Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder Page B

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