Save the Cat!® Strikes Back by Snyder Blake

Author:Snyder, Blake [Snyder, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Save the Cat! Press
Published: 2009-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

chapter 5

REWRITE

HELL!

Blake's Blog/May 7, 2009

“Words have power. We know better than anyone. Let's make sure our words are well chosen.”

“Hell is other people,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre. And for the screenwriter, the experience of dealing with “other people” can certainly feel hellish, especially when said people have your script in one hand and an uncapped red Pentel® in the other.

All the wonderful moments you had while writing — the amazing a-ha's, the glorious break-throughs, the synchronistic chills when everyone seemed to be talking about your story — are over. Your script is lying there on a steel table — like the rubbery dude in that Alien Autopsy video — while strange men and women with scalpels hover over it, occasionally holding up its gloppy innards, only to inquire in puzzlement: “What the heck is this thing?”

And all you can do is watch.

Your script made sense back in your “writer's room.”

But here, in the cold light of Burbank, you're not so sure.

And if you find yourself in a room with executives who have paid you for this experience, it's time to not only live with other people, but learn to love them — or at least not hate them.

It's time for the “rewrite.”

And as important as it is that I and my patrons are all on the same page — literally — this is where the real work starts.

The one thing I became a writer hoping to avoid.

But if we want to continue to be highly paid professionals, or just test our ability to be good and sober citizens, we have to employ all new ways to grin and bear it. So how do we do that — and still maintain the integrity of our story?

Tops on the mind of every writer is the fine line we walk every time we saunter into the studio: Is it our job to speak, on behalf of a script we know better than anyone, by defending every comma? Or are we to just be good sports, go along to get along, and help Og and company realize their vision too — going so far as to incorporate a “vision”we're sure Og came up with by driving past the same billboard we did on our way to the meeting?

If we are to learn one thing from the Cat! method, it's that “no man is an island.” More than any other creative venture, filmmaking is a group grope, a team sport, and now you must pass the ball, or be passed, or worse, be taken out of the game.

Well, here's a flash: You aren't the only one who's scared.

And I'm here to tell you how wonderful “they” can be and how safe you are in their presence. How do I know? How can I be so assured that your next rewrite will be the best one ever?

Because I will give you 100 years’ worth of experience to deal with any crisis in “the room” — and give you a peek into the future of the development process

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