The Domino Principle for Filmmakers

What helped Sean Baker go from a self-financed indie filmmaker to the winning-est writer-director-producer at this year's Oscars over his 25-year career?

The Domino Principle.

Most filmmakers pursue each new project as a stand-alone affair: make the movie you want to make right now, without much consideration for the future.

They then hope that the film does well, that people like it, that it gets distribution, and makes enough money that they can then make another film.

Rarely do filmmakers have a plan for the future - but that's a mistake that ignores the dynamics at play in their film careers.

Dominoes?

There's a physics principle known as the Domino Principle, or the Domino Effect. It states that a domino can knock over a larger domino up to 1.5 times its size.

Here, let's have physics teacher Stephen Morris explain:

Boom, indeed!

Now, how do you apply this principle to your career as a filmmaker?

Films As Dominoes

Last week I hosted a live show of our podcast, Truly Independent, at the 2025 Zions Indie Film Fest.

This principle came up as we were talking about how to leverage your short film to get your next project, and the next, and the next...

The core takeaway was the importance of momentum. The physics principle works because you have to add the energy of the domino and add in the effect of gravity. That's what allows the physical dominoes to knock over larger and larger dominoes in their path.

With films, you need to create that same momentum. You do this by understanding the principle, planning, and executing.

That's how to knock over the "100-pound domino" in your own career. It's unlikely that the 5 mm domino will have any effect on the meter-tall domino, unless there are a dozen other dominoes increasing in size and weight in between.

So your current project may be the first domino, or the fifth, or the ninth. But if you keep applying this principle, you can knock over bigger and bigger dominoes through momentum and focus along the way.

You see how meticulous Stephen was in the video at the placement of each domino. The same applies to your film projects. You can ask a series of questions to help apply this principle:

• What is the next project?
• How will this project help me get the next one?
• What momentum do I need to make the next project fall as well?"

If you look at the "domino effect" at play over the 25-year career of Sean Baker, you can see the dominoes that had to fall in order for him to have the success he's having with Anora.

In a 2025 interview, Baker shared that the idea for the story that became Anora started fifteen years ago. He had five dominoes worth of momentum before he was able to finally knock over this one.

Not Just Sean

My own career - as I'm sure yours as well - follows the same principle. I started in sound, then moved to post-production sound, then started writing, then producing small commercial projects, then bigger commercial projects, then documentaries, then reality tv, then larger documentary and pilot projects, then features. That trajectory of hundreds of dominoes took 12 years!

Even if you just zoom in on the four feature film projects I've done, the first was a sub-million dollar budget with 4 actors and very few locations.

The second was larger-but-still-sub-million-dollar budget with three main actors and few locations.

The third was an internationally produced film for under $2 million with about a dozen actors and a crew of over 120 people.

And the last was a ~$1 million period piece with 40 speaking roles, lots of locations, and was the best reviewed and most profitable film to date.

All of that has built up enough momentum that I'm now able to raise money for Producer Fund I and get that project going.

What About You?

A few filmmakers at the live taping of the podcast lamented that "this principle doesn't apply to me", because they have had a number of projects that haven't created any momentum for them in their career.

My response was that they probably weren't actively trying to apply this principle and benefit from it.

The projects were disconnected (different genres, different styles, etc), and there wasn't a plan to create momentum with each one. They made a short film, then watched as it "fell", then started over with a new domino.

To apply the principle, you've got to "line up the dominoes" ahead of time, and have a plan for how each will create the momentum necessary to knock over the next, and the next, and the next.

The biggest thing you can do is take responsibility for that momentum, rather than expecting it to be created by someone else.

Taking that responsibility will help ensure that your current project help you create the momentum you need to get the next project, and the dream project you'll do years from now.

That's what my book, Blockbuster, is about. How independent creators can build massively profitable businesses. Get your copy here.