We've all had this experience ...
It's Saturday night.
You and your friends have decided to see a movie.
One of you is picked to read the choices from the newspaper while the others listen and decide. And if you are an aspiring spec screenwriter, you're about to learn a very important lesson.
If you've ever had the honor, if you've ever been the one elected to read the film choices for a group of gathered friends, congratulations, you have now had the experience of "pitching" a movie —just like the pros. And just like the pros, you have been faced with the same problem. Yes, the film stars George Clooney; sure, it's got amazing special effects; of course, Ebert and Roeper give it two thumbs up.
But what's it about ?
If you can't answer that question, you know it pretty quickly. If what the movie is about isn't clear from the poster and the title, what are you going to say to describe it? Usually what you're left with, standing there, newspaper in hand, is
telling your friends everything about the movie that it's not. What you heard. What People Magazine said. Some cockeyed re-telling of the plot that the star revealed on Letterman. And odds are that at the end of that rather feeble explanation, your friends will say what filmmakers everywhere fear most: "What else is playing?"
All because you couldn't answer a simple question: "What is it?"
"What is it?" is the name of the game. "What is it?" is the movie. A good "What is it?" is the coin of the realm.
Let's CUT TO: Monday morning in Hollywood.
The results are in from the weekend. The burning wreckage of the big box-office disaster is smoking on the front page of Variety. The makers of the surprise hit that stunned everybody are still working the phones saying: "I knew it! I told you so!" And for everyone else the process is starting all over again:
> A producer and writer are in some movie executive's office about to pitch their "big idea."
> An agent is on the phone describing the script her client wrote that she read over the weekend and loves!
> An executive is meeting with the studio's marketing team trying to
figure out what the poster should look like for their upcoming summer release.
Everyone, all across town, in a position to buy or in the effort to sell, is trying to wrap their brains around the same question your friends were asking on Saturday night: "What is it?"
And if they can't, they're toast.
If you think this sounds cold, if you can't believe that Hollywood doesn't care about "story" or the artistic vision of the filmmakers, trust me, it's only going to get worse. It's because just like you with your newspaper trying to pitch your friends their movie choices, the competition for our attention spans has gotten fierce.
There are movies, TV, radio, the Internet, and music. There are 300 channels of cable; there are magazines; and there are sports. In truth, on any given weekend, even an avid moviegoer only has about 30 seconds to decide what to see. And what about those moviegoers who aren't so avid? How are you going to cut through all the traffic that's competing for their attention and communicate with them?
There are just too many choices.
So the studios try to make it easy to choose. That's why they produce so many sequels and remakes. They call them "pre-sold franchises" — and get ready to see a lot more of them.
A pre-sold franchise is something that a goodly chunk of the audience is already "sold" on. It cuts way down on the "What is it?" factor because most people already kind of know. Some recent examples include Starsky and Hutch, The Hulk, and Resident Evil, based on a TV show, a comic book, and a video game respectively — and each with a built-in fan base. There's also a plague of sequels: Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, Mission: Impossible 3. Ocean's Twelve. It's not that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt; the decisionmakers just don't think that you out there with your newspapers every Saturday really, deep down, want to try anything new. Why gamble your 10 bucks on something you're not sure of versus something you already know?
And maybe they're right. If you can't answer "What is it?" why take a chance?
The problem for us, the spec screenwriters of the world, is that we don't own any of these pre-sold franchises nor are we likely to. We're the guys and gals with a laptop computer and a dream. How are we going to come up with something as good as Lawrence of Arabia that will sell like Spy Kids 3-D? Well, there is a way. But to try it, I want you to do something daring. I want you to forget all about your screenplay for now, the cool scenes that are bursting forth in your imagination, the soundtrack, and the stars you KNOW would be interested in being in it. Forget all that.
And concentrate on writing one sentence. One line.
Because if you can learn how to tell me "What is it?" better, faster, and with more creativity, you'll keep me interested. And incidentally, by doing so before you start writing your script, you'll make the story better, too.
THE LOGLINE FROM HELL
I talk to lots of screenwriters, I've been pitched by experts and amateurs, and my question when they prematurely drift into the story of their movie is always the same: "What's the one-line?" Oddly, this is often the last thing screenwriters think about when writing a script. Believe me, I've been there. You're so involved in your scenes, you're so jazzed about being able to tie in that symbolic motif from The Odyssey, you've got it all so mapped out, that you forget one simple thing: You can't tell me what it's about. You can't get to the heart of the story in less than 10 minutes.
Boy, are you screwed!
And I personally refuse to listen.
It's because I know the writer hasn't thought it through. Not really. Because a good screenwriter, especially anyone writing on spec, has to think about everyone all down the line, from the agent to the producer to the studio head to the public. You won't be there to "set the mood," so how are you going to get strangers excited? And getting them excited is Job One. So I cut writers off at their FADE IN: because I know everyone else will too. If you can't tell me about it in one quick line, well, buddy I'm on to something else. Until you have your pitch, and it grabs me, don't bother with the story.
In Hollywood parlance it's called a logline or a one-line. And the difference between a good one and a bad one is simple. When I pick up the trades and read the logline of a spec or a pitch that's sold and my first reaction is "Why didn't 7 think of that?!" Well... that's a good one. At random I'm going to select a few recent sales (from my Web source: www.hollywoodlitsaIes.com) that made me jealous. They're in my genre, family comedy, but what we can learn from them crosses comedy, drama, whatever. Each of these was a big, fat spec sale in the six-to-seven figure range:
A newly married couple must spend Christmas Day at each of their four divorced parent's homes — 4 Christmases
A just-hired employee goes on a company weekend and soon discovers someone's trying to kill him — The Retreat
A risk-averse teacher plans on marrying his dream girl but must first accompany his overprotective future brother-in-law — a cop — on a ride along from hell! — Ride Along (Please note: Anything "from hell" is always a comedy plus.)
Believe it or not, each of these loglines has the same things in common. Along with answering "What is it?" each contains four components that make it a sale.
What are those four components?
Well, let's investigate... the logline from hell!
ISN'T IT IRONIC?
The number one thing a good logline must have, the single most important element, is: irony. My good friend and former writing partner, the funny and fast-typing Colby Carr, pointed this out to me one time and he's IOO% correct. And that goes for whether it's a comedy or a drama.
A cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and her office building is taken over by terrorists — Die Hard
A businessman falls in love with a hooker he hires to be his date for the weekend — Pretty Woman
I don't know about you, but I think both of these loglines, one from a drama, one from a romantic comedy, fairly reek of irony. And irony gets my attention. It's what we who struggle with log-lines like to call the hook, because that's what it does. It hooks your interest.
What is intriguing about each of the spec sales I've cited above is that they, too, have that same ironic touch. A holiday season of supposed family joy is turned on its cynical head in the 4 Christmases example. What could be more unexpected (another way to say "ironic") for a new employee, instead of being welcomed to a company, to be faced with a threat on his life during
The Retreat? What Colby identified is the fact that a good logline must be emotionally intriguing, like an itch you have to scratch.
A logline is like the cover of a book; a good one makes you want to open it, right now, to find out what's inside. In identifying the ironic elements of your story and putting them into a logline, you may discover that you don't have that. Well, if you don't, then there may not only be something wrong with your logline — maybe your story's off, too. And maybe it's time to go back and rethink it. Insisting on irony in your logline is a good place to find out what's missing. Maybe you don't have a good movie yet.
A COMPELLING MENTAL PICTURE
The second most important element that a good logline has is that you must be able to see a whole movie in it. Like Proust's madeleine, a good logline, once said, blossoms in your brain. You see the movie, or at least the potential for it, and the mental images it creates offer the promise of more. One of my personal favorites is producer David Permut's pitch for Blind Date: "She's the perfect woman — until she has a drink." I don't know about you, but I see it. I see a beautiful girl and a date gone bad and a guy who wants to save it because... she's the one! There's a lot going on in that one-line, far more than in the actual movie, but that's a different subject altogether. The point is that a good logline, in addition to pulling you in, has to offer the promise of more.
In the above examples for new spec script sales, we even see where each film begins and ends, don't we? Although I haven't read more than the one-line for Ride Along, I think this movie will probably take place in one night, like After Hours. That actually goes for each of those examples. All three loglines clearly demarcate a time frame in which their story takes place: Christmas Day, the weekend of a corporate retreat, and in the case of Ride Along, a single night.
In addition, the Ride Along example offers an obvious comic conflict as opposites face off over a common goal. It will take a naive, scaredy-cat teacher and throw him into the crime-ridden world of his brother-in-law, the cop. This is why "fish-out-of-water" stories are so popular: You can see the potential fireworks of one type of person being thrust into a world outside his ken. In that one set-up line a whole story blooms with possibilities.
Does your logline offer this? Does giving me the set-up of your comedy or drama make my imagination run wild with where I think the story will go? If it doesn't, you haven't got the logline yet. And I'll say it again: If you don't have the logline, maybe you should rethink your whole movie.
AUDIENCE AND COST
Another thing a good logline has, that is important in attracting studio buyers, is a built-in sense of who it's for and what it's going to cost.
Let's take 4 Christmases for example. I'll bet they're going after the same audience that Meet The Parents and its sequel Meet the Fockers found. Both of these are medium-cost, four-quadrant pictures that seek to attract the broadest possible audience. From the elements I see inherent in the 4 Christmases pitch, it's what the writers are trying for. They're going to get two twenty-something stars to pull in the core target — young people — and they're going to stunt cast the parents' roles with stars the older crowd likes. Can we get Jack or Robin or Dustin? Well, sure! Look how well De Niro did in Meet The Parents!
I also know from the logline that the movie's not expensive. Sure there may be a car chase or two and a Christmas tree fire (I'm guessing) but basically it's a block comedy — so called because it lakes place... on the block. There are few "company moves" where cast and crew have to travel. It's cheap. If I'm an executive who's looking for a general audience, medium budget (depending on the stars) Christmas perennial, this sounds just about perfect for my needs. I know what I'm dealing with in terms of audience and cost.
Send it over!
And someone obviously did.
That's a whole lot to ask from one lousy line of description, don't you think? But it's right there.
Does your logline contain that kind of information?
A KILLER TITLE
Lastly, what is intriguing about a good logline must include the title. Title and logline are, in fact, the one-two punch, and a good combo never fails to knock me out. Like the irony in a good logline, a great title must have irony and tell the tale. One of the best titles of recent memory, and one I still marvel at, is Legally Blonde. When I think about all the bad titles it could have been — Barbie Goes To Harvard, Totally Law School, Airhead Apparent — to come up with one that nails the concept, without being so on the nose that it's stupid, is an art unto itself. I am jealous of that title. A good sign!
My favorite bad title ever, just to give you an idea of what doesn't work for me, is For Love or Money. There've been four movies with that title that I know of, one starring Michael J. Fox, and I can't tell you the plot of any of them. You could probably call every movie ever made For Love or Money and be right — technically. It just shows how un-daring a generic title can be and how something vague like that kills your interest in paying $10 to see it.
One of the key ingredients in a good title, however, is that it must be the headline of the story. Again I cite 4 Christmases as an example. While it's not a world-beater, it's not bad. But it does the one thing that a good title must do, and I'll highlight it because it's vital that you get this:
It says what it is!
They could have called 4 Christmases something more vague, how about Yuletide? That says "Christmas," right? But it doesn't pinpoint what this particular Christmas movie is about. It doesn't say what it is, which is a movie about one couple spending four different Christmases with four different sets of families on the same Christmas day. If it doesn't pass the Say What It Is Test, you don't have your title. And you don't have the one-two punch that makes a great logline.
I admit that often I have come up with the title first and made the story match. That's how I thought up a script I went on to co-write and sell called Nuclear Family. At first all I had was the title, then I came up with the ironic twist. Instead of nuclear as in "father, mother, and children" the way the term is meant, why not nuclear as in "radioactive." The logline became: "A dysfunctional family goes camping on a nuclear dumpsite and wakes up the next morning with super powers." With the help of my writing partner, the quick-witted and jet-setting Jim Haggin, we fleshed out that story and sold the script in a bidding war to Steven Spielberg for $1 million. Our title and logline met all the criteria cited above: irony, promise of more, audience and cost (four-quadrant, with special effects, not stars), and one that definitely said what it is.
It's a movie I still want to see, if anyone's listening.
YOU AND YOUR "WHAT IS IT?"
All good screenwriters are bullheads. There, I said it.
But I mean it in a nice way! Because if there's anyone who understands the occasional arrogance of the screenwriter, it's moi. To be a screenwriter is to deal with an ongoing tug of war between breathtaking megalomania and insecurity so deep it takes years of therapy just to be able to say "I'm a writer" out loud. This is especially so among the spec screenwriting crowd I like to hang with. We come up with our movie ideas, we start to "create," we SEE it so clearly, that often by the time we're writing that sucker, it's too late to turn back. We're going to bullhead our way through this script no matter what anyone says. But I am suggesting that you say "whoa" to all that. I'm proposing that before you head off into your FADE IN: you think long and hard about the logline, the title, and the poster.
And even do some test marketing.
What's that, you ask?
A TEST MARKETING EXAMPLE
I have posed the possibility that you hold off on writing your script until you get a killer logline and title. I know this is painful. But here's where it pays off. I have just been working with a screenwriter online. He did not have his logline. He did have a good idea — or at least the start of one — but the logline was vague, it didn't grab me. I sent him back to the dreaded Page One (an almost total rewrite). He bitched and moaned, but he did it.
He put away his story and all the vivid scenes and the recurring motifs and started writing loglines — an awful, soul-eating chore. He tried to come up with ones that were still his story, but which met the criteria. What he discovered, after many failed attempts, was that he had to start fudging his logline to get it to have irony, audience and cost, a clear sense of what the movie promised, and a killer title. Arid when he finally let go of his preconceived notions of what his story was — voila! The logline changed.
Soon, he started getting better response from people he pitched to, and suddenly, voila! #2 — his story started to change to match the logline, and voila! #3 — the story got better! The irony of what he sort of had was brought into better focus. And when it was put into a pithy logline form, the conflicts were brought into sharper focus too. They had to! Or else the logline wouldn't work. The characters became more distinct, the story became more clearly defined, and the logline ultimately made the actual writing easier.
The best thing about what this screenwriter discovered is that he saved everybody, all down the line, a whole lot of money and trouble. Can you imagine trying to do these kinds of logline fixes during postproduction? It's a little late by then. Before anyone spent a dime, using only paper, pencil, and his own wits, he did everyone's job for them. He not only made it easier for the guy with the newspaper to pitch to his friends, but he gave them a better story once they got to the movie theater. All because he had given his project a better "What is it?"
The other great part about road-testing your logline is that you have the experience of all-weather pitching. I pitch to anyone who will stand still. I do it in line at Starbucks. I do it with friends and strangers. I always spill my guts when it comes to discussing what I'm working on, because:
a. I have no fear that anyone will steal my idea (and anyone who
has that fear is an amateur) and...
b. You find out more about your movie by talking to people one-on-one than having them read it.
This is what I mean by "test marketing."
When I am about to go pitch a studio, when I am working on a new idea for a movie, or when I can't decide which of four or five ideas is best, I talk to "civilians." I talk to them and I look in their eyes as I'm talking. When they start to drift, when they look away, I've lost them. And I know my pitch has problems. So I make sure that when I pitch to my next victim, I've corrected whatever slow spot or confusing element I overlooked the first time out. And most of all, it's really fun to do.
A typical scenario goes like this:
INT. COFFEE BEAN AND TEA LEAF - SUNSET PLAZA - DAY A melange of starlets, weekend Hell's Angels, and Eurotrash snobs sip double mocha frappes. Blake Snyder eyes the crowd. He approaches the person who seems least likely to hit him.
BLAKE SNYDER Hi, could you help me?
STRANGER (dubious)
What is it? I have a Pilates class in ten minutes.
BLAKE SNYDER Perfect, this will only take a second. I'm working on a movie idea and I wanted to know what you think.
STRANGER (smiling, looks at watch) Okay...
This, to me, is the perfect set-up and one that I repeat with all age groups, in all kinds of situations, all over Southern California — but especially with the target audience of whatever I'm working on.
This kind of test marketing is not only a great way to meet people, it's the only way to know what you've got. And a "pitchee" who is thinking about being somewhere else is the perfect subject. If you can get his attention, if you can keep his attention, and if he wants to know more about the story you're telling, you've really got a good movie idea.
What you'll also find by getting out from behind your computer and talking to people is how that true-life experience that happened to you in summer camp in 1972, the story that you are basing your entire screenplay on that means so much to you, means nothing to a stranger. To get and keep that stranger's attention, you're going to have to figure out a way to present a compelling "What is it?" that does mean something to him. Or you're going to be wasting your time. There are a lot more strangers than friends buying tickets to movies. No matter who is encouraging you on the friend side of your life, it's the strangers you really need to impress.
What better way to find out what you've got than to actually go out and ask?
THE "DEATH" OF HIGH CONCEPT
All of the above dances around a term that many people in Hollywood hate: high concept. The term was made famous by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner in their heyday as young gurus running Disney.
To them it meant just what we've been discussing here — making the movie easier to see — and they came up with a long run of successful high concept movies. All you had to do was look at the one-sheet (another name for the poster) and you knew "What is it?" for Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Like most fashionable terms it's now out to say your project is high concept. The death of high concept has been proclaimed many times. But like a lot of what I'm going to discuss throughout this book, I care less about what is au currant and more about what works and what is simple common sense.
In my opinion, thinking "high concept," thinking about "What is it?" is just good manners, common courtesy if you will. It's a way to put yourself in the shoes of the customer, the person who's paying good money, including parking and a babysitter, to come and see your film. And don't kid yourself, as brilliant as these two visionaries are, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg didn't invent high concept, it's been around from the beginning.
Think about every Preston Sturges movie hit from the 1940s — Christmas In July, Hail the Conquering Hero, Lady Eve, even Sullivan's Travels — all high concept ideas that drew people into theatres based on the logline and poster.
Think about every Alfred Hitchcock thriller ever made — Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho.
Just mentioning these movies to a true fan evokes the pitch and the poster of each story. And check out those titles. All of them, across the board, certainly say what it is and they do so in a way that's not on the nose or stupid (well, Psycho is potentially lame, but we'll let him off the hook on that one — it's Hitchcock, after all).
The point is that if someone gives you static about your high concept idea, just smile and know that clearly and creatively presenting a better "What is it?" to a potential audience — no matter who they are or what position they occupy in the chain — never goes out of fashion. I defy those who think this is a game for salesmen and not filmmakers to come up with a better title than Legally Blonde. And as we will see in the next chapter, we're only at the beginning of finding ways to put yourself in the shoes of the moviegoer.
And that is what we should all be doing more of.
SUMMARY
So are your synapses starting to misfire? Are the growing pains too much? Well, whether this is old news or new news, the "What is it?" is the only place to begin this task of ours. The job of the screenwriter, especially one writing on spec, must include consideration for everyone all along the way, from agent to producer to the studio exec who decides what gets made. And that job starts with that question: "What is it?"
Along with a good "What is it?" a movie must have a clear sense of what it's about and who it's for. Its tone, potential, the dilemma of its characters, and the type of characters they are, should be easy to understand and compelling.
In order to better create a good "What is it?" the spec screenwriter must be able to tell a good one-line or logline — a one- or two-sentence grabber that tells us everything. It must satisfy four basic elements to be effective:
1. Irony. It must be in some way ironic and emotionally involving — a dramatic situation that is like an itch you have to scratch.
2. A compelling mental picture. It must bloom in your mind when you hear it. A whole movie must be implied, often including a time frame.
3. Audience and cost. It must demarcate the tone, the target audience, and the sense of cost, so buyers will know if it can make a profit.
4. A killer title. The one-two punch of a good logline must include a great title, one that "says what it is" and does so in a clever way.
This is all part of what is called "high concept," a term that came about to describe movies that are easy to see. In fact, high concept is more important than ever before, especially since movies must be sold internationally, too. Domestic box office used to account for 6o% of a movie's overall profit, but that figure is down to 40%. That means movies must travel and be understood everywhere — over half of your market is now outside the U.S. So while high concept is a term that's not fashionable, it's a type of movie all Hollywood is actively looking for. You just have to figure out a quicker, slicker way to provide high concept ideas.
Finally, this is all about intriguing the audience, so a good way to road test an idea is to get out from behind your computer and pitch it. Pitch your movie to anyone who will listen and adjust accordingly. You never know what valuable information you can learn from a stranger with a blank expression.
EXERCISES
1. Pick up the newspaper and pitch this week's movie choices to a friend. Can you think of ways to improve the movie's logline or poster?
2. If you are already working on a screenplay, or if you have several in your files, write the loglines for each and present them to a stranger. By pitching in this way, do you find the logline changing? Does it make you think of things you should have tried in your script? Does the story have to change to fit the pitch?
3. Grab a TV Guide and read the loglines from the movie section. Does the logline and title of a movie say what it is? Do vague loglines equate with a movie's failure in your mind? Was its lack of a good "What is it?" responsible in any way for that failure?
4- If you don't have an idea for a screenplay yet, try these five games to jump-start your movie idea skills:
a. GAME #1a: Funny_
Pick a drama, thriller, or horror film and turn it into a comedy. Example: Funny Christine — The haunted dream car of a teenage boy that ruins his life now becomes a comedy when the car starts giving dating advice.
b. GAME #1b: Serious_
Likewise, pick a comedy and make it into a drama. Serious Animal House — Drama about cheating scandal at a small university ends in A Few Good Men-like showdown.
c. GAME #2: FBI out of water
This works for comedy or drama. Name five places that a FBI agent in the movies has never been sent to solve a crime. Example: "Stop or I'll Baste!": Slob FBI agent is sent undercover to a Provence Cooking School.
d. GAME #3: _School
Works for both drama and comedy. Name five examples of an unusual type of school, camp, or classroom. Example: "Wife School": Women sent by their rich husbands soon rebel.
e. GAME #4: VERSUS!!!
Drama or comedy. Name several pairs of people to be on opposite sides of a burning issue. Example: A hooker and a preacher fall in love when a new massage parlor divides the residents of a small town.
f. GAME #5: My_Is A Serial Killer
Drama or comedy. Name an unusual person, animal, or thing that a paranoid can suspect of being a murderer. Example: "My Boss Is A Serial Killer." Guy gets promoted every time a dead body turns up at the corporation — is the murderer his employer?
And if you come up with a really good logline for a family comedy, here is my e-mail address: [email protected]. I'd be happy to hear a good one... if you think you've got it.

A screenwriter's daily conundrum is how to avoid cliche.
You can be near the cliche, you can dance around it, you can run right up to it and almost embrace it.
But at the last second you must turn away.
You must give it a twist.
And insisting on those twists, defying that inner voice that says "Oh, well, no one will notice," is a universal struggle that good storytellers have been fighting forever.
To quote the studio executive who first blurted out this rule to me, Sam Goldwyn-like, during a development meeting: "Give me the same thing... only different!"
Bless his pointy little head.
In every aspect of creation — from the idea, to the way characters speak, to the scenes themselves — putting a fresh spin on it (whatever "it" is) is what we do every day. But to know how to avoid the cliche, to know what tradition you are pushing forward, begins with knowing what that tradition
is. A full-fledged knowledge of hundreds of movies, and especially those which your movie is like, is required.
Yet surprising as it seems for people who are interested in pursuing a career in movies, I am shocked — shocked! — to find how many up-and-comers can not even quote from movies in their own genre, much less movies generally.
Trust me, all the big guys can.
Listen to Spielberg or Scorsese talk about movies. They know and can quote from hundreds. And I don't mean quote as in "recite lines from," I mean quote as in "explain how each movie works." Movies are intricately made emotion machines. They are Swiss watches of precise gears and spinning wheels that make them tick. You have to be able to take them apart and put them back together again. In the dark. In your sleep. And your knowledge of a few movies you like is not enough. It is also not enough to know all the movies of the past five years. You have to go back, see the lineage of many types of movies, know what movie begat what in the line of succession, and how the art was advanced by each.
Which leads me to the subject of genre.
You are about to embark on the next step of writing a successful screenplay and that is the categorizing of your movie idea. But no!
you think. My movie is new! It's like nothing ever seen before! I will not be put into a category!
Sorry. Too late.
You can't tell me any idea that isn't like one, or dozens, found in the movie canon. Trust me, your movie falls into a category. And that category has rules that you need to know. Because to explode
the cliches, to give us the same thing... only different, you have to know what genre your movie is part of, and how to invent the twists that avoid pat elements. If you can do that, you have a better chance to sell. And, by the way, everyone, and I mean everyone in Hollywood, already does this. So why not know what they know?
WHAT IS IT... MOST LIKE?
So now you've got your logline.
You've followed my advice, you've gone out and test pitched your dozen or so "victims," you've got their responses and adjusted accordingly, and now your one-liner is just shining there so brightly! You know you've got yourself a winner.
You're ready to type FADE IN: — right?
Wrong.
I'm holding you back because before you start writing I want you to think a little bit about the question after "What is it?" — and that's "What is it... most like?"
I return again to the example of you and your friends on Saturday night. You've pitched them their movie choices, and they've picked a couple. And now they want to know more about what they can expect to see when they plunk down their $10. Okay, so it's a comedy. But what kind?
This situation is why you hear so many bad movie pitches in Hollywood. They're the ones, I admit, that I've used as shorthand, but which I really hate and don't advise you to use. These are the types of pitches people make fun of— and rightly so. "It's X-Men meets Cannonball Run!" the nervous pitcher will say. Or "It's Die Hard
in a bowling alley! " The ones that combine two or more movies are especially irksome. You sit there, trying to imagine how "It's Heathers meets M*A*S*H" really works. What is that? Spoiled teenage girls join the Army? A medical team is airlifted to a high school to save kids who are shooting each other? What? And odds are all the pitcher is doing is grabbing two hit movies and hoping there's some element in there that someone will like.
(PLEASE NOTE: You never use bombs to describe these mad doctor experiments; it's never "Ishtar meets Howard the Duck" — an example which tells you exactly how bad a technique this is.)
And yet... I admit I do it.
The reason categorizing your movie is a good idea is that it's important for you, the screenwriter, to know what type of movie you're writing. Of the many ways to get lost while in the middle of writing a screenplay, this is the most common. When I am writing a movie, when Steven Spielberg is writing a movie, referencing other movies, looking for clues of plotting and character within the genre, is commonplace. And thus, when you are stuck in your story or when you're preparing to write, you will "screen" a dozen movies that are like the one you're working on to get clues about why certain plot elements are important, why they work or don't, and where you can change the cliche into something fresh.
There are 10 movie genres that have proven to be good places to start this process. That's all they are, a place to start — we'll get into how to move past them next.
As I search for matches in this game of genre gin rummy — do I look for runs or pairs? — I'm interested in creating categories of movies that I can add more movies to every year. And I think within these 10 story types, you can stick just about every motion picture ever
made. You can make up your own categories, you can add others to this list, but I hope you won't need to. You will also note that nowhere in this list do I have standard genre types, such as Romantic Comedy, Epic, or Biography — because those names don't really tell me anything about what the story is. And that's what I need to know.
The 10 types of movies I have categorized here are:
Monster in. the House — Of which Jaws, Tremors, Alien, The Exorcist, Fatal Attraction, and Panic Room are examples.
Golden Fleece — This is the category of movie best exemplified by Star Wars; The Wizard of Oz; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Back To The Future; and most "heist movies."
Out of the Bottle — This incorporates films like Liar, Liar; Bruce Almighty; Love Potion ; Freaky Friday; Flubber; and even my own little kid hit from Disney, Blank Check.
Dude with a Problem — This is a genre that ranges in style, tone, and emotional substance from Breakdown and Die Hard to Titanic and Schindler's List.
Rites Of Passage — Every change-of-life story from IO to Ordinary People to Days of Wine and Roses makes this category.
Buddy Love — This genre is about more than the buddy movie dynamic as seen in cop buddy pictures, Dumb & Dumber, and Rain Man — but also every love story ever made!
Whydunit — Who cares who, it's why that counts. Includes Chinatown, China Syndrome, JFK, and The Insider.
The Fool Triumphant — One of the oldest story types, this category includes Being There, Forrest Gump, Dave, The Jerk, Amadeus, and the work of silent clowns like Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd.
Institutionalized. —Just like it sounds, this is about groups: Animal House, M*A*S*H, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and "family" sagas such as American Beauty and The Godfather.
Superhero — This isn't just about the obvious tales you'd think of, like Superman and Batman, but also includes Dracula, Frankenstein, even Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind.
Are you thoroughly confused? Do you doubt my sanity when I tell you that Schindler's List and Die Hard are in the same category? Are you looking at me kinda funny when I tell you that buddy movies are just love stories in disguise? Good! Then let's dig further into the wonderful world of genre.
MONSTER IN THE HOUSE
What do Jaws, The Exorcist, and Alien have in common? They're examples of the genre I call "Monster in the House." This genre has a long track record and was probably the first tale Man ever told. It has two working parts: A monster. A house. And when you add people into that house, desperate to kill the monster, you've got a movie type so primal that it translates to everyone, everywhere. It's the type of movie that I like to say, "You can pitch to a caveman." It's not about being dumb, it's about being primal. And everyone understands the simple, primal commandment: Don't... Get... Eaten!
That's why this genre is responsible for so many worldwide hits and franchises. You can probably run most of these films without the soundtrack and still "get it ."Jurassic Park; the Nightmare On Elm
Street, Friday the 13th, and Scream series; Tremors and its sequels; and every haunted house and ghost story ever told are all examples of this genre. Even films without supernatural elements, like Fatal Attraction (starring Glenn Close as the "Monster"), fall into this category. And it's clear from such movies as Arachnophobia, Lake Placid, and Deep Blue Sea, if you don't know the rules of Monster in the House — you fail.
The rules, to me, are simple. The "house" must be a confined space: a beach town, a spaceship, a futuristic Disneyland with dinosaurs, a family unit. There must be sin committed — usually greed (monetary or carnal) — prompting the creation of a supernatural monster that comes like an avenging angel to kill those who have committed that sin and spare those who realize what that sin is. The rest is "run and hide." And putting a new twist on both the monster, the monster's powers, and the way we say "Boo!" is the job of the screenwriter who wants to add to the illustrious limb of this family tree of movies.
We can see a bad example of this category in Arachnophobia, the film starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. Bad monster: a little spider. Not much supernatural there. Not all that scary either — you step on it and it dies. Also: No house! At any given moment, the residents of Arachnophobia can say "Check please" and be on the next Greyhound out of town.
Where is the tension there?
Because the filmmakers behind Arachnophobia violated the rules of Monster in the House, they wound up with a mishmash. Is it a comedy or a drama? Are we really supposed to be scared-scared? I could write a whole book on the rules of Monster in the House, but you don't need me to have a MITH film festival in your own home and discover these nuances for yourself. And if you're writing a screenplay that falls into this genre, I suggest you do just that.
I want to make clear that, as with all the genres to be discussed here, this is a category that has not, repeat not, been exhausted. There is always a way to do a new one. But you must give it a fresh twist to be successful. You must break from cliche. You must "Give us the same thing... only different." Anyone who thinks there isn't new territory to mine in the Monster in the House genre, should think of the myth of the Minotaur. Great Monster: a half-man/half-bull. Great house: a maze where the condemned are sent to die. But the ancient Greek hack who eyed this successful story and said: "It's over. Genre's dead. I can't top that!" never envisioned Glenn Close with a bad perm and a boiled rabbit.
THE GOLDEN FLEECE
The quest myth has been one of the more winning tales told around the campfire since, well, forever. And if your screenplay can in any way be categorized as a "Road Movie," then you must know the rules of a genre I call "The Golden Fleece." The name comes from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts and yet it's always about the same thing: A hero goes "on the road" in search of one thing and winds up discovering something else — himself. Thus Wizard Of Oz; Planes, Train and Automobiles; Star Wars; Road Trip; and Back to the Future are all basically the same movie.
Scary, huh?
Like the twists of any story, the milestones of The Golden Fleece are the people and incidents that our hero or heroes encounter along the way. Because it's episodic it seems to not be connected, but it must be. The theme of every Golden Fleece movie is internal growth; how the incidents affect the hero is, in fact, the plot. It is the way we know that we are truly making forward progress — it's not the mileage we're racking up that makes a good Golden Fleece, it's the way the hero changes as he goes. And forcing those milestones to mean something to the hero is your job.
As it turns out, I have been working on a Golden Fleece with my current writing partner, the amazingly successful and talented Sheldon Bull. And we have been discussing Golden Fleece movies a lot — naturally. Since our film is a comedy, we've looked at Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and discussed the character dynamics of Rain Man, Road Trip, and even Animal House, believe it or not, in an effort to get a handle on what is basically the story of a kid who heads home after being unjustly kicked out of military school and discovers... that his parents have moved without telling him! It's basically "Home Alone on the road." (Sorry! It's a bad habit). The adjustments we are making aren't about the adventure — which I find hilarious — but about what each incident means to our kid hero. In many ways what these adventures are is irrelevant. Whatever fun set pieces our hero encounters must be shaded to deliver milestones of growth for our kid lead. We always come back to that Golden Fleece truism that can be found in The Odyssey, Gulliver's Travels, and any number of successful road stories through the ages: It's not the incidents, it's what the hero learns about himself from those incidents that makes the story work.
This genre is also where all heist movies are found. Any quest, mission, or "treasure locked in a castle" that is to be approached by an individual or a group falls into the Golden Fleece category and has the same rules. Very often the mission becomes secondary to other, more personal, discoveries; the twists and turns of the plot are suddenly less important than the meaning derived from the heist, as Ocean's Eleven, The Dirty Dozen, and The Magnificent Seven prove.
OUT OF THE BOTTLE
"I wish I had my own money!" This is what our character Preston Waters states in the movie Colby Carr and I wrote and sold to Disney that became a kid's mini-hit called Blank Check. And
Preston will, in fact, soon get his own money — a million dollars to be exact — with which he will happily run amok. This type of wish-fulfillment is so common because it's a big part of the human psyche. "I wish I had a_" is probably the single most frequently spoken prayer since Adam. And stories that tell a good "what if' tale that exploits these wish fulfillment fantasies are good, primal, easy-for-a-caveman-to-understand stories — which is why they're so many of them. And why they're so successful.
The comedy hit Bruce Almighty is an example of this genre. In fact, the flexible Jim Carrey has also been the star of another "Out of the Bottle" classic, The Mask. It doesn't have to be God who bestows the magic. It can be a thing — like The Mask or a magic VW named "Herbie" in Disney's The Love Bug, or a formula that you invent to make the opposite sex fall in love with you as in Love Potion starring Sandra Bullock, or magic silly-putty that can save your teaching career as in Flubber starring Robin Williams.
The name Out of the Bottle should evoke the image of a genie who is summoned out of the bottle to grant his master's wish, but it doesn't have to be magic to be part of this wish-fulfillment genre. In Blank Check, there is no magic that gets Preston his million bucks — sure it's a long shot, and Colby and I went out of our way to make it seem reality-based. But it doesn't matter. Whether it's by divine intervention or luck or a magic being who enters the scene, it's the same device. For some reason or other, usually because we like the guy or gal and think they deserve it, their wish is granted and their lives begin to change.
On the flip side of Out of the Bottle, but very much the same category, is the curse aspect of wishing. These are comeuppance tales. Another Jim Carrey movie, Liar, Liar, is a good example (hmmm, are we seeing a pattern here about what stars consistently fit best into what Jungian archetypes?). Same set-up, same device a kid wishes his lying lawyer father would start telling nothing
but the truth — and lo! It happens. Suddenly Jim Carrey can't tell a lie — on the day of a big case in which lying is, and has been, his best weapon. Jim's going to have to change his ways and grow if he is to survive, and by doing so, he gets what he really wants in the first place: the respect of his wife and son. Another comeuppance tale is Freaky Friday, both the Jodie Foster version and the updated Lindsay Lohan take. But there are many of these, such as All Of Me with Steve Martin and Groundhog Day starring another famous wise guy, Bill Murray.
The rules of Out of the Bottle then are this: If it's a wish-fulfillment tale, the hero must be a put-upon Cinderella who is so under the thumb of those around him that we are really rooting for anyone, or anything, to get him a little happiness. And yet, so the rules tell us and human nature dictates, we don't want to see anyone, even the most underdog character, succeed for too long. And eventually, the hero must learn that magic isn't everything, it's better to be just like us — us members of the audience — because in the end we know this will never happen to us. Thus a lesson must be in the offing; a good moral must be included at the end.
If it's a comeuppance tale version of Out of the Bottle, then the opposite set-up is applied. Here's a guy or gal who needs a swift kick in the behind. And yet, there must be something redeemable about them. This is a little trickier to pull off and must include a Save the Cat scene at the outset, one where we know that even though this guy or gal is a jerk, there is something in them that's worth saving. So in the course of the tale, they get the benefit of the magic (even though it's a curse); and in the end, they triumph.
DUDE WITH A PROBLEM
This genre is defined by the phrase: "An ordinary guy finds himself in extraordinary circumstances." And when you think about it, it's another of the most popular, most primal situations we can imagine for ourselves. All of us consider ourselves to be an ordinary guy or gal, and thus we are drawn into sympathetic alignment with the hero of this type of tale from the get-go. Into this "just an ordinary day" beginning comes something extraordinary — my wife's building is taken over by terrorists with ponytails (Die Hard); Nazis start hauling away my Jewish friends (Schindler's List); a robot from the future (with an accent!) comes and tells me he is here to kill me and my unborn child (The Terminator); the ship in which we are traveling hits an iceberg and begins to sink without enough lifeboats for everyone on board (Titanic).
These, my friends, are problems. Big, primal problems.
So how are you, the ordinary guy, going to handle them?
Like Monster in the House, this genre also has two very simple working parts: a dude, meaning an average guy or gal just like ourselves. And a problem: something that this average guy must dig deep inside himself to conquer. From these simple components, an infinite number of mix-and-match situations can bloom and grow. The more average the guy, the bigger the challenge, as movies like Breakdown with Kurt Russell demonstrate.
In Breakdown, Kurt has no superpowers or skills, no police training. Nada. But he shares with Die Hard's Bruce Willis the same domestic agenda all average guys understand: Save the wife that he loves! Whether our hero is skilled or not, it's the relative size of the challenge that makes these stories work. And one rule of thumb is: The badder the bad guy, the greater the heroics. So make the bad guy as bad as possible — always! — for the bigger the problem, the greater the odds for our dude to overcome. And no matter who the bad guy is, the dude triumphs from his willingness to use hiss individuality to outsmart the far more powerful forces aligned against him.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Remember the time you were awkwardly going through puberty and that cute girl you had a crush on didn't know you were alive? Remember that birthday party when you turned 40 and your husband came to you and asked for a divorce? These painful examples of life transition resonate with us because we have all, to a greater or lesser degree, gone through them. And growing-pain stories register because they are the most sensitive times in our lives. It's what makes us human, and what makes for excellent, poignant, and even hilarious storytelling. (Isn't Dudley Moore in 10 the funniest mid-life crisis put on film?) But whether it's drama or comedy, "Rites of Passage" tales are of a type. And all have the same rules.
All movies are about change, so to say that Rites of Passage stories document a change is missing the point. These are tales of pain and torment, but usually from an outside force: Life. Sure it's about the choices we've made, but the "monster" attacking us is often unseen, vague, or one which we can't get a handle on simply because we can't name it. Lost Weekend, Days of Wine and Roses, 28 Days starring Sandra Bullock, and When A Man Loves A Woman starring Meg Ryan all tell stories about coming to grips with drugs and alcohol. Likewise, puberty, mid-life crisis, old age, romantic break-up, and "grieving" stories, like those about getting over the death of a loved one, such as Ordinary People, also have the same thing in common: In a good Rites of Passage tale, everybody's in on "the joke" except the person who's going through it — the story's hero. And only the experience can offer a solution.
In essence, whether the take is comedic or dramatic, the monster sneaks up on the beleaguered hero and the story is that hero's slow realization of who and what that monster is. In the end, these tales are about surrendering, the victory won by giving up to forces stronger than ourselves. The end point is acceptance of our
humanity and the moral of the story is always the same: That's Life! (another Blake Edwards movie! Hmmm, between that, 10, and Days of Wine and Roses, Blake Edwards appears to like and do well in this genre.)
If your movie idea can in any way be considered a Rites of Passage tale, then these films are fair game for screening. Like the steps of acceptance outlined in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's On Death and Dying, the structure of this story type is charted in the hero's grudging acceptance of the forces of nature that he cannot control or comprehend, and the victory comes with the hero's ability to ultimately smile.
BUDDY LOVE
The classic "buddy story" is a type that I think of as a creation of the Movie Age. Though there were a few great buddy tales (Don Quixote, for example), this category really didn't take off as a story form until the dawn of cinema. My theory is that the buddy movie was invented by a screenwriter who realized that his hero had no one to react to. There was just this big, empty space where interior monologue and description is found in fiction. And the screenwriter suddenly thought "what if" his hero had someone to debate important story issues with? Thus the classic "buddy movie" was born, and from Laurel and Hardy to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to the antics of Wayne's World (both 1 & 2), it has become a movie staple. Two guys talking to each other like 48 Hours; two girls talking to each other like Thelma & Louise; two fish talking to each other like Finding Nemo — they all work because stories of "me and my best friend" will always resonate. Again, they're very human and based on universal circumstances. These are stories you can pitch to a caveman and both he (and his buddy!) will get it.
The secret of a good buddy movie is that it is actually a love story in disguise. And, likewise, all love stories are just buddy movies with the potential for sex. Bringing Up Baby, Pat and Mike, Woman of the Year, Two Weeks Notice, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days are — genre-wise —just sophisticated Laurel and Hardy movies where one of the buddies is wearing a skirt. And yet the rules for these, drama or comedy, sex or no sex, are the same. At first the "buddies" hate each other. (Where would they have to go if they didn't?) But their adventure together brings out the fact that they need each other; they are, in essence, incomplete halves of a whole. And realizing this leads to even more conflict. Who can tolerate needing anybody?
Penultimately, the All Is Lost moment (more on this in Chapter Four) which occurs toward the end of each of these stories is: separation, a fight, a goodbye-and-good-riddance! that is, in reality, none of these. It's just two people who can't stand the fact that they don't live as well without each other, who will have to surrender their egos to win. And when the final curtain comes down, they have done just that.
Often, as in Rain Man, one of the buddies is the story's hero and will do all or most of the changing (i.e., Tom Cruise) while the other buddy acts as a catalyst of that change and will do slight or no changing (i.e., Dustin Hoffman). I have been in many story discussions about this dynamic. Whose story is it?? is what it very often boils down to. Lethal Weapon is like that to an extent. It's Danny Glover's story. Mel Gibson is the agent of change. And though Mel will not be suicidal by the story's end, it's Danny Glover whose transformation we care most about. These "catalyst" Buddy Love tales, in which a "being" comes into one's life, affects it, and leaves, is a subset of the Buddy Love dynamic and an important one to keep in mind. Many "boy and his dog" tales are like this, including E. T.
If you're writing a buddy movie or love story, either drama or comedy, the dynamics of the Buddy Love structure are a must to know. Sit down with a dozen of these, pop em into your DVD player, and get ready to be amazed by how similar they all are. Is this stealing? Is Sandra Bullock ripping off Katherine Hepburn? Should Cary Grant's estate sue Hugh Grant for copyright infringement? Of course not. It's just good storytelling. And the beats are the same for a reason.
Because they always work.
WHYDUNIT
We all know that evil lurks in the hearts of men. Greed happens. Murder happens. And unseen evildoers are responsible for it all. But the "who" is never as interesting as the "why." Unlike the Golden Fleece, a good Whydunit isn't about the hero changing, it's about the audience discovering something about human nature they did not think was possible before the "crime" was committed and the "case" began. Like Citizen Kane, a classic Whydunit, the story is about seeking the innermost chamber of the human heart and discovering something unexpected, something dark and often unattractive, and the answer to the question: Why?
Chinatown is perhaps the best Whydunit ever made, and a textbook example of great screenwriting. It's one of those movies that you can see a thousand times and drive deeper into smaller and smaller rooms of the Nautilus shell with each viewing. What makes it a great Whydunit is what makes all classic Whydunits work. From China Syndrome to All the President's Men to JFK to Mystic River, every detective story or social drama, these stories walk on the dark side. They take us to the shadowy part of the street. And the rules are simple. We in the audience are the detectives, ultimately. While we have a surrogate or surrogates onscreen doing the work for us, it's
we who must ultimately sift through the information, and we who must be shocked by what we find.
If your movie is about this type of discovery, take a look at the great Whydunits. Note how a surrogate onscreen represents us. And see why the investigation into the dark side of humanity is often an investigation into ourselves in an M.C. Escher-kaleidoscopic-reptile-eating-its-own-tail kinda way. That's what a good Whydunit does — it turns the x-ray machine back on ourselves and asks: "Are we this evil?"
THE FOOL TRIUMPHANT
The "Fool" is an important character in myth and legend and has been forever. On the outside, he's just the Village Idiot, but further examination reveals him to be the wisest among us. Being such an underdog gives the Fool the advantage of anonymity, and also makes everyone underestimate his ability, allowing him or her the chance to ultimately shine.
The Fool in the movies goes back to Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. Little men, silly men, overlooked men, who triumph by luck and pluck and the specialness that comes from not giving up despite the odds. In modern movies, Dave, Being There, Amadeus, Forrest Gump, and many of the movies of Steve Martin, Bill Murray, and Ben Stiller come to mind as examples of how this tradition has evolved and why it will always have a place.
The operating principal of "The Fool Triumphant" is to set the underdog Fool against a bigger, more powerful, and often "establishment" bad guy. Watching a so-called "idiot" get the goat of those society deems to be the winners in life gives us all hope, and pokes fun at the structures we take so seriously in our day-to-day lives. Thus, no establishment is too sacred to be skewered, from the White House (Dave) to success in the business world (The Jerk) to the overblown reverence for the importance of our culture (Forrest Gump).
The working parts of a Fool Triumphant movie are simple: an underdog — who is seemingly so inept and so unequipped for life that everyone around him discounts his odds for success (and does so repeatedly in the set-up) — and an institution for that underdog to attack. Often, the Fool has an accomplice, an "insider" who is in on the joke and can't believe the Fool is getting away with his "ruse": Salieri in Amadeus, the Doctor in Being There, Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. These characters often get the brunt of the slapstick, the guy at the end of the Rube Goldberg chain of events the Fool sets into motion, who ultimately gets the pie in the face, like Herbert Lom in The Pink Panther. Their crime is being close to the idiot, seeing him for what he really is, and being stupid enough to try to interfere.
Special Fools, whether they're in comedies or dramas like Charly and Awakenings, offer us a glimpse of the life of the outsider. We all feel like that at times, and tales of the Fool Triumphant give us the vicarious thrill of victory.
INSTITUTIONALIZED
Where would we be without each other? And when we band together as a group with a common cause, we reveal the ups and downs of sacrificing the goals of the few for those of the many. Thus, the genre I call "Institutionalized" tells stories about groups, institutions, and "families." These stories are special because they both honor the institution and expose the problems of losing one's identity to it.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about a group of mental patients. American Beauty is about a group of modern suburbanites.
M*A*S*H is about the American military. The Godfather is about a Mafia family. Each has a breakout character whose role is to expose the group goal as a fraud. Jack Nicholson, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Al Pacino, respectively, carry this role in these films.
The reason I've dubbed these stories Institutionalized is that the group dynamic these tales tell is often crazy and even self-destructive. "Suicide Is Painless, " the theme song of M*A*S*H, isn't so much about the insanity of war as the insanity of the herd mentality. When we put on a uniform, be it the uniform of the Army or a comfortable cotton shirt with a little polo player over the pocket, we give up who we are to a certain extent. And these movies are all about the pros and cons of putting the group ahead of ourselves. Again, this is a very "caveman" kind of story. Loyalty to the group sometimes flies in the face of common sense, even survival, but we do it. And we have done it forever. To watch others fight that battle, just like we do every day, is why this genre is so popular... and so primal.
Often movies of the Institutionalized category will be told from the point of view of a newcomer. He is us — a virgin who is new to this group and who is being brought into it by someone who is more experienced. Jane Fonda in 9 to 5 and Tom Hulce in Animal House are examples. For any world in which the technology, lingo, or rules are not familiar to the average viewer, these characters can be invaluable relayers of exposition. They can literally ask "How does that work? " and allow you to explain the importance to everybody. It's away to show what is often a "crazy" world to us civilians.
Ultimately, all the stories in this category come down to a question: Who's crazier, me or them? All one need do to understand how sacrificing oneself for the group can be an insane proposition is to check out Al Pacino's face at the end of Godfather 2. Here is a guy who has committed suicide for the good of the family and "tradition." And look where it got him. It is just as shocking as Kevin Spacey's last-minute discovery in American Beauty and mirrors, almost exactly, Jack Nicholson's blank post-operative expression in Cuckoo's Nest. Why? Because it's the same movie, with the same message, told in extremely different and moving ways.
But they all work for a reason.
Because each movie followed the rules.
And they gave us the same thing... only different.
SUPERHERO
The "Superhero" genre is the exact opposite of Dude with a Problem and can best be defined by its opposite definition: An extraordinary person finds himself in an ordinary world. Like Gulliver tied to the beach by the Lilliputians, a Superhero tale asks us to lend human qualities, and our sympathy, to a super being, and identify with what it must be like to have to deal with the likes of us little people. No wonder so many brainy geeks and teens read comic books! They don't have far to go to get in sync and identify with what it's like to be so misunderstood.
This genre goes beyond stories about guys in capes and tights, however. It is more than the Marvel universe or the DC Comics characters. Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind (both Russell Crowe vehicles — another hmmm, interesting) are good examples of human superheroes that are challenged by the mediocre world around them. In both those films, it is the tiny minds that surround the hero that are the real problem. Don't they get it? Well, no they don't. That's why being "special" is so difficult. Frankenstein, Dracula, and X-Men are the same in this regard. Ultimately, all superhero tales are about being "different," a feeling with which
even we Lilliputians can identify. Born into a world he did not create, the Superhero must deal with those who are jealous of his unique point of view and superior mind. And from time to time we all feel this way. Anybody who's ever been shot down at the PTA or sneered at for bold thinking in a meeting at work can identify with Frankenstein's monster being chased by an angry mob of mouth-breathers with pitchforks and torches.
The problem of how to have sympathy for the likes of millionaire Bruce Wayne or genius Russell Crowe, is solved by stressing the pain that goes hand-in-hand with having these advantages. It's not easy being Bruce Wayne. The poor guy is tortured! And while it might be cheaper to get therapy (if he can afford a Bat-utility belt, he can certainly pay 150 bucks an hour for a shrink), Bruce Wayne is admirable because he eschews his personal comfort in the effort to give back to the community. This is so often why the first movie in a Superhero series succeeds and ones that follow don't (such as Robocop 2). The creation myth that begins each Superhero franchise stresses sympathy for the Superhero's plight. Once established, filmmakers forget to re-create that sympathy and draw us into the human side of the Superhero again. (Spider-Man 2 avoids this mistake and, not surprisingly, was a smash hit.)
In truth, we will never truly understand the Superhero. Indeed our identification with him must come from sympathy for the plight of being misunderstood. If you are writing a Superhero movie, a wide range of tales are available for dissection. It's a long-standing story type for a reason: It gives flight to our greatest fantasies about our potential, while tempering those fantasies with a dose of reality.
HOLLYWOOD'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
I'm sure having reviewed this list of genres you're not only seeing why so many movies are structurally identical to others, but have had many "Eureka!" moments when you're convinced that outright "stealing" has been perpetrated.
And guess what? You're not so wrong to think that.
Look at Point Break starring Patrick Swayze, then look at Fast and Furious. Yes, it's the same movie almost beat for beat. But one is about surfing, the other is about hot cars. Is that stealing? Is that cheating? Now look at The Matrix and compare and contrast it with the Disney/Pixar hit Monsters, Inc. Yup. Same movie. And there's a million more examples: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is Chinatown. Blank Check is very similar to Home Alone. In some instances, the stealing is conscious. In others, it's just coincidence. But very often the reason it happens is that story templates work and they work for a reason that must be repeated. Each of these movies is an example of successful storytelling. Several are huge hits. Do you think anyone is complaining that Fast and Furious ripped off the story beats of Point Break? Did anyone notice but you and me? Doubtful.
The point I'm trying to get across here is — it works. And it works for a reason. Because the laws of physics that govern storytelling work every time, in every situation. Your job is to learn why it works and how these story cogs fit together. When it seems like you're stealing — don't. When it feels like a cliche — give it a twist. When you think it's familiar — it probably is, so you've got to find a new way. But at least understand why you're tempted to use the cliche and the familiar story. The rules are there for a reason. Once you get over feeling confined by these rules, you'll be amazed at how freeing they are. True originality can't begin until you know what you're breaking away from.
SUMMARY
The topic of genre dictates the categorizing of movies. But instead of typical categories such as Romantic Comedy or Heist Movie, we've created 10 new ones that define story types. These categories are all you need for now to help you identify the story mechanics of the movie idea you're working on. You will not need to find exclusions to them.
Or have I written those words prematurely?
You are a screenwriter. And as I said in Chapter One, all good screenwriters are bullheads. So I know what your response to the hard work and years of experience that went into what I've just related to you is: What about the exceptions? What about Breakfast Club? Huh? Is that Rites of Passage or Institutionalized? (Answer: Institutionalized). Oh, yeah, well what about Rain Man? Is that a Golden Fleece or a Buddy Love movie? (Answer: Buddy Love). Okay smart guy, what about Ben Stiller's Zoolander???? (Answer: It's just a bad movie!! Actually, it's one of my favorite bad movies. But it's also a great example of... the Superhero genre.)
If you're looking for the exceptions to the rules, you're missing the point of this chapter, which is to use categorizing as a storytelling tool. You must know movies. But you can't know them all. So this is a way to start. Take the script you're working on and try to find what category it's most like. Maybe you have moments in your script that borrow from all the categories? Maybe you start off your screenplay telling one type of story and end up telling another. That's fine, too. (I mean, at the end of the day, I doubt you'll sell that script, but we all have to learn the hard way. We're screenwriters! Pain is the game!)
The point is to be well-versed in the language, rhythm, and goals of the genre you're trying to move forward. If you know what genre
you're in, learn its rules and find what's essential; you'll write a better and more satisfying movie.
And have a better chance to sell it.
What's so great about these genres is how inspiring they are — at least to me. Seeing these genres laid out, and seeing their heritage — often going back to very ancient and familiar tales — tells me that the job of "Give me the same thing... only different" is not new. Jaws is just a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of the Minatour or even the dragon-slayer tales of the Middle Ages. Superman is just a modern Hercules. Road Trip is just an update of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales — isn't it? To not know the roots of the story you're trying to create, either from the last IOO years of movie storytelling or the last thousand, is to not honor the traditions and fundamental goals of your job.
"Give me the same thing... only different" then is what storytelling has always been about. But it's the way we put new twists on old tales, bring them up to date, and give them a spin that's meaningful for our contemporaries. It's a skill we must master and apply to all aspects of the craft. And in the next chapter, we'll discuss how to take all this wonderful background and draw out the most important part: the hero.
EXERCISES
1. Pick up the movie section of your newspaper. Review each of the movies available and decide what genre they fall into. If you go see that movie, compare and contrast it with the other movies in that genre. Were you drawn to it because of the type of movie it is?
2. Grab your handy TV Guide and go to the movie loglines. Going down the list to check films you've seen, write what genre each falls into. (Using the categories above, simply assign a number to each movie you've seen.) Does it work? Does every movie listed fall into a genre?
3. For the movie idea or script you're working on now, decide what category it falls into. Then make a list of other movies in that genre. As homework, go to your local Blockbuster and see how many of these are available. Make notes about how they compare and contrast to each other. Can you better explain what type of movie your idea or finished script is part of?
4. Finally, for those of you who love to find exceptions to the rules, make up your own genre and give it a name. Find three other movies in that genre. Can you find five? Maybe you've discovered a new genre!
If you come up with a brand new genre category, use my e-mail address found in the exercise section of Chapter One and send it to me. If it's really a good one, I may even include it in subsequent editions of this book.

The next step in figuring out what your movie is about is to figure out whom it's about.
As my wise old father used to say, "Tell me a story about a guy who..."
And after the concept, whenever I hear a screenwriter wind up to pitch his movie idea, somewhere in there I better hear some version of: "It's about a guy who... "
Why is this?
Well, it's like anything connected with trying to communicate an idea. The "who" is our way in. We, the audience, zero in on and project onto the "who" whether it's an epic motion picture or a commercial for Tide detergent. The "who" gives us someone to identify with — and that someone doesn't even have to be human. Why do mascots and spokespeople like the Jack character in all those Jack-in-the-Box commercials — or any talking corporate icon for that matter — draw us into the "story" of the product being sold? It's because it's easier to communicate an idea when someone is standing there experiencing it for us. And whether we're watching Lawrence of Arabia as Lawrence tries to figure out how to
attack Aqaba " ...from the land!" or a Tylenol commercial in which a busy Soccer Mom wonders when her headache will go away, the principle of involving us in the story is the same.
As screenwriters with a great idea for a movie, the job of creating heroes that will lure an audience into our world is unique. We have to create audience stand-ins that resonate for our target market AND serve the needs and goals of our story. And it starts from the very beginning with that great logline that hooks us with someone to identify with as much as something. This is why in any logline, any good logline, there will always be a couple of adjectives involved: A risk-averse teacher who... an agoraphobic stenographer
who... a milquetoast banker who____This also goes for the antagonist
who now must be described as an overprotective cop, a megalomaniac terrorist, or a homicidal baker. So let's add a few things to our list of what the "perfect" logline must include to be truly compelling:
> An adjective to describe the hero
> An adjective to describe the bad guy, and...
> A compelling goal we identify with as human beings
By giving us even these thumbnail sketches of whom we are going to be following — as well as the bad guy who is trying to block our hero from achieving his goal — we get a better snapshot of what is involved so we can latch onto, get interested in, and follow the story. But how are we going to do all that? How are we going to satisfy our great story AND create the "right" characters to sell it?
WHO IS THIS ABOUT?
Every movie, even ensemble pieces like Pulp Fiction "starring" John Travolta or Crimes and Misdemeanors "starring" Woody Allen, has to have a lead character. It has to be about someone. It has to have
one or two main people we can focus our attention on, identify with, and want to root for — and someone who can carry the movie's theme.
As important as creating this type of hero is, and singling him out even if we're writing an ensemble piece, the hero isn't always the first thing we think of, or the way we come at creating a "can't lose" movie idea. I hate to admit it, but I rarely begin writing any movie with the "who" in mind. More often it's the idea first. And if the hero is a part of the idea — well, that's just gravy. Many will tell you differently, and this is only my approach, but I think the "who" has to serve the "what is it?" — not the other way around. And once you have that golden idea, that winning pitch, that perfect hook, and don't quite yet have the "who," it's time to go to work to enhance the idea with the right characters, especially the hero of the story.
It's all about making the "What is it?" work better.
In many cases, the key to figuring out whom this story is about and what type of person is leading the action is right there in your log-line. In the scripts I've sold, many times the initial concept gave me the roadmap and all I had to do was clarify. In Poker Night, a comedy Colby Carr and I sold to Disney, the pitch is the characters: "A henpecked husband finally gets the house to himself one weekend and loses it in a poker game to an unscrupulous gambler." It's "Risky Business with a Dad." Need I say more? To service that concept all we had to do was play with the balance of the hero and the villain — and make it about Dad's journey from henpecked to empowered.
Another comedy we came up with and sold to Universal, called Third Grade, has an equally simple premise. This is a story about an adult man who has to go back to third grade. After being caught in a speed trap in front of his old school, the hero is ordered by the judge to be sent back to third grade to learn some manners. Easy concept, right? But who is the best person to put in this situation? What person would offer the most comic conflict given that punishment? What hero would offer "the longest journey" and need to learn the biggest lesson? Any takers? Well, in the development process it became clear. The guy who needs that lesson most is someone who has yet to grow up. On the outside he is a successful businessman, a guy up for a promotion at his work — designing violent video games for kids (ironic, no?) — but who has yet to learn the basics of Human Being School.
This is a guy who needs to go back to third grade, but doesn't know it yet. And only this adventure will give him the comic lessons he so richly deserves. It's a sweet little movie idea, the poster is inherent in the premise; it's a guy in an Armani suit and a cell phone squeezed into a tiny desk surrounded by out-of-control eight-year olds and maybe a "Kick Me" sign taped to his back. Get it? Well, of course you do. But the gimmick of sending someone back to third grade wouldn't mean anything unless we figured out the perfect hero to take that journey.
AMPING UP THE LOGLINE
Many times, your great initial idea will only give you a hint of what has to be done to create the hero that sells your idea best. To make the idea work, very often you have to play with the characters in order to give your hero the most conflict, the longest journey, and the most primal goal to "amp up" the idea for maximum impact. To make this clear, let's look at our loglines cited in Chapter One and tinker around with other possible "whos" for these ideas.
In 4 Christmases, all I know is that the two leads are a young couple. They both come from families of divorce and re-marriage — thus the problem of having to see all four of their families on
Christmas Day. My guess is that this is a couple that wants to be together forever, but is having problems at the get-go. They eschew their families and the problems they grew up with; they don't want to get divorced. But maybe it's not all peaches and cream: They're newlyweds! So this day will be a test for them. Do they want to go the way of their parents? Or do they want to go their own way, form a permanent bond, and never get divorced? Granted, I have not read the script. I have no idea what the writers chose to do, but that's the way I'd go.
And suddenly, given this very deep and primal urge, the urge to stay committed and be in love forever despite their families, this couple is worth rooting for. That's a movie I'd like to see because those are characters I want to see win. So swiftly, this "easy" premise has real meaning. We have not only identified the "right" characters for this story, but given them a built-in, Alpha-Omega journey to take in the course of this movie. Now the story IS the characters. And you thought it was just a funny poster!
In Ride Along, part of the pitch, part of the mental picture that makes the idea crackle for me, is the adjectives. A "risk-averse" teacher goes on a ride along with his brother-in-law, an "over-protective" cop, and the goal is primal: the love of the woman they both care about. Those adjectives tell me exactly where this story is going. It's a trial by fire for the teacher: Is he brave enough to overcome his fear and win the hand of his fiancee in the "real" world of manly cops? If he loves her, he will.
But now let's take that same ride-along idea and try some different characters in their places. What if we could do anything with this basic premise? What if the young man who is wooing the sister is not a teacher but an ex-Green Beret? Well, now it's a different movie. It warps the way it plays out in my mind. Now to make the comic conflict come to life, you make the cop the scaredy-cat. He's
Barney Fife and his future brother-in-law will be teaching him a thing or two between reminiscences of the Gulf War and a few demonstrations of his "thousand-yard stare." And odds are the ride along would be the ex-Green Beret's idea. Suddenly it's a very different movie, isn't it? But it's another way to go. It just shows how you can have a good idea — and absolutely wreck it with the wrong characters. To me, the original idea works best.
In the example of The Retreat, again the adjectives come into play to tell us the writers most likely did it right. The way they have it "cast" now, it's about a wet-behind-the-ears (read: young) company employee's first taste of corporate life at a weekend retreat — and someone's trying to kill him. Funny! But let's play around with the character to see other ways they could have gone with this same premise. What if the person going on the retreat is 65, has been at the company for 20 years, and is about to retire? Okay. So now it's about a company "downsizing" its employees for real before they can collect their retirement benefits. Same idea basically: a corporate retreat; a series of murder attempts; a paranoid who doesn't know why he's being targeted. But the journey's a lot different... and so is the moral. And so is the audience: no one will show up for that movie. At best it's an Indie starring Jack Lemmon, and Jack is, well, dead.
The point is that amping up a great logline with the hero who makes the idea work best is how the idea comes to life. And let's be clear, the trick is to create heroes who:
> Offer the most conflict in that situation
> Have the longest way to go emotionally and...
> Are the most demographically pleasing!
On this last point, I have particular experience now that I am over 40. Nowadays, I must always catch myself when thinking of my movie heroes. In my mind everyone is 40- And the heroes (in my mind), the ones that I am personally drawn to anyway, are now all "existential heroes" — a little world-weary and yet bravely wise. Yeah! Right! And the audience that's going to show up for that movie is... well, A.W.O.L. to be honest. (But, if it gets made, the French will hail me as a genius.)
Whenever I find myself drifting into thinking about writing starring roles for Tim Allen, Steve Martin, or Chevy Chase, I catch myself and realize where I am: youth-obsessed Hollywood. Those guys are fine in ensemble, as part of a four-quadrant family pic, great, but as the lead? Never. Okay, rarely. My solution, once I do catch myself and give up on trying to change things, is to make that great character with the existential dilemma a teenager, and make that married couple who's having a crisis a twenty-something married couple. This is the crowd that shows up for movies. These are the heroes the audience likes to see onscreen at their local Cineplex.
Why fight City Hall?
The age of characters I think up is my particular blind spot; you have yours. But keep in mind what our job is here: mass market, high concept poster movies for everybody, all over the world. Do not think that just because you and all your friends prefer something, or are in on a certain trend or fad, or like a type of person, that everyone else will, too. I have actually been pitched a movie that the writer said was a great "Julio Iglesias vehicle" — I swear! — won't everybody show up for that premiere? (Mucho doubto.) This is why I stress getting out and pitching your movie ideas to real people in the real world to get their reaction.
This discussion of blind spots reminds me of a favorite story my father used to tell. He worked in Advertising early on and one time was trying to sell a client on buying TV time on Sundays. The client, a wealthy man, balked at this idea and had a very studied reason: "No one stays home and watches TV on Sunday," he explained. "Everyone's out playing polo!"
A lesson in perspective for us all.
THE PRIMAL URGE
As stressed throughout this book, let me just say again: Primal, primal, primal!
Once you've got the hero, the motivation for the hero to succeed must be a basic one. What does X want? Well, if it's a promotion at work, it better damn well be related to winning the hand of X's beloved or saving up enough money to get X's daughter an operation. And if it's a match-up with an enemy, it better well lead to a life-or-death showdown, not just a friendly spitball fight.
Why?
It s because primal urges get our attention. Survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, fear of death grab us.
The best ideas and the best characters in the lead roles must have basic needs, wants, and desires. Basic, basic!
Don't believe me?
Then let's look at our three loglines and take out the primal-ness in each to see how our desire to see each wanes:
What if in 4 Christmases, the lead couple isn't married? What if they're just friends who grew up together and share Christmas
with each other's family every year? Same premise. But take out the sex and what have you got? No stakes. Nothing is on the line. It's still funny. It's still the same idea. But I have no primal rooting interest. Pass!
In Ride Along, try taking out the sister/fiancee. What if the doofus teacher just signs up for a ride along with a cop — any cop. Well, in this gin-rummy hand of primal-ness I've still got: survival. This teacher still has to make it through the night and there will still be risks to his life. But having the cop's sister/teacher's fiancee as the goal makes the stakes resonate with primal-ness. Again, as in the examples in Chapter Two, it's almost a knight-errant tale, isn't it? But having the princess as the prize makes it work whether it's set in the modern day "hood or the Middle Ages.
One more. Just to grind it in.
The Retreat. Let's take out the danger. What if there aren't any murders? What if it's all pranks played on the newbie executive. Well, where are the stakes? To make this idea work you must have the threat of death; otherwise it's a corporate training film, or worse, an existential metaphor.
And yes, this is all about your hero. Give him stakes. Real stakes. Primal stakes. Stakes that are basic, that we understand. Make the hero want something real and simple: survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, fear of death.
And when it comes to who to cast in your screenplay, we respond best to stories of husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends. Why? Because we all have these people in our lives! You say "father" and I see my father. You say "girlfriend" and I see my girlfriend. We all have em — and it gets our attention because of that. It's an immediate attention-getter because we have a primal reaction to those people, to those words even! So when in doubt, ground your characters in the most deep-seated imagery you can. Make it relevant to us. Make it something that every caveman (and his brother) will get.
Make it, say it with me now... primal!
CASTING FOR THE ROLE OF YOUR HERO
One of the pitfalls of being a savvy movie writer is knowing who among the acting set is looking to do what part next. Adam wants to do a drama next — to get his Oscar nod. Ditto Jim. Ditto Steve. (After Lost in Translation, ditto everybody!) We have also seen everyone's most recent movie, may or may not know what's in production next, and think we know who'd be perfect for the movie we are writing.
Let me state here and now: We do not know!
This is all a long way of saying:
> Don't cast the movie before you've sold the script!
> Don't write parts for certain actors!
> Don't get married to the idea of one particular actor doing the part — you'll always be disappointed.
Rare is the occasion when dream script meets dream cast. And let me give you an example of learning the hard way:
The amazing Sheldon Bull and I wrote a hilarious comedy in 2004. What if the President's helicopter goes down behind enemy lines? And what if he is forced to capture Osama bin Laden — all by himself? That was our premise. It's about a President who finds his "inner leader." It's "Galaxy Quest with George W. Bush." Great, huh? We even had a great title: Chickenhawk Down. And here's why we did not sell that script: Because there are about two
people who can play the part of the President. It's the lead. And there really isn't anyone out there who can "open" that movie. Tim Allen was our first choice. And... who else ? What we had done was paint ourselves into a corner on casting. Yes, it's funny. Yes, it's a great story. Yes, someday it will get made (by God!) but right now it just sits there. Hear the crickets?
We are professional screenwriters and we should have known better. But we got so caught up in our idea (see! ?) that we didn't think it all the way through. The point is to leave yourself plenty of room for casting. Your leads should be able to be played by many actors and actresses. And they should all be able to "open" the movie. This is yet another reason why young actors are in such demand: They're so damn many of them! And no, you do not know what parts actors are looking for. Even if you hear it from their manager. Even if the actor looks you in the eye and tells you that their next movie, the role he really wants, is a comedy where he plays a teacher. He is lying. He is an actor. Lovely, charming people to be sure, but skittish as thoroughbreds.
They do not know what they want to do next.
And neither do you.
ACTOR ARCHETYPES
That said, why is it that certain actors always play certain parts over and over again? As hinted at in Chapter Two, you find throughout cinema history that many of the big stars play one part really well. Think about Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Cary Grant. Now think about Jim Carrey, Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts, and Sandra Bullock. It's not because these are not good actors who can't do more than one type of role, only that what makes movies work to a large degree is our need to be shown certain archetypes onscreen.
And the actors who play these archetypes now are just taking the place of the actors who played the same archetypes years ago.
Isn't Russell Crowe Errol Flynn? (Even geographically?)
Isn't Jim Carrey Jerry Lewis?
Isn't Tom Hanks Jimmy Stewart?
Isn't Sandra Bullock Rosalind Russell?
The reason is that these archetypes exist to satisfy our inner need to see these shadow creations in our brains played out onscreen. It's the Jungian archetypes these actors represent that we're interested in seeing. And if you always remember to write for the archetype, and not the star, the casting will take care of itself. So while this may not be strictly Jungian (even though I got an "A" in Jung) let me instead give you some Snyderian archetypes for your perusal:
> There's the "young man on the rise" archetype — a very American character that includes Harold Lloyd, Steve Martin (in his day), Adam Sandler, and the omni-versal Ashton Kutcher. Horatio Alger-esque, a little dumb, but plucky, this is the type we all want to see win.
> There's the "good girl tempted" archetype — pure of heart, cute as a bug: Betty Grable, Doris Day, Meg Ryan (in her day), Reese Witherspoon. This is the female counterpart of the young man on the rise.
> There's the "imp," the "clever and resourceful child" —Jackie Coogan, MacCauly Culkin, and even their evil opposite, the "Bad Seed," i.e., Patty McCormick.
> There's the "sex goddess" archetype — Mae West to Marilyn Monroe to Bridget Bardot to Halle Berry.
> And the male version, "the hunk" — From Rudolph Valentino to Clark Gable, from Robert Redford to Tom Cruise to Viggo Mortenson to Mr. and Mrs. Diesel's pride and joy, Vin.
And the list goes on. There's the "wounded soldier going back for a last redemptive mission" archetype: Paul Newman, and now Glint Eastwood. There's the "troubled sexpot" archetype: Veronica Lake, Angelina Jolie. And the lovable fop: Cary Grant, Hugh Grant. There's the court jester: Danny Kaye, Woody Allen, Rob Schneider. There's the wise grandfather: Alec Guinness and now — same beard, same robe — Ian McKellen.
There are magic dwarves and tricksters, sidekicks and talking animals, spinsters and wizards, Falstaffs and misers — and they keep on popping up. Over and over again. Same characters, same function for being in the story. Like knowing the history of certain story types, knowing the long line of ancestors your characters descend from is a must.
You don't have to be Joseph Campbell to see that no matter who's hot in Casting Call, the archetypes never change. Each one of these archetypes has a story arc we want to see played out again and again. And it's all about matching what we carry in the back of our minds to what we see onscreen. Who deserves to win and why? Who deserves comeuppance and why? And despite the dictates of political correctness, fashion and fad, we still want to see justice meted out for characters we hate and victory granted to those we admire. The stories of these heroes and the mathematical equations that makes their stories work is already sewn into our DNA. Your job, your simple task, is to forget the stars, concentrate on the archetypes, and strive to make them new.
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
And now, for my bullheads in the audience, let's get to the exceptions. When it comes to creating the linear, straightforward movie hero, we pretty much understand. But what about the special circumstances? What about ensemble? What about biographical movies? What about animated movies where the characters come from non-relevant fairy tales??
Okay.
Yes, there are always special circumstances. But finding the hero in all of these examples is the same method used to find them in any original one-line or spec.
Take biography. You've been handed someone's life story and now have to make a movie out of it. So what if the hero isn't necessarily very likeable? Or what if he or she did things that weren't all that admirable, what then? Let's take a look at Kinsey. Those of you who know the story about the famous sex study pioneer, Alfred Kinsey, know that the screenwriter (also the director, Bill Condon) faced a problem. Kinsey was odd. He conducted sex studies on friends and neighbors, spied on his wife, and dabbled with his subjects in ways many might think of as objectionable. Finding the hero in that story also means finding a "bad guy, " too. But if they can make a movie out of the life of porn-meister Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler Magazine, as they did in "The People vs. Larry Flynt, and make him out to be a hero, well, why not follow the same formula? And that's exactly what Condon did.
The writers of A Beautiful Mind faced this same problem with mathematician John Nash and chose to simply fudge some of the facts of his life story to make him more palatable. They dropped certain un-heroic facets of his love life and merged two real wives into one for the sake of movie continuity. This kind of thing, with
the guidance of a good errors and omissions attorney, is done a lot.
I myself grappled with a similar dilemma when I was handed the biographical challenge of John DeLorean, the famous automaker and creator of the DeLorean sports car. Imagine my surprise when my research proved him not to be a "Tucker-esque" maverick brought down by the Big Three automakers for his radical ideas but, by some accounts, a con man. All well and good, but who's the hero in that story? My solution was to make the hero the author of one of the books I'd read, a guy who had been inside the DeLorean empire from the start and grew disillusioned by both the man and his "vision." By tracing the rise and fall of DeLorean from this insider's point of view, and showing how he could be fooled, it gave the audience the "way in" to that story. I even gave my script the ironic title, Dream Car. Your way in to a biography has to pay attention to the same rules of any story: It has to be, first and foremost, about a guy who... we can root for.
Or at least understand.
Ensemble pieces can offer the same dilemma for the screenwriter. And as the examples of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and Woody Allen in Crimes and Misdemeanors prove, the hero doesn't always have to be the one with the most scenes. But ensemble does offer a unique challenge of finding your way in. Who is this about, you keep asking, this piece with 12 characters, all with equal screen time?
One of the masters of the ensemble, director Robert Altman, specializes in this. Nashville, Welcome to L.A., and Shortcuts offer crisscrossing character sketches with no central lead. But Altman would argue differently. The city of Nashville became the "star" of Nashville, and Shortcuts and Welcome to L.A. "stars" the city of Los Angeles. Granted these are not classic hero's tales, but Altman found his way in and stuck to it. And by creating a new kind of hero to root for, he was true to the moral he wanted to tell.
In ensemble, like any story, the "hero" is usually the one who carries the theme of the movie. When in doubt, ask yourself who serves this function in your movie — who comes up against the others the hardest, and who grows the most? And pretty soon you're asking the same questions you ask when finding the hero of any movie you're writing: Who offers the most conflict? Who comes the farthest emotionally and who is the most likeable, the one we want to root for and see win? That's the one you have to make it "about."
Animated tales based on existing material are often difficult challenges, especially when translating across cultural differences and time. Later we will see how the hero of Disney's Aladdin went from being an unlikable street urchin in the original text (though one who was perfectly acceptable to the culture in which he was created) to an affable, modern Surfer dude. Likewise in Disney's Mulan, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the writers were presented with similar challenges and met with mixed results based on changes to the hero — and how his or her story was told. But whether your cast of characters is a pack of prehistoric ice Age-ers or a bunch of idiosyncratic insects (Antz, A Bug's Life), the process of giving us a winning logline, and the hero to star in it, is exactly the same.
The rule of thumb in all these cases is to stick to the basics no matter what. Tell me a story about a guy who...
> I can identify with.
> I can learn from.
> I have compelling reason to follow.
> I believe deserves to win and...
> Has stakes that are primal and ring true for me.
Follow that simple prescription for finding the hero of your movie and you can't go wrong. No matter what assignment, material, or sweeping canvas has been handed to you, you find the hero by finding the heart of the story.
SLAVE TO THE LOGLINE
When you have found the perfect hero for your story and nailed down just what his primal goal is, it's time to go back to your log-line and add in what you've learned to make it perfect. And if it sounds like I am insisting that you become a "slave to the logline" — well, you're right.
The logline is your story's code, its DNA, the one constant that has to be true. If it's good, if it has all the earmarks of a winning idea, then it should give you everything you need to guide you in writing the screenplay. It is, in short, the touchstone, both for you the writer and the audience you're selling your movie to. If you are true to your logline, you will deliver the best possible story. And if you find yourself straying from it in the middle of the writing process, you better have a good reason.
And this is particularly true when it comes to your hero.
The logline tells the hero's story: Who he is, who he's up against, and what's at stake. The nice, neat form of a one- or two-sentence pitch tells you everything. Nailing it down and sticking to it is not only a good exercise, it will become vital to your story as you continue to "beat it out" and eventually write it. By examining who your hero is and what his primal goal is, as well as the bad guy who is trying to stop him from achieving that goal, you can better identify and expand on the needs of your story. The logline with the most conflict, the most sharply defined hero and bad guy, and the clearest, most primal goal is the winner. And once you identify those characteristics and it works, stick to it. Use that logline to double-check your results as you begin to execute your screenplay. And if you find a better way in the writing, make sure you go back and re-enunciate it. But from beginning to end, making it "about a guy who..." keeps you on track. And the logline helps you continue to double-check your math from initial concept to
FADE OUT.
SUMMARY
Finding the hero of your story is the second most important part of coming up with a winning movie concept — winning meaning "one that will sell." Cast and concept is, in fact, the starting point of getting any movie made. "What's it about?" and "Who's in it?" are the first two questions any moviegoer asks, and that goes for everyone else as well, from agent and producer to studio executive. It's how the "who" and the "what is it?" come together in an intriguing combination that makes us want to see this story unfold.
The perfect hero is the one who offers the most conflict in the situation, has the longest emotional journey, and has a primal goal we can all root for. Survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, and fear of death grab us. It is usually someone we can identify with primally, too, and that's why mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives make better characters than mere strangers facing the same situations and storylines.
When committing these discoveries to your logline, you must have an adjective to describe the hero, an adjective to describe the bad guy, and a definite and primal goal or setting.
EXERCISES
1. Review your list of movies in the genre you are trying to execute and write out the logline for each. Give attention — and great adjectives — to the type of hero, the type of bad guy, and the hero's primal goal.
2. What actor archetypes can you identify from the list of movies in your genre? What type of character is the lead portraying and what actors from the past could play those parts as well as the modern-day star?
3. Name an ensemble movie and identify its hero. Does every movie have to have a hero? Name other movies where the story required no main hero.
4. Finally, if you feel really daring, try writing a logline for this idea: A guy gets a talking car. Knowing what you know about how to amp up the hero, the bad guy, and the primal goal, write a logline for that idea. And make sure you use adjectives that grab us.

Itching to start writing your screenplay? Of course you are!
Will I let you start writing your screenplay? Keep itching!
But you certainly are getting closer. And think about all that you've accomplished so far. You've polished your one-line and pitched enough "civilians" to know you've got a good one. You've screened a dozen movies that are in the category of story you're trying to tell. You've come up with the perfect hero and antagonist, and amped up both the hero's primal goal and the conflict in the way of his achieving it. And now it's time to take all that great info you've gleaned about your script and figure out how to write the sucker.
There is no greater thrill when I am working on a newly born movie idea than the battle cry: "Let's beat it out!"
It means it's time to put all those great scenes and ideas and characters "up on The Board" and see what goes where,
which character does what, and whether you need every scene you've imagined... or have to invent all new ones.
It's time to do the measure-twice/cut-once calculation that will save you time, allow you to pitch "beat for beat" and build the foundation and ironwork of your screenplay.
It's time to talk about structure.
STRUCTURE. STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE...
After coming up with the idea, and identifying the "who" in your movie — and who it's for — the structure is the single most important element in writing and selling a screenplay. Good structure is ironclad. And when you sell your script, having a well-structured screenplay will show that you have really done the work in making a blueprint that is solid and sound. The credit jumpers can change the order of your scenes; they can erase your dialogue; they can add new characters and take others away — and they will! — but if you've done the work on structure, and know how and why your story works, no matter how they tinker, your screenplay will remain strong.
It will remain yours.
Not to get too self-protective, but a strong structure guarantees your writing credit. More than any other element, the bones of a screenplay, as constructed in the story beats of your script, will be proof to those who decide who gets credit at the Writers Guild of America (WGA) that the work is primarily yours. Talk to any writer whose credit has been arbitrated and they'll tell you. For a spec screenwriter, your guarantee that you stay in the picture, and that the fabulous cash and prizes called residuals — which come in lovely lime green envelopes at the most unexpected (and welcome) times —will be yours.
The craftsmanship it takes, the patient work, the magic of storytelling on film, all come together in how yon execute and realize structure. It is a skill you must know.
I came to structure slowly and late. And mostly I came to it out of desperation. How many meetings did I go to early on where I pitched my movie idea by giving the exec the concept, a few "cool" scenes, and then simply stopped and smiled... because I had nowhere else to go? Gad! I remember the first time I was hired to write a screenplay and the executive asked me about my "Act Break." I had exactly zero idea of what this nice person was talking about. This was before I'd even heard about Syd Field (whom I consider to be the father of the modern movie template), and when I finally read and digested Field's opus Screenplay, I knew I had found something truly career-saving.
Oh! Three acts! Imagine that?
And yet, it was not enough. Like a swimmer in a vast ocean, there was a lot of open water in between those two Act Breaks. And a lot of empty script space in which to get lost, panic, and drown. I needed more islands, shorter swims.
Viki King filled in a lot more of that open water for me in a book with the unlikely "Get Rich Quick" title of How to Write a Movie in 21 Days. And yet, even with midpoints and B stories, there was still way too much room to screw up.
So I developed my own.
From what I'd seen in movies, read about in screenplay books, and found myself relying on, I developed the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. I wrote out 15 beats and managed to squeeze them all in on a one-page document on which the fifteen islands would fit — flush left.
It looks like this:
THE BLAKE SNYDER BEAT SHEET
PROJECT TITLE:
GENRE:
DATE:
1. Opening Image (1): 2. Theme Stated (5):
3. Set-up (1-10):
4. Catalyst (12):
5. Debate (12-25):
6. Break into Two (25) 7. B Story (30):
8. Fun and Games (30-55):
9. Midpoint (55):
10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75):
11. All Is Lost (75):
12. Dark Night of the Soul (75-85):
13. Break into Three (85):
14. Finale (85-110):
15. Final Image (no):
Isn't this pure? And easy?
I use this simple one-page blank form whenever I have a pitch meeting. I won't let myself go into that meeting until I've filled in every space — and there aren't that many spaces. You can only write one, maybe two sentences explaining what each beat is, and that's perfect. Like the one-line description of the movie as a whole, I learned that if I can't fill in the blank in one or two sentences — I don't have the beat yet! I am just guessing. I am treading water, about to drown. Yet it isn't until I work on the form, and try to fill in those blank spaces, that I even know I have a problem!
The numbers in parentheses are the page numbers where the beats take place. A script in terms of page count should be about as long as a good jockey weighs: 110. Though some dramas run longer, the proportions are the same. I want my act breaks, midpoints, and All Is Lost moments to hit their marks. And I insist they do. Take a look at Blank Check where, five minutes into the movie, roughly page 5 of the script, the theme is stated loud and clear. Look at where the midpoint, the All Is Lost, and break into three hit. They're perfect, and stayed that way from script to screen because Colby and I worked our butts off to make it so from the first draft of that script to the last. It worked because our structure was sound and we had tried it from every angle to make sure it was sound; it defied those who wanted to overwrite us, because we had nailed the structure.
Some of these terms may be unfamiliar to you. What, you may ask, is "fun and games"? Well that's my name for it. And not to worry, it's found in both dramas and comedies. What is the "Dark Night of the Soul"? Again, another "Eureka!" But a beat you've seen about a million times.
The codifying of these beats is now available to you anytime. The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (The BS2) is here to help. But before you go off half-baked, or all-baked for that matter, let me explain and give examples of what I mean by each section of the screenplay as outlined in this form.
Do you have a choice in this matter?
No, you do not!
OPENING IMAGE (1)
The very first impression of what a movie is — its tone, its mood, the type and scope of the film — are all found in the opening image. I can think of many great ones: the reckless motorcycle ride through the English countryside leading to the death of Lawrence of Arabia; the gated, looming castle behind which lurks the mysterious Citizen Kane; and even silly ones like the opening image of Animal House — who could forget the motto of Faber College: "Knowledge is good" beneath the statue of the Faber College founder? Don't we know what we're in for with all three of these examples? Don't each of these opening images set the tone, type, style, and stakes of the movie as a whole?
The opening image is also an opportunity to give us the starting point of the hero. It gives us a moment to see a "before" snapshot of the guy or gal or group of people we are about to follow on this adventure we're all going to take. Presumably, if the screenwriter has done his job, there will also be an "after" snapshot to show how things have changed. Like many of the beats on the BS2, the opening image has a matching beat: the final image. These are bookends. And because a good screenplay is about change, these two scenes are a way to make clear how that change takes place in your movie. The opening and final images should be opposites, a
plus and a minus, showing change so dramatic it documents the emotional upheaval that the movie represents. Often actors will only read the first and last IO pages of a script to see if that drastic change is in there, and see if it's intriguing. If you don't show that change, the script is often tossed across the room into the "Reject" pile.
So the opening image does a lot. It sets the tone, mood, and style of the movie, and very often introduces the main character and shows us a "before" snapshot of him or her. But mostly what it does is get us to scrunch down in our seats in the movie theater and say: "This is gonna be good!" And since you've just screened a dozen movies like the one you're about to write, you can think of at least six that have standout opening images. All good movies have them.
THEME STATED (5)
Somewhere in the first five minutes of a well-structured screenplay , someone (usually not the main character) will pose a question or make a statement (usually to the main character) that is the theme of the movie. "Be careful what you wish for," this person will say or "Pride goeth before a fall" or "Family is more important than money." It won't be this obvious, it will be conversational, an offhand remark that the main character doesn't quite get at the moment — but which will have far-reaching and meaningful impact later.
This statement is the movie's thematic premise.
In many ways a good screenplay is an argument posed by the screenwriter, the pros and cons of living a particular kind of life, or pursuing a particular goal. Is a behavior, dream, or goal worth it? Or is it false? What is more important, wealth or happiness?

Who is greater in the overall scheme of things — the individual or the group? And the rest of the screenplay is the argument laid out, either proving or disproving this statement, and looking at it, pro and con, from every angle. Whether you're writing a comedy, a drama, or a sci-fi monster picture, a good movie has to be "about something." And the place to stick what your movie is about is right up front. Say it! Out loud. Right there.
If you don't have a movie that's about something, you're in trouble. Strive to figure out what it is you're trying to say. Maybe you won't know until your first draft is done. But once you do know, be certain that the subject is raised right up front — page 5 is where I always put it.
But make sure it's there. It's your opening bid. Declare: I can prove it. Then set out to do so.
SET UP (1-10)
The first 10 pages of the script, or first dozen pages at most, is called the "set-up." If you're like me, and like most readers in Hollywood, this is the make-or-break section where you have to grab me or risk losing my interest. Think of all the good set-ups you've seen in the first reel — the first ten minutes — which "sets up" the hero, the stakes, and goal of the story... and does so with vigor!
The set-up is also the place where, if you're me the writer, I make sure I've introduced or hinted at introducing every character in the A story. Watch any good movie and see. Within the first IO minutes you meet or reference them all. Make sure by your page IO you have done the same.
The first IO pages is also where we start to plant every character tic, exhibit every behavior that needs to be addressed later on, and show how and why the hero will need to change in order to win. She's an isolated writer who lives in a make-believe world (Romancing the Stone); he's a hip, slick, and savvy foreign-car importer who's as glib as he is cold (Rain Man); she's a ditzy airhead who doesn't appear to have much substance (Legally Blonde).
And when there's something that our hero wants or is lacking, this is the place to stick the Six Things That Need Fixing. This is my phrase, six is an arbitrary number, that stands for the laundry list you must show — repeat SHOW — the audience of what is missing in the hero's life. Like little time bombs, these Six Things That Need Fixing, these character tics and flaws, will be exploded later in the script, turned on their heads and cured. They will become running gags and call-backs. We, the audience, must know why they're being called back! Look at Big and its primary set-up: "You have to be this tall to go on this ride." On the list of Six Things That Need Fixing there are other needs besides a height requirement. The kid in Big can't get the girl, have any privacy, etc. But in Act Two he gets all those things when he
magically turns Big. And those call-backs only work because we have seen them in the set-up.
Jeez, but that's a lot of stuff to do in the first IO pages! But there it is. If you want to play with the Big boys, these are the tasks you must accomplish.
One last word on the set-up as it relates to Act One. I like to think of movies as divided into three separate worlds. Most people call these three acts, I call em thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The first IO pages and the rest of Act One is the movie's thesis; it's where we see the world as it is before the adventure starts. It is a full-fledged documentation of the hero's world labeled "before." There is a calm before the storm in this world, and especially in the set-up. If events that follow did not occur, it would pretty much stay this way. But there is a sense in the set-up that a storm's about to hit, because for things to stay as they are... is death. Things must change.
CATALYST (12)
The package that arrives in Romancing the Stone which will send Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) to South America; the telephone call that informs Tom Cruise his father has died in Rain Man; the dinner at which Reese Witherspoon's fiance announces he's dumping her in Legally Blonde — these are the catalyst moments: telegrams, getting fired, catching the wife in bed with another man, news that you have three days to live, the knock at the door, the messenger. In the set-up you, the screenwriter, have told us what the world is like and now in the catalyst moment you knock it all down. Boom!
I frankly love the catalyst moment, and I really miss it when I don't see it done, or done well. Have to have it. Like my pet peeve — the lack of decent Save the Cat scenes in hip, slick movies — this is another one that bugs me when it's not there. I like the catalyst
moment because — it's life. Those moments happen to all of us. And life-changing events often come disguised as bad news. Like many of the beats in the BS2, the catalyst is not what it seems. It's the opposite of good news, and yet, by the time the adventure is over, it's what leads the hero to happiness.
When I'm writing a screenplay, my catalyst moment will float around for the first couple of drafts. The set-up will be too long, the story is clogged with details, and that page 12 catalyst beat is somehow, mysteriously, on page 20. Well, cut it down and put it where it belongs: page 12- And when you start trimming all your darlings away, you'll suddenly realize that's why we have these little structure maps — all that boring detail was redundant or you weren't very good about showing it economically. The catalyst point is the first moment when something happens! Thank God! And if it's not there, the reader will get antsy. Your coverage will read: "No Plot" because you'll have lost the reader's attention. Page 12 — Catalyst. Do it.
DEBATE (12-25)
This is a section of the script, between pages 12 and 25, that used to really baffle me. When the telegram comes on page 12 informing me that my sister is being held by pirates, I know what I have to do! So why do I, the writer, have to vamp to the Act Break until my hero does what he's supposed to?
The debate section is just that — a debate. It's the last chance for the hero to say: This is crazy. And we need him or her to realize that. Should I go? Dare I go? Sure, it's dangerous out there, but what's my choice? Stay here?
My writing partner Sheldon Bull and I have been working on our Golden Fleece movie. In Act One, a kid is kicked out of military school and sent home to find... his parents have moved. Well, the kid's stuck. He can't go back to military school and he can't stay where he is. He knows where his parents moved to, so now it's a decision: Should he go on the road to find them? This is our chance to show how daunting a feat this is going to be. Can you imagine? But since it's a comedy, we've also made it funny. Our kid hero is taken to the edge of town at the end of Act One by a friendly cabbie. The kid looks ahead to a spooky-looking road down which he knows he must travel if he is to find his folks. Gulp! But his fear is quickly made light of when he's heckled by a driver passing by. And so, on a fun note, and making a firm decision, off he goes.
Your moment of truth may not be so clear-cut, but it's important to remember that the debate section must ask a question of some kind. In Legally Blonde the catalyst of the fiance dumping Elle Woods quickly segues to her solution: Go to Harvard Law. "But can she get in?" That is the question posed in the debate section of that movie. The debate section thus becomes showing how Elle answers that question. And when she manages to zoom her LSATs, create a lascivious admissions video, and get accepted, the answer to the question is clear: Yes! And like the kid hero in our "Home Alone on the road" movie, Elle can happily march into Act Two. She has answered the debate question and can now proceed.
BREAK INTO TWO (25)
It happens on page 25-1 have been in many arguments. Why not page 28? What's wrong with 30? Don't. Please.
In a IIO page screenplay, it happens no later than 25.
Page 25 is the place where I always go to first in a screenplay someone has handed me (we all have our reading quirks) to see "what happens on 25." I want to know 1) if anything happens and 2) if
this screenwriter knows that something should happen. And I mean something big.
Because that's what is supposed to happen... on 25-
As discussed above, the act break is the moment where we leave the old world, the thesis statement, behind and proceed into a world that is the upside down version of that, its antithesis. But because these two worlds are so distinct, the act of actually stepping into Act Two must be definite.
Very often when I am writing a screenplay, my act break will start off vaguely. I'll find that events will draw the hero into Act Two. This is incorrect. The hero cannot be lured, tricked, or drift into Act Two. The hero must make the decision himself. That's what makes him a hero anyway — being proactive. Take Star Wars. The event that prompts Luke Skywalker on his journey is his parents being killed, but the decision to "go on the road" is his. Luke cannot wake up on Han Solo's starship wondering how he got there, he has to choose to go. Make sure your hero does likewise.
B STORY (30)
The B story begins on page 30. And the B story of most screenplays is "the love story." It is also the story that carries the theme of the movie. I also think that the start of the B story, what takes place around page 30, is a little booster rocket that helps smooth over the shockingly obvious A story act break. Think about it. You've set up the A story, you've put it into motion, now we've had this abrupt jump into Act Two and you've landed in a whole new world. The B story says: "Enough already, how about talking about something else!" Which is why the cutaway is usually in line with the A story... but new in scope.
The B story gives us a breather.
Let's take Legally Blonde, for instance. The B story is Elle's relationship with the manicurist she meets in Boston. And it is a much needed break from the A story. We've met Elle. She's been dumped. She's decided to go to Law School. She gets there. And school is tough. Well, enough already, let's have a little time-out! Let's go slightly off theme here and meet someone new. Thus, the manicurist. And yes, while it is not a traditional boy-girl love story, it is in fact "the love story." It's where Elle will be nurtured. It is also the place where Elle confides what she is learning in the School of Hard Knocks she's experiencing at Harvard Law — and the place from which she'll draw the strength she needs for the final push into Act Three and ultimate victory.
The B story is also very often a brand new bunch of characters. We have not always met the B story players in the first IO pages of the screenplay. We did not even know they existed. But since Act Two is the antithesis, they are the upside down versions of those characters who inhabit the world of Act One. Again, the B story ally in Legally Blonde is a perfect example. Isn't Jennifer Goolidge, the wonderful actress who portrays manicurist Paulette Bonafonte, the funhouse mirror version of the girls from Elle's sorority house back at UCLA? This is why the character is so successful. She is a classic anti-thesis creature.
The B story then does a lot. And you must have one. It provides not only the love story and a place to openly discuss the theme of your movie, but gives the writer the vital "cutaways" from the A story. And it starts on 3O.
FUN AND GAMES (30-55)
The fun and games section is that part of the screenplay that, I
like to say, provides: The promise of the premise. It is the core and essence of the movie's poster. It is where most of the trailer moments of a movie are found. And it's where we aren't as concerned with the forward progress of the story — the stakes won't be raised until the midpoint — as we are concerned with having "fun." The fun and games section answers the question: Why did I come to see this movie? What about this premise, this poster, this movie idea, is cool? When you, the development exec, ask for "more set pieces," this is where I put them. In the fun and games.
This, to me, is the heart of the movie. When I discovered what this section of the screenplay needs to do, and why it's there, it leapfrogged me ahead IO places. For me it happened in the summer of 1989. And it was a definite "Hazzah!" moment that is rarely so clear. When I was writing my very first draft of Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! I was sort of stuck. I had this great premise, which was: "Dirty Harry gets a new partner — his mother." But what was that? What was that movie about? What were the dynamics of the comedy? (Many of you I'm sure are still asking.) Then one day I was sitting up in my office in the Fithian Building in Santa Barbara, California, and I had a great idea: the world's slowest chase! What if Joe the cop and his Mom are shot at by bad guys? And what if they give chase. But what if, instead of Joe jumping behind the wheel and driving — his Mom does. And she drives like a Mom, complete with holding her arm across Joe's chest when they stop at all the stop signs. When I sold my script and went to my first meeting at Universal, the executive told me that when he read that scene, that's when he decided to buy my script. Why? Because that's when he knew there was something to this idea. I had delivered on the promise of the premise. And where did I put that great set piece? Right where it belonged — in the fun and games section of the screenplay.
This goes for drama as well. The fun and games in Die Hard show Bruce Willis first outwitting the terrorists. The fun and games in Phone Booth occur when Colin Farrell realizes the seriousness of his predicament. We take a break from the stakes of the story and see what the idea is about; we see the promise of the premise and need not see anything else. I also call it fun and games because this section is lighter in tone than other sections. So Jim Carrey gets to walk around and act like God in Bruce Almighty. And Tobey Maguire gets to try out his oddly onanistic super powers in Spider-Man. It's also where the buddies in all buddy movies do their most clashing. Get it?
Fun and games.
Learn it, love it, live it.
MIDPOINT (55)
There are two halves in a movie script and the midpoint on page 55 is the threshold between them. We can talk about the importance of the two act breaks, but to me the midpoint is as important, especially in the early going of laying out a script's beats. I have found, in reviewing hundreds of movies, that a movie's midpoint is either an "up" where the hero seemingly peaks (though it is a false peak) or a "down" when the world collapses all around the hero (though it is a false collapse), and it can only get better from here on out. When you decide which midpoint your script is going to require, it's like nailing a spike into a wall good and hard. The clothesline that is your story can now be strung securely.
I made the discovery of how important this midpoint moment is quite by accident. In the early days of my movie-writing career, I used to audiotape movies so I could listen to them in my car when I drove back and forth to meetings between Santa Barbara and
L.A. The bargain-basement tapes I bought (I was dead flat broke at the time) had 45 minutes on each side. By coincidence, the drive between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles is divided evenly by a mountain overpass at exactly the midpoint of the drive. Forty-five minutes from starting each trip, as I hit the top of that hill, side A of each tape ended and I had to turn it over to the other side. One night I taped the old comedy classic What's Up, Doc?, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand. And I discovered, the next day as I topped the mountain crest, that the movie was perfectly, evenly divided into two halves and that its midpoint was a "down."
The first half of What's Up, Doc? ends as fire envelops O'Neal's hotel room. A slow fade brings us to the next day, as he wakes up a broken man, and finds... Barbra Streisand waiting to help him — the fire was, after all, her fault! Imagine the revelation I