The 2005 screenwriting book that’s taken over Hollywood

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/hollywood_and_blake_snyder_s_screenwriting_book_save_the_cat.single.html

by markcmyers • 13 years ago

278 173 13 years ago

slate.com

dugmartin2• 13 years ago

Some friends and I made a simple hot-or-not style site using the "Save the Cat" formula as a way to kill time on a 6 hour drive:

http://www.pitchwar.com/

arjie• 13 years ago

Some of these are outrageously funny. Well done.

mey• 13 years ago

I was laughing at "On the morning of a divorce a kleptomaniac construction worker tries to find himself but when terrorists forecloses on his house he/she must learn all that glitters isn't gold or all is lost."

Nice site

yahelc• 13 years ago

I think you might have a bug. The winning version was on the right side for me nearly every time I tried (n equals more than 30).

mhartl• 13 years ago

Fun. One thing you might update: you use "he/she" in some places, but just "his" in others. I suggest "he...his" or "he/she...his/hers" instead.

dugmartin2• 13 years ago

We sort of ran out of steam and the joke got old after the drive so we never added or edited the template.

gohrt9• 13 years ago

You coded a website while driving (I presume the passengers did most of the work) in a car? Nice.

manish_gill• 13 years ago

Haha. Those were some terrible pitches (sorry!). We have something similar on our IRC bot. Can be hilarious sometimes. :D

<me> !movieplot

<•rbot> Summary: He's a scrappy voodoo gangster from the Mississippi delta. She's a high-kicking mute pearl diver with the power to bend mens minds. They fight crime.

<•rbot> Summary: He's a Nobel prize-winning white trash rock star looking for a cure to the poison coursing through his veins. She's an enchanted African-American detective from the wrong side of the tracks. They fight crime.

etc etc.

thirdtruck• 13 years ago

There's at least one real physicist turned rock performer out there.

georgemcbay7• 13 years ago

I haven't read "Save the Cat" so I can't speak to it specifically, but the article doesn't do a great job of selling me on the idea that the book is responsible for the sameness of movie plots considering that for all the examples of "beats" given in the article, I can think of dozens and dozens of movies that hit those beats well before 2005 (when the supposedly ruinous screenplay manual was published).

If anything, it seems like the book was just clearly documenting what nearly every writer was already doing anyway, in some cases basically as far back as three act storytelling has existed (even prior to movies existing at all).

Semiapies2• 13 years ago

I think the premise is that this book codified it, and thus a lot of movies have been based on its specific formula rather than various writers' intuitions/interpretations of these broad pattern.

I'm skeptical, but I picked up the book to take a look.

georgemcbay7• 13 years ago

Yeah, that seems to be the premise, but I really don't get the sense that movies, overall, got significantly more formulaic post-2005 (there was already a pretty major amount of sameness back in the 90s).

I do think that at the highest end of budgets there is less risk taking (because of the extremely high cost of a flop), and thus perhaps there is increasing adherence to the tried and true story formula, but I believe that has more to do with astronomical budgets than the publication of this manual and as I mentioned, I believe this trend started well before 2005.

See also: Big budget videogames, which also suffer from a similar sort of sameness, but without a widely accepted "How to Make a Big Budget Game" formula book.

Terretta• 13 years ago

"If anything, it seems like the book was just clearly documenting what nearly every writer was already doing anyway..."

In the author's next book, Save the Cat Goes to the Movies, he documents "the key breakdowns of the 50 most instructional movies from the past 30 years".

So yes, it would seem even the author considered it documenting rather than creating the approach.

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Goes-Movies-Screenwriters/dp/...

tptacek• 13 years ago

Since the author of the article says the same thing directly, this is a somewhat superficial critique of that article.

scott_s• 13 years ago

Really? I missed it. Granted, I didn't read it too carefully because I felt he got repetitive, but I definitely got the impression that he was claiming that the book caused the scripts, and not the other way around. Near the beginning:

Maybe that’s what Snyder intended. But that’s not how it turned out. In practice, Snyder’s beat sheet has taken over Hollywood screenwriting. Movies big and small stick closely to his beats and page counts. Intentionally or not, it’s become a formula — a formula that threatens the world of original screenwriting as we know it.

I read that as "this book caused this kind of screenwriting," not "this book documents the kind of screenwriting that goes on."

georgemcbay7• 13 years ago

The article isn't that well written so there's some wiggle room in either direction, but by my reading while he does say the same thing directly, he attributes that view to the author of the book and then attempts to refute it, while mostly failing (IMO).

  Snyder, who died in 2009, would almost certainly dispute
  this characterization. In Save the Cat!, he stresses that
  his beat sheet is a structure, not a formula, one based in 
  time-tested screen-story principles. It’s a way of making  
  a product that’s likely to work—not a fill-in-the-blanks    
  method of screenwriting.

  Maybe that’s what Snyder intended. But that’s not how it
  turned out.

The way I read it, I'm agreeing with what the author of the article thinks the now-dead author of the book would have said, but the author of the article himself claims to have a view at odds with this view (but then goes on to fail in proving his view, IMO).

Steko• 13 years ago

Poor HN, thought they were being all contrarian and then wham, RTFA'd (don't worry guys it was a #slatepitch so turns out you were being contrarian!).

By the way here's a list of the beats:

http://jordanmccollum.com/2012/08/blake-snyders-save-cat/

About half of them are non-trivial, the rest amount to something like:

1. Title sequence.

2. Stuff happens.

3. Things quiet down a bit.

4. Roll credits.

DocSavage• 13 years ago

"Save the Cat" may be popular, but the idea of breaking down the three-act structure for screenplays has been around for a while. I took a screenwriting class that had a similar template that was taught to UCLA screenwriters who have then taught it to others. Wikipedia has a page on the three-act structure as it relates to screenplays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure

I like to think of it as a pattern -- something that has been proven as one way to tell a story. Screenplays are particularly conducive to this patterning because (1) movies are generally about 90-120 minutes so not a huge variation in length, (2) each page of the screenplay is about a minute on screen so you can easily project where critical points usually sit, e.g., the inciting incident, and (3) really big budget films seem to be made more on how not to lose money rather than how to try something original and potentially misfire. The third point is why Hollywood prefers making a movie with a proven market and audience (i.e., proven book sales) than using original spec screenplays.

revelation• 13 years ago

This structure goes all the way back to the ancient greeks.

comrade_ogilvy2• 13 years ago

There must be 50 books out there about screenwriting that talk in similar terms about the pattern -- the 3 act structure with character development tent poles and rising stakes. Their weakness is that there is no admired movie that fits any proposed pattern very closely, although many excellent follow the pattern loosely.

Perhaps the genius of this book is it has achieved the correct enough formula for comfortable mediocrity? Dunno. Do not care.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

Somehow I think this is closer to the truth. Took the Cinema 150 class at USC (nice general ed credit) and the structure of screenplays was covered both from a classical "Hero's Journey" sort of way and the 3 act play sort of way. As others have mentioned studying story telling goes waaaaay back.

In general I suspect that the marginal return in the movie due to the story is not high enough to justify investing there. If a movie made to a formula earns the same as a bespoke movie but costs less because it was made in 4 months instead of a year, guess what the formula movies get funded.

reeses2• 13 years ago

To cast it to 'hacker' terms, it's much like design patterns. Prior to GoF and subsequent pattern library books (meta-patterns), engineers followed certain patterns when building systems.

Once it was written down and the patterns were explicitly named, developers, especially less experienced developers, coded to the patterns as if they were software construction blueprints.

I'd say from 2000(ish) to 2005(ish), many conversations with developers approaching a new project would inevitably involve "we need an abstract factory here and a chain of responsibility there..." type discussions.

At the time, it drove me mad because I saw it as a failure in factorization of the development environment or the language. If a million people are writing "façades" and "singletons", then it's a bloody waste of humanity.

Now, of course, there are frameworks to make building-to-patterns easier. Instead of being a vocabulary for describing conventions, it has become difficult to leverage these frameworks without coding to whichever pattern libraries it has adopted.

Back to film, blockbusters have to follow the 'safe' path. Teal/orange, the hero of 1,000,000,000 faces, etc. have been shown to appeal to the human senses of visual attraction and folklore. There's still a lot of innovation if you hit the indie circuit, but if a director/producer/etc. want a $200m check from a studio, they have to come close to guaranteeing a "hit".

If I cared about CMM and that sort of thing, I'd swing back into systems engineering and certification, but you've read enough of my drivel for now.

fusiongyro3• 13 years ago

What makes the allegation interesting to me is that you get the same 15 beats, in the same order, occurring at roughly the same point in time. It's this specificity that makes it an interesting charge. The article's author points out that Jurassic Park hits almost all of these points, but doesn't have them in this specific order or on this same timeline. This kind of thing contributes greatly to that vague sense of sameness we get.

georgemcbay7• 13 years ago

If the author made that allegation with actual data to back it up, I'd have found the article much more interesting.

If he showed, for example, 5 recent movies all hitting exactly the same beats at the same time (or at least at the same relative times adjusted for their total run times), that would give some meat to his argument that this is more than just the usual 3 act structure broken down a bit more.

Alas, he did not do this.

nobodysfool• 13 years ago

The writer of the article mentions "The Matrix" as one of the films that follows this structure, yet those films were made before 2005 when the book came out!

comrade_ogilvy2• 13 years ago

That is fine, even if confusing. The point is the book allegedely has distilled the "good enough" formula -- whether the formula is new or mined from previous films is unimportant. That so many movies are echoes of The Matrix and similar is kind of the point.

Semiapies2• 13 years ago

Structure is important to storytelling, or else you end up with something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xslyoK9uobE

On the other hand, dang, you need more than going beat-by-beat with nothing else to say.

ColinWright• 13 years ago

Single page:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/hollyw...

thenomad6• 13 years ago

I may be somewhat odd for a professional filmmaker in this, but my reaction is less "aargh, no, my pure pure art!" and more "Hmm, interesting, I wonder if I have time to try that out?"

Frameworks work well for visual design, adverts, web design, music (to a certain extent), so I can't see a problem with them for films.

Of course, if one framework becomes the One Possible Framework, that's more of an issue. But there are enough filmmakers out there willing to try seriously wierd shit that I don't think that's a problem yet.

For example, David Lynch is working on a new feature film right now. Call me crazy, but I don't think he'll be sticking to Save The Cat's formula.

georgemcbay7• 13 years ago

Well, among the supposedly "Hollywood killing" samey movies mentioned in the article is "The Dark Knight", regarded by many as the greatest "action" movie of all time.

Which goes to show that there's still plenty of creativity to be had while following classic structure, and proving once again that broad ideas are meaningless and execution is everything.

thenomad6• 13 years ago

Yeah - if I only manage to make movies as good as "The Dark Knight" (one of my more favourite films), I'm reasonably OK with that.

foobarqux5• 13 years ago

Th best action movie as determined by whom? Obviously the generally movie-going populace likes the movies that Hollywood produces otherwise they wouldn't go see them.

gambler• 13 years ago

The Dark Knight is good despite using a lot of Hollywood conventions, not because of them. What Nolan can shrug off might annihilate the remnants of creativity in a lesser director. I've seen similar things happen in writing.

LokiSnake• 13 years ago

TDK was mentioned for a having a villain that gets caught on purpose. I think TDK did it well, but doesn't change the fact that so many are applying it like a formula and failing.

wahnfrieden3• 13 years ago

Tangential, but you got me excited about a new feature film project from Lynch... I can't find anything about one though. Did you make it up for an example?

EDIT: seems to be just a script so far, http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/david-lynch-working-o...

thenomad6• 13 years ago

Here's the source I have: http://www.screendaily.com/home/blogs/david-lynch-hints-at-n...

I'm also VERY excited about this one.

stfu• 13 years ago

No way! I am pretty sure big data strongly indicated that based on the past performance of similar movie structures these are going to perform strongly in the future. And I am quite confident that the studios are already implementing a data driven decision making process. At least since Google went around pretending being able to predict the box office numbers/success of a movie [1]...

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/07/googles-s...

ippisl• 13 years ago

Gladwell did a piece on using computers to predict a hit formula :

http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_10_16_a_formula.html

wahnfrieden3• 13 years ago

Indeed, one of the biggest studios is using a data-driven approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_Media

Great for making money and giving audiences what they want, pretty dreadful for creative output, well, obviously.

zhemao• 13 years ago

If you look at the actual beat sheet.

http://www.slate.com/content/slate/sidebars/2013/07/the_save...

They all seem pretty general. I'm pretty sure you could stick to the structure without being very formulaic.

And yes, I'm pretty sure most movies had a structure very similar to this one even before the book came along.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

Monomyth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth) slightly adjusted for the 21st century? Sounds a lot like it.

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

On that point, I seem to recall Vogler's The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters (1992), which is more directly an adaptation and application of Campbell's monomyth, getting quite a bit of the same kind of "formula that's killing Hollywood originality" criticism.

icesoldier• 13 years ago

Sounds to me like someone just packaged up the Monomyth[0] in a version that makes more sense for movies. Formula in fiction is not necessarily new, as the article points out at the end. The trick is to dress it up, change it around, or throw it out if necessary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

pazimzadeh• 13 years ago

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writer%27s_Journey:_Mythic_...

__david__• 13 years ago

This reminds me of pop music. At some point you realize most of the songs on the radio are "verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus" with only subtle variations in structure.

But in the end, I don't actually think that's a bad thing. There is a lot of variations you can do, even within such a limiting structure. Summer blockbusters are the pop music of movies. And just like pop songs, even if you know the overall structure you can still be surprised and entertained throughout.

And, just like music, it doesn't mean that there can't be things that break the mold entirely, even if they aren't quite as popular. There's always going to be someone out there pushing the boundaries, and there's always going to be someone really skilled who makes something really popular that doesn't conform to the formula at all.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

I wonder if, in future generations, schoolchildren will write their own formulaic pop-songs as today they write their own sonnets.

geuis2• 13 years ago

In all seriousness, where is this happening? I don't remember being taught to write sonnets in school. If this is something relatively recent, maybe education has improved a little.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

I recall being assigned to write an epic poem with heroic couplets back in high school in the 1970s. I wrote mostly about the heroic struggle against boredom that students in our high school's computer science class had to endure.

bitwize• 13 years ago

This reminds me of pop music.

There was a book of this sort written for pop music, too: The Manual, or How to Have a Number One the Easy Way by Bill Drummond and Jim Cauty, also known as The KLF.

It's brilliant and hilarious; at one point they describe "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley as the perfect pop song because it plays so deliberately into schoolgirls' fantasies.

davidgerard4• 13 years ago

This is pretty much the songwriting bits of The Manual, for films. http://rocknerd.co.uk/2013/07/19/the-manual-hollywood-editio...

tripzilch2• 13 years ago

It's brilliant and hilarious; at one point they describe "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley as the perfect pop song because it plays so deliberately into schoolgirls' fantasies.

Oh I didn't catch that part, I only read it half-way. I should pick it up again :)

BTW anyone interested can find several plain text copies of this book with a simple search query. The KLF (Discordians) were pretty big on Kopyleft afaik, so I doubt they mind either.

estebank• 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2cfxv8Pq-Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk-I85A5-hU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

pchristensen• 13 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking of - "This is How To Write a Love Song"

Zimahl• 13 years ago

All I have to say about this is maybe. I mean, tropes are used, overused, and come and go - that's how the industry works. Writers are who they are just like directors. You aren't all of a sudden going to turn Zack Snyder into Scorsese or Abrams into Tarantino.

But then again, Scorsese and Tarantino aren't making movies like 'Pirates of the Caribbean 7: Wet, Hot Caribbean Summer' that can be absolute shit, but as long a Johnny Depp is playing Jack Sparrow it's a billion dollars globally.

RockyMcNuts• 13 years ago

There are a lot of tropes - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NarrativeTropes

sort of think anyone who is going by a formula wasn't going to do a masterpiece in the first place.

anigbrowl9• 13 years ago

Masterpiece != originality. Originality is extremely overrated.

gohrt9• 13 years ago

Funny you mention Tarantino, who built his whole career by cut-and-pasting tropes, beats, and clips from classic Asian movies. Or as Tarantino calls it, "homage"

guard-of-terra5• 13 years ago

These days I try to avoid going to movie unless it promises something genuinely new and interesting.

All kinds of comic-inspired movies are hard no.

And when you spend less time on crap you actually begin to explore the good parts!

angersock• 13 years ago

Er, Avengers was pulled off pretty well.

I'm not sure that you should auto write-off comic movies...

guard-of-terra5• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I lost anything by not watching it.

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

Not surprised. It's not about making a good movie, but about making money. Specifically making money safely, with low risk. Making a different movie is risky, and thus producers prefer tried formulas, no rough edges, no thinking really.

Shame.

gandalfgeek• 13 years ago

There's a sidebar that has the detailed outline, also called a "beat sheet".

http://www.slate.com/content/slate/sidebars/2013/07/the_save...

If you read that, you will notice that the arc of the hero almost exactly matches the one of the prototypical hero from many cultures and mythologies, as explained by John Campbell in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces

There are just so many elements one can make a compelling story out of.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

Exactly, almost to the point of plagiarism.

We may or may not be doomed to exhaust the possibilities of fiction, but we definitely seem fated to rediscover (Joseph) Campbell once every few years.

wj• 13 years ago

My favorite screenwriting book is based on Joseph Campbell. It is called the Writer's Journey and applies the Hero's Journey to the three act structure.

Based on that book I've decided that Die Hard was one of the better scripts ever written. It just nails the Hero's Journey.

This topic has actually been on my todo list to write a blog post about for a while.

205guy• 13 years ago

I came to say the same thing. I can't believe the article didn't trace the practice back to Campbell's book, especially after mentioning Star Wars (which Lucas pretty explicitly based on the formula in the book). To be fair, Campbell was writing about archetypical stories in human societies, not how to make a movie. Lucas correctly saw that they were one and the same.

chocolateboy• 13 years ago

It's odd that the article fails to mention the most high-profile film to follow Snyder's template, How To Train Your Dragon. Unlike the speculative examples in the article, the creators of that film have explicitly acknowledged Snyder's role in the development of their story (he's thanked in the credits). [1] I guess the fact that it was a huge commercial and critical hit (98% on Rotten Tomatoes) doesn't fit the simplistic, tabloid template that's taking over serious journalism.

[1] http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/03/26/how-the-dragon-really-...

davidgerard4• 13 years ago

The three-minute pop song is as formulaic, as horrible done badly, and as wonderful done well. It's like haiku, for lots of money.

foobarqux5• 13 years ago

For anyone else who doesn't like Hollywood here are some recent film recommendations:

New World (South Korea)

Le Capital (France)

The Berlin File (South Korea) (although the end is disappointingly formulaic)

After Fall, Winter

foobarqux5• 13 years ago

And watch Old Boy before Hollywood ruins it.

icebraining4• 13 years ago

I liked Barbara (Germany) and Lore (Australia/Germany), both from last year. The former reminds me of a verse from Pink Floyd's Time.

lukifer• 13 years ago

Stories have always made use of templates and archetypes. However, I vastly prefer Dan Harmon's story circle: http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/4570/673288-danharmonsto...

robin2• 13 years ago

Apparently Michael Moorcock swears by the Lester Dent Master Plot Formula: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html

anigbrowl9• 13 years ago

When Snyder published his book in 2005, it was as if an explosion ripped through Hollywood.

Yes, like The Writer's Journey was an explosion that ripped through hollywood, and Story and a bunch of other books. It's amusing and instructive to look at classics like the Iliad or Macbeth through this structural formule. Clearly, this nefarious writer also owns a time machine!

Hey, I think that story could sell...

gojomo• 13 years ago

In the mid 90s, writer David Siegel argued (in his writing and consulting) that a very, very similar "9 act" structure was the key to Hollywood screenplay success, based on his study of hundreds of blockbusters. See:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980206083911/http://www.dsiegel...

So I agree with others that the 2005 book is more descriptive of long-existing patterns (and requirements of the movie format), than prescriptive and culpable for recent practice.

julespitt• 13 years ago

I remember that site! It's a shame he didn't get any recognition - IIRC his outline was a little more vague than the one being described in this article, and therefore had more room for surprise and creativity.

snikolic• 13 years ago

I would argue that this trend stretches back well before "Save the Cat" or even Syd Field or Joseph Campbell, all the way to Aristotle. This isn't really new stuff.

A few years ago I was backpacking through the Gobi desert and stayed with a Mongolian family. On the floor next to my bed I found a copy of Syd Field's famous guide to screenwriting. Until that moment, I hadn't realized just how widespread this philosophy of storytelling had become.

vampirechicken• 13 years ago

The write lost me completely when he complained about the main character of the Oz movie being the main character of the book on which it's based.

That's just stupid. I want my three minutes back.

biot2• 13 years ago

It sounds like a good way to bootstrap a movie script. If someone came up with the same type of framework but for web development, would we end up with a lot of formulaic startups?

icebraining4• 13 years ago

Well, we already have a lot of formulaic web designs thanks to Bootstrap.

biot2• 13 years ago

It appears my reference was too oblique...

runevault2• 13 years ago

The problem is, the better ways to use formula is understand but not reference it during the initial writing, then use it AFTER if the story seems broken to try and figure out what is missing, not plug everything in as you start.

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

couple notes:

- did author himself followed some formula (essay, etc..)writing this article?

- after watching many Hollywood movies during last decade, i recently re-watched (as i had almost forgot the content of the movie, it was almost like watching for the first time) "For a fistful of dollars" - about half the movie in i was ready and felt like it was the climactic end with the showdown (bank robbery) and was genuinely surprised that it continues well beyond it

davidgerard4• 13 years ago

See KLF's "The Manual", which did the same thing for pop music.

http://rocknerd.co.uk/2013/07/19/the-manual-hollywood-editio...

Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle-eight, chorus, chorus. Verse sixteen bars, others eight or sixteen bars.

This didn't ruin pop music at the time (1988) because it was describing what was already happening. But the Manual damage over the next couple of decades is another question.

joshuak5• 13 years ago

As others have pointed out the concept of a more detailed screenplay structure has been around for a very long time, and typically pretty well understood by working screenwritters.

I remember reading about the 9 act structure in the 90s (can't remember if this is the guy who started it, but I think so): Edit corrected link (thanks to hncommenter13 below): http://web.archive.org/web/19961103105817/http://dsiegel.com

The problem with modern blockbuster films as described in the article is for the most part not because of a better understanding of structure but because of less understanding. Perhaps poor writers are using tools like Save the Cat to believe they understand writing better then they do. Or perhaps studio executives (who are notoriously near pathologically risk averse to new ideas) reading new screenplays use a poor understanding of Save the Cat to validate perspective scripts.

I can say for sure that many modern movies, particularly summer movies, are absolutely not following these structures, good or bad. Mainstream narrative filmmaking always follows the hero's journey, whether your hero is a neurotic writer in new york, a young black girl in New Orleans, or a genetically modified super hero.

Summer blockbusters these days are focused on something different. Visceral response. Well structured storytelling (whether you think that's "Save the Cat" or something else), is about stories and human relatable emotions and characters. Recent films have started focusing more on the roller coster ride of the visuals, and will do any distortion of the story necessary to motivate a visceral impact on the audience. Good storytelling takes a second seat to putting the audience into the most intense situations possible.

This has been helping get people into the theaters because the trailers for these types of films make them seam very exciting. But I would argue that Hollywood is struggling right now - the visual effects industry in particular - due to the audience getting wise to these ploys. A bad film is still a bad film, formalized story telling structure won't save you. Even less so if you ignore it so that you can have a bigger explosion.

Want to be a good screenwriter? First learn how to write a story. And then guess what? You can still have explosions too.

hncommenter13• 13 years ago

It was actually David Siegel, one of the first well-known web designers, who wrote about the Nine Act structure. I remember reading this sometime in the late 90s.

Here is the archived version from 1996: http://web.archive.org/web/19961103105817/http://dsiegel.com...

joshuak5• 13 years ago

Ah, yes. That's the one.

fsck--off• 13 years ago

Recent films have started focusing more on the roller coster ride of the visuals, and will do any distortion of the story necessary to motivate a visceral impact on the audience. Good storytelling takes a second seat to putting the audience into the most intense situations possible.

I thought that all of the movies listed (Star Trek Into Darkness, Battleship, The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Skyfall, Star Trek Into Darkness, Olympus Has Fallen, Oblivion, 21 Jump Street, Fast & Furious 6) had awful plots, but for some of those movies the visual spectacle made them tolerable.

None of the movies listed (well, I haven't seen 21 Jump Street) obeyed the rules of physics, which is a huge turn-off for me because it breaks the suspense. The best suspenseful movies they tease you into thinking that you can predict what is going to happen next, as if they were a puzzle.

I'm not saying that I don't enjoy every movie that can't be taken literally; I just don't like movies that are logically inconsistent. Star Wars doesn't follow the rules of physics, but at least it does so consistently; you understand the capabilities of the technologies that they use and can reason about how the characters might use them. I find movies that violate the rules of physics inconsistently to be intolerable; if you don't know what behavior characters are capable of, you lose your sense of immersion because you can't relate to the characters, and can't predict what they are going to do at all.

That's just my opinion, though, and obviously enough people don't agree with me because those movies (listed in article) made lots of money.

joshuak5• 13 years ago

Me and most people I talk to agree with you, although not just for physics but more generally "follow your own rules." I'm put off when I'm watching a movie and something that has been established IN THE FILM is then intentionally disregarded later in the plot. Suddenly Scotty can transport to a moving starship lightyears away, or the Hulk can suddenly control his anger. You can create any universe of rules you like, but once you do, you must stick with them.

And you're right it also lessens the tension of falling off a building when you break physics and established that an otherwise normal character can safely land a 20 story fall.

This issue reminds me of Misery: "...my favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE COCK – A – DOODIE CAR!"

olalonde3• 13 years ago

the trailers for these types of films make them seam very exciting.

The sad truth is that it's what people like (at least, if my friends are a representative sample). I personally wish there were more "12 angry men" type of movies. I'd even be willing to pay a premium to compensate for the fact that there is a smaller market for such movies. Which makes me wonder why price discrimination hasn't been tried on movies (not sure this is the right term). What if every movie was priced differently?

joshuak5• 13 years ago

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-predi...

From the article: "...half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next -- or even before then -- will be price variances at movie theaters, where "you're gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you're probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln."

Retric• 13 years ago

Movies have a lot of price discrimination not just theater vs blueray vs Netflix vs video on demand vs HBO vs CBS but also how soon after a movie comes out changes the cut that theaters get. More importantly while studios are hit driven they break even well before that 250 million sticker price gets hit. Think pricing out studio time at above market rates.

Which can come back and bite them as they need to keep making 250 million dollar films even if they don't have any worthwhile scripts this year. Losing 40 million on a film can be far better than not making one this year.

anigbrowl9• 13 years ago

That article from the other comment about Spielberg's views is well worth reading. Crowdsourcing is another thing that's likely to impact that field -I would way rather pitch the script to film buffs like yourself that are willing to throw a small sum n without an expectation of profit, such that it's OK not to make money as long as stays within budget and everyone who works on it gets paid a reasonable wage.

That said, this does put major constraints on the sort of film one can make. This isn't necessarily a bad thing artistically, but it excludes worthwhile films that can't be realized on a shoestring, or those films that could but that can't attract a sufficiently talented actor willing to work cheap - fortunately that's less problematic than the logistics of an action or epic sci-fi movie. With time, I imagine CG will break down some of those barriers too.

dkarl• 13 years ago

I think that's where we're headed. Theaters are learning to appeal to distinct audiences. The Alamo Drafthouse, for example, takes pride in kicking out noisy people, and they don't allow children at most screenings. They also have special screenings where infants and children are welcome, so they're already specializing for more than one audience. Some theaters achieve a similar specialization through their location and their programming. In the long run, I don't think the commodification of blockbusters will kill movies for the minority who want something different, any more than McDonald's makes it hard to find great food. Formulaic, standardized mediocrity will be a choice. A popular one, to the frustration and grief of progressive people everywhere, but still a choice that can be declined by those who prefer something else. And the internet will come to the rescue of those poor souls who in the past would have been limited to whatever showed up at their local two-screen theater.

There may be a couple of drawbacks to this future, though. It may mean that big franchises like Star Trek and Superman are doomed to be mutilated on this 15-beat bed of Procrustes, because a producer who intends to produce an industry-standard movie to tight tolerances can outbid anybody who wants to do something creative with it. And it may mean that most "mainstream" theaters give up on the idea of watching a movie quietly in the dark, simply because they don't have the will or the means to enforce it. I can see movie theaters turning up the lights a little bit, moving the concessions into the theaters, and changing the seating to make it easier for people to move around like they're in a club. I think the outcry against that would be a big screaming silence, because people who don't like hearing teenagers talking on their cell phones or noisily sucking face have already stopped going to big cineplexes, at least in places where there's an alternative. I call it a drawback only because I'd hate to see most of the country deprived (via price or distance) of the experience of being immersed in the big screen and transported for an hour or two into a movie, even a bad one. But there may be enough demand for such an experience to keep "quiet" theaters running even in small cities.

prof_hobart2• 13 years ago

I'm interested in what you mean by "12 angry men" type movies. Do you mean ones with less action and more human drama?

If so, I think those films are out there. They just don't make it to the big cinemas very often. I've just checked my local art-house cinema and it's currently showing

- a film about a Saudi girl who is banned from buying a bike

- a re-telling of Snow White as a bullfighter

- a "passionate ensemble drama of family dysfunction"

- a documentary about Pussy Riot

- a comedy about a bunch of blokes trying to recreate an epic pub crawl

thenomad6• 13 years ago

There is an enormous range in the movies that are produced today - it's just that a lot of them don't make it to your local cinema. Over 10,000 feature films are produced worldwide per year.

It may be worth tracking down some arthouse cinemas nearby and seeing what their program looks like!

nickik• 13 years ago

Just a little recomendation if you like 12 Angry Men, The Man from Earth.

The movie is simular in that there are just some people in a room talking and you get really drawn in.

lisper• 13 years ago

You might enjoy this then:

http://flownet.com/ron/control.pdf

seertaak• 13 years ago

Actually, I read "Save the Cat!" last night, just for fun. And while the rockstar geniuses here on HN were enlightening us on "pathologically risk averse" studio execs, "perspective scripts", "Hollywood's struggles", and "roller coaster rides of the visuals", I actually decided to give Mr. Snyder's beat sheet a spin, on the admittedly pedestrian "Jack Reaper".

And so, with my stop-watch and kindle at hand, I ticked off, one-by-one, every single major element predicted by his beat sheet -- a dozen or so --, and they were all within a minute or two (that's a page or two) from where they were supposed to be. Theme stated at 5. The debate from 12-25 (IIRC), "fun and games" from 30-55, "whiff of death" at 85,... you get the picture.

Now, before all of you monad-wielding virtuosos retort -- "well, that's a crap blockbuster movie anyway -- his silly beat sheet that would never work on truly original films like Pulp Fiction": he specifically mentions Tarantino films. Ditto Scorcese.

So, maybe a guy who regularly writes spec screeplays at $1MM a pop, who's worked with Steven Spielberg (as he humbly mentions twice -- whadya know, looks like the hacker community and "Hollywood" might have something in common after all), and who's had at least one movie grossing $100MM domestically, is a total idiot and doesn't know as much about "how to write a story" as you. Alternatively, is it perhaps possible that your towering authority on the matter of how "to be a good screenwriter" is just a tad oversold?

In all seriousness though (no, really!), I can definitely recommend the book; it's a light, entertaining read. (It is movies we're talking about, after all!) And having read what he writes about the preferences of nerds, I'm having a blast reading this entire thread. Thank you, HN!

joshuak5• 13 years ago

You may have missed my point if you think I was criticizing Save the Cat.

runevault2• 13 years ago

The thing that people who don't understand storytelling don't get is that formula are there with good reason. The important part is using the art side of telling a story to make it not FEEL formulaic, even as you use the formulas to ensure an experience that satisfies readers.

There's a great book on how people's brains react to story that I loved, and you might find interesting if the concepts in save the cat! were interesting to you, called Wired for Story by Lisa Cron.

gohrt9• 13 years ago

It really is funny how many posters are holding up Tarantino as a bar-raiser of creativity in story structure.

petegrif• 13 years ago

I was a pro screenwriter for 20 years and am intimately familiar with a great deal of 'prior art' in thinking about screenplays. There is nothing new in 'Save the Cat.'

jemfinch• 13 years ago

What I'm more interested in, but the author (unfortunately) didn't expound upon: tell me what movies don't follow the expected "beats". Those are the ones I want to see.

steve19• 13 years ago

Is there an equivalent popular/influential book for modern fiction?

philmcc• 13 years ago

You don't actually have a problem with movies using formulas, you have a problem with them feeling formulaic. (Chances are.)

Formulas exist because, when followed properly, they work. For the casual movie viewer, I'm sure that 90% of your favorite movies adhere to this structure, more or less. That, alone, won't cause your movie to feel bad.

There are countless other variables that affect whether or not a movie feels formulaic but, very roughly, I'd suggest that it's when a writer/production team feels like the formula -alone- is enough, that it should work. The beats are just there, but there's still no pulse.

IMHO, this summer, Fast Six nailed the beats perfectly, and people walked away mostly satisfied. Man Of Steel didn't, people were unhappy. Most Pixar movies are lockstep with this structure. Few people gripe about the formulaic pixar movies.

You could probably convince me that movies, as an artform, are more or less built for this structure in the same way that sonnets have a particular rhyme scheme. Sure you can make other kinds of poems, but if the audience really likes sonnets, what's the point? I think the average movie-goer really likes Sonnets, so to speak. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone has seen enough movies to develop an appetite for The Tree of Life.

Note: I've read Save the Cat, have studied screenwriting at a graduate level, and have a (very humble) IMDB listing. So consider this my 2.1 cents worth.

lazyeye• 13 years ago

Globalization is a significant influence on screenwriting big films. Because blockbuster are now being produced for a global market they turn up the special effects and visual action and turn down the plot subtlety and complexity which might otherwise be confusing to a non-English speaking audience.

icebraining4• 13 years ago

I don't get it, why do you assume a non-English speaking audience would be more confused by subtlety and complexity? From my experience, Hollywood movies have always been less subtle than the films from most other countries. And not only in movies; for example, British comedy seems to be turned into a caricature of itself when remade in the US.

TrevorJ• 13 years ago

It's like anything else - to create, it is first helpful to be able to deconstruct examples first and understand how they work.

cafard• 13 years ago

After seeing "Top Gun" ca. 1986, I said to those I went with that Hollywood had forgotten how to make movies. It knew how to make commercials (TG is full of sequences that would fit right into a Navy recruiting commercial) and music videos ("You've lost that loving feeling"), but that was about it. The rest of the movie was negligible, though perhaps I should have added in video games to allow for the fighter-jet stuff.

But was it ever that different? The stuff we still watch is the exception. Hollywood cranked out a hell of a lot of stuff 80 and 70 years ago that nobody but a film studies graduate student could bring himself to sit through. Read for example S.J. Perelman on how the studios worked.

As for "adolescent men coming to grips with who they are", arrested development is one of Hollywood's favorite subjects. I noticed this in watching "Sideways", but would Dean and Brando have ever made their names without it?

[Edit]

On consideration, isn't "adolescent men coming to grips with who they are" a large theme in Western literature? (And I suppose, but can't cite, other literatures also.) The Odyssey kicks off with Athena inspiring Telemachus to independence. Shakespeare's Henry IV plays are all about Prince Hal becoming Henry V. War and Peace follows three men from adolescence to maturity, and one of them, Prince Andrei, to a couple of levels. And I think one could find examples of literature following adolescent women through.

callmeed• 13 years ago

I have read this book 3x and it has always been a favorite.

The thing is, as soon as you read this book, you'll recognize the formula in most movies you watch, including movies that came out before the book and especially family + rom-com movies.

Personally, I doubt the book is responsible. It just heightened awareness. After all, Hollywood rarely likes to take risks. If a formula works, they're going to green light such projects.

yurylifshits• 13 years ago

Notes on screenplay structures by Reddit's CEO Yishan Wong

http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/things-i-learned-from-my-wifes...

Vladimir Propp was the original pioneer of narrative structures, published the foundational research on fairytale sequences in 1928 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp

anigbrowl9• 13 years ago

You might want to check into Aristotle's Poetics.

6ren3• 13 years ago

It makes sense we'd refine our theory of story telling. It is modelling an aspect of humanity, analogous to how lossy image compression models human visual perception.

Along the way, we might have a spuriously precise theory, that excludes perfectly good stories that would resonate with us.

But ultimately, when the theory is as accurate as it can be, it does not mean that stories become formulaic. I don't just mean that some variation is still possible. I mean that the theory is merely a way to communicate effectively - like spelling and grammar, like public speaking techniques, and the fundamental ancient story rules, like having a narrative, having characters, having a problem to solve, having help from outside. Is having a narrative - a sequence of events - really that limiting? Yes, it is. But you can still work within that structure. There are infinite possibilities within it, the same for any other framework for communication.

However, a more serious problem is that the "theory" of summer blockbusters is not modelling the human story perception at all - it is modelling the particular demographic of male-adolescent story perception. Who knew? I think it's perfectly fine that some particular demographic is being served - like bubble gum pop music. Other movies are still being made, with the long tail, as are books and blogs etc.

And, really, male adolescents are not completely divorced from the rest of humanity. We can still enjoy their films.

6ren3• 13 years ago

It's a refinement of the Hero's Journey (see Vogler's memo; Joseph Campbell).

The formula itself: http://www.slate.com/content/slate/sidebars/2013/07/the_save...

6ren3• 13 years ago

About 2/3...3/4 the way through, the mood felt a bit forced, and it occurred to me that he was applying the formula to the piece itself.

This may be a taste of the problem... but I think it's more imperfect application than damning the formula itself.

Like grammar, it constrains but doesn't limit.

gohrt9• 13 years ago

See also Dan Harmon's story circle, a less detailed version of this: http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_...

gohrt9• 13 years ago

Oh boy, I can't wait to see the article Peter Suderman writes when he discovers tvtropes.com.

ricardobeat• 13 years ago

For anyone still doubtful of how much structure and intent there is in a screenplay, this deconstruction of Jurassic Park is an amazing read: http://www.blakesnyder.com/2013/04/05/the-jurassic-park-beat...

While not exactly following the 'save the cat' formula, and probably being a much better movie for that, it clearly rests on the same principles.

hristov• 13 years ago

I remember an old Vladimir Nabokov quote that is very apropos to this. I do not remember the quote exactly and i do not have the book with me, so I cannot look it up, but it went something like this:

"The play was in perfect harmony with the modern rules of drama and storytelling or, in other words, it was perfectly idiotic."

I read this quote about 10 years ago in a Nabokov short story but I keep getting reminded of it whenever I see a modern movie. And they are getting very idiotic. The strict plot structure is making characters say or do stupid things just so the action can follow the predefined plot lines. This really prevents one from creating believable characters. All the reverses (the false victories and false losses) often make characters reverse themselves until they become mostly unbelievable to anyone that tries to remember the entire movie from beginning to end.

x0054• 13 years ago

It's not that they are so formulaic, it's that they are so identical. It's as if every one who used bootstrap for web design also used identical color schemes and layouts.

Take a look at the upcoming "RIP Department." It's like someone just took the Men in Black script and replaced all references to aliens with references to the undead. It's the same movie!

The 2005 screenwriting book that’s taken over Hollywood

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