fifteen minutes like clockwork – not as blatant as still shots and title cards, but equally effective as the demarcation between sequences and acts.
Personally, I just love how these bridges, or markers, or transitions, or whatever you feel like calling them, create a symmetry and forward momentum to a story. It signals an audience that the story is moving into a different phase, and gives the audience a chance to take a breath and mentally prepare, even for a second, for the next stage of the journey.
I think it’s really useful to train yourself to look for how your favorite storytellers might be using these transitions, on screen and on the page. It becomes another incredibly useful trick for your writing toolkit.
What I’d suggest is that you choose one or a few of the movies I’ve listed above and watch it, looking for the title card, image, or device that marks out the Acts and Sequences.
Take notes, pay attention to those title cards, and see exactly how the filmmakers chose to begin, build and climax each sequence.
It might get you thinking about how you might use some kind of bridge scene or device yourself. It’s not that you have to do it, not at all! But maybe there’s a hint of some perfect recurring transition scene already in your first draft that you can build on to create a whole series of transitions that will give your story that perfect symmetry and momentum.
Something to think about!
The Shining
And now, to The Shining. This is NOT a good example to start with to learn basic Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure, because Kubrick and co-screenwriter Diane Johnson use our expectation of sequences to really f**k around with time and our heads.
The sequences in the movie are delineated by title cards — and there are just exactly the number of sequences that you would expect in a 2 1/2 hour film (two extra, for 10 total). But in The Shining, instead of being 15 minutes each, the length of the sequences are all over the map. One is less than four minutes long, another is over a half hour long, many are just six minutes, and there is no telling what you’re going to get next. This works beautifully to disorient the viewer and keep them off guard, just as a horror movie should do. It’s great to think about playing with the lengths of your own chapters this way.
But it’s maybe not so great to start with if you’re just learning the basic structure.
If you do want to tackle it, here are the title cards to get you started– I’ve added Act I, Act II, and Act III in italics myself, and the times of each sequence).
ACT I
The Interview (0 minutes to 17:40)
Closing Day (17:40 to 34:11)
ACT II
A Month Later (34:11 to 40:32)
Tuesday (40:33 to 46:03)
Thursday (43:03 to 46:58)
Saturday (46:58 to 51:21)
Monday (51:21 to 57:03)
Wednesday (57:03 to 1.35:50)
ACT III (1:35:50 - end)
8 am. (1.35:50 to 1.54)
4 pm (1.54 to 2.26)
Note that with the Acts:
—The two pretty standard length sequences in Act I take place on two separate days, with a break of weeks or maybe even months in between.
—The six sequences of Act II take place over just a week – the time has both sped up and been compressed into days, and the sequences vary wildly in length, illustrating Jack’s disintegrating state of mind.
—The two sequences of Act III are on a single day- the time is both sped up and compressed even further.
So by all means, use this classic film as one of the teaching films on your own MASTER LIST — just be aware that it’s completely playing with our expectations of how movie time works!
I may write more on The Shining after we turn this book in, if there are others interested in discussing it!
In the meantime, do you have other examples of movies with Bridges, Chapters, or Title cards for me?
Alex
All material © Alexandra Sokoloff, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
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Hmm, interesting, maybe I'll give it another try, who knows. There were some good moments. But I will say, I was happy the mom and son got away.
I watched “The Shining” for the first time three years ago. I didn't find it scary, at the end I was thinking: “What the eff did I watch?” LOL, it's a cult classic I suppose, but it didn't hit for me. Mind you, I don't really like horror so I was surprised with my own reaction.