How it works
How a film is built
What goes into making a film?
A film comes apart into sequences, scenes, shots, takes and frames. Each level holds the one below it, and each one is where a different decision gets made. Here is the whole ladder, from a single frame up to the finished runtime.
A scene is laid out as 12 shots.
You plan every frame on the board on its own, while the whole scene stays in view.
A shot is 3 to 6 seconds long.
You pull a frame forward and it plays, full size, in its place in the scene.
One shot comes back as 5 to 40 takes.
You watch them against each other and keep the one that reads, matches its neighbours and holds its motion to the end.
A take stays attached to its shot.
Rewrite the beat, condition it again, and that one shot changes while the scene around it holds.
Twelve shots read as one scene.
Move through them and you feel the rhythm of the cut and see which shot to make next.
A scene is about one minute long.
It plays end to end, in one place, ready to cut.
A sequence holds 2 to 6 scenes.
It ends when the situation has changed. The scene you just built takes its place in one.
A film is about 40 sequences.
Sequences run from 40 seconds to 6 minutes. Forty of them, in order, is a feature.
There are 24 frames in one second.
Ninety minutes is 129,600 of them. Every one came out of a decision you made further up.
A ninety minute film is 129,600 frames.
Twenty-four of them for every second on screen. You never work at that level. Everything above it decides what lands there.