Read Save the Cat Goes to the Movies Online
Authors: Blake Snyder
Save the Cat Goes to the Movies (2 page)
THE INTRODUCTION
Godfather 2.
Terminator 2.
Spider-Man 2.
What do these titles have in common?
Each represents that rarity of rarities in the movie business: the sequel that outshines the original!
In movies we always expect the first one to be the best. If the storytellers are doing their job, what more is there to say? And yet if you’re a true fan, you know there’s always the chance for a curtain call. Do we really believe Freddie Kruger is dead-dead? Can’t all those dinosaurs be moved to the ’hood for
Jurassic Park
5? And even though we know he bit the big Rosebud, isn’t there maybe a prequel to
Citizen Kane?
And this time… let’s
really
do it right!
So when you author a hit screenwriting how-to titled
Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need
, you can see the tempting of fate that goes with sticking a “2” on the end of it. Well, isn’t that just typical Hollywood?! Trying to wangle every last dollar out of us, to squeeze the rag dry!! Is that what this is about?
Well… yes.
But maybe, just maybe, the second one is better.
The reason for a continuation in my case is actual requests from hundreds of readers for more. Somehow, I made the foolish mistake of including my email address in the first book. Since then, I have been deluged with 5 to 10 missives daily from readers, many of whom I’ve helped by offering advice on their loglines or their movie pitches.
And that’s when we get down to the nitty-gritée.
In these email interactions, we inevitably wind up discussing “what to do next.” Okay, so you have a solid concept and a “poster” for the best movie ever made.
Now what?
As most sequels do, I return to the heroes of the first installment, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen… and Ladies, my writing partners to whom I dedicate this book. Yes, I am a successful screenwriter who has been writing and selling scripts to Hollywood for over 20 years — and my “war stories” sometimes star only ME — but without Howard Burkons, James Haggin, Colby Carr, Mike Cheda, Tracey Jackson, Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, Sheldon Bull, C. David Stephens, and many others I have met along the way, I’d be nowhere. They taught me everything.
And our process is always the same.
Once we think up the idea, pitch it around, and get the right reaction, we ask: “So what is this movie most like?” — and we proceed to take the next step everyone in Hollywood takes when writing a screenplay.
We cheat.
That’s right. You heard me.
We look at every single movie that our story bears any resemblance to and see how other writers did it. We learn what they did right, what they did wrong, and how our script MUST be a big step forward in the evolution of the genre in which we are working. And frankly, to do otherwise strikes me as foolish. I don’t just mean surveying the last five years of movie history either, because believe it or not, there are movies made before we were born that beat us to the punch on our “original” idea.
Why not take a look?
Usually if I am working with a partner we’ll divvy up the film-watching assignments. I’ll take two or three, she’ll take two or three, and we’ll “screen” them with a timer and a yellow pad to mark down where each “beat” of the story takes place.
And why.
We open up the back of the Swiss watch and take a look at how the mainspring and gears of each movie are put together. We acquaint ourselves with the requirements of the tale we’re trying to tell and see if we must use certain conventions or if we can throw them away and create new ones.
And everyone, and I do mean
everyone
, does likewise.
In this book I take the 10 movie genres I coined in
Save the Cat!
and give you five examples of each from the iconic films of the ’70s right up to their 21st Century counterparts. I detail the variations in each genre, and also show how a movie from 1975 begat one in 1987, which led to the most recent incarnation. And if you look at this enterprise as a whole, you can start to see the method of my
Cat!
madness.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster in
Contact
, this is an “encyclopedia galactica,” a compendium of every story type ever told for film. It is, in short, the most useful tool I can think of for any screenwriter, the “cheat sheets” for 50 of the most instructional movies from the past 30 years, to give you the clues to write
your
movie.
It will reveal how other screenwriters who came before you tackled the same challenges you are facing with the film you want to write — or the one you are currently working on. And to use this book, all you need is a good idea to get started. Right now. Today.
How’s
that
for a sequel?
For those of you new to my approach, I realize there is nothing worse that tuning in to a re-run of
The X Files
and seeing that this is Part II of an episode you missed. There is no more sinking sensation than to feel left out, or that you’ve come in late. To that end, I have tried to make this book complete unto itself. I’ve given you a second that adds to the first, enhances what came before — yet stands alone. If you’ve never read
Save the Cat!
(poor soul!), you don’t need to in order to use
STC! 2.
But I’m hoping that if this is your first
Save the Cat!
experience, you’ll want to go back and see where it all began. And if you’re a veteran Cat!-ite… this book will blow your mind.
In doing all of my research for
STC!2
— and learning more than I ever expected — I was reminded again what makes for a good movie, whether it’s a quirky indie or a big-budget blockbuster. And while many studios greenlight a script based on a point system of star, director, and the last hit like it, in fact the success of any film is based on two far more important factors:
- A story that surpasses our expectations for the familiar
genre
of movie it is. And … - The most crucial element:
structure.
Genre and structure. These are the two requirements for creating a winning screenplay — and the basis of this book.
Unlike the authors of other how-to’s on screenwriting, my job day-in and day-out is writing and selling scripts. I am a screenwriter first and foremost and my daily struggle is figuring out what it takes to turn my ideas into movies that everyone — agents, producers, studio executives, and audience members — will love! And the odd thing is: To have a true hit movie, to please one, is to please all.
This simple mandate, which I want to instill in others, makes up the raison d’etre of the
STC!
oeuvre: Hollywood is not the problem, story is — and I want my story, and yours, to be the very best it can be.
In years of trying to get a better grip on what our stories entail, my screenwriting buddies and I have come up with 10 types that have proven to be the ones moviemakers find most popular with audiences. Within these 10 you will see comedy, drama, and action, but that’s not what each is about. Tone is not the issue. Neither is subject. It’s about story. Only by lumping together movies that are alike as story types have we discovered that others know these tricks, too. They
must!
Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many similarities shared by the movies in each category.
Look hard at the films found in the genre I refer to as
“Monster in the House” and see how
Jaws, Alien, Tremors
, and most “ghost stories” are alike.
And need to be!
Take a peek at what I call “Superhero,” and you’ll be amazed at how
Gladiator
and
The Lion King
use exactly the same kinds of story dynamics. Both pit a “special being” against us Lilliputians who are jealous of his amazing gifts and want to stop him. These match, identically, stories from the comic-book universe and those of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman!
Why? Because it’s the same tale.
Told in extremely different and creative ways.
And while they are set miles apart in time, location, and style, these stories keep being told — because audiences across generations always want to hear them.
I have given catchy names to my 10 genres to make them easier to remember and also to deconstruct your ideas about how movies should be categorized. Monster in the House, Golden Fleece, Out of the Bottle, Dude with a Problem, Rites of Passage, Buddy Love, Whydunit, Fool Triumphant, Institutionalized, and Superhero are, to me, so much more indicative of what story you’re trying to tell. So when I ask: “What are you writing?” you no longer have to say “It’s a western” or “It’s a cop drama” — because these responses tell me nothing. I want to know what
story
you’re working on, and what these 10 genres provide are indications of story type we all can understand.
Okay, so these categories tell me how movies are different. But how are they the same? Well, after some soul-searching — and years of hard knocks in and around every production office west of Azusa — I figured out a way to codify the similarities too, and that is how movies are structured.
What I wanted to create, in addition to “type” of movie, is a never-fail template that I can lay on top of
any
story as a way to test whether or not it will be satisfying.
Think about that for a minute.
A universal key to unlock every successful movie ever made.
Pretty good if you can do it — and I think I have!
My structure education came slowly. I started my career as a young and eager screenwriter, ill-equipped to pitch to the studio
genii
who’d deigned to see me. I usually had “an idea” and maybe a few “cool” scenes, but early on that was pretty much all I had. These meetings were short. For despite the fact that I had washed my face and brushed my teeth and applied my sparkling personality at every opportunity, sadly … I had no plot. And it didn’t take long for both the exec and me to figure that out.
I heard rumors about this Syd Field guy. Once, an equally charming executrix asked me what my “Break into Two” was and hinted that the mysterious Syd could explain it to me. That’s how I discovered Field’s seminal work,
Screenplay
, and soon I, too, was pointing at movie screens at about Minute 25 of the film, turning knowledgeably to my date and whispering:
“See! Act Break!”
But as cute as this was, it did not solve my problem. I could identify three acts, thanks to Mr. Field. But in actually trying to write my scripts, there was a lot of empty space in between. So I started filling in the rest myself.
After watching hundreds of movies, I soon discovered the “Midpoint” and was amazed at how at
page 55
the “stakes are raised” and many a
time clock
appears. Thanks to other books, like Viki King’s
How to Write a Screenplay in 21 Days
, I was impressed by the importance of the “All Is Lost” point on
page 75
— and saw that something must “die” there. I also made up terminology of my own. One, of which I am unduly proud, is the part of the script that occurs after
page 25
that I dubbed “Fun and Games.” Soon, I created the “Blake Snyder Beat Sheet” (the BS2), a handy device with the suggested page count indicated in parentheses of each “beat.”
It looks like this:
PROJECT TITLE:
GENRE:
DATE:
- Opening Image (1):
- Theme Stated (5):
- Set-Up (1–10):
- Catalyst (12):
- Debate (12–25):
- Break into Two (25)
- B Story (30):
- Fun and Games (30–55):
- Midpoint (55):
- Bad Guys Close In (55–75):
- All Is Lost (75):
- Dark Night of the Soul (75–85):
- Break into Three (85):
- Finale (85–110):
- Final Image (110):
What are each of these so-called “beats” about?
Opening Image
— This is fairly self-explanatory; it’s the scene in the movie that sets up the tone, type, and initial salvo of a film, a “before” snapshot — and the opposite of the Final Image.
Theme Stated
— Also easy. Usually spoken to the main character, often without knowing what is said will be vital to his surviving this tale. It’s what your movie is “about.”
Set-Up
— The first 10 pages of a script must not only grab our interest — and a studio reader’s — but introduce or hint at introducing every character in the A story.
Catalyst
— The telegram, the knock at the door, the act of catching your wife in bed with another — something that is done
to
the hero to shake him. It’s the movie’s first “whammy.”
Debate
— The section of the script, be it a scene or a series of scenes, when the hero doubts the journey he must take.
Break into Two
— Act Two, that is; it is where we leave the “Thesis” world behind and enter the upside-down “Anti-thesis” world of Act Two. The hero makes a choice — and his journey begins.
B Story
— The “love” story, traditionally, but actually where the discussion about the theme of a good movie is found.
Fun and Games
— Here we forget plot and enjoy “set pieces” and “trailer moments” and revel in the “promise of the premise.”
Midpoint
— The dividing line between the two halves of a movie; it’s back to the story as “stakes are raised,” “time clocks” appear, and we start putting the squeeze on our hero(es).
Bad Guys Close In
— Both internally (problems inside the hero’s team) and externally (as actual bad guys tighten their grip), real pressure is applied.
All Is Lost
— The “false defeat” and the place where we find “the whiff of death” — because something must die here.