by Blake Snyder
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 qu
estion 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 ca
ll "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.
