They: Hey Drew, I have this outline for a script. You're going to love it.
[Maduka rolls his eyes and puts on headphones so he doesn't have to listen to this again.]
Drew: I don't want an outline. I want a beat sheet.
They: ?
Drew: Have you read Save the Cat?
They: No. What's that?
Drew: It's the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need.
They: Is that true?
Drew: Well, you have to understand the 5-point finale, and that's actually in the third Save the Cat book. But luckily you can read about that on Blake's blog so arguably you don't need "Save the Cat Strikes Back". So yeah, it's the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need.
They: I read the Syd Field.
Drew: Not good enough. You know the part in the middle where Syd is kind of vague?
They: The middle of the book, or the middle of the screenplay?
Drew: Both.
They: Yeah.
Drew: Blake's Save the Cat isn't like that. There's a really specific beat sheet to follow. With page numbers for each beat and everything.
They: A beat sheet sounds really restrictive.
Drew: It's actually freeing instead. You can do anything you want within the structure. And your screenplay will be vastly better.
They: Do you have a copy of the book I can borrow?
Drew: I gave away my last copy. But we can go around the corner to B. Dalton and get one right now. You're going to want to own it for reference.
*****
I may have mentioned this before but these Eiko lamps are 85 watts (what they like to think of as the equivalent of 320 watts of incandescent) of pure love.
6 comments:
I've never heard of these books. Why don't you ever talk about them?
I keep forgetting to mention them when I'm talking about screenwriting.
Do you have a copy of Save the Cat? Did the copy David Ian Lee stole from me find its way to you?
Best book I ever read on screenwriting(and I read the first Save The Cat) was Writing For Emotional Impact. It's cheap--you should get it. REALLY great book.
OK, I put in an order for Writing for Emotional Impact at the library. But does it tell you what to do on page 45? ;-)
No. It's really 145 pages of what color and how many brads to use on your script. VALUABLE advice, you see.
Ah yes. Of course, we only create shooting scripts -- I never send anything out to other companies. Now I want to write a self-help book called "What's the Color of Your Brad?"...
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