DZ-01: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?

Listen if you want to know whether Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler's structural theories actually apply to Academy Award-nominated screenplays

Three of the most widely read structure books in screenwriting — Snyder's Save the Cat, Vogler's The Writer's Journey, and Michael Hauge's Six Stages — all make essentially the same claim: this is how great films are built. In our debut episode, we run that claim against two Oscar-nominated films to see if it holds: PHILOMENA and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB.

We map both against Snyder, Hauge, and Vogler, looking for where the beats land, where they don't, and — more usefully — what those gaps reveal about how the films actually work. As Chas puts it: "the answer as to whether these structural theories apply is actually less important than what the act of testing them against great films teaches us

PHILOMENA turns out to be a dual-protagonist script that makes the frameworks interesting precisely because it doesn't fit cleanly.

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB seemingly has a cleaner structure — the A-plot is Ron Woodruff's drug-smuggling operation — but the more interesting structural question is the B-story: Stu identifies it as "the battle for Ron's soul," with Rayon and Eve staging Ron's transformation from a man "sick in both body and soul" into something else.

The structural question we keep returning to: if a great film breaks the rules, does that mean there are no rules, or that it found something better?

And we skim over a few other ideas: why we picked these films over other nominees, the problem with Page 12 catalysts, and whether "Save the Cat" moments are actually doing what Snyder says they are.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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"They aren't the Bible. They aren't the holy grail of screenwriting. You need to do more than read these books to become a screenwriter." — Chas Fisher @ 00:03:36

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00:00 – Cold Open
• 00:00:06 – Do Screenplay Gurus Win You Oscars?
• 00:02:25 – › The case for empirical analysis over guru formulas
• 00:04:18 – › Why these two Oscar nominees were chosen to test the theories
• 00:07:03 – PHILOMENA
• 00:08:56 – › Save the Cat mapped against a dual-protagonist script
• 00:15:37 – › Where the refusal of the call disappears into a flashback sequence
• 00:22:10 – › How escalating reveals replace conventional second-act structure
• 00:28:45 – › Fun and games, the midpoint, and a 16-page gap from Snyder's prescription
• 00:35:35 – › All Is Lost and Dark Night of the Soul across two protagonists
• 00:44:11 – › Why Hauge's percentages fit a dual-protagonist script better than Snyder's pages
• 00:51:31 – › Vogler's reward and road back as the stronger model for act three
• 01:01:16 – DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
• 01:06:04 – › The break into act two and the decision that happens off screen
• 01:11:36 – › Rayon, Eve, and the battle for Ron's soul as the B story
• 01:16:07 – › A bust-and-recovery rhythm replacing conventional midpoint structure
• 01:24:09 – › How escalating antagonism substitutes for a visible act-three break
• 01:30:26 – › Ron's personal victory as the only climax a biopic needs
• 01:33:02 – Key Learnings & Wrap Up
• 01:35:30 – › Next episode: testing gurus on mainstream box office hits

FILMS

• PHILOMENA (2013) — (w) Jeff Pope, Steve Coogan, Martin Sixsmith (d) Stephen Frears
• DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (2013) — (w) Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack (d) Jean Marc Vallee

SCRIPTS

• Study the script: PHILOMENA (2013) — Jeff Pope, Steve Coogan, Martin Sixsmith
• Study the script: DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (2013) — Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack

LINKS

• Read: The Q&A Podcast with Jeff Goldsmith - Philomena
• Read: The Q&A Podcast with Jeff Goldsmith - Dallas Buyers Club
• Read: The Writer's Journey Structure by Christopher Vogler
• Read: Scrivener
• Read: Ingrid's Notes on THE WRITER'S JOURNEY
• Read: SM Worth links to a few different Scrivener Templates including one for the Hero's Journey
• Read: Save The Cat Beatsheet by Blake Snyder
• Read: The Five Key Turning Points Of All Successful Scripts by Michael Hauge

EPISODES IN THE SCREENPLAY GURUS SERIES

• DZ-01: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
• DZ-02: Do the Screenplay Gurus score big at the Box Office?

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Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2014/dz-01/