Save the Cat Goes to the Movies Read Free Page A

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:
THE BLAKE SNYDER BEAT SHEET
    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