Animation: Steps of the Story

“The story man must clearly in his own mind how every piece of business in a story will be put above. He should feel every expression, every reaction. He should get far enough away from his story to take a second look at it…to see whether there is an dead phase…to see whether othe personalities are going to be interesting and appealing to the audience. He should also try to see that the things that his characters are doing are of an interesting nature.” – Walt Disney

 

One aspect of story-telling that I find interesting in the book “The Illusion of Life” is found in chapter 14, under “Sequences.” The author states that: “Our feature films always seemed to end up with about 14 sequences. No matter how each (story) started out, whether with high adventure or complicated stories, by the time we developed and balanced and streamlined and edited we ended with little more than a dozen.”  

I find that really fascinating! Why does fourteen seem to be the lucky number? In the book they explain the fourteen sequences in Snow White:

1.       Introduction: Queen and Mirror; Snow White in Courtyard; Arrival of the Prince.

2.       Queen orders Snow White’s death; Snow White and the Huntsman.

3.       Panic in the woods; Snow White meets animals; they take her to the dwarfs’ cottage and help clean house.

4.       Dwarves in mine; march home and find something in their house.

5.       Discover Snow White; agree to let her stay.

6.       Dwarves wash up for dinner; scrub Grumpy.

7.       Queen turns in witch.

8.       Dwarves entertain Snow White; she sings for them; dwarves giver her their bedroom.

9.       Witch prepares poisoned apple; leaves for cottage.

10.   Dwarves leave for work, after warning Snow White.

The Queen in disguise!

11.   Sequence dropped

12.   Dropped

13.   Snow White making pies; witch arrives and enters house.

14.   Animals warn dwarves; they return too late; Snow White poisoned; witch falls off cliff.

15.   Dwarves cry at Snow White’s bier.

16.   Glass coffin; Prince comes; Snow White awakened and goes with Prince.

 

They also provide an example of these steps in “The Rescuers” which was thirteen steps.

I would be interested to apply this to a more contemporary Disney film since I’ve been talking “The Little Mermaid” so much, I might as well continue the theme. Here I have broken down the film into it's sequences to see how many I could come up with.

 

An Original Story Board from "The Little Mermaid."

 

The Little Mermaid

1.       Introduction

2.       Meet Ariel and Flounder, shark Chase Sequence; Meeting Scuttle

3.       Ariel and Her Father argue

4.       “Part of your World” sequence, Flotsam and Jetson, brief intro to Ursula.

5.       Ariel goes to the surface, sees Prince Eric, saves him from drowing, vows to be “part of his world.”

6.       “Under the Sea” sequence, Ariel’s father destroys her collection.

7.       Ariel makes a deal with Ursula (“Poor Unfortunate Souls”) and goes to surface where she meets Eric.

8.       Ariel spends three days with Eric. Tries to get him to kiss her (“Kiss the Girl”) so she can stay human.

Eric meets Ariel as a human

9.       Ursula turns herself human and hypnotizes Eric. Ariel heartbroken while their marriage barge sails away. Wedding mishap.

10.   Ariel gets her voice back, King Triton sacrifices himself to Ursula.

11.   Battle of Ariel and Eric vs. Ursula. Ursula makes herself gigantic and Eric spears her with a ship.

12.   King Triton gives Ariel legs. Ariel rejoins Eric on land.

13.   Ariel and Eric wedding ship scene, Triton gives his blessing. Ship sails off into distance.

When I’ve broken it down into all of the sequences in the movie, I think that the “about 14” rule works! I think that this length of sequences is just right, too. The story has a long enough time to develop and grow, without being too long or dragging. So say that you have a story with 12 sequences. That means that with three parts of the story, the beginning, middle and end, you have about four sequences to build each part of the story, which, I think makes for a firm foundation. When you add about two or three more sequences, I think that it could serve to beef up the story a little in places where not enough might have been explained or shown.

I believe that it’s no coincidence the animators seemed to keep falling into this 14 sequence plan. I think that once people discover a formula and it just seems to work over and over, why not continue with it? Sure, it’s not pushing new boundaries, but I think that anything less than 10 sequences is a short and anything over fourteen might just be a little too overblown. I think that this is the right amount of time to settle for in a full length animated feature.