Save the Cat! (20 page)

20, at which point Kevin and Robert sit there on their horses and talk about the bad guys and how they're gonna go get em, yup they sure should go get 'em. . .
for about an hour and a half!
If you ever wondered how the West was won, apparently it happened very slowly.

See, even bright people think the slow encroaching danger of hot lava headed your way, oh about by Thursday or so, will get our emotions stirring. But lo! it does not.

Danger must
he present
danger. Stakes must be stakes for people we care about. And what might happen to them must be shown from the get-go so we know the consequences of the imminent threat. If not, you are violating the Watch Out for That Glacier rule. Here is a list of other "glaciers" that approach slowly or are too remote, unthreatening, or dull:

> An evil Slinky

> Snails armed with AK-47s

> A foreclosure letter sent from Siberia

> A homicidal one-legged Grandmother

> A herd of angry turtles

> Locusts

Even if you have a catchy title, do not write movies with these "bad guys." Okay, well, unless the locusts are biologically-altered locusts that like to eat human flesh!!

Then we'll talk.

THE COVENANT OF THE ARC

The Covenant of the Arc is the screenwriting law that says: Every single character in your movie must change in the course of your story. The only characters who don't change are the bad guys. But the hero and his friends change a lot.

And it's true.

Although I hate the term "arc" because it's gotten so overused by development executives and How to Write a Screenplay authors, I do like what it stands for.
Arc
is a term that means "the change that occurs to any character from the beginning, through the middle, and to the end of each character's 'journey'" (another est-y kind of term). But when it's done well, when we can chart the growth and change each character undergoes in the course of a movie, it s a poem. What you are saying in essence is: This story, this experience, is so important, so life-changing for all involved — even you, the audience — it affects every single person that is in its orbit. From time immemorial, all good stories show growth and track change in all its characters.

Why is this?

I think the reason that characters must change in the course of a movie is because if your story is worth telling, it must be vitally important to everyone involved. This is why set-ups and payoffs for each character have to be crafted carefully and tracked throughout. I don't know why, but
Pretty Woman
comes to mind as a good example of this. Everybody arcs in
Pretty Woman.
Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Laura San Giacomo — even the mentor figure, Hector Elizondo — are touched by the experience of this love story and transformed because of it. Everyone but the bad guy, Jason Alexander, who learns exactly zero.

Pretty Woman
is one of hundreds of carefully crafted, successful movies in which this rule applies. All the really good movies do this, ones that you remember, that make you laugh
and
cry — the ones that you want to see a second time.

In a sense, stories are
about
change. And the measuring stick that tells us who succeeds and who doesn't is seen in the ability
to
change. Good guys are those who willingly accept change and see it as a positive force. Bad guys are those who refuse to change, who will curl up and die in their own juices, unable to move out of the rut their lives represent. To succeed in life is to be able to transform. That's why it's the basis not only of good storytelling but also the world's best-known religions. Change is good because it represents re-birth, the promise of a fresh start.

The Covenant of the Arc.

And don't we all want to believe that?

Don't we all want to jump into the swim of life after seeing a good movie? Don't we want to get out of our ruts, try something new, and be open to the healing power of change after experiencing a movie in which everybody arcs?

Yes, we do.

"Everybody arcs." That's one of the slogans I have written on a yellow Post-it note and have stuck to the top of my iMac computer whenever I am writing a screenplay. And before I sit down to write, I make notes on how all my characters are going to arc by charting their stories as they are laid out on The Board, with the milestones of change noted as each character progresses through the story.

It is a must that you do the same.

If your script feels flat, if you are getting the sense that something's not happening in the story, do a quick Covenant of the Arc check and see if you need to do more work on making everybody change and grow and transform.

Everyone, that is, except the bad guy.

KEEP THE PRESS OUTS

Here's where I get to show off. Big time! You see, I learned this next lesson from Steven Spielberg. Personally.
O
h
y
eah... We worked together.
And it was one of the most educational experiences of my career. But in terms of the Immutable Laws of Screenwriting, that's the guy who really should write the book. I can only paraphrase.

To wit:

Keep the Press Out, the rule I learned from Steven Spielberg, was taught to me while we were developing a screenplay Jim Haggin and I had sold to Amblin called
Nuclear Family.
The premise of this movie is: A family camps out one night on a nuclear dumpsite and wakes up the next day with super powers.
Nuclear Family
is a wish-fulfillment comedy. Each family member has a need that their super-power quenches: Dad, an ad exec, gets the power to read minds and thus leaps ahead of his ratfink nemesis at work; Mom, a housewife, gets the power of telekinesis and becomes a super Mom who can move objects with her mind; Teen Son becomes The Flash and is suddenly his high school's star halfback; and Teen Daughter, forever behind in her schoolwork, gets a super brain and is now able to ace her SATs. It's a fun, special effects-laden fantasy — but it has a message, too. In the end, each of them gives up their powers. Being "successful" they find is not as important as being a family.

And yet, in the development process, we wanted to explore every option. When one of us, me I think, foolishly pitched that maybe we should have these powers discovered by the media, and to have the family swarmed by the news networks, Steven Spielberg said no, and he told us why.

You'll notice that there are no news crews in
E.T.,
the story of an extra-terrestrial creature who comes to Earth and into the lives of a similar cul de sac-dwelling family. Sure, you've got a really good reason for a news crew. They've caught one — a real live alien! And it's right there for everyone to see. But in rewrites with the screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, Spielberg discovered that it blew the reality of the premise to invite the press in. By keeping it contained among the family and on the block, by essentially keeping this secret between them and us, the audience, the magic stayed real. When you think about it, to bring the press into
E. T.
would indeed have ruined it. The term
breaking the fourth wall
springs to mind. That is the phrase that means violating the gossamer beneath the proscenium arch that separates the play from the audience. To bring the press into our little drama would have done the same.

Of course this is what separates the Spielbergs from the rest of us — including the Shyamalans. Keep the Press Out is a rule you won't see violated in any DreamWorks film, but in M. Night Shyamalan's
Signs
(there's that darn movie again) the rule is violated and, I think, suffers because of it.

Holed up in their Pennsylvania farmhouse, Mel Gibson's family is besieged by aliens. First the crop circles, then aliens arrive and try to break into Mel's house (and do what? We're not sure)
Night Of the Living Dead-like.
So while we're waiting for the attack, Mel and his family put on their tin-foil hats (Gad! What a movie!) and watch TV. There on CNN, news of other aliens landing all over the world is reported. There's even some spooky footage of one such alien invading a children's birthday party in South America.

And all that's interesting, but so what? What does it have to do with the drama of Mel trying to protect his family from the aliens that are swarming his house? I think it even makes their situation
less
desperate: They're no longer alone with this problem,
everyone's
dealing with it. Like in the
E.T.
example, bringing the press into

"our secret" wrecks it. And it took me, as an audience member, out of the story.

The point is, bring the press in with care. Unless it's about the press, unless your movie involves a worldwide problem and we follow stories with characters all over the world, and it's important for them all to know about each other, take a tip from me... and Steven Spielberg:

Keep the Press Out.

SUMMARY

So now you know some basics and if you' re like me, you want to know more and make up others as you go on. These are little Eurekas! that one experiences after watching a truckload of movies over the years. Suddenly you realize why things are done, what that scene
really
was for, and it makes you feel like a genius. Suddenly you're in on the tricks of screenwriting and have the experience of actually opening up the back of the Swiss watch, and seeing how the gears are put together. So THAT'S how that works! you suddenly think.

You feel like you're learning the magician's secrets.

Once you see these little tricks, the urge to put a label to them can't be far behind. This is why Save the Cat, the Pope in the Pool, Black Vet, and Keep the Press Out are memorable — to me anyway — and vital to be so. Yes, it's good, slangy fun. It's also a way not to forget what you've learned. And when you catch yourself drifting into a mistake, or pushing up against a rule you'd like to break, these pithy little lessons give you an instant assessment on the pros and cons of minding or breaking... The Law. How many times have I caught myself drifting into one or more of these errors during the course of creating and writing a screenplay? Well, many. But the point of all this is to learn shortcuts to save time.

Screenwriting is like solving a puzzle over and over. You get faster with practice. The more stories you break, the more outlines you beat out to their completion, the more screenplays you tag with THE END, the better you get. These shortcuts are essential time-savers.

EXERCISES

1. Name a movie hero that is unlikable. Did the creators of the movie do anything to deal with this? What new Save the Cat tricks can be used to make a hero likable, but not so phony-baloney that we reject the device?

2.
 Find examples in other movies that use the Pope in the Pool. Does burying the exposition hurt or enhance your understanding of what's going on in the plot?

3. Fix
Spider-Man.
Let's say you don't have to follow the storyline that was created in the Marvel comic book Stan Lee created. What changes would you make to the screenplay that could eliminate its Double Mumbo Jumbo?

4. Since you liked M. Night Shyamalan's
Signs
and think that I am out of my mind for not liking it, e-mail me at the address found at the end of Chapter One and explain M. Night Shyamalan's
Unbreakable
to me — a movie so preposterous it makes
Signs
look like
Battleship Potemkin.
But remember, I've been working on my argument and am still ticked about not getting my $10 back from the theater!

You've made it! Congratulations!

You've followed my advice, you've done the prep, you've hit your marks like a pro, and you've finally written THE END.