[This is part two of MovieSet's exclusive interview with screenwriting guru Blake Snyder. If you missed part one, read it and get caught up before plowing on ahead.-- Ed.]
Twenty-five years ago a failed screenwriter penned what could have been his latest flop. But in the course of two years, this script and his next — Blank Check and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! — fetched $1 million each from Hollywood studios. His success wasn’t a fluke, but the result of a last-ditch effort for success, with a new carefully plotted approach to storytelling. Since then Blake Snyder has co-authored and sold several other projects, including Nuclear Family, bought outright by Steven Spielberg. Snyder doesn’t keep his approach to screenwriting secret. He’s distilled his approach into 15 points and wrote at length about them in his book, Save The Cat. Snyder has gone on to write a follow up entitled Save The Cat Goes To The Movies, while yet another is now in the works. For some, Snyder has demystified the craft of screenwriting, clearing the way for writers to focus instead on original concepts and artistic vision. For others, however, Snyder has published a disastrously successful road map to formulaic storytelling.
MovieSet.com’s Quinn Bender called Snyder to talk about his influence on today’s films, and question him about his critics’ charges. This is the second part of his exclusive interview.
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MovieSet: Summarize the 15 points of your structure. What do they aim to accomplish?
Blake Snyder: It’s about transformation, somebody starting a story one way and ending another. That is why we tell stories. Change is painful, and that’s why audiences would rather watch you or an actor go through it than themselves. I talk about this in my class all the time. Are you familiar with the Tom and Jerry cartoons?
Of course.
There’s a common theme where Jerry the mouse ties a string to Tom the cat’s tail, and surreptitiously runs around the house, weaving it through the rungs of ladders, in and out of tight spots and eventually up the chimney to the roof where he ties the other end of the string to an anvil. There are two key moments to that next sequence. When Jerry pushes the anvil off the top of the house, there’s a look in Tom’s face that tells us he knows: he’s going, whether he likes it or not. There will come a point where he’s pulled ass-backward through a keyhole. Well, that’s every story. There’s a point where our hero has to get pulled ass-backward through a keyhole. And it’s awful. It’s horrible. But that’s why we’d rather watch that happen to Tom than it actually happen to us.
That’s what the 15 points really chart. How did this guy get so defective up front, and have such lack of clarity about his situation and his world. And to be forced to go through this journey, and come out the other end completely different. Whether it’s a big budget blockbuster which hits these beats slightly, or something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is woven together beautifully, the story is the same. There’s a point where this guy is forced to look at himself and say, ‘This ain’t working.’
Before you there was Robert McKee. Do you find any similarities between your and his approach to screenwriting?
We all have to take at least one class of Robert McKee’s to be screenwriters. [Laughs] It’s a requirement! You have to sit in that chair and be very very afraid. Seriously, I think he’s a brilliant guy. The only thing that’s really different between he and I is that I’m just like you. I just want to play in this game. I just want to be in the club. There are times I think about McKee and his approach to the field — that it’s scary: only certain qualified people get to come in here. My approach is: everyone can get in. If I can figure this out, you can figure this out. We can all play in the sandbox. That’s where McKee’s and my philosophy are different. It’s not that I’m not trying for a higher quality of art; I’m doing that every day. But I also want to play, as do so many other people.
And one way to get involved in the game is to identify the trends. When you wrote Blank Check you were mining the so-called kid-empowerment craze that was sweeping Hollywood. You’re still a big advocate of that then?
Well you’re very smart to pick that up. The kid-empowerment film was the hot ticket at the time. I think right now for writers who want to break in it’s better than it’s been in years. [Hollywood] is looking for high-concept, easy to view, general audience movies that will, well, generate an audience. I’m not advocating Mall Cop — I haven’t even seen it — but what I love is that it was absolutely critically trashed and yet it went on to make $40 million at the box office. For me, I love the idea of going over people’s heads to get to the audiences we want to see our stuff… because those guys [who wrote Mall Cop] can now go on to make any movie they feel like making. I don’t think there’s any shame in being entertaining. I think it’s a wonderful cause.
I’m very good at helping people get in the door. What you do when you get in the door is up to you. If you want to start with Problem Child and then go on to write Ed Wood and then The People vs Larry Flint, which is what Larry and what’s his name did, then great. If you want to make nothing but Mall Cop the rest of your life, fabulous. Go for it — there’s lot’s of people who want to see that forever. But first you have to understand it, figure out how it works, get in the door and go from there.
Can you tell me why you chose the name Save The Cat?
Absolutely! It’s my favorite thing. Save the cat is a scene where we see the hero for the first time. He saves the cat from some horrible demise and we think, ‘what a nice guy.’ It’s a key moment when we learn that this is our hero and we want him to win. There are sometimes in a script when you hear, ‘I don’t like this guy,’ and usually it’s because the writer didn’t bother to give us a reason to like him. You see all kinds of examples of this. Everybody always wonders about Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise. She’s a Save the Cat. We like James Bond because he’s nice to this girl who adores him. She’ll never get anywhere with him, but he’s polite and kind. That’s a guy you would root for.
In the Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, the hero literally saved a cat.
That’s funny. Did the writers read your book?
I don’t know, but I did point it out in the theatre. I yelled it out — he saved the cat!
Blake, I appreciate your time. Thanks for the interview.
Well thank you very much. I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye.
Bye.
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For workshop dates with Blake Snyder in Los Angeles, Portland and Vancouver, visit www.blakesnyder.com. Click here to read part one of the interview.
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