Save the Cat! (26 page)

CREDIT JUMPER
- You have sold your script to the studio. Then, after your contracted rewrite, you are fired. And when the movie goes into production, and you are sent drafts of the rewritten version of your script, you are suddenly appalled to find that... it's been altered!! Often in stupid ways: Your hero Bob is now named Carl. Instead of a Pontiac, he drives a Buick. Congratulations, you've been victimized by a credit jumper, a guy or gal who is gunning for writing credit on your movie and thinks by making these tweaks it will become his or her own. This is why we have WGA credit-arbitration committees to decide who did what. The advantage of writing on spec and being the originator now becomes clear. You have more rights than the average credit jumper. It's up to you to say why specifically this is still your script. And you must! (Isn't Hollywood a great town?)

EXPOSITION
— Give me the facts, ma'am, just the facts, but please do it in a way that won't put me to sleep. Thus, exposition — like annoying plot details, heist plans, and backstories — can't be just laid out, it must be entertainingly told by crafty screenwriters. To "bury" said exposition is to deal with it in a way that is not deadly dull. The masters of the craft make these irritating facts and figures go down as easily as a spoonful of Maypo.

FIRST REEL
— During the era of silent films, film reels were IO minutes long, thus the end of the first reel was
IO
minutes into the movie. Flash forward to Joel Silver, genius producer of such action pictures as
Die Hard
and
Matrix,
who wisely suggests that you have a "whammy" or a big action set piece at the end of every "reel. " The First Reel still denotes the first
IO
minutes of a movie and I suggest it be used to introduce every A-story character.

FOUR-QUADRANT PICTURE
- The big magilla. The whole ball of wax. The mother lode. Audience-wise, if you have a four-quadrant hit, you have won the lottery. The four quadrants are Men Over 25. Men Under 25. Women Over 25, and Woman Under 25. If you can draw audience from all those quadrants, you are guaranteeing yourself a hit. Why isn't every movie a four-quadrant movie? Everyone targets different groups for different reasons. As I write today, the single most desirable group is Men Under 25. Most movies are geared to them because they go, with or without their girlfriends. They are more likely to bring others to their movies than they are likely to be brought to other movies. They are the leading indicators of "who goes." This may change, but it explains the movie selections at the mall on any given weekend. Have a complaint no one's making movies for you? That's why. But for the spec screenwriters of the world trying to make a sale, this is invaluable information.

GENRE
— After we get past the main headings of, say, Comedy and Drama, genre breaks down into more specific groupings. If it's a comedy, then what type of comedy is it? Is it a family film, romance comedy, spoof, or teen comedy? If it's a drama, is it an action, romance, thriller, or horror movie? Each of these is a genre that has its own rules, history, and expectations from an audience. And though the fusion of different genres is now
de rigueur
in short-attention-span Hollywood (Ron Howard's
The Missing
is a Gothic/Western), I suggest one genre per movie, please. Any more and I personally don't know what it is, or why I go see it.

HIGH CONCEPT
— No one knows exactly how to explain this unwieldy term. I know. I've asked. What is "high" about a high concept? The term is fuzzy regarding what it's trying to describe. Also, I've asked about the exact place and time this phrase was coined and have come up short. That said, we know what it means:
Die Hard
is a high concept movie;
English Patient
is not.
Miss Congeniality
is a high concept movie;
Under The Tuscan Sun
is not. Mostly you can divide it into American (high concept) and European (non-high concept), which also explains why American movies do well and European movies do not — well, everywhere but Europe. I advise you to write as high a high concept movie as you can the first time out, and if you know of the exact terminology or origin of the term "high concept" e-mail me... I'll be in Europe.

HOOK
— Ah,
le hook!
This is the encapsulation of a movie, be it displayed on the poster or in the logline, which grabs your attention and makes you want to run, not walk, to the theatre. And when mentioned in
Variety,
it is the thing that makes you hit yourself on the head and say: "Why didn't I think of that?" Like Proust's
madeleine,
the hook must blossom in your mind with possibility and "hook" you into wanting more — thus the name. It is a simple mental picture that promises fun and gives you enough of a peek into the storyline that you can see the potential. A good hook is gold for this reason: It works on anyone who hears it, be it agent, producer, studio head, or ticket buyer. A good hook answers: "What is it?"

INACTIVE HERO
- What lays there like a lox on a plate? Who can't be bothered to get up out of his chair and go answer the door? Why, the inactive hero, of course. And since the very definition of a hero is to be proactive, the inactive kind must not be a very good thing. Heroes seek, strive, and reach for the stars; they don't wait for the phone to ring. So if your hero is inactive, tell him to get off the dime!

IN
PLAY
— When we say that someone is in play, we mean that they have so much "heat" and are so "desirable" that the news they are looking for new representation makes the town jump up and down with hysteric joy. For actors who want to leave their agents, for directors and producers who have eschewed their studios when their on-the-lot deal ends and are looking for a new "home," being in play means lots of buzz, money, and attention is about to be paid. If you are a screenwriter, this term does not apply to you. While you very well may be "in play," to the town it just means you are "available."

LOGLINE OR ONE-LINE
- A log-line is the one- or two-sentence description of your movie that tells us what it is. It must contain a type of hero (that means a type of person plus an adjective that describes him), the antagonist (ditto), and the hero's primal goal. It must have irony, and it must bloom in our brains with potential. A good logline is the coin of the realm in Hollywood and can be traded like currency with those who appreciate it.

MAJOR TURNS
- The break into Act One, the midpoint, and the break into Act Three are the major turns of a script. These are conveniently found at the end of each horizontal row on The Board. These are also the places that need to be paid the most attention. In a pitch you will hang your hat on these major turns and if you're lucky, executives will remember one of them. But you must always have them nailed before you pitch and before you can "beat out" a screenplay.

ONE
-SHEET
— This is the old timer's phrase for "the poster." I have no idea where this term originated, only that it has to do with printing size. A one-sheet is the broad sheet that shows the stars, title, and tone of the film. A good one is gold. One-sheets sell DVDs in the aftermarket, too.

ON THE NOSE
a.k.a. A Little Too on the Nose — This is one of my favorite development executive phrases, uttered when a suggestion is obvious, unfunny, or something "we've seen before. " Instead of saying "That's obvious, unfunny, and something we've seen before," they say, "It feels a little on the nose." You, who have been up all night trying not to be "on the nose, " now think of this as a target suggestion.

PAGE ONE
— "It's a Page One! This is the despairing cry of the development executive who has been handed a script with a good idea and maybe some good characters and little else. It means that some poor schmuck will be assigned to give this a "page one rewrite." It is the equivalent of an auto body repairman telling the owner of a damaged car: "It's totaled."

PRE SOLD FRANCHISE
- When a book, comic book, cartoon, or old TV series has a built-in group of fans, it is considered to be a pre-sold franchise. It presumes that a certain number of people are already "sold" on the property and will turn up to see it when the movie comes out. This is not always the case —just ask the producers of
The Avengers
and
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Still, having any group of potential ticket buyers aware of your movie before you go into production is a head start. Even obscure beginnings, like the comic book that spawned
Men In Black,
got started from the belief that even a small fan base will get buzz started with moviegoers. But a pre-sold franchise is also something a spec screenwriter is not likely to own. That should not stop you from creating your own franchises, and I encourage you to create the biggest franchise possible.

PRIMAL
— What is basic about a story, a character's goal, or a movie premise is its relation to our inner drives as human beings. Stories of survival, sex, hunger, and revenge connote immediate interest on our part. We will stop and look when these themes are presented to us. We can't help it. We
have
to look. It's primal. To

you, the screenwriter, this means you must ground every action and story in its primal-ness. When characters are not acting like human beings, when they are not being driven primally, odds are you are testing the patience of the audience. To ask "Is it primal?" is to ask "Is this relevant to a caveman?" The answer must be: Yes!

PROMISE OF THE PREMISE -
The premise of a movie, its "What is it?", can only be proven to be satisfying when we see it in action. What is fun, catchy, or hooks our interest about a movie's poster must be paid off once we get inside the theater. If it is not paid off, we the audience will consider it to be a bad experience. We will feel cheated. The promise of the premise are those scenes or scene sequences that exploit the premise to its maximum and are usually found in the fun and games section (pages 30-55) of a screenplay. This is the point where we understand fully what this movie is about. This is why we bought our tickets.

RESIDUALS
—-
Lovely lime-green envelopes come through the mail to the homes of lucky screenwriters on a quarterly basis. We know what's inside: money! That explains the desire to get a movie made, for its every appearance on TV, every VHS or DVD sale, every foreign manifestation will be tracked by the WGA Residual Department and result in... more residuals! And the amounts are nothing to sneeze at: I have earned over $100,000 in residuals in any career for two movies. And the checks haven't stopped coming, Get enough movies in production and you will be showered in these bonus checks for the rest of your natural life.

RUNNING GAGS -
As opposed to callbacks, which are reminders of plot and character moments in Act One that are paid off later, running gags are repeating themes, character tics, or bits that are interspersed throughout a movie or a screenplay. As an audience, our appreciation for these gags grows with each use because we feel smart for remembering them and feel more a part of the story

because of it. If a character is set up as liking coffee, then whenever he or she walks into a restaurant and orders coffee — we love it! It's nothing. But we laugh with recognition that we
know
this character. Running gags can be found in both dramas and comedies as repeating jokes we notice and remember. Note: The running gag must be given a twist later in the film when a character, by now ready to change, goes into a cafe and orders... tea.

SET PIECE
— A set piece is a stand-alone action scene or sequence. It stands alone in that it does less to move the plot forward or enhance our idea of who the characters are as it exploits the possibilities of the situation or the premise of a movie. Because of this, set pieces are disposable and interchangeable. A "chase scene" that takes place on a freeway and does little, in itself, to move the plot forward, can be set in a supermarket, playground, or racetrack. That's a set piece — one that can be dropped or changed within the confines of a studio's slashing of the budget, a director's "vision," or a star's dislike of chase scenes on freeways.

SIX THINGS THAT NEED FIXING
- This is my term. And I use it

all the time. It is defined as the list of a hero's minor character flaws, enemies and rivals that bully him, and a wish list that — if we like the hero enough, and think he deserves help — get "fixed later in the film. I personally find myself going back and forth between Act One (set-up) and Act Two or Three (pay-off) and adding things to the list as I go. We as an audience like to see the Six Things That Need Fixing get paid off later in the script — the more the merrier. It's thoroughly enjoyable to see those pay-offs. But you have to put the flaw in there in the beginning to make the pay-off work.

STAKES ARE RAISED
- This is a term that is frequently heard in development meetings. Also known as the "ticking clock" or the "midpoint bump," it means the raising of the level of tension.