Save the Cat!® Goes to the Indies: The Screenwriters Guide to 50 Films from the Masters

Save the Cat!

by Salva Rubio

In his best-selling book, Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies, Blake Snyder provided 50 “beat sheets” to 50 films, mostly studio-made. Now his student, screenwriter and novelist Salva Rubio, applies Blake’s principles to 50 independent, auteur, European and cult films (again with 5 beat sheets for each of Blake’s 10 genres). If you're a moviegoer, you'll discover a language to analyze film and understand how filmmakers can effectively reach audiences. If you're a writer, this book reveals how those who came before you tackled the same challenges you are facing with the films you want to write. Writing a “rom-com”? Check out the “Buddy Love” chapter for a “beat for beat” dissection of Before Sunrise, The Reader, Blue Is the Warmest Color and more to see how Linklater and Krizan, David Hare, and Kechiche and Lacroix structured their films. Scripting a horror film? Read the “Monster in the House” section and discover how 28 Days Later and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are the same movie – and what you need to do to write a scary story that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats. Want to execute a great mystery? Go to the “Whydunit” chapter and learn about the “dark turn” that’s essential to the heroes of The Big Lebowski, The French Connection, and Michael Clayton. Want your protagonist to go up against an evil “institution”? Consider how Mamet handled Glengarry Glen Ross and Tarantino framed Pulp Fiction. Writing a “Superhero” story? See how Susannah Grant structured Erin Brockovich, Anderson & Baumbach worked out Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Gilliam & Stoppard & McKeown laid the foundation for Brazil. With these 50 beat sheets, you’ll see how “hitting the beats” creates stories that resonate the world over for these outstanding writers—and how you can follow in their footsteps.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Film, Research

336 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2017

About the author

Salva Rubio is a novelist and screenwriter and something else.

He works as a cinema screenwriter, having been nominated to the Spanish Goya Awards for Best Animation Feature.

As a graphic novel writer, he publishes mainly in the French-Belgian market and his work has been nominated to an Eisner Award.

He has also written classic musical essays and is the continuator of the bestseller screenwriting theory book series “Save the Cat!”

He is an associate member of the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America, West) and he is a member of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España.

Reviews

[Manny Gumina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice and helpful.

[Matt Jex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting genre studies.

[OGEE Substack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I watched all of the films in this book and studied along with it. It is an invaluable guide to screenwriting. If you have it in you to write a screenplay, this book will give you the tools you need to do so.

And you'll also end up watching (if you're insane, like me) 50 really great movies. Some of my favorites films from this particular book were:

- The Lives of Others
- Funny Games (1997) (original version)
- Being John Malkovich
- Fight Club
- Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- The Ghost Writer
- Lost In Translation
- The French Connection
- The Big Lebowski
- Get Carter
- Match Point
- Boogie Nights
- Glengarry Glen Ross
- Pulp Fiction
- Erin Brockovitch
- The Elephant Man