DZ-01: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars? — Transcript

What am I meant to do? Page 11. Page 12's the catalyst, but page 11. No.

Hi, I'm Stuart Willis. And I'm Chas Fisher.

And welcome to Draft Zero, our very first episode, episode one.

So given that I'd imagine nearly all of our listeners would have no idea who we are or what we've done, should we say why it is that we've decided that we're going to record a podcast called Draft Zero about screenwriting?

So for me, I think when you're writing projects and you do new stories or whatever, you realize that you've got certain questions, that there's things that you're tackling with each, well, each draft as well as each script that you kind of want to look at other models of how people have tackled similar things. So it's a way of motivating me to kind of scratch my own itch and actually read screenplays and ask questions and look at kind of like the actual evidence and kind of share that kind of knowledge gathering, I guess. So it's a way of keeping myself motivated.

Ultimately, accountability is a great thing. I mean, I think we should say that in terms of screenwriting and storytelling, you and I are both self-taught. We both went to film school. That's where we met at the Victorian College of Arts. But we were both there learning directing. And while we had some storytelling teaching, it was very short. And it's only since leaving film school that you and I have both written a number of feature films and are trying to get those projects up for me this is this podcast is about us continuing that self-education but doing it in a public platform and as you say it's about what's on the page and i think we should be really clear up front that given that we aren't professional screenwriters yet given that we can't speak from 30 years of experience instinctively that what we're going to do with these podcasts is answer our own questions with empirical research. We are going to find examples of what we want to try and do that have been successful, and we're going to try and find out how those screenplays and how those movies achieved that.

And what I think will make it interesting is that we won't always agree on what's been successful, and I think that's part of what makes screenwriting exciting. I mean, you know.

And any form of writing.

Yeah, any form of writing. So that kind of brings us to, I guess, today's topic, which is we're going to be looking at the gurus, the three gurus in particular. We're going to be looking at Blake Snyder, Michael Haig. Is that how you say it? Haig? Haig?

Oh, God. Well, I think so. I think, because I actually saw him speak when I went to LA a couple of years ago, and I think it was Haig.

And then we're going to be looking at the writer's journey as kind of espoused to by Christopher Fogler. And the reason I think we're looking at these three gurus is that they are kind of very loud voices within screenwriting and the idea of how screenplays should be structured.

So can I venture here that you and I have both heard numerous professional screenwriters kind of denouncing these books and the structures espoused within. But, well, no buts. I think these guys, as you said, they're really loud voices. Nearly every emerging screenwriter will have read at least one of these books. And for me, I'm approaching today's exercise as... In a way, I'm kind of hoping to denounce them and say, look, these guys aren't right. 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.

You kind of unfortunately need to know the gurus because whether we like it or not, the language and the terminology they use is kind of through screenwriting. The fact is, you know, we do talk about the lowest point and we do talk about the inciting incident and all those things, what those words mean and their utility will probably vary from person to person, but they could too kind of define the language of how we talk about screenwriting. And one thing screenwriters love doing is procrastinating by talking about screenwriting on Twitter.

Or in podcasts.

Or in podcasts. What we've done for this first episode is we kind of looked at award-winning screenplays. We looked at the Oscar nominees for 2014, and we picked two screenplays that we thought would be the most interesting to talk about in the context of these gurus and the ones that we suspected would challenge it. So they're actually both biopics. We're looking at Philomena and the Dallas Buyers Club. One which was based on a book, which is Philomena, and the Dallas Buyers Club is a biopic, but not based on any actual written documentation.

Yeah. Although I heard podcast, the Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, where he interviewed the two writers of Dallas Buyers Club. And interestingly, they only got hold of Ron's, it wasn't his diary, it was like his, I don't know, his calendar, but he had lots of really personal notes in there, but they only got that quite close to production and that, you know, influenced the latest, the later drafts of the screenplay.

So they kind of wrote it from their own empirical research.

Well, they wrote it. This is fascinating. And people should, rather than listen to me, repeat what was said, they should go and listen to that podcast. But the first draft of the script was written 20 years ago. It was written by a writing team, but the one writer started the project and got to an early draft by himself before becoming a writing team. And he interviewed Ron. He met Ron while he was alive and interviewed him for three days and had something like 20 hours worth of taped interviews and that's where they form the foundation of their story for this screenplay. I think we should also say that we're not looking at every aspect of what these gurus espouse. We're really here to say, are the structures that these guys provide? And I think I'm going to use the word formula because that's really what drives professional writers up the wall is how these gurus seem to provide a formula to emerging screenwriters. And you hear emerging screenwriters saying, oh, but that's not how the gurus say we should do it. so we're going to measure up these films against the formulas espoused by these different writers.

And uh just so people hopefully if people are still listening next episode next episode we're actually going to be looking at two of the most successful films at the box office of 2013 looking at these same gurus in the in the context of that you know the idea is that we're comparing critically acclaimed films with box office successful films our original theory was that perhaps the more successful films at the box office more closely adhered to these gurus. We'll talk about that at the end of the episode. So, maybe we should start with Philomena.

Yeah, sure. Philomena is the story of an elderly Irish lady who, when she was very young, had a child out of wedlock. Now, because she was poor and Catholic, the Catholic Church took her in and looked after her child but then while she was trapped in this abbey the catholic church sold her child through adoption to an american family and the film is all about this journalist trying to report on her story and you know the journalist happens to be highly educated and atheist in comparison to this non-educated fervent catholic old lady and their journey through America trying to find her son and trying to resolve what the Catholic church had done to her. Do you want me to go through more of the plot?

No, no, no. I was just going to say we should mention that the journalist's name is Martin because I'm confused.

Well, the journalist's name is Martin.

So let's, I'd say let's start with Snyder.

Okay. So Snyder says there's an opening image and, well, I presume on page one. Yeah.

Yeah. He says there's an opening image. I mean, maybe we should run through the overall beats. So Snyder says that the basic beats, the ones that we're looking at, And we'll put a link in the script in the show notes. There's an opening image. Then you state the theme. There's the setup, the catalyst, the debate. Then that breaks into the second... That breaks into the second. Then you've got the B story, fun and games, the midpoint, the bad guys close in, all is lost, the dark night of the soul, the break into the third act of the finale in the final image. And then there's even recommended points of 110 page screenplay where these should appear. So yes, the opening image is meant to kind of be on page one.

Well, not only that, let's be clear here. Snyder not only provides these recommended pages. he's really definitive about that. I think in his discussion about the catalyst he says this happens on page 12. Why page 12 do you ask me? I don't know but page 11 too's early and page 13's too late. I'm paraphrasing but he is really clear on when these beats should happen in a screenplay.

It personally reminds me of this guy I used to work with he was like a VFX supervisor and he would suggest how long things should take and he never picked round numbers. He was like oh that should take about seven minutes, three minutes. And when I first met him, I was like, wow, he really knows his shit. And then I kind of realized that it was a trick in order to kind of create the appearance, that specificity creates the appearance of authority. Picking page 12 sounds more researched than around page 10, which is what most people say is around the 10 minute mark. Page 12 sounds specific and it kind of gives it a bit of an authority.

So with Philomena, there is an opening image. There's an empty church, which Philomena is sitting in alone. Now, have you seen the film?

No. And I should point out, which is a good comparison, I've deliberately not watched either film. So I'm just talking about the scripts. You've seen Philomena. I'm not sure if you've seen Dallas Buyers Club.

I have not seen Dallas Buyers Club. The reason I saw Philomena is because, and I feel I should be upfront about this, I love this screenplay so much that it made me cry and laugh out loud while reading it, that I kind of rushed to the cinema after reading it. So, but what's interesting is they, the film does not start with that opening image. The film goes straight into Martin at the doctor's and it even starts on black and you hear Martin talking and then he appears. So, it's a very comedy opening.

That's interesting. I wonder if the film, one of the questions I had asked, and this is related specifically to these beats, is which is the main character? Is it Philomena or is it Martin? And I came to the conclusion that it's Philomena. They kind of both go on journeys, but I think she probably has the biggest journey. But that's what I got from the page. I mean, maybe the film presents that differently and makes it more about Steve Coogan and playing Martin.

I disagree with you, but I think that's because on how we measure journey, which would be a different podcast, perhaps. So, we've got an opening image that ends up being cut from the film. So, so much for the screenwriter's prerogative there. Did you find that there was a theme stated within the first five pages?

I'm just going to come back to the opening image. What I picked up from the opening image is you got the idea of the empty church. What I picked up on was the Madonna and Child, the little statues of the Madonna and Child, which is obviously thematically tied into the film about her and her own missing child, Anthony. But at the end of the film, the mirror, the final image was this plastic Jesus. So it was ending on an ornament. Whether it was meant to be deliberately, I'm not sure what that was trying to say about the journey, you know, that she wasn't a Madonna and child and now that there's a plastic Jesus hanging from the mirror.

Maybe Steve Coogan's become her personal Jesus.

But there was kind of, not stretching it, but, you know, I have worked on, I was working with a script, on script, and one of the kind of exercises, exercises sound so dry. One of the things that we did very early on was literally writing the opening scene and the closing scene, just to kind of get a sense of what that journey is. And it is, I think, opening image and closing image is kind of a good, powerful idea to help you chart the journey. But there's so many films that just don't, you know, create that mirror. I mean, you know, Star Wars, you know, big ship chasing after one award ceremony. And I think this is a good example that, you know, there's kind of like an idea of statues as a closing.

And religious imagery, like religious iconography and faith and all these kind of themes that are throughout the film. But Snyder says that in the first five pages, the theme of the film is stated. I think he even says that it has to be stated in dialogue. Did you find a theme stated there?

I didn't in Philomena. I think, and this kind of related to who's the protagonist here and who's driving the theme, because when we'll get to Diles Bly's Club, I found that there was one there. And I put a question mark to this. I was like, maybe it's about depression and the idea of...

You know, human interest story and stuff like that.

Let me see if I can find that line of dialogue that I kind of put a question mark around.

The closest I got is there was a line of dialogue saying it wasn't your fault. So, you know, from Philomena's journey, I think there is a lot of her journey. The whole film is about, should we say spoilers? Anyone listening to this who hasn't seen these films or read these scripts and wants to experience them for the first time, do not listen. We're going to spoil these films but it's about forgiveness and she comes to not only forgive the nuns for what happens to her but i think she forgives herself as well for having been in those in her life situation.

Yeah no i actually think that's now that you've said it i assume that i think that's actually fairly obvious but i'm trying to see if there is a line specifically where she talks about forgiveness i mean this is what i was picking up with martin being in the in the doctor's office and he's set and and the doctor says to him there's basically nothing wrong with you martin you know maybe you're mildly depressed i was wondering and i was kind of thinking and this is me deliberately looking at blake snyder's rap page five and looking around page five four five and six and going there's nothing that's really sticking out here as a very empirical statement of theme oh yeah what makes you think it's depression and not just feeling sorry for yourself boom that's that's the closest to the statement of theme on page I guess that does sound like forgiveness, kind of like a self-forgiveness. And I think that is absolutely Philomena's journey, is that journey to kind of self-forgiveness.

But can we say, I feel like you and I both agree, there is not like this line that shines out in the first five or six pages of this script as being, this is what the film is about.

No, absolutely. And there's not many films that I can think of that are so explicit.

So moving on to Snyder's next beat setup Well, and he says it happens within pages 1 to 10, And within those 10 pages, both Martin and Philomena are introduced as main characters and the fact that Philomena, her lost son, is also introduced. So, I think that's fair, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, I think that's fair of both games. I don't think it's particularly insightful to say you've got to set up the story at the beginning.

Yeah. Okay.

But it makes me raise the question of what happens between pages 10 and 12?

If it's set up pages 10.

1 to 10. Yeah, what happens on page 11? What am I meant to do, page 11? Page 12's the catalyst,

But page 11, no! For me, this is where we very obviously get into the point where I don't think Snyder's structure applies to this film very easily because we've got a dual protagonist film, both of whom go on complete journeys, both of whom drive different sequences of the film, and their beats offset from each other because they don't all line up on an exact page.

No, and I think, I mean, I think there's some parallels, but one of my observations with Snyder in particular is most of his emphasis about the beats is in the first act. That's where he gives the most information. You know, you've got to have your opening image, you've got to state the theme, you've got to do the setup, you've got to do your catalyst inciting incident. You have to have your debate, which I think is Snyder's term, effectively for the call to adventure and the fusel of the call. We'll get to the hero's journey, but that's kind of that same section. And then you break into the second act, right? And then it becomes, oh, then you got your B story, your midpoint, your rise to your third and then beginning your third act. And I think the least helpful, I mean, not only are these formulas, but, you know, whether it's a myth or otherwise, there is a conception that the second act is the hardest. And you'd think that the gurus would offer you the most kind of formula for what to do with your second act. But most of the time it's just set up, you know, they've just kind of re-articulating different ways to do setup. Hero's Journey is a little bit different, and I'm specifically going to be using, when we talk about it, I'll be specifically with Vogler's interpretation of that, because he's actually got, in his book, it's got columns between Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure and his own interpretation of that, and where they align with his scenes. But yeah, absolutely. I think the dual protagonist nature of this, hell, I'm just going to get to Fogler. The way I interpreted this was that, and you may disagree, but the classic hero's journey idea is the mentor. Not all films have a mentor character, but I think Philomena, you could interpret, if you see this as Philomena's story, then Martin is the mentor character for her. If you see it as Martin's story, Philomena is the mental character for him. And you are, because they basically meet after the, like the inciting incident catalyst, you know, is kind of the offer to do the, for me, I interpret it as the offer to do the human interest story. Because for those who haven't seen it or read it, Martin is interested in, he wants to basically write a Russian history book. And then a journalist friends, why don't you do human interest? And he basically belittles human interest, that history is far more important. And then they end up meeting and that's kind of the second half of the first act is kind of them meeting, getting together and then ultimately they're deciding to help Martin decides to help Philomena find her son

It's interesting because I didn't think there was any mentor in this film because I genuinely believe this is one of those few dual protagonist films where almost like rom-com but most rom-coms lean towards one character or another There's very few where both characters are driving, you know, their own swathes of the movie and have their own complete journeys. And this for me, the catalyst for Philomena's journey happens on page nine, which is where after 50 years of never mentioning her son to anyone, she tells her daughter. And the reason why I say that's the catalyst is, you know, first of all, obviously, Philomena, something's changed in Philomena's world. And it's her daughter who approaches Martin to get him to interview his mother. And then, for me, the catalyst for Martin was actually on page 17, where he agrees to pursue the human interest story. No, I just.

Say that him agreeing to do it is him accepting the call to adventure. But the call to adventure is made both structurally with both Philomena and Jane approaching him, but also Sally mentioning this human interest story. Because I think that's what's interesting about Martin as a character is they could have, having not seen the film, you could have kind of exercised the stuff about him really, like his backstory, which is he worked in politics and he wants to write Russian history and he kind of sees this as something beneath him. You could have probably made the film less interesting, but you could have made it work without any of that stuff. He could have just been a journalist writing a book.

But then his resistance to the call, right? He hears about Sally. He gets the offer to do some journalistic work that he doesn't want to do on page 13. At that same party, within a page, I think 14, 15, the daughter approaches him. And then on page 17, he's meeting them. No, he wouldn't, he wouldn't have met them with it without having made the decision to pursue this to an extent.

Uh, yeah. Cause Jane, he actually says it to Jane, the daughter, she, you know, she comes up to him and says, and this is for those who've got, you know, reading along with their scripts, page 15, she says, I know a woman you see, and she had a baby when she was a teenager, she kept it. And you know, the baby was taken away from the nuns. Right. So that is actually his call to adventure using the Vogler method. Right. And he says to her, uh, I don't do human entry story. And this is like, again, I'm quoting, because human interest story tends to be a useism for stories about vulnerable, weak-minded, ignorant people to fill up the pages of newspapers read by vulnerable, weak-minded, ignorant people.

And then within exactly a page, he's saying, should I do a human interest story? To me, if there was any debate or refusal of the call or whatever, I mean, Snyder says the debate is from page 12 to 25. Michael Hay, who we'll get to, calls it the new situation. And we're talking about the hero's journey, the refusal of the call. To me, those elements weren't in the script. Because that entire section from the story, from those two meeting to their decision to which I think is a very clear act one break, is their decision to fly together to Washington. Not only does it change location, it changes the goals, everything, they're off on an adventure to find her son. It's such a clear structural break. But what happens between them meeting and them deciding to go after them is an entire sequence of flashback. So here is an Academy Award nominated script, a very critically successful film it's the only academy award nominated script that i think is not a u.s script i'm excluding documentary i'm just talking about the best original screenplay or best adapted screenplay i think all of the other films are u.s films the to my mind they basically ignore the refusal of the call and they use that time in the screenplay very compelling willingly to show a woman having her child stolen from her.

I mean, I guess it just depends what you interpret refusal of the call to be. Because it can happen very quickly. I mean, I think the famous example, I think it's the example that everyone uses with the hero's journey is, you know, a new hope where Luke is like, no, I have to stay here. I have to, you know, I'm not going to go and fight. And then he discovers, you know, Owen and Beru burnt to death and he's like, okay, I'm going to go and stop the empire now. And it's only a couple of scenes, you know, it's five.

But I think in the hero's journey.

My interpretation is it's about compelling the character to do it. And that there is the change, the change of the mind is a way to also build empathy. And I think with Marnon, you're sitting there going, oh, wow, he's going to be really mean to Philomena because he certainly, and that's part of his journey is he does think she's vulnerable and weak-minded. And I think their journey together is certainly, in a way, functions as either the A plot or the B plot. It doesn't really matter what you call it. But, you know, that is the beginning of the break into the second is kind of their journey together. And I think you needed to have that moment where he's like, no, I'm not going to do it. So he can then change his mind. And it doesn't take the 12 pages, but the fact is he does change his mind about it.

But to me, that change of mind happens between pages 15 and 16, where he goes from saying, I don't do human interest stories to, should I do human interest stories, cut to him meeting them in the pub. It feels like he's made that decision already. Yeah, it kind of has.

I haven't seen the film, but yeah, it is only a couple of scenes. It's like him jugging, feeling, you know, crappy. And then he sits on the bed and the quote is wrestling with himself.

But he comes out of wrestling with himself with a decision. It doesn't feel like while he's meeting them in the pub that he's wrestling with himself there. You're just getting the story. Yes, that's true. I mean, I think this sequence between the catalyst and the break into act two is a really important sequence. And most people have labeled it as, you know, refusal to call or debate. And I just think that what these writers have done here is just made it incredibly compelling because we know from the beginning of the film that she's lost her child. And we're basically going to be watching this sequence in dread because we know we are watching someone about to have their child.

Ripped away from them. Yeah, and it kind of aligns our empathy with the character and it creates, you know, when something we'll talk about later, it creates the goal, it creates kind of the emotional stakes. No, you're absolutely right. And I think it's worth saying that the film manuscript is really worth reading just in terms of the big print. It's a lot different from a lot more of the American scripts. There's a lot of, we do this, a lot of specificity with the camera, particularly in the flashbacks. They talk a lot more about how the camera sees things in the flashbacks because they're trying to keep certain information secret, et cetera. And I think the other thing that's really worth saying, and I think it helps with something that's so character-driven is that, you know, Steve Coogan is an actor. And I think the performance beats on the page are very well written. You get a real sense of who these people are and how a scene's meant to play based on the language he uses. And I think it helps, you know, all those things you're not meant to do. You're not meant to use flashbacks. You're not meant to use voiceover. You're not meant to, you know, use the Wii and all these things. And it uses cut to constantly. It's full of transitions. And, you know, it actually also does the very British thing of it always capitalizes the characters' names.

So, actually, I made a big fat mistake. To me, the break into two isn't them flying to Washington together. that it's him deciding to fly to Ireland to meet with the nuns. So there's then a quite short sequence where they go to the abbey and the nuns are not very forthcoming or helpful and we get the friction already starting between Philomena's faith and Martin's clear disdain for organized religion. And the big shift kind of happens, I think, when Martin's back at the pub and he hears that the nuns deliberately burnt all the records.

I mean, in a way that's like, it's another turning point. And in some ways it's a, it's a bigger turning point than him going to Ireland, but in terms of the physical journey, it's going to Ireland, that's the break. And it is that something, this is, it is a really good script to see how they constantly escalate. There is a revelation probably every 10 to 15 pages. I haven't looked at it in depth, but there is definitely that sense.

That's something that we'll get into soon. But I think that this script, not just because it's a dual protagonist script, but exactly from what you've just said in that it has an escalation of a reveal and each reveal triggers a new sequence to me it's not it doesn't necessarily follow this whole three act or nearly any of these formulas but it constantly gets keeps you reading constantly drives you through the script because we've like i've said we've just had a sequence where you are watching this woman waiting for her to have her child stolen away then you've got another short sequence where you're meeting the evil nuns, as they refer to them in the script, and find out that they were deliberately burning the records to stop people from finding their children. And then they decide to go to Washington. So that sequence in Ireland is quite short, but it is a very fixed sequence. There was a goal and that goal was achieved and it resulted in a reveal that has then led to the next jump.

It's worth saying, and I'm playing devil's advocate by trying to not praise Snyder, but he talks about this kind of the first half of the second act. So for him, pages 30 to 55, it's fun and games, the trailer moments, the promise of the premise. And I think what's really interesting is if you actually look at the trailer for this film... So much of this first half is the fish out of water story. Not only is it about the friction between Philomena and Marnon, once they arrive to Washington, it's about, oh, look at the crazy old Irish lady in America, isn't it funny? And that is what the trailer actually tries to sell it on.

Can I disagree with you to an extent here? First of all, I find fun and games and the promise of the premise in the trailer moments. I think that's an interesting question to ask. But for me, when I was reading this script, I'd finished reading it and I thought, what bits would actually be in the trailer when we were doing this analysis? And for me, most of it would be kind of trying to paint the movie as this road movie between these two very different people. That was how in my head that I thought that they would market the film. And I went and looked at the trailer and it is lots of them in the car and the toing and the froing and you know all about their contrast and the majority of that stuff does not come where snyder says it should be which is in 30 to 55 it actually comes after page 71 well.

Because i think what's interesting about this film and and you know we are moving with snyder so you got the fun and the games and there is a very clear midpoint in this script which is and this is a huge spoiler they discover that anthony slash Michael, her son that she's been looking for in America, is dead. And it is an absolute clear midpoint reversal because what we thought the film was about, which is finding the son, is answered halfway through the film. And it becomes a different story.

Well, you say halfway. What page do they find out he's dead? I can tell you.

Tell me.

It's page 71. A full 16 pages after Blake Snyder says that it should happen on page 55.

Yeah, that Blake Snyder is doing it on 110-page script rather than 120, which is what this is. But yeah, it's not exactly halfway, but it's a fairly clear midpoint. I don't think you need to do a page count.

Yeah, not only is it... Well, the reason why I'm referring to page count is that's what Blake Snyder refers to.

Okay.

I would happily ignore and you're right it is a clear midpoint because it's a huge reversal the journey that they set out for ends and now they as you say they take up a completely new journey which is for Philomena to find out who her son was and really ultimately answer the question did her son ever think about her even because that's why she was doing this and it's interesting because I wrote this analysis and I thought, wow, that's quite late for such an enormous reversal. But in the film, it feels very much like a midpoint. The sequence in the Abbey moves very quickly, like the flashback sequence where we're watching Philomena as a young woman have her child taken away, that sequence moves very quickly. And a lot of the flashbacks that you're referring to showing her son's life in America, all of those get cut. Like not entirely but they're there in like a couple of second flashes they don't reveal anywhere near the amount of information that the the script suggests in them like you don't figure out that he's that he's gay from the flashbacks you don't figure out that he's bought a house you don't really feel his emotions it's just, keeping you him in your mind that he was alive and he was growing up in the u.s that was they just decided in the edit i suspect to focus on the story of philomena and martin yeah.

Right oh i mean i was gonna say and this is it's tangential is when we're talking about the discovery of the evil nuns and and this kind of like history is this could be written as a thriller you know there is basically secret information which a journalist is trying to discover i mean this is you know all the president's men. It's Zodiac. It's state of play. I mean, it could be written as a thriller and it doesn't because the character journeys are different, but you could see a way that this could be reconstructed as that kind of story. And it probably doesn't surprise me that they've pulled that back because it is not so much about those mysterious questions.

So after the midpoint, Blake Snyder says, bad guys close in. So the bad guys regroup and send in heavy artillery.

Who are the bad guys?

Yeah. Well, the nuns disappear from this film. They're not in the second act of this film at all, really. They're mentioned, but only in kind of arguments between Martin and Philomena. Those guys as bad guys aren't there at all.

Yeah, they're clearly the big bads of the script. And, you know, as I was making a joke before, in a thriller version of this, the nuns would send someone out to stop him. The forces of opposition in the second half, different. It's about people not wanting to speak to them. It's about people who are refusing to give up the information rather than an actual antagonist as such.

Well, there's only one person who refuses to speak to them and he only refuses to speak to them for, what, half a page? So, to me, that isn't it either. To me, the bad guys closing in is really, I don't want to say this is the bad guys closing in. What I'm saying is that the Snyder model doesn't apply here. But what was happening in this sequence between Philomena finding out that her son is dead and them leaving America is their conflict comes out between Martin and Philomena. So, Martin is being forced to pursue this story by his publisher, even though he doesn't want to. He feels sorry for her. He wants to go home. So, he's put in a position where he's trying to convince this old lady to continue on their road trip around the States, even though her son has died. And…. A really interesting change between the script and the film. I don't know if you remember this, but in the airport, Martin is having that call with the publisher saying, we're coming home. And the publisher says, no, I need a story and you've got to keep her there. Right. And then Martin goes and in the script, Martin convinces her. And it's like a really sort of dark moment for him where he's putting the story above his consideration for her. In this. I think they let him off in the film because in the film, Philomena says, you know what? I think I want to go and meet people who knew my son. So they really let him off the hook there. And I don't know if it tested as being too much maybe, or they made a decision, shot it both ways. I don't know. But they let Martin off, made his character a lot more likable by not giving him that kind of arsehole moment.

Yeah, kicking the cat as opposed to saving the cat moment, which is something we haven't even talked about.

We'll talk about it with Dallas Bars Club. So, All Is Lost, where do you think that happened?

I've got it down as page 93, which is much later than the All Is Lost Dark Night of the Soul, which is basically when Philomena tells Marnon, you won't have to publish the story because I don't want it published. I don't want anyone to know about this ever,

Right?

So, it's the low point for Philomena. She basically doesn't think her son would think of her. He never gave me a second thought. So, it's a low point for her character,

Right?

Because she basically has come to conclusion her son never gave her a second thought. And it's a low point plot-wise. I mean, it's a low point for Martin because he no longer has his story, and it's a low point plot-wise because basically it's like, this story's over. She doesn't want the story published, you know, therefore the journeys end. And then ultimately it all starts, that feeds into the beginning of

The third act. So for me, I think, what do you think is Martin's lowest point?

I think it's this one because he's basically decided he wants to tell the story and now he's having it being, and now he's having it being taken away from him. But i'm sure there's possibly a character moment that you a separate moment which is what you're going to tell me about huh

Well i think so philomena finds out that her or believes that her son never thought about her so that's the low point for her and this whole sequence has been a to and fro between these two is where their conflict comes to its climax and for me it's when Martin basically tries when she's found out that her son never thought about her to convince her that God doesn't exist because he, I mean, he's, he's, he's trying to keep the story. And I think he's trying in some stupid way to make her angry against the nuns so that he can keep the story going. They stop at this church. She wants to go in and confess. He tries to convince her not to believe in God. And then she doesn't cross herself with the holy water on the way out. And she doesn't confess either. And Martin thinks that he's caused her to have a crisis of faith. So these all kind of line up and it starts to turn around. The dark night of the soul is interestingly, I think that's Philomena's dark night of the soul in the church, in the confessional. But Martin's Dark Night of the Soul is back in Washington, back in the hotel, where he thinks she's jumped off the balcony and he can't get into her room.

No, I think that's probably a pretty astute analysis. I think the church thing is interesting because another way I personally think of the Dark Night of the Soul beat, it's surprising to me. Is like the Garden of Gethsemane moment, you know, from the crucifixion story where, you know, Jesus is prying, you know, and coming to terms with the idea that he's going to die. And he's basically pleading to not have to be crucified. And I always think that is that kind of moment. And in this script, they almost riff on that symbology with her going in and trying to speak to God. And it's interesting that Snyder uses that kind of, like even the term, the dark night of the soul, or when you talk about it, instead of the lowest of the low, which is the way I usually refer to it. Dark Knight of the Soul, to me, always kind of has that garden of Getsemane image to it.

Paul, I mean, we'll get to the other gurus, but Haig calls it the major setback, or at least the big turning point that pushes into Act 3, and Vogler calls it the ordeal, or approach to the inmost cave.

Well, actually, in The Writer's Journey, he actually calls the end of Act 2 the reward.

Yeah, interesting.

And he actually has the ordeals, the midpoint, and he has the road back as the beginning of Act 3.

Well, that would fit this script better than either Haig or Snyder because, to me, you're still in Act 2 when they've had this All is Lost, they've had this Dark Night of the Soul, and both of them, there's this small sequence where, first of all, Martin decides that he wants to help Philomena for her sake. He gives up on the story and he just wants to help her and they also see a little clue there's a reveal that her son did think about her and then they go to the son's lover's house and it is a reward she finds out that not only did her son think about her that he loved her that he went searching for her that he's buried at the abbey where he'd been stolen from her and that's all We'll be right back. In the end of Act 2. So I think that does fit the Vogler model better than the Snyder or the Haig or a lot of the conventional three-act structure models where they say the reward is kind of at the end of the climax of the entire movie in Act 3.

That's interesting because I would say, you know, this is 120-page script, so the end of the second act on a pure numbers analysis is around page 90, right? 30, 60, 90. And what we're talking about, what I pointed out as Philomena's Dark, low point is page 93, right? So that could be considered the beginning of the third act. And then page 100 is that climactic, the beginning of the climax. But I mean, this just shows you the kind of the differences. I'm trying to think of the varying utility or lack thereof of these different formulas. I mean, ultimately what they're talking about is useful, which is the idea that you have a really low point and then you've got to get away for the character to kind of fight themselves out of them. But where that lands and the exact structure of it, I think it probably does vary from script to script. Yeah, it is. I mean, the point is, yes, there's a moment where he discovers the Celtic Carp and that's kind of, even I've got that as the beginning of Act 3, the Snyder, which happens on page 100, which is the solution to the protagonist problem is found. So the Dark Knight of Skull climaxes into the beginning of Act 3 and Act 3 begins when they've got a potential solution, which is later in this. It's page 100. It's not page 85, which is what Snyder says it should be on, you know, page 85, one-eighth of the page through. You know, it's the discovery of the Kilda Carp. And then that pushes into the finale.

But what we're talking about, and I think this is an interesting reflection of this script and also of Dallas Buyers Club, is- We've got a sequence starting with Martin's discovery of the harp, right? Which is, they've just gone through All Is Lost. They've gone through Dark Knight of the Soul. He discovers the harp. They start a sequence that is really just trying to interview this one guy. And at the end of it, she's given her reward. You could say that's the end of Act 2, or you could say it's the beginning of Act 3. It doesn't matter. The point is that there is a discrete sequence that begins and ends and drives the story, and then you've got the final sequence which is confronting the nuns back in Ireland and I think what the reason why I just want to put a pin in this and come back to it after Dallas Buyers Club is I think Dallas Buyers Club does the same thing I think people need to look at these gurus and these formulas and these structures and say all right these are interesting questions to ask of my story are these elements there and yes they should happen in a sort of order like if you take everything away from your protagonist in the first five pages, it's going to be a really short film. But frankly, I think so long as you've got clear goals and clear sequences driving the film, I don't think you need to adhere to all this stuff.

Yes. I'm saying that because I agree with you. And I mean, we should be upfront about that, that both of us tend to be a little bit more sequence oriented, particularly these days, in terms of how we write. But there's going to be another whole podcast on that because, and I'll just say this now, be controversial. I don't necessarily believe a film has to be eight sequences. And this actually segues into haig because haig effectively says that there are six stages to a film he's talking about six sequences and he's a lot less detailed than snyder he talks about it in percentages rather than page count which is a little bit more useful i guess and he's you know he's getting set up first 10 so let's pretend this is 100 and in 120 page script that means he is saying the setup should end on page 12 and the opportunity is turning point one opportunity 10 and that kicks off the new situation which is 10 to 25 of the script and that's kind of the uh the first two stages right and then the the third stage begins after the change of plans so he has a turning point called change of plans and then that and i

Think we're rushing through this because Because, to be fair to this script and to this analysis, it sits in quite neatly for Philomena.

Yes, it does. Very much so. And you can kind of also see the overlap with Snyder, that there are certain turning points that they just use different names for. It goes from the turning point to change of plans, progress, 25 to 50%. That's what he calls it, progress. Yeah.

Well, they do. They get to America. But interestingly, they get to America on page 51, and it's only the point of no return, the major turning point or the midpoint or whatever you want to call it, is at page 71. So again, these percentages aren't lining up. And I also don't think the names apply. I don't think point of no return applies to this story. Although you could argue them finding out that he's dead is a point of no return. They're never going to get to meet him, but he's been dead from the beginning of the film.

And it's not necessarily, like, it is a point of return. Quite specifically, most of the second half of this, the complications and higher stakes, which is the stage, the fourth stage after, so the fourth stage, the one after the point of no return, is pretty much about them deciding to not go back. So it's not a point of no return at all.

The character- They could always return if they want.

Exactly. But I think the idea of it being that the midpoint is there. And then you've got the major set pack, which is turning point four. And then you've got the final push, which is the next stage, the fifth stage, and then the climax.

It's sort of like turning point six.

And then you've got the aftermath. Now, we'll put a link. Haig's got the screenplay structure on his website. And I'm going to put a link into the show notes.

And he applies it to two films. He applies it, I think, to Gladiator and Aaron Brockovich, breaking them down, seeing how they meet these sequences. But I was amazed to just see that I respected Haig. I really liked his view. And I thought it was more flexible than Snyder's. But frankly, I think it's almost identical to Snyder's. He's just replaced page count with percentages and been a little more vaguer on his terminology.

But I think that's what makes it useful to me. Yes.

Why not being so prescriptive?

Yeah, it's pretty easy. And I'll be honest, for a script I'm developing now, I've got a scrivener document that's like stage one, like turning point one, turning point two, turning point three, just so I can ask those questions. What is effectively the point of no return for this character? Or what is the change of plans? And so this does fit, so Philomena does fit in recently

It fits this better than it fits Snyder.

Yeah, better.

But I mean, this is why we're doing this, right? The biggest criticism that I've heard from the pro writers about these gurus is that these are all great tools of analysis. They're not necessarily good tools for content creation. You are a screenwriter, you're looking at a blank page and you're like, you know what? I'm going to pick up this book and it's going to tell me how to write this story.

Yeah and i mean as i said i actually like the fact that haig is somewhat vaguer because i think you can for me go oh okay i kind of need something at the midpoint what's the reversal but you know hey i haven't got a film made yet so but

Actually interesting that well it fits a dual protagonist model which is kind of cool.

It is it is very cool and i actually have to say and and this is a personal thing and people can go and watch the short that i made payload i wasn't really conscious of midpoints until after I made that film. And I looked back and went, wow, I had a pretty distinctive midpoint in that film. And I didn't even realize it. It was just kind of an instinct that halfway through the story. And it's an 18 minute short, so it's certainly not a short short. There is a moment in the story where the story definitely changes. What you thought it was about, what the goal was, changed. And since then, I've been a lot more conscious of it. And, you You know, Haig, I think, kind of hits those moments, like those turning points that he identifies as something that I'm aware of, particularly in kind of more blockbuster-y moments. Because we do talk about acts and effectively what he's done is he's given terminology to the first act break so the the break from act one into act two the break from act two into three and he's added like a midpoint and an inciting incident and climax you know uh to kind of divide it up so let's look as you say it fits neater into this so we can just kind of and you'll pick this up with the comparison with snyder so turning point one is the new opportunity right so that's kind of Martin being given this story from Jane about Philomena and her child. Quite clearly it's a new opportunity because Martin made the specific point that he doesn't do human or interest stories. We've also created, they also in the setup, create the idea that he's looking for something new because he's been fired for his job. So that creates the new opportunity and the new situation. And the new situation is a better term than what Snyder used because the new situation is, It's different. So even the idea of him having, you know, the call to adventure and fusing to the call and all that stuff we debated, it's not, it's not, it doesn't matter. It's, it is just the new situation that he's ultimately, they're getting to the point where there's a change of plans. And this is, and this is interesting because I don't agree that there's, I actually think there isn't a change of plans. There is a change, which is Martin goes to Ireland with Philomena, but it's not a change of plans. It's not like once he makes the decision, as you say, on page 17, he's going, it's inevitable that he's going to Ireland,

You know? Unless Philomena, I don't know, had a really boring story.

It started raining there, hasn't it?

Yeah, it has.

Okay.

Welcome to the tropics.

And then, you know, you get the change of plans, progress, obviously all the stuff in America. Notice how vague progress is. Not very helpful as a writer when he's sitting down. Okay, for 25 pages in second act, there needs to be progress. And then we hit the midpoint, point of no return, which as we mentioned earlier, is the discovery that Anthony, her son, is dead. And then it goes into complications and higher stakes. And I don't know if the stakes get any higher. In fact, in some ways, the stakes are lower because her son's dead. I guess maybe the emotional stakes are higher because he's got a way, she doesn't, she's got no way of knowing who he is. And there's complications because their relationship is more complicated. And then the next turning point is the major setback, which is, as we discussed, it's the whole idea that Philomena doesn't want to do the book anymore. To me, that's why that's the major setback is that moment, the page 93, where Philomena doesn't want to do the book anymore and Martin's left high and dry because that's a setback, you know, as opposed to a character low point. And then it goes into the final push, which is them going back to Ireland and the climax where they confront the nuns. And then the aftermath, you know, I mean, Haig actually says the aftermath between 99% to 100%, but it's basically like two pages. It's his terminology for the final image. And that's them driving away from the nuns. So, yeah, it fits pretty neatly, but that's also because it's a lot vaguer.

As in you could fit almost anything in there.

I think there's films that you'd be challenged to fit in there. It'd be interesting. I mean, it's the film that everyone pulls out. Like Full Metal Jacket would be probably harder to fit in that because effectively it's in some ways it's two films combined together. First half of Full Metal Jacket's got three acts and second half's got three acts. But ultimately something like that's going to be a lot more challenging.

I also think that Dallas Buyers Club, similar to Philomena, its second act does not adhere to these kind of rules or these formulas. But do you want to talk quickly about Vogler and the hero's.

Journey for those that don't know, Vogler kind of wrote a memo based on Joseph Campbell back in the eighties. And then he turned that into a book called the writer's journey. You know, kind of put in a lot of the monomyth terminology, and he rephrased certain things, and there's books you can buy where he, you know, analyzes other movies and how they fit the hero's journey, right? And a lot of people talk about the hero's journey, but I don't think it's applicable to everything. And there is, again, it's a very specific story. You know, there's, so to breaking it down, Act One is kind of the ordinary world, the call to adventure, refusal of the call, meeting with the mentor, and then crossing the threshold is his term for the first act turning point then it goes into tests allies and enemies the approach the inner cave the ordeal and then the seizing the sword and the reward which is kind of ends off second act and then the third act is the road back resurrection return with the elixir is kind of how you end so it does somewhat meet philomena i think what's interesting is there's less of an overlap between the hero's journey and hagensteyer in the back half as we discussed earlier vogler actually has the ordeal being roughly around the midpoint and the reward ends at two and act three begins with the road back so again but that said

I saw a lot more information or beats in the act three and a lot more detailed beats in the act three in boggler than in either haig or snyder.

Yeah, that's true.

The road back resurrection and return with the elixir after the reward, I think those are kind of quite descriptive beats. Do you see anywhere where Philomena does or does not meet that formula?

I think there's certain moments that I think that's, I mean, obviously, I've talked earlier about refusal of the call and the call, the meeting with the mentor. As I discussed, I think in a dual protagonist film, you can kind of construe the idea of there being a mentor. or the tests, allies,

And enemies, again, it's just all the usual stuff.

Random skirmishes and all that kind of adventure stuff. Yeah, this is the road movie aspect. The approach to Inmost Cave...

But the road movie for these guys, I mean, sure, they'd gone to Ireland, they went to Washington, but the actual them getting in the car and driving around only really started to happen post the midpoint, post finding out that Anthony was dead. So... In that first sequence between them, you know, I guess they've defined the enemies as the nuns. So in between Martin deciding to take on this story and him and Philomena joining together, what are the tests that they go through? There's a lot of humor. There's a lot of seeding the conflicts that are to come. Like Philomena's reluctance to have her story published is seeded. They they reveal the nuns as an enemy but really that that sequence it's it's it's quite a long sequence it goes from it goes about 20 pages and i struggle to think of that much from the film in the in in that sequence but it never slowed me down in the read i never felt bored or disengaged from it and i think maybe it's the humor of philomena you know they're going through the airport they're arriving in the hotel it's it's a whole lot of humorous exchanges between these two but in in any event i think it's that sequence is much closer to being haig's ubiquitous progress than the fun and games of snyder or the you know ordeals or sorry.

The term is

Test okay.

The ordeal is something very specific. Yeah, where they go and this is quoting, where they increase an ever more difficult series of challenge ranging from minor scurvishes and struggles against the weather and terrain to riddles and various other tests. So it's that I, yeah, I mean, appropriate for an adventure movie, not really with Philomena in terms of that conception of it.

It doesn't feel like this is very helpful. Like I have to confess my ignorance of Vogler here. I read Snyder, I've read up on Haig, I've read a lot of McKee and Truby, but this does not sound very helpful for content generation.

No, I mean, and there is people that do it. I mean, you can get, you can even get like a Scrivener template with all these beats put out and, and related to this is a lot of the stuff about archetypes, you know, the shadow and the trickster and all that stuff. And that kind of identifying characters that fit in with those. And I think you can stretch the boundaries of this but you know it obviously is most clearly applicable to an adventure movie like star wars than it is to kind of a drama like philomena and i think you could probably contort the hero's journey to make it fit but how you like if you're contorting an analysis to make it fit then it's not very useful for content generation you know i do use elements of the hero's journey i think the the call and the refusal of the call is interesting for certain characters, because it is a way of generating empathy in the right situation. But it's not always, not every script is going to have that. And, you know, for me, I think the whole approach to Inmost Cave and Ordeal, it is interesting, as we talked about, that you go, actually, this kind of does fit Philomena, that the Inmost Cave and the Ordeal is the discovery that her son's dead, and then kind of coming to terms with that. And then at the end of that sequence, she seizes the sword, which is the information that he did care about her and his origins, and then gets the reward, which is speaking to Anthony's former lover and finding out.

So, what is the inmost cave? Because- In Vogler, just in general terms.

The ordeal is basically the midpoint, as I said earlier. And the approach to the inmost cave is the moments leading up to the ordeal,

Right?

Classically, it's basically approaching the base of your enemies, where you're going to have that first big challenge. In Star Wars, it's when they fly towards the Death Star, get tractor beam dim and all the stuff in the Death Star. It's also known as being in the belly of the beast.

So, I mean, in terms of Philomena, right, it feels like there's very little, like we've got the ordeal and the seizing of the sword and the approach to the inmost cave. That all seems to happen within a very short period of time within the screenplay, whereas there's this huge swathe of the screenplay that's just under Vogler analysis described as just tests, allies, and enemies.

Yeah, because I think everyone finds the second act really bloody hard, and I think the gurus don't have anything much to say about it. You know?

Should we move on to Dallas Buyers Club and see?

Yeah, I think the only thing that's worth talking about is the road back resurrection and return of the Glyssa, as you say, does work with Philomino. And quite literally, the road back is her heading back to Ireland.

And they have a scene in the car where they're driving up to the Abbey.

Yeah, it's like the answer was always there. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about the script is you actually see him finding the greys at the beginning of the second act. And that's where it kind of ends and so it is a return for the road back and then but it's like this whole idea of resurrection it's the idea you know that she's got the secret truth and that you know she ultimately confronts the nuns is it resurrection i mean you know it's

I think it is resurrection from her low point of my son never loved me and it's all my fault and like i said at the very beginning when we started talking about philomena not only does she have the strength in her to forgive the nuns she's also forgiven herself for letting him go she is resurrected as a person yeah, Martin, not so much.

No. And that would probably be part of the argument for me, why he's more of a mentor character than a protagonist.

But I just think his changes happened earlier. I mean, he buys her the Jesus. I would argue that he's more of the main character. First of all, the film opens on him. The driving plot is the writing of this story. Like you talked about the major setback being the refusal to publish, the herd of refusal to publish the story. Really, the plot device of this is finding the story. It's what keeps them in America after they find out he's dead. It's what gets them to America in the first place. It's what gets these two people to meet, all those kind of things. And it ends with her saying, you know what? I want you to publish the story. And he does have a big character change. And also, I would argue that she doesn't really change in that her faith is tested, but she begins the film full of faith. She's in an empty church. She takes confession. She goes through this journey where her faith is absolutely hammered to the point that she has a crisis of faith, but really comes back to where she was at the start of the film. But I guess the big difference being that she's forgiven herself now.

Yeah no I think you're right and and I'm going to use Vogler you're going to love me Vogler's return with the elixir the elixir is given to Martin from Philomena the elixir is the permission to publish the story and as I mean the film ends with text I don't know well the script does if the film does as well but it is the idea the elixir is actually the film itself because we know we know that the book becomes the film, that what we are watching is a recreation of that book. So yeah, quite literally, she's given him the elixir. Stretching a metaphor.

All right. Dallas Buyers Club. Before we jump, as we jump into Dallas Buyers Club, I want to start off with the end of this. Do you think that Dallas Buyers Club has a two-page act three? The fact that I'm thinking about it.

No, but I did found the act three a little bit more challenging. And I think that's because it's a biopic and not having seen the film, I don't know how the film handles the third act, but it was like, well, hang on. This feels like it's a different third act. Yeah. I mean, let's, let's talk about that. I think before we continue, should probably summarize Dallas Buyers Club for those who haven't seen it and willing to get spoiled. So the Lisa let know who some of the characters are. So basically, Dallas Buyers Club is a true story about Ron Woodruff, a kind of hard drinking, hard talking Texan who discovers he's got AIDS and ends up effectively running drug smuggling from Mexico for non-approved pharmaceuticals into what he calls the Dallas Buyers Club, which is basically he distributes those pharmaceuticals treatments to other AIDS patients in order to help them survive longer in the early days of AIDS. That's the short of the story. And he's kind of... And those characters were specifically mentioned, for those who've seen the trailer. Rayon is the one played by...

Jared Leto.

Jared Leto. Yes.

All right.

So, we've gone through all the Snyder kind of beats. So, yeah. I mean, for me, this kind of did fit elements of Snyder reasonably well.

There's a clear opening image, which is a cowboy riding a bull. Yeah. While Ron is having sex with a woman watching the cowboy riding the bull. And then you're talking about mirrored images. The final image is Ron himself riding the bull.

That's very clear for me. And the statement of the theme was quite clear to me as well.

Within the first five pages?

Yeah.

Gotta die. Because he has a line that's on page 88, which is, I just want it all to mean something. And I thought, that's what this film is about, right? I wrote it down. And then I went and watched the trailer and it was the line that the trailer closes on.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's related to what I was going to say is its statement, the theme, and I don't think it's as explicit as that, but is when he's like, you've got to die from something. And it's like being him kind of, because the whole thing is about him kind of dealing with his mortality and him going, I'm not going to check out like that.

Should we say that there's a save the cat moment where, I mean, in addition to Ron's hard drug, hard sex hard drinking lifestyle he's also incredibly racist and homophobic and i've written here it's kind of indicative in this setup that ron is sick in both body and soul but there is a save the cat moment where as an electrician he goes to save this mexican dude.

Totally. And I think that's actually what's really interesting about Dallas Buyers Club is something that was a biopic. There's certain elements of it that felt quite, quite conventional in terms of it. Unlike Philomena, they've definitely created, and it's from the story, but Big Pharmaceutical is definitely the big bad in this. And there's elements of those guys moving in. I mean, we'll get to that, but I think that's kind of throughout the whole script. There's elements that are a lot more influenced by these kinds of formulas.

Well, interestingly, I mentioned that Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith where they interviewed these writers and one of the writers said, oh, I never learned about structure. I was self-taught, but then eventually I kind of had to teach myself structure and Jeff Goldsmith asked him, all right, well, what's your main source of teaching? And the guy says, save the cat.

Wow.

And I'm really interested by that because, to me, so little of this adheres to save the cat. I mean, there are things that you can kind of force or, you know, like that there is a save the cat moment. As an overarching script, I don't think it does meet Save the Cat. And it might be that, you know, it was written as a writing team or that maybe there's a lesson to take from this, which is these gurus and these structures and these formulas might be a good place to jump off of, but never to hold you back.

Yeah. I mean, it'd be interesting where you think it departs because I think particularly in the first act is it does quite adhere to it. You know, you've

Got the catalyst is he's told he's HIV positive, but that happens on page nine, not on page 12.

Yeah. I mean, this is you adhering specifically to the page numbers. And I know that's what Blake Snyder uses, but the idea that there's both the catalyst and the debate. And I think there is a debate within it. It's both for him coming to terms with his aides, and there's definitely scenes with him kind of accepting that. Also him coming to terms with the kind of treatment that he uses. What I think was harder for me to find, and I'm hoping you'll point it out specifically, is the break into the second act. Where do you think that started?

But for me, I thought it was just such a clear break was when he starts smuggling the drugs into Mexico. And let me say why. I mean, again, I think there's an extra sequence in here where you could argue that the break into act two happens earlier. But he's told on page nine he has AIDS and then he debates drugs. Acknowledging whether he has AIDS or not for about four or five pages. On page 14, he demands getting help, but is told he can't get AZT. And then he tries to steal the drugs from the hospital. On page 20, this could be one of those breaks. He asks for a sign. He's in a strip club and it's kind of dressed up to look, or it's framed and written in a way that you think he's in a church but he's in a strip club and he asked for a sign and he's given a sign which is a way to steal the drugs from the hospital but for me that's still there's the sequence of him stealing the drugs and he gets so sick that he has to go to Mexico trying to buy the AZT and he blacks out. Right and then there's like it's in the big print I think is it six months later yeah he's healthy he's got a carload of the drugs and he's about to try and smuggle them into the u.s dressed as a priest so for me not only is this this major shift in time but he's gone from trying to save himself the the first act is about or that that sequence between him accepting he has aids is about him trying to stay alive right and that quite clearly stops being the driver and the driver begins to be selling the drugs and getting the drugs into the US.

I guess the reason I asked that question, and this is a complete, undermining of Fugler. There wasn't a moment where I was like, he's doubting the cause. There's some, you know, he goes and sees this doctor in Mexico and then he's like, I'll help you and maybe you can help me. And then six months later, he's smuggling the drugs. There was actually no debate,

No internal character stuff. It depends what you say, what the debating the call is. I thought there was a clear debate the call where he's denying that he has AIDS at all for about four or five pages.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not talking about that debate. I'm talking about the fact that he decides to start smuggling these drugs into America for everyone else. That happens off screen. That decision moment where he's like, yes, Dr. Vass, I'm going to help you get these drugs for everyone else. Given that that's what the story is ultimately about, this guy who, I mean, he's not entirely selfless. And it's one of the things I liked about his story. It's not like he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He's making money from it. But he does help people. And that decision to do that happens off screen. It's six months later.

Yeah, you see, I think where I was kind of happy with the script is his journey in the whole of the rest of the film is his journey from helping himself to helping other people. Because I think he's completely self-interested in bringing these drugs in. He's like, wow, this shit works. There's a whole lot of people who can't get it, and I'm going to sell it to them, and I'm going to be a millionaire. I think it is completely self-interested.

Oh, yeah. I'm not denying that. It's just that moment where he's like, oh, I can make a shitload of money out of this. Happens off screen. You could argue that it's unnecessary. And I'm just looking at these pages now because I don't even think, I think the doctor just mentioned to her offhandedly the idea that he could.

Yeah, but I think because you're treating the doctor mentioning it as being the call, but, Doesn't he say, he says somewhere you can make a lot of money off this stuff.

No, you're right. Page 31. It's, it's, it's the tag. It's tag for the scene. He goes, and you don't buy them back in the U.S. No, not approved. Chinks, homos, and herbs. You've got a new world order here. You could be making a fortune off this stuff. Boom. That's right. No, I, I, I take all that back. That is clearly the actor when he decides he can make money about it. But the other thing I think is this does have the B story. Does it happen? It doesn't happen.

What do you think is the B story?

I think the relationship with Eve is the closest thing this film has to

A B story. Really? You see, I think we kind of scooted over this in Philomena because it didn't really happen. But Snyder says that you break into Act 2 on page 25 and then page 30 is you introducing your B story. Right? Now, the Dr. Eve and Dr. Savard testing this drug that doesn't work so well in the hospital in this script starts on page 7. Even Ron's relationship which is kind of a redemptive relationship where it's not romantic it's just a doctor comes to respect Ron and as a person as well as what he's trying to do but to me the B story is Rayon, And they actually have a meet-cute on page 23, 24, because, like I said, Ron's hugely homophobic, and Rayon is transvestite or transgender. All right. Yes. Something that Ron is clearly quite against, and they end up playing poker for money, and Rayon ends up clearing Ron out.

Yeah, and he goes and defends him. But you see, I think, for me, Rayon is the mentor character. I'm jumping to Volga here, but I think he's clear. It's like the meeting of Obi-Wan. It's just that it's Obi-Wan in a dress. And even to the point where part of the journey for Ron is learning how to live without Raon, you know, that it's the moment when, you know.

So, why isn't that the B story? Because for me, what I call this is, I think there's a subplot and both Eve and Raon are part of this, is it's the battle for Ron's soul. They're his antagonists for being a good person.

Okay no i'll i'll pay that yeah you can call that as the b story and i mean i guess the reason i was just picking out eve is it's the classic b story is a love story and it feels like because when they met and he's an asshole to her i know i know it's about him being redeemed but it's also like man he's a prick i hope you don't end up sleeping together because that you know classic american film and they don't but they they had something approaching a romantic a romantic relationship so yeah i guess you could call the b story both the combination of eve and rayon and that whole idea of making him the battle for his soul is the b story the a plot is clearly the drug smuggling and the kind of the interest from the fda and the big farmer is kind of definitely the dominating a story and it's and it's the character relationships that that form the b because

What i'd like to talk about now is i have a fairly strong view about how the act two of this film works. Yeah, go ahead. And I don't think it adheres in any way, to any of these guys' formulas. And I'd like to ask, do you think there was a midpoint to this film?

Yeah, I do. But it wasn't a strong midpoint. It set up the consequences. Ron passes out the second time around page 52. And then Dr. Sevid, who's kind of been set up as the villain of the piece, he's more or less the manifestation of the- More

Than Richard Barclay? Okay.

Sevid's kind of like, I don't know, Peter crushing to Barclay's Darth Vader. But that tips off Dr. Savard, who begins to know that Ron is bringing in these drugs and that escalates the second half. But it's not a turning

Point for Ron. Yeah, first of all, it's not a turning point for Ron because he really just gets up, leaves the hospital, right? Yeah. And keeps doing what he was doing before. Nothing seems to have changed for Ron other than Dr. Savard is now aware of Ron and Dr. Savard is going to team up or at least work side by side with Richard Barkley in trying to shut Ron down, But for me, the midpoint is actually the creation of the Dallas Buyers Club. And it's not a midpoint. It's just the beginning of what the rest of the film is going to be about. It happens on page 42. And for those of you who don't know, I mean, it's the title of the film, Dallas Buyers Club. And Ron gets shut down for the first time by the FDA for selling these illegal drugs. And I think he was selling them out of a car boot behind gay clubs and after a very funny sequence of homophobic Ron trying to approach people in gay clubs and sell them AIDS medications. And he creates this Dallas Buyers Club because he's not selling drugs, he's selling memberships to this club where they give out drugs. It's a legal loophole. But from that point onwards, there's a rhythm of this film And what happens is the rhythm is Ron is busted by someone, be it the FDA or the IRS or Dr. Savard. So someone tries to shut him down. Within often two pages, Ron sorts this out. Like there was one point where they had their location shut down. A few pages later, Ron has a new location. There's another point where Ron is broke within a few pages, Rayon is lending him money. But what there is, is a rhythm to the act two. So it goes a bust, a recovery showing Ron's, you know, implacability, how he can never be put down. He's never, he's always going to come up with a new way of doing it. And then there's usually a scene with either Rayon or Eve showing him developing as a character and growing more to this point where he's going to do this for the people, not for his own profit. And that's it. And it keeps cycling through that rhythm. But each time the stakes are getting higher, but I can't see a visible midpoint or I can't see a point where it changes because it keeps going through that cycle until the very end of the film.

No, I'm looking at it again, and I think there's a lot of truth to that argument, because basically what happens following the establishment of the Dallas Buyers Club is you have a scene by Eve where basically the big bads of the story, Barrow Wilcombe, which is a big farm, get their drug AZT approved to treat AIDS. And AZT is more or less the evil drug in

This script where.

It's like, oh, AZT kills everyone. And that's only what Ron believes. And I think the film kind of has to pull punches at the end about the badness of AZT. But yeah, it's basically he establishes the Buyers Club and the bad guys have basically built the Death Star. You know, I'm just going to continue using Star Wars metaphors. You know, it's like they've destroyed Alderaan. And they've got their drug, this drug that Ron sees as bad and wants to get people not using, has been given the big tick. So, yeah, that changes the story. It's no longer about him getting the drugs for himself. It basically becomes a lot more about his battle against AZT and Big Farm.

Yeah, that's the, I guess, the plot. The driver of the plot is not these things. I didn't find that there was an adequate midpoint because if there was a midpoint, there's like eight of them because these reversals, so on page 41, he has his first bust. Then there's another bust on page 61 by the IRS, which is fixed by page 65. Page 66, there's a bust by the DEA, which is fixed by page 72. But each of these busts is escalating the stakes or the source of antagonism is escalating so it's a bigger body taking more drastic maneuvers to try and shut Ron down and each time he rises to the challenge and each time he becomes a better person so when he's broke he's inspired Rayon to go to his father who hates him to get a loan and Rayon gives him that money When they lose their location at the motel of the Dallas Buyers Club. It's actually these two elderly gay guys who Ron would have initially despised, they were inspired to give him a house for nothing to keep running the Dallas Buyers Club. There's a scene with Rayon and Ron in the supermarket where Ron stands up to one of his former best friends for being homophobic. So it just it's a very cleverly crafted script and this is the reason why I asked you how long you thought the act 3 was because there is this kind of dark all is lost dark night of the soul so Rayon dies on page 81 and. And Ron is completely broke, but gives away the meds for free, right? Then on page 84, Ron runs out of the particular drug that keeps his brain ticking over. And he, by page 89, he's going crazy in the middle of the street. So, there's this kind of 10 pages where it's not really about the AZT drug, big pharma thing. It's just about Ron. And he recovers right thanks to his friend the policeman who he's been helping out by giving drugs to for his dad and then on page 91 there's another bust by the fda but this time they put it on the the news like ron has a a camera crew there and he says the line they'll never break me but then on page 92 the story has been spun in favor of the fda and not in favor of ron so it's It's this constant bust, Ron recovers, Ron becomes a better person, another bust. And I say that the last sequence is only like three pages long because he finally gets to the point where he takes action. He sues them, right? And he's been yelling at his lawyer, we should sue them, we should sue them for the whole film. But we only actually see the court case actually happening, God, I think it's on page 92A. And they actually quote, it's interesting, this is actually the judge ruling that, they quoted it from the court case. It's verbatim. And the judge rules against Ron. So yet again, the system has shut Ron down, right? And then the very next page, he gets his one win of the entire film, which is he is allowed to use the drugs himself.

And I think what's interesting, the strength of the script, I think that's a fantastic analysis. I think the strength of the script is it doesn't feel repetitive. It didn't to me. Anyway, it doesn't feel, even though it does absolutely follow that rhythm. And it is always the danger, I think, with biopics is that they can kind of peter out if people don't burn out spectacularly. And they found a clever way to make this feel like there was a climax to the script. And it is a personal victory, not a victory for the Dallas Buyers Club. But for some reason, you feel satisfied with that. Because you wanted to see Ron win for once. And I think it actually ties, you know, when I said, I think the theme is everybody has, you know, everybody has to die sometime. Basically, that's what this is about. He refused, it's him refusing to die. That's the thing. He's a survivor and everything is about him surviving, the Dallas Buyers Club surviving, et cetera, et cetera. And it's all about that escalation. And I think related to that, you know, I made the gag earlier about Phil, I mean, it could be restructured as a thriller. I think what's interesting about Dallas Buyers Club is they definitely push it more into a thriller territory even though it's ultimately a character drama and as you say the Dark Knight of the Soul isn't a plot not a plot story, as in it's not about the big farmer, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's about Ron dealing with his illness. But they've set it up in such a way, very early on, we know who the bad guys are. We know who we need to be cheering for and against. And it has those elements, you know, and it is cutting back to the villains. Something that thrillers do is they'll always cut back to the villains to raise stakes, that they're reaching out, that their forces of opposition are getting further and further. And Dallas Buyers Club does this, where Philomena does not cut back the nuns planning how they're going to get Martin and Philomena. And I think, you know, that's what is interesting about the story, that it's borrowed those kinds of genre elements. Not having seen the film, I don't know how much it plays it up, but it definitely has those kind of elements of a thriller genre mixed with biopic.

Like, if I'm just looking at these things, right, I think it adheres to all the formulas for the first act really clearly. But frankly every story adheres to those formulas of the first act then the second act the bad guys close in well the bad guys you meet richard barkley on the very first attempt of ron getting into the getting into the country with the drugs i was looking at the vogler and it says the act one turning point is crossing the threshold and he literally crosses from mexico into the u.s right so that's all there but then in terms of any of the second act yeah, points i mean complications and higher stakes happens in in haig terms after a point of no return well they've had complications and higher stakes throughout the entirety of their act two right up to their act three and haig says that the end of act two into act three is a major setback well frankly the major the biggest setback of this entire film is the the judge handing down the, verdict that Ron has lost, that's the second last page of the entire film.

Yeah, but you could, as we said, you know, Rayon's death could be seen as a major setback for a character

Point of view. Yeah, definitely. And the Rayon's death, I think that sequence with Rayon's death and followed shortly by Ron being broke and then literally losing his mind, there is a very clear, I'm also very aware that I haven't seen the film. So I think music and performance are going to have a lot of influence of this, but I'm just going by what's on the page. Yeah, I loved this script and I thought it was really clever with how it structured its act two. And I think what we've got here are two films that both really cleverly show how you can keep a reader engaged throughout act two, well into act three. By constantly building up the stakes, be they emotional or plot stakes, but without having to adhere to any of these kind of ideas of what screenwriting and films and stories should be.

I think if you step back and don't adhere to the Snyder-specific page numbers, there are elements of the second act of Dallas Buyers Club that do tie into what he's talking about. The fun and games, the promise of the Prince trailer moments, it's a fish out of a water story. It's the homophobic man having to sell drugs to gay guys to make money, right? And having seen the trailer, they do play that up. But it's interesting the trailer doesn't just make the film about that. Because not long after what you saw as the midpoint, which is the establishment of Dallas Buyers Club, which I think, and this is stretching, but you can see it as a point of no return. He's basically incorporated what he's doing. He's made a business out of it.

He could return from it. He could shut it down at any point.

But what's interesting is not long after that is when he defends rayon against tj in terms of homophobia that we can see that there's been a character shift from him being homophobic to him defending rayon you know yeah and that is definitely could it feels like it's something that's after the midpoint the promise of the premise has changed it's no longer about the fun the funniness of of ron in that fish out of the water snow it's a lot more they

Do they do show And again, a lot of the stuff that's in the trailer, yeah, you're right, they do big up Ron trying to sell drugs in the gay clubs, but they also do Ron flying around the world sourcing these drugs when he can't get them in the US, which was very much post-establishment of the Buyers Club. And it's, again, one of these examples of, oh, I can only get this stuff from Japan. So, he flies to Japan. Then he's told, oh, we can only sell this to Japanese doctors. Then he signs up a Japanese doctor. Then, you know, Japan falls through. Oh, I'll fly to Israel. He fixes all these problems so quickly that I just found it fascinating that they kept... The drive of the story going so well.

Oh, absolutely. And look, and I'm just going to look back at my own notes. And I have written going to court as the, what I saw as the final push of the story as according to Haig, which should be the final 75 to, you know, effectively 25 pages. But yeah, he doesn't go to court until what page 12.

92 a yeah or page 92 i think of a hundred and.

You know so there's still 20 pages

Dealing with oh no no no no no i'm not hold on i'm saying number 92 second to last so let's be clear we're using a what was clearly a shooting script so there's lots of a pages and revised pages that have been thrown in that might only have a single line so it throws the page count off a bit but i still refer to these page numbers because what these page numbers are indicative of is that some someone at some point turned in a draft with these exact numbers.

Yeah.

And these events happening on those pages.

What's really fascinating to me reading shooting scripts, both Philomena and Dallas Buyers Club is this, is you can see when they've added scenes. And it's interesting to go, why have they decided to add this moment here? It's actually evidence when you see like a 22A, not that there's a 22A, but you know that they've added in something deliberately to clarify something. But yeah, I mean, I think Dallas Buyers Club is a particularly interesting example that it borrows elements, there's things that clearly align with Snyder. I think the opening image and the closing image are very powerful mirror, right? You kind of get the story of that guy from that image, yet there's so much of it that doesn't adhere to it, or as you say, kind of challenges our conceptions. And Dallas Buyers Clubs, like with Vogler's even harder, I mean, you know, there is obviously those key first act beats, the call to revenge, the refusal of the call, all that stuff, you know, to do with him wanting to sell the drugs and getting caught, meeting the mentor, and and dealing with AIDS, the call to adventure is him getting AIDS, meeting the mentor, which is Rayon crossing the threshold. But again, in the second act, as you say, it gets, gets Fager. I mean, I guess maybe what's interesting, I'll have to think this out a little bit more, the seizing of the sword, which in Vogler's terms is the beginning of the third act, you know, is the end of the third act, so seizing the sword and the reward and the road back being the beginning. But I don't think there is a road back. There isn't clear victory point. You know, what's, he doesn't beat the villains in this story.

Okay. So, seizing the sword and the reward to me is so... His friend Tucker gives him the peptide tea that he has yielded that reward because he gave those drugs to his friend. So it's kind of like Ron did a good deed and that actually came back to save him. Whereas if he hadn't gone through this journey, Ron would have never given anyone anything for nothing, you know, and then the road back is him continuing his fight, but the fight feels very much the fight that he's been fighting from the beginning of act one, which is him against big farmer, him against the FDA, him against the local police, and he tries to fight back with media, that backfires. He tries to sue, that backfires. But there's definitely a resurrection. He says, like I said before, he's actually got a line, they'll never get me or they'll never, no, they'll never break me. So, there is a resurrection and a road back from the lowest of the low and I love that the return with the elixir like he literally gets the right to use this drug he's he has the elixir so you know those elements are there I just don't I didn't see a very clear point where the film broke from act two to act three I just thought that it had this great drive from the beginning of act one and the only way you can see the development and the escalation of the story is in the escalation of the sources of antagonism and the escalation of all the change in Ron's character, seeing him become a better person.

Yeah, and so much of the story ends up being explained in text at the end to do with ultimately when one dies and then the HIV treatments. And there's so much of that story, but like AZT being like the bad drug, that plot's not resolved at the end of the film at all.

Don't they say that it's still in the text at the end that it's still used?

Yeah, it says today AZT has largely been replaced by safer and newer HIV medications. But that is the final line on the final page of the script, yet it's something that's been set up as ultimately the villain, and he never topples the villain. And look, that is a criticism that is often leveled at Biopics, that they find trouble ending the films.

But I didn't find that at all with this film, because the villain that he topples is himself. For me, you say the theme is kind of got to die from something. I think it's more what was said on page 88. I want it all to mean something. He was living a meaningless life that was filled with sex, drugs, and booze. And not that any of those are bad things. I love all those three things. But his life was not about anything. And then by the end of the film, not only is he alive, he's helped other people be alive. And his life means something, not just to him, but to many, many people.

Absolutely. No, I totally agree that that's what the journey is. By theme, I just mean like death. trying to stretch Snyder into, that's what he says on page five, and you know, that it is about him wanting to survive, but survival becomes, there's a difference between surviving and living with meaning. And I think, you know, if you want to say that there's a message in this film, ultimately, yeah, he didn't survive, but he lived a life with meaning. He lived longer than anyone expected, but he lived a life with meaning. And I think that's what makes the film-

And if he didn't get AIDS, he wouldn't have. Yeah. He would have died probably racist, homophobic- sad, drunk.

And wouldn't have brought things to people's attention about AZT and all those things, you know. And I think that's part of what Eve's story is, is the way that his behavior ripples into larger things. So, she starts questioning herself, the institutions.

I was shocked when I saw the trailer and saw that Jennifer Garner plays Eve. She was not who I had in my head when I was reading the script.

That's a nice change for Marion Cotter. That's how I imagined. Well i guess i think to kind of wrap this up is there one kind of thing that you've kind of learned from reading these two scripts in the context of the gurus or even just from reading the scripts in general

Oh i've learned that there are ways of getting through act two i don't think you can pin up either of these films as a kind of template for how you get through act two but both of these scripts were really easy to read and really engaging. And I think the fact that it's so hard to define where act two ends and where act three begins in both of these stories shows that the story was just so engaging and so driven that you don't need that definition. It's almost like the lead up to the climax of the film starts at page 30 in both of these scripts.

Yeah, absolutely.

Not that that helps new writers, but I think if we're talking about what we set out to do with But I think that these gurus, where they really don't help, is in Act 2.

Yeah, which is when, as we said, often you need the most help. I mean, aside from all the specific structural stuff that we've talked about with these films, I think one thing I was really struck with Philomena and I was inspired by was the writing about performances. You know, that this was a character-driven film and understanding those moments, those performance moments, is absolutely... Absolutely vital for understanding the film. And I think there's just so many great little one-liners, you know, almost unfilmables, and we'll have a podcast later talking about these, but, you know, even on the first page is a small exchange, someone special, Philomena, yes. Big print says underneath it, but she pointedly doesn't elaborate any further. That's something that you don't need because someone special, yes, yes, is not elaborating, but they've explained and contextualize the performance.

And there's a lot of little.

Examples about that. There's another one about, you know, trying to avoid further embarrassment, he walks away. And there are little explanations for moments and blocking of performance that think you really help understand who these characters are. And there are absolutely things you can shoot. And it's easy to forget about those moments when you're trying to cut down page, when you're trying to reduce page count, you know? But they're actually tools that you use to understand the moment. It's, you know, it's hanging on someone's expression. How do you play the drama? How do you play the event on screen? And as a director, I think that's why I picked up on that stuff, because I'm like, these are clues to these characters. And yeah, you could just write pages of dialogue, but this stuff is

Just super strong. Awesome.

I think, so we're going to be doing this again next week.

Well, next episode.

But we're going to be looking at two of the top grossing domestic box office films from 2013. We went through the list of those films and specifically picked out the first two that were non-franchise or non-sequel films. And they were Frozen and Gravity. And so we'll put links to those scripts in the show notes because fantastically they're both available legally for free online. So, you can kind of read along before we do this whole thing for those films to see whether more mainstream successful films adhere more closely to these gurus or not.

Yeah, I guess, you know, we should make the point that the reason we're deciding to do this comparison with the next episode is that awards films tend to be dramas, not genre films so much. And they often tend to be character oriented ones, which might not adhere quite so much to these strict plot conventions. So, in trying to be fair to these gurus, we're going to look at films that are measured purely on box office success, not necessarily on critical or awards success. Although both of those films are nominated for their best Oscar in their respective categories.

Except Gravity wasn't nominated for screenplay.

Correct. Well done. From what I've heard, with good reason.

Yeah. I mean, to be fair to Michael Haig, I must say, because he writes about how to write high concept movies and having seen him talk, he's like, high concept doesn't mean the movie's good. You can be low concept and good and high concept and shit. So he is very much talking about a very specific kind of film. Thanks for joining us.

Yeah. Well, that was fun. Way longer than I thought it would be.