09 Story Types Scott Myers

Your September Free Screenwriting ebook from Go Into the Story
A Screenwriter’s Guide to
Story Types
© Scott Myers
About the Author
I’m Scott Myers and I have been a screenwriter for three decades. I broke into the business when
I sold a spec script to Universal Pictures which became the hit movie K-9 and spawned two
sequels. I've written over 30 movie and TV projects for every major studio and broadcast
network, including Alaska (Sony/ Castle Rock), and Trojan War (Warner Bros.). I have been a
member of the Writers’ Guild of America, West since 1987.
I graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts degree (with Honors) in
Religious Studies and Yale University, where I received a Masters of Divinity degree cum laude.
I’ve variously enjoyed stints as a musician and stand-up comedian.
From 2002-2010, I was an executive producer at Trailblazer Studios, overseeing the company’s
original TV content development for Scripps and Discovery networks.
In my spare time, I took up teaching in 2002 in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, receiving
its Outstanding Instructor Award in 2005. For eight years, I was a visiting lecturer in the Writing
for Screen and Stage program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2010, I co-
founded Screenwriting Master Class with my longtime friend and professional colleague Tom
Benedek whose movie credits include Cocoon.
In 2008, I launched Go Into The Story which for the last five years has been the Official
Screenwriting Blog of the Black List. Some numbers: The site has had over 10 million unique
visits, 20 million page views, and I have posted 20,000+ items for over 3,000 consecutive days.
The Go Into The Story Twitter feed has over 43,000 followers.
In November 2015, I went public with the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge – write an entire script
draft in 30 days – and over 1,000 writers joined in. Out of that, the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook
group emerged and as of January 2017 has over 1,400 members.
In 2016, I was excited to be offered and accept the position of Assistant Professor at the DePaul
University School of Cinematic Arts in Chicago where I teach screenwriting to both
undergraduate and graduate students.
The adventure continues...
© Scott Myers
About the Go Into The Story PDF Book Series
Two motivators I had in launching Go Into The Story in May 2008 were:
1. to create an extensive online resource for writers and
2. to provide that information for free.
The world needs more diverse voices in the filmmaking community and making
educational content available to anyone and everyone is my humble way to facilitate that
vision.
There are currently over 20,000 posts on my blog and while an impressive number, it can
be overwhelming for readers. So, based on suggestions from several people, I decided to
launch a new initiative:
Make a new Go Into The Story PDF available each month to the public.
I reached out to the GITS community for volunteers to help with this effort and I’d like to
express my deep gratitude to Trish Curtin and George “Clay” Mitchell. They stepped up
to handle the process of taking blog posts and creating the ebooks in this series. A special
blast of creative juju to you both!
You can download the previous editions by clicking on their titles below.
Volume 1: 30 Things about Screenwriting

Volume 2: So-Called Screenwriting Rules
Volume 3: Writing a Screenplay
Volume 4: Rewriting a Screenplay
Volume 5: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Aristotle’s Poetics
Volume 6: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Reading a Screenplay
Volume 7: Everything You Wanted to Know About Spec Scripts
Volume 8: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Character Types
© Scott Myers
Table of Contents: Movie Story Types
There are genres (e.g., Action, Comedy, Drama). Cross genres (e.g., Action-Thriller,
Comedy-Science Fiction). Sub-genres (e.g., Romantic Comedy, Action Adventure).
And then there are what we may call Movie Story Types.
In Hollywood development circles, people use them as shorthand.
This book explores 27 movie Story Types from Biopic to Time Travel.
About the Author

About the Go Into The Story PDF Book Series
Assumed Identity Biopic

The [Blank] From Hell Body Switch
Briefcase Full of Cash The Buddy Picture
Chase Chick Flick
Contained Thriller Disaster
Fish Out of Water Found Footage
Frustration Comedy Gender Bender
Heist Movies Martial Arts
Mistaken Identity Mockumentary
Post-Apocalypse Revenge
Road Picture Slasher
Spoof Sports
Ticking Clock Time Travel
Go Into the Story and Find the Animals

Resources
© Scott Myers
Assumed Identity
"I've heard a great deal about you, Fa
Mulan. You stole your father's armor, ran
away from home, impersonated a soldier,
deceived your commanding officer,
dishonored the Chinese Army, destroyed my
palace, and...you have saved us all."
– The Emperor, Mulan
This story type is different than mistaken identity. With assumed identity stories,
characters intentionally contrive circumstances to take on the role and responsibilities
of another character. Some examples of assumed identity movies:
The Lady Eve (1941): A spurned lover gets back at
her former paramour by disguising herself as an
English lady to tease and torment him.
Some Like It Hot (1959): When two musicians
witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all
female band disguised as women, but further Barbara Stanwyck and Peter Fonda in
The Lady Eve.
complications set in.
Coming To America (1988): An African prince
goes to Queens, New York City to find a wife
whom he can respect for her intelligence and will.
Working Girl (1988): When a secretary’s idea is
stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to
Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall in
steal it back by pretending she has her boss’s job. Coming to America.
Taking Care of Business (1990): An uptight advertising exec has his entire life in a
filofax organizer which mistakenly ends up in the hands of a friendly convict who
poses as him.
Encino Man (1992): When they find a frozen caveman in their backyard, two high
school outcasts thaw him out and introduce him as a modern day high-schooler.
Sister Act (1992): When a worldly singer witnesses a mob crime, the police hide her
as a nun in a traditional convent where she has trouble fitting in
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993): After a bitter divorce, an actor disguises himself as a female
housekeeper to spend secret time with his children held in custody by his ex-wife.
© Scott Myers / Screenwriter's Guide to Character Types / 5

Dave (1993): To avoid a scandal when the
U.S. President goes into a coma, an
affable temp agency owner with an
uncanny resemblance, is put in his place.
Mulan (1998): To save her father from
death in the army, a Chinese maiden
secretly goes in his place and becomes
one of China’s greatest heroes in the Kevin Kline as the President and his double in Dave.
process.
Shakespeare in Love (1998): Viola de Lesseps dresses as a man to win a role in
Shakespeare’s newest play where they eventually fall in love, enabling him to write
his greatest work.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999): When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad
chats him up, Tom Ripley pretends to know
the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to
Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to
return home.
Catch Me If You Can (2002): A true story
about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his
19th bi rthday, successfully conned
millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan
Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can.
Of course, we can go back to Mark Twain’s story “The Prince and the Pauper”, first
published in 1881 for an older spin on this story type in which two lookalike boys
choose to trade clothes and lives in a journey that corrects their misconceptions. First
brought to film in a 1909 short featuring Mark Twain himself, it’s been a popular story
for film, with many adaptations since first adapted for a feature in 1915, the plotline
was drawn upon heavily and altered for the popular 1983 comedy Trading Places.

But wait, there’s also the Biblical story of two brothers Jacob and Esau, one of whom
impersonates the other to deceive their father with dire consequences.
Once again this is a story type which cuts across genres — from comedies to dramas,
action to thrillers. At its core, there are several psychological dynamics a writer can
explore:
• Wish fulfillment: What if, like Working Girl or The Talented Mr. Ripley, a
down-and-out character can taste the life of wealth and power?
• Identity: Changing one’s ‘mask’ can result in a character coming to see him or
herself in a different light. Like Michael Dorsey said at the end of another
assumed identity movie Tootise (1982), “I was a better man as a woman than I
was as a man.”
• Possibilities: What could a character do with a new beginning? A new name, job,
family, home, even a new gender?
At the deepest level of meaning for assumed identity stories, there are two questions:
Who am I? Do I really know what another person is at the core of their being?

Biopic
"After all, being misunderstood is
the fate of all true geniuses is it
not?"
— Howard Stern (playing himself), Private Parts
A “biopic” is a biographical movie of a person’s life. The person can be well known such
as Patton (1970) and Ali (2001), or an unknown like Erin Brockovich (2000) and My
Left Foot (1989).
They can cover every genre: historical dramas Marie Antoinette (1938) Braveheart
(1995), comedies Private Parts (1997), political Nixon (1995), sports Fear Strikes Out
(1957), or thrillers Silkwood (1983).
The process of adapting a real person’s life into a movie story is one of the trickiest
writing jobs around. The wealth of historical anecdotes and incidents is both a blessing
and a curse: Generally great material, but too much of it. I’ve read a slew of interviews
with screenwriters who echo this basic point: It’s almost more important what elements
you choose to omit than what you decide to keep in the final story.

Sometimes a person’s life doesn’t lay out terribly well for narrative structure.
Sometimes they do. In an article in “Written By” magazine, screenwriter Akiva
Goldsman said that after he finished reading the Sylvia Nasar biography “A Beautiful
Mind,” he immediately saw the three-act structure: Genius. Fall. Redemption. In either
case, the screenwriter works by the golden rule of adaptation: Never let the facts get in
the way of the story, an adage Goldsman followed big-time in adapting A Beautiful
Mind. The Wikipedia entry lists some of the key changes in the movie:
The narrative of the film differs considerably from the actual events of Nash’s life. The
film has been criticized for this, while the filmmakers insisted that the film was not
meant to be a literal representation.
One difficulty was in portraying stress and mental illness within one person’s mind.
Sylvia Nasar stated that the filmmakers “invented a narrative that, while far from a
literal telling, is true to the spirit of Nash’s story”. The film made his hallucinations visual
and auditory when, in fact, they were exclusively auditory. Furthermore, while in real
life Nash spent his years between Princeton and MIT as a consultant for the RAND
Corporation in California, in the film he is portrayed as having worked for the Pentagon
instead. It is true that his handlers, both from faculty and administration, had to introduce
him to assistants and strangers. The PBS documentary A Brilliant Madness attempts to
portray his life more accurately.
Few of the characters in the film, besides John and Alicia Nash, corresponded directly to
actual people. The discussion of the Nash equilibrium was criticized as over-simplified.
In the film, schizophrenic hallucinations appeared while he was in graduate school,
when in fact they did not show up until some years later. No mention is made of Nash’s
supposed homosexual experiences at RAND, which Nash and his wife both denied.
Nash also fathered a son, John David Stier (born June 19, 1953), by Eleanor Agnes Stier
(1921–2005), a nurse whom he abandoned when informed of her pregnancy. The film
also did not include Alicia’s divorce of John in 1963. It was not until Nash won the
Nobel Memorial Prize that they renewed their relationship, although she allowed him to
live with her as a boarder beginning in 1970. They remarried in 2001.
Nash is shown to join Wheeler Laboratory at MIT, but there is no such lab. He was
appointed as C.L.E. Moore Instructor at MIT. The pen ceremony tradition at Princeton
shown in the film is completely fictitious. The film has Nash saying around the time of his
Nobel prize in 1994: “I take the newer medications”, when in fact Nash did not take
any medication from 1970 onwards, something Nash’s biography highlights. Howard
later stated that they added the line of dialogue because it was felt as though the film
was encouraging the notion that all schizophrenics can overcome their illness without
medication. Nash also never gave an acceptance speech for his Nobel prize because
laureates do not do that as portrayed in the film; the award ceremony is conducted
without any such speeches.
But when John Nash himself attended the movie’s premiere, he said afterward, “That
was my life.” Not his literal life perhaps, but the emotional experience of his life. And in
that respect, we can say that Goldsman nailed the adaptation.

The [Blank] From Hell
"We've adopted Satan."
– Little Ben Healy, Problem Child
The Protagonist (and often their family or loved ones) intersect with a character who
starts off as seemingly normal, then turns out to be a threatening presence.
Examples include:
Fatal Attraction (1987): The one-night stand from Hell
Pacific Heights (1990): The renter from Hell
Sleeping With The Enemy (1991): The husband from Hell
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992): The nanny from Hell
The Temp (1993): The temp assistant from Hell
The Crush (1994): The teenage “puppy love” from Hell
While often a thriller, this story type can also be approached as a comedy:
Problem Child (1990): The adopted child from Hell
The Housesitter (1992): The house-sitter from Hell
Beethoven (1992): The family pet from Hell
Monster-In-Law (2005): The mother-in-law from Hell

The core psychological dynamic at work in The [Blank] from Hell movies is the fear of
the stranger, reaching deep into the oldest parts of our ‘lizard brain’ where the focus
is on personal survival and any outsider represents a potential threat.
On the thriller front, they make for great date movies.
Fatal Attraction, which did over $320M B.O. worldwide, is a classic example — the male
moviegoer gets to fantasize about having an affair while the female has the opportunity
to elbow the dude with a “See, this is what will happen if you cheat on me, find some
crazy woman who’ll stalk your family and boil your rabbit” glare.
Any other examples of The [Blank] From Hell movies to add to the list?

Body Switch
"Because I want my body back. And I
want my freedom and my privacy. And
most of all, I'd like to be able to
take a leak without being fondled."
– Roger, All Of Me
Back in 2009, a project called “Opposites Attract” got set up. Here’s the premise: A
young couple must “walk a mile in each other’s shoes” by body-switching in order to
make their relationship work.
Which reminds us of this popular story type for Hollywood movies: The body switch.
Sometimes, as with “Opposites Attract,” it involves swapping genders. Other times, it’s
about age — an older person becomes young, a younger person becomes old.
Examples include Freaky Friday (1976) and its remake, and 13 Going on 30 (2004).
Variations on the theme include All of Me (1984) and Being John Malkovich (1999).
Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris in Freaky Friday(1976). Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin in All of Me.
But there must have been something in the water in L.A. back in the late 80s because
there was a slew of body switch movies:
Like Father Like Son (1987)
Dream a Little Dream (1988)
Vice Versa (1988)
18 Again (1988)
Big (1988) Right: BIG made $114M Domestic.
Of course, it’s not like this is a new idea. There’s a body switch movie all the way back in
1940 called Turnabout.
Can you think of other examples of body switch movies? Also, why do you think this is
such a popular story conceit?

Briefcase Full of Cash
DET. POLHAUS
“Heavy. What is it?”
SAM
“The, uh, stuff that dreams are made
of.”
— The Maltese Falcon
Treasure hunts, stashed cash, hidden jewels, this is a story type where a central point of
focus is characters searching for something of great value.
Some examples of briefcase full of cash movies:
The Maltese Falcon (1941): A private detective takes on a case that involves three
eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
North by Northwest (1959): A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a
government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while
he looks for a way to survive.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963): The dying words of a thief spark a madcap
cross-country rush to find some treasure.
Marathon Man (1976): A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle
of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal,
and a rogue government agent.
The Deep (1977): A pair of young vacationers are involved in a dangerous conflict with
treasure hunters when they discover a way into a deadly wreck in Bermuda waters.
Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Sydney Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in
Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. Marathon Man.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): Archeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by
the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis.
48 Hrs. (1984): A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal
temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer, and a briefcase full of cash.
A Simple Plan (1998): Two brothers and a friend find $4 million in the cockpit of a
downed plane.
Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton & Brent Briscoe in
A Simple Plan.
Three Kings (1999): In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, four soldiers set out to
steal gold that was stolen from Kuwait.
National Treasure (2004): A treasure hunter is in hot pursuit of a mythical treasure
that has been passed down for centuries, while his employer turned enemy is onto the
same path that he’s on.
Millions (2004): A 7-year old finds a bag of Pounds just days before the currency is
switched to Euros.
Lottery Ticket (2010): A young man living in the projects has to survive a three-day
weekend after his opportunistic neighbors find out he’s holding a winning lottery ticket
worth $370 million.
George Clooney, Ice Cube & Mark Wahlberg in Etel Lewis & Owen McGibbon in
Three Kings. Millions.

Whether it’s money, jewels, art or a priceless historic artifact, the object of pursuit in
briefcase full of cash movies translates into a powerful psychological dynamic with
moviegoers: Wish fulfillment. If most stories are about a character or characters who go
through some sort of personal metamorphosis, what could possibly speed that change
along other than a massive influx of cash?
The briefcase full of cash also represents power because if you own something other
characters in the movie want, you are in a position of authority over them. You can make
demands, negotiate favorable terms, even act like a total asshole… because you have
what they want.
However as the Bible says, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” and so there are
plenty of these story types that serve as morality tales, object lessons about how financial
wealth is not all it’s cracked up to be. Or as Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) says at the
very end of The Maltese Falcon, describing the falcon statue, “It’s the stuff that dreams
are made of” as Brigid (Mary Astor) gets hauled off to prison. She learned her lesson…
just a little too late.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in briefcase full of cash
films? What other movies of note belong in the list?

The Buddy Picture
“I can’t take it anymore, Felix, I’m

cracking up. Everything you do
irritates me. And when you’re not
here, the things I know you’re gonna
do when you come in irritate me. You
leave me little notes on my pillow.
Told you 158 times I can’t stand
little notes on my pillow. ‘We’re
all out of cornflakes. F.U.’ Took me
three hours to figure out F.U. Was
Felix Ungar!”
— Oscar Madison, The Odd Couple
Think yin and yang. The idea here is to pair two characters with opposite (or nearly
opposite) personalities, immerse them in a plot, and watch the hijinks and mayhem
ensue. There are several different variations on this set-up:
The classic buddy picture where two different “worlds” collide:
The Odd Couple (1968): Two friends try sharing an apartment, but their ideas of
housekeeping and lifestyles are as different as night and day.
Harold And Maude (1971): Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself
changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
Rush Hour (1998): A loyal and dedicated Hong Kong inspector teams up with a reckless
and loudmouthed LAPD detective to rescue the Chinese Consul's kidnapped daughter,
while trying to arrest a dangerous crime lord along the way.
Twins (1988): A physically perfect but innocent man goes in search of his long-lost twin
brother, who is short, a womanizer, and small-time crook.
Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple. Bud Sort, Ruth Gordon in Harold And Maude.

You may have one character who is the Protagonist, typically starting out uptight and
passive, while the other is a Trickster who “loosens” up the Protagonist so that s/he
discovers his/her real Self. Or Co-Protagonists who both transform.
Night Shift (1982): A morgue attendant is talked into running a brothel at his workplace
after a deceased pimp is sent there. However, the pimp's killers don't look too kindly on
this new 'business', nor does the morgue's owner.
Midnight Run (1988): An accountant is chased by bounty hunters, the FBI, and the
Mafia after jumping bail.
Analyze This (1999): A comedy about a psychiatrist whose number one-patient is an
insecure mob boss.
Henry Wrinkler, Michael Keaton in Night Shift. Charles Grodin, Robert De Niro in Midnight Run.
Another approach is to make the two characters more similar:
Dumb and Dumber (1994): The cross-country adventures of two good-hearted but
incredibly stupid friends.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): Two Western bank/train robbers flee to
Bolivia when the law gets too close.
Some Like It Hot (1959): When two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the
state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey in Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in
Dumb and Dumber. Some Like It Hot.

Yet another variation on the same theme are stories where the two characters
seem opposite, but actually turn out to have much more in common than they believed
at the beginning — K-9 for example.
Of course, not all buddy pictures are comedies. Examples of more dramatic fare
include:
Rain Man (1988): Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's father left a fortune to his savant
brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.
All the President’s Men (1976): "The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President
Richard Nixon's resignation.
Thelma And Louise (1991): An Arkansas waitress and a housewife shoot a rapist and
take off in a '66 Thunderbird.
Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman in Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis in

All the President’s Men. Thema & Louise.
Why is this story type so popular?

1) The collision of two personalities and world views ensures there will be conflict
throughout the story, which is a necessary ingredient to make sparks fly.
2) The concept also ensures that there will be a discernible transformation
storyline.
3) Studios like buddy pictures because they can pair two stars and get a bigger share
of the market by drawing both stars’ fans; or two B-list stars and achieve A-list
box office results.
4) Finally, pairing two distinct and distinctive personalities makes it much easier
for studios to market the movie.
What are some of your favorite buddy pictures?

Chase
“You must be part coon dog, cause
I’ve been chased by the best of
them, and son, you make ‘em look
like they’re all runnin’ in slow
motion.”
— Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit
Chase movies have long been a standard story type in Hollywood movies. It’s the fox and
the hound, cat and mouse, hide and seek, tag you’re it, one character chasing another,
pursuer and pursued.
Some examples of chase movies:
North by Northwest (1959): A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a
government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while
he looks for a way to survive.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): Chased by a relentless posses, two robbers
in the Old West flee to Bolivia when the law gets too close.
The French Connection (1971): A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto
a drug smuggling job with a French connection.
Jaws (1975): When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island
community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman set out to
stop it.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977): The Bandit is hired on to run a tractor trailer full of beer
over county lines in hot pursuit by a pesky sheriff.
Alien (1979): Investigating a suspected SOS signal on a distant planet, the crew
unleashes a monstrous alien on board their ship.
Roy Scheider and Gene Hackman in Sally Field and Burt Reynolds in
The French Connection. Smokey and the Bandit.

Terminator (1984): A human-looking, apparently unstoppable cyborg is sent from the
future to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent to stop it.
Romancing the Stone (1984): A romance writer sets off to Colombia to ransom her
kidnapped sister, and soon finds herself in the middle of a dangerous adventure.
Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.

Romancing the Stone.
Run Lola Run (1998): A young woman in Germany has twenty minutes to find and
bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a supermarket.
The Fugitive (1999): Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of murdering his wife, must
find the real killer while being the target of a nationwide manhunt.
Catch Me If You Can (2002): A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th
birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot,
doctor, and legal prosecutor.
Hanna (2011): A 16-year-old, raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a
mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.
Franka Potente in Run Lola Run Saoirse Ronan in Hannah

One benefit a writer has in dealing with a chase movie is pace. It’s often easier to build
and sustain narrative drive in a pursuit story as the goal is imminently clear and the
pressure on both parties intense. Also chase movies generally exist within a compressed
time frame which can help to maintain a high energy level.
From a viewer’s standpoint, an interesting psychological dynamic is the ability to shift
perspectives — from the character being chased to the character in pursuit. This tacking
back and forth can create a richer emotional experience as we can end up identifying in
some ways with both characters.
Finally one thing to bear in mind when writing a chase story: There is a premium on
twists-and-turns in the plot. Remember it’s a cat-and-mouse story so you want to create
complications, roadblocks and reversals in the way of both characters, so that at points
the pursuer is on top, then the character being chased, back and forth, making for an
interesting, surprising and ultimately entertaining ride.
What chase movies would you add to this list?
What appeals to you about this type of story?

Chick Flick
"Hold it, hold it. What is this? Are
you trying to trick me? Where's the
sports? Is this a kissing book?"
— The Grandson, The Princess Bride
“Chick flick" is a slang term for a film mainly dealing with love and romance, but it
earns its designation because of the audience it seeks as its market: Women.
Some examples of chick flicks:
Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.
Love Story (1970): A Harvard Law student and music student share a chemistry they
cannot deny — and a love they cannot ignore.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974): A recently widowed woman on the road with
her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981): Dual love stories of two actors and their
relationship as they play the roles of fictional lovers from a novel adaptation.
Dirty Dancing (1987): Spending the summer in a holiday camp with her family,
Frances (‘Baby’) falls in love with the camp’s dancing teacher.
Julia Roberts, Tom Skerritt, Sally Field and Dylan Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell in
McDermott in Steel Magnolias. Sleepless in Seattle.

Steel Magnolias (1989): A close-knit circle of friends whose lives come together at
Truvy’s Beauty Parlor in a small parish in modern-day Louisiana.
Ghost (1990): After being killed during a botched mugging, a man’s love for his partner
enables him to remain on earth as a ghost.
Thelma & Louise (1991): An Arkansas waitress and a housewife shoot a rapist and take
off in a ’66 Thunderbird.
Sleepless in Seattle (1993): A recently-widowed man’s son calls a radio talk show in an
attempt to find his father a partner.
The First Wives Club (1996): Reunited by the death of a college friend, three divorced
women seek revenge on the husbands who left them for younger women.
Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman in
The First Wives Club. Love Actually.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998): On a vacation to Jamaica, a successful
businesswoman falls in love and rethinks her life priorities.
Love Actually (2003): Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with
their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month
before Christmas in London, England.
The Notebook (2004): A poor and passionate young man falls in love with a rich young
woman and gives her a sense of freedom only to be separated by their social differences.
Sex and the City (2008): A New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to
her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them
inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.

One key to understanding the psychological draw of chick flicks is this: relationships.
Whether romantic, friend, or family, the relationships in these type of movies are
central to what makes them work. It is the power of those relational connections that
underscores and shapes the meaning of the events in the story’s plot.
As with all relationships, there are ups and downs, joys and conflicts, and so chick flicks
put a premium on exploring the heights and depths of the emotional journey of key
characters.
Another dynamic: Possibilities. In chick flicks, chance encounters can turn into life-
altering opportunities. Consider this tagline for Sleepless in Seattle:
“What if someone you never met, someone you never saw,
someone you never knew - was the only someone for you?”
One interesting aspect of chick flicks is they can work across genres:
Drama: Terms of Endearment (1983)
Romantic Comedy: Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Sports: A League of Their Own (1992)
Thriller: The Hand That Rocked the Cradle (1992)
Action Adventure: Romancing the Stone (1984)
It’s possible to argue that one of the biggest movies of all time Titanic (1999) an epic
historical drama, is at its heart a chick flick because of the centrality of the romance
relationship between Jack and Rose. As writer-director James Cameron said in this
interview:
“All my films are love stories… but in Titanic I finally
got the balance right. It’s not a disaster film. It’s a
love story with a fastidious overlay of real history.”
By the way, since there is no hard and fast rule as to the definition of ‘chick flick,’ you
can visit this website and vote on whether you think a movie actually qualifies or not.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in most chick flicks?
What other movies of note belong in the list?

Contained Thriller
"Get out of my house!"
– Meg, Panic Room
Thelma Ritter and Grace Kelly with James Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
When I originally published this post from 2010, several ‘contained thrillers’ had
recently sold:
Hyde Park Entertainment nabs thriller spec Killer written by Kenny Golde. This post
from Peter Sciretta at slashfilm.com:
Hyde Park Entertainment and Parkes/MacDonald Productions have acquired Kenny
Golde’s spec screenplay Killer. The contained thriller was originally written with the
intent to produce the film on a low budget. I heard that the screenplay was originally
making the rounds at Paramount’s new low-budget film division and Fox Searchlight,
but quickly made its way up to the bigger studios.
The story is told through the point of view of a single video camera held by a police
officer videotaping a murder investigation. While investigating the crime scene, the
police discover a video left by the killer, made with hidden cameras planted
throughout the house they are investigating.
Note that phrase: “contained thriller.” With the ginormous success of Paranormal
Activity, the sale at Sundance of Buried (2010), a man-stuck-in-a-buried-coffin thriller,
and now Killer, perhaps we were begining seeing the emergence of new trend.

We covered that spec script sale here. So it got me thinking about ‘contained thrillers’ as
a movie story type. These are some of the movies in that sub-genre that came to mind:
Rear Window (1954): A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbors from
his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
When a Stranger Calls (1979): A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then
returns seven years later to menace her again.
Dead Calm (1989): A mass-murderer kidnaps and seduces a young woman after leaving
her husband to die on the vessel whose crew he’s just slaughtered.
Panic Room (2002): A woman and her teenage daughter become imprisoned in the
panic room of their own house by 3 criminals.
Phone Booth (2002): Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pinned
down by an extortionist’s sniper rifle.
ATM (2012): On a late night visit to an ATM, three co-workers end up in a desperate
fight for their lives when they become trapped by an unknown man.
Carol Kane in When a Stranger Calls. Colin Firth in Phone Booth.
What’s the appeal of a contained thriller? I pose that question for you as well as:
What other movie examples spring to your mind?

Disaster
"Damage? Total, sir. It's what we
call a global killer. The end of
mankind. Doesn't matter where it
hits. Nothing would survive, not
even bacteria."
– Dan, Armageddon
The subject disaster film chronicles an impending or ongoing disaster – such as a

damaged airliner, fire, shipwreck, an asteroid collision or a natural calamities.
Along with showing the spectacular disaster, these films concentrate on the chaotic
events surrounding the disaster as it impacts the characters. These film tend to be an
ensemble cast involving multiple plot lines. About half the cast is trying to prevent the
disaster while the rest is trying to survive.
Some examples of disaster movies:
Noah’s Ark (1928): The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story
of soldiers in the First World War.
The Last Day’s of Pompeii (1935): In the doomed Roman city, a gentle blacksmith
becomes a corrupt gladiator, while his son leans toward Christianity.
The War of the Worlds (1953): The film adaptation of the H.G.Wells story told on radio
of the invasion of Earth by Martians.
The early 1970s featured disasters in a vehicle or building.
Dean Martin was part of the ensemble cast in Some of the stellar ensemble cast of
Airport. The Poseidon Adventure.
Airport (1970): A bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and
various personal problems of the people involved.
The Poseidon Adventure (1972): A group of passengers struggle to survive and escape,
when their ocean liner completely capsizes at sea.
The Towering Inferno (1974): At the launch party of a colossal, but poorly constructed,
office building, a massive fire threatens to destroy the tower and everyone in it.

The cycle hit again in the late 1990s and audiences loved these kind of films.
Independence Day (1996): The aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and
destroy. Fighting superior technology, Man’s best weapon is the will to survive.
Twister (1996): advanced storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join together to
create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of
extremely violent tornadoes.
Volcano (1997): A volcano erupts in downtown L.A., threatening to destroy the city.
Stuff will blow up in disaster films like The cast of Armageddon included Bruce Willis, Ben
Independence Day. Affleck, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clarke Duncan,
Billy Bob Thorton and William Fichtner.
Armageddon (1998): When an asteroid the size of Texas is headed for Earth the world’s
best deep core drilling team is sent to nuke the rock from the inside.
Deep Impact (1998): Unless a comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only
those allowed into shelters will survive. Which people will survive?
The Day After Tomorrow (2004): A climatologist tries to figure out a way to save the
world from abrupt global warming.
Disaster movies play right into the wheelhouse of what Hollywood does best: big
concept, big stars, big stakes, big special effects. They are some of the top grossing box
office movies of all time including Titanic ($600M domestic), Independence Day
($306M), the 2005 version of War of the Worlds ($234M), and Armageddon ($201M).
Why? What is the basis for the popularity of disaster movies?
First, they are visual, huge spectacles that entertain viewers in a visceral way and sweep
them up into an enormous story-scape.
Second, there is a real and palpable sense of jeopardy where a mind-rattling “Holy
Shit!!!” number of people may die.

But primarily disaster movies bring to the front and center a fear we live with all the
time, repressed and set aside by the ticking clock of our everyday lives, but there
nonetheless — our knowledge that at any moment, a catastrophe could strike.
We think we are walking on solid ground, yet we live on the thinnest of membranes
squashed onto tectonic plates and floating atop oceans of hyperbolic magma. If some
geological burp doesn’t get us, there are psychopaths who will take over our airplanes,
bomb our skyscrapers, sink our ships.
Those are some of the fears that creep around at the corners of our consciousness — and
certainly emerge in our subconscious through our dreams.
Disaster movies are a safe way to process those fears, for us to consider the specter of
death. Not just death. Death on a grand scale. If we were to be diagnosed with cancer
and informed we would have a year to live, we might organize the rest of our lives one
way. Told we have 12 hours (or whatever) left to our meager existence, we must confront
a far different way of approaching those last few moments of our time on this earth.
What would we do?
This is the fundamental existential question disaster movies pose. And that speaks to
the very deepest fears we have about the terminal nature of life and the dangerous
aspects of the world out there.
And of course, it’s just cool to see stuff blow up.
What disaster movies can you add to this list?
What other psychological dynamics do you see in play in this movie story type that
makes it appealing to audiences?

Fish Out of Water
NEO
"You're telling me I can dodge
bullets?"
MORPHEUS
"I'm telling you when the time
comes, you won't have to."
– The Matrix
Fish Out Of Water. Or as I like to call it: FOOW. Think stranger in a strange land.
The classic FOOW picture is probably Splash (1984), but there variations on the theme.
Often the set-up involves an ordinary person being thrust into an extraordinary
circumstance. Some examples:
Beverly Hills Cop (1984): A freewheeling Detroit cop pursuing a murder investigation
finds himself dealing with the very different culture of Beverly Hills.
housekeeper to spend time with his children held in custody by his former wife.
Back To the Future (1985): Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is
accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his
close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.
Mulan (1998): To save her father from death in the army, a young maiden secretly goes
in his place and becomes one of China's greatest heroines in the process.
Miss Congeniality (2000): An FBI agent must go undercover in the Miss United States
beauty pageant to prevent a group from bombing the event.
Voice of Ming-Na Wen in Michael Cain and Sandra Bullock in

Mulan. Miss Congeniality

Sometimes the extraordinary visits the world of the ordinary:
Home Alone (1990): An eight-year-old trouble-maker must protect his home from
burglars when he's accidentally left home alone by his family during Christmas vacation.
Ghostbusters (1984): Three former parapsychology professors set up shop as a unique
ghost removal service.
Three Men and a Baby (1987): Three bachelors find themselves forced to take care of a
baby left by one of the guys' girlfriends.
The Santa Clause (1994): When a man inadvertently kills Santa on Christmas Eve, he
finds himself magically recruited to take his place.
Big (1988): After wishing to be made big, a teenage boy wakes the next morning to find
himself mysteriously in the body of an adult.
Jumanji (1995): When two kids find and play a magical board game, they release a man
trapped for decades in it and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the
game.
Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray in Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, and Bradley
Ghostbusters. Pierce in Jumanji.
Of course, FOOW storylines lend themselves easily to comedies, but there are plenty of
other genres represented as well:
Adventure, sci-fi, thriller: Jurassic Park

Horror: The Exorcist
Adventure, drama, romance: Castaway
Drama, thriller: Jaws
Action, sci-fi: The Matrix

Why has this story type proved to be so popular?
◆ First, the collision of two worlds, in this case that of a character and a situation,
virtually ensure there will be conflict in the story as the Protagonist flails around,
attempting to gain their footing.
◆ Second, the concept also provides a perfect set-up for its own version of the
transformation storyline, as the Protagonist becomes more comfortable in the
new environment and adapts into a new, different person.
◆ Third, studios like this conceptual story element because it makes it much easier
to market the movie — take Movie Star A, plunk them in Exotic Locale B, boom —
there’s a big part of your marketing campaign.
◆ Finally, it plays to the fantasy quality of movies: What if I was thrust into a
circumstance like that? How would I act? What would I feel? In other words,
FOOW stories are a great way of creating a sense of audience participation in the
story universe.
What other FOOW movies come to mind?

Found Footage
"And this is where we've ended up
and it's all because of me that
we're here now - hungry, cold, and
hunted. I love you mom, dad. I am so
sorry. What is that? I'm scared to
close my eyes, I'm scared to open
them! We're gonna die out here!"
– Heather, The Blair Witch Project
This film style tends to lend to the horror genre since the footage is often found after the
characters have either died or turn up missing.
First, the very idea of the central conceit — found footage — can translate into low-budget
filmmaking. If the audience is expecting to see raw footage, then filmmakers can
embrace that and cut costs at the same time.
Second, the viewers seem to be drawn to found footage movies because they create a
heightened sense of reality making the viewing experience that much more realistic and
visceral.
This style became back into the mainstream after the success of The Blair Witch Project,
but it has been around since 1980. This technique was also used in literature (again
horror) in the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker’s Dracula was told through a
series of journal entries and newspaper articles.
Some examples of found footage movies:
Cannibal Holocaust (1980): A New York University professor returns from a rescue
mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of
documentarians who were making a film about the area’s local cannibal tribes.
Man Bites Dog (1992): A camera crew follows a serial killer/thief around as he
exercises his craft.
The Last Broadcast (1998): Bristling
with equipment, two enthusiastic local
access cable TV producers recruit an
assistant and venture into a forest in
search of the mythical and horrifying
Jersey Devil.
The Blair Witch Project (1999): Three

film students travel to Maryland to make
a student film about a local urban legend:
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project.
The Blair Witch. The character's POV pulls the audience into the story.

Noroi: The Curse (2005): A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated
paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the
"kagutaba."
[Rec] (2007): “REC” turns on a young TV reporter and her cameraman who cover the
night shift at the local fire station.
Diary of the Dead (2007): A group of young film students run into real-life zombies
while filming a horror movie of their own.
The camera work can be either hand-held by one of ...or procured via security cameras as in
the characters like in Cloverfield... Paranormal Activity.
Cloverfield (2008): Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the
point of view of a small group of people.
Paranormal Activity (2009): After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes
increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.
The Last Exorcism (2010): A troubled evangelical minister agrees to let his last
exorcism be filmed by a documentary crew.
Apollo 18 (2011): Decades-old found footage from NASA’s abandoned Apollo 18 mission,
where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the
U.S. has never returned to the moon.
Indeed Hollywood has seemed to swap out its obsession with contained thrillers in
exchange for found footage movies. Witness these spec scripts that have sold in 2011:
Evidence and Category Six.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in found footage movies?
What other films of note belong in the list?

Frustration Comedy
"Your life's to-do list must be a
baffling document. You're worried
about so many things Aaron. You're
worried about will we get to the
show, will I perform well, will you
get the credit you deserve. Mine has
on it but one word. Do you know what
that word is?"
– Aldous Snow, Get Him to the Greek
There are all sorts of comedy story types. One of them is the frustration comedy. There
are variations, but the basic dynamic is that the Protagonist or Co-Protagonists are
frustrated over and over and over again in their attempts to achieve their goal.
Oftentimes the goal is actually pretty simple, which makes the level of frustration that
much more… well… frustrating.
The best example of this type of story is
After Hours (1986). In this dark comedy,
directed by Martin Scorcese, Paul Hackett
(Griffin Dunne), a meek word processor
unexpectedly m eets Marcy Frankli n
(Rosanna Arquette), a beautiful but
e m oti onally d i stu r b e d w om an. H e
impulsively travels to Manhattan’s SoHo
district in a quixotic attempt to go on a date
with the fetching Marcy, but finds himself
trapped in a nightmarish web of unlikely
and bizarre characters and events. The
frustration is amplified by the fact that
underlying his journey is his romantic
desire (Marcy), a tantalizing fantasy turned
into a nightmare.
Some examples of frustration comedies:
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), a dying man provides a clue to a disparate
group of strangers that promises to lead them to — literally — buried treasure ($350K).
The all-star cast of characters has everything go wrong that can go wrong in their race to
get to the money first.

My Favorite Year (1982): young TV staffer Benjy Stone (Mark-Linn Baker) is given the
responsibility of taking care of alcoholic movie star Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole) in the
week leading up to Swann’s appearance on a hit 50s TV variety show. Swann repeatedly
drives Stone crazy through his drunken antics.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987): Neal Page (Steve Martin) gets stuck withfellow
Thanksgiving weekend traveler Del Griffith (John Candy) and the pair endure one
humiliating travel experience after another.
Get Him To The Greek (2010): A record company intern is hired to accompany out-of-
control British rock star Aldous Snow to a concert at L.A.'s Greek Theater.
The compressed time frame, clean set-up, clear goal, and increasing insanity of
obstacles, complications, and reversals, all of that can make for a winning formula for a
script.
I love these type of stories, so it’s no surprise that Burg & Myers wrote several scripts
with this plot conceit including Trojan War (1997).
Can you think of other examples of a frustration comedy?

Gender Bender
"Look, you don't know me from Adam.
But I was a better man with you, as
a woman... than I ever was with a
woman, as a man."
– Michael Dorsey, Tootsie
Gender Bender movies can involve a male character playing a female. A female
character acting as a male. It can be conscious effort on the part of the character. Or
there can be magic involved, a body switch or swap.
Some example of gender bender movies:
Some Like It Hot (1959): When two

musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the
state in an all female band disguised as
women, but further complications set in.
Victor Victoria (1982): A struggling
female soprano finds work playing a male
female impersonator, but it complicates
her personal life.
Tootsie (1982): An unemployed actor with
a reputation for being difficult disguises
himself as a woman to get a role in a soap
opera.
All of Me (1984): A dying millionaire has
her soul transferred into a younger,
willing woman. But something goes
wrong, and she finds herself in her
lawyer’s body — together with the lawyer.
Just One of the Guys (1985): Terry Griffith has got it all — looks, popularity, the perfect
college boyfriend, and an article that’s a shoo-in to win her a summer internship at the
local newspaper.
Switch (1991): A sexist, chauvinist pig gets his just desserts when his angry ex-
girlfriends murder him and he is reincarnated as a woman.
Prelude to a Kiss (1992): A couple fall in love despite the girl’s pessimistic outlook. As
they struggle to come to terms with their relationship, something supernatural happens
that tests it.

The Crying Game (1992): A British soldier is kidnaped by IRA terrorists. He befriends
one of his captors, who is drawn into the soldier’s world.
housekeeper to spend secret time with his children held in custody by his Ex.
Shakespeare in Love (1998): A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meets
his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.
Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. Channing Tatum, Amanda Bynes in She's the Man.
Boys Don’t Cry (1999): The story of Brandon Teena, a transgendered teen who
preferred life in a male identity until it was discovered he was born biologically female.
Oscar winner for Best Actress Hilary Swank (left) and Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry.
The Hot Chick (2002): An attractive and popular teenager who is mean spirited toward
others, finds herself in the body of an older man, and must find a way to get back to her
original body.
It’s a Boy Girl Thing (2006): Sworn enemies find themselves in each other’s bodies,
and use this to ruin each other’s lives.

She’s the Man (2006): When her brother decides to ditch for a couple weeks in London,
Viola heads over to his elite boarding school, disguises herself as him, and proceeds to
fall for one of her soccer teammates.
Gender bending is one of those conceits that can work in a number of genres from broad
comedies to dramas, satires to social commentaries.
It seems like the preponderance of these movies is men-as-women. That could simply be
a reflection of the fact that Hollywood’s conventional wisdom says women will see
movies starring men or women, but men much prefer male leads. Perhaps that extends
to men playing women, too.
Psychologically these type of movies do allow moviegoers the opportunity to play around
with the idea of what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sex, men to get in
touch with their feminine side, women with their masculinity.
One gaping hole I see in the list of movies: Where is a thriller gender bender? There’s
Psycho and Dressed to Kill, but their respective gender bends are used as revelations
made late in each film. Is there a thriller waiting to happen where a character plays a
member of the opposite sex throughout the story?
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in gender bender movies?

Heist Movies
BASHER
"Hey, is Danny about?"
RUSTY
"Yeah, he's waiting around the
corner."
BASHER
"Oh, that's terrific! It will be
nice working with proper villains
again."
– Ocean's Eleven
Typically an intricate plot involving a group of people trying to steal something. Or a pair
of rival thieves, oftentimes members of the opposite sex who get romantically involved.
The focus on heist movies is the intricate plot, twists and turns, who’s going to cheat, and
who can you trust. Some notable examples of heist movies:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950): A major heist goes off as
planned, until bad luck and double crosses cause it to
unravel.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968): A adventuresome
bank executive believes he has pulled off the perfect
multi-million dollar heist, only to match wits with a
sexy insurance investigator.
The Sting (1973): In 1930s Chicago, a young con man
seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up
with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a
criminal banker.
The First Great Train Robbery (1979): In Victorian
England, a master criminal makes elaborate plans to
steal a shipment of gold from a moving train.
House of Games (1987): A psychiatrist comes to the aid of a compulsive gambler and is
led my a smooth-talking grifter into the shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams,
and con men.
The Spanish Prisoner (1997): An employee of a corporation with a lucrative secret
process is tempted to betray it. But there’s more to it than that.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001): Hollywood’s A listers come together to pull off the most daring
heist Las Vegas has ever known. 11 men, 3 casinos, 150 million dollars, 1 chance to pull it
off.

Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna in
The Thomas Crown Affair. House of Games.
A heist movie can be in different genres, like comic book movies:

Ant-Man (2015): Armed with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale
but increase in strength, cat burglar Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help
his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Or sci-fi:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016): The Rebel Alliance makes a risky move to steal
the plans for the Death Star, setting up the epic saga to follow.
A heist movie you might not know is
Du rififi chez les hommes (1955): Tony Stephanois, just out of prison and angry at his
girl Mado’s infidelity, decides to join his pals Jo and Mario in an ambitious crime. With
Italian safe expert Cesar, they meticulously plan the burglary of a large jewelry
establishment. Not a word is spoken as the crime is carried out. And then things begin
to go wrong…
It’s definitely worth a watch.

Martial Arts
"You want to know who I am? I am...
I am the Invincible Sword Goddess,
armed with the Green Destiny that
knows no equal! Be you Li or
Southern Crane, bow your head and
ask for mercy! I am the dragon from
the desert! Who comes from nowhere
and leaves no trace! Today I fly
over Eu-Mei. Tomorrow... I topple
Mount Wudan!"
– Jen Yu, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Martial arts, kung fu, ninja, “chop sockey,” there are many variations in this movie story
type, but they typically share some common traits:
• Action film with numerous fighting sequences.
• Highly technical fighting with stylized maneuvers and camera angles.
• A strong Asian influence with a majority of movies produced in Hong Kong,
Thailand, and Indonesia.
Martial arts movies feature numerous stars including Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Yuen Baio,
Donnie Yen, and the legendary Bruce Lee. Hollywood has also produced martial arts
figures including Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Jason
Statham.
Some examples of martial arts movies:
The Chinese Connection (1972): A young man

seeks vengeance for the death of his teacher.
Enter the Dragon (1973): A martial artist
agrees to spy on a reclusive crime lord using
his invitation to a tournament there as cover.
The Shaolin Temple (1982): The son of a slave
worker escapes to the Shaolin Temple, learns
kung fu, and sets out to kill the traitor who
killed his father.
The Last Dragon (1985): A young man
searches for the “master” to obtain the final
level of martial arts mastery known as the glow.

Jackie Chan in Legend of the Drunken Master. Donnie Yen in Ip Man.
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994): Wong Fei-Hong is unwittingly caught up in the
battle between foreigners who wish to export ancient Chinese artifacts and loyalists who
don’t want the pieces to leave the country.
Blade (1998): A half-vampire, half-mortal man becomes a protector of the mortal race,
while slaying evil vampires.
The Matrix (1999): A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true
nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000): Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword
and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman’s
daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.
Ong-bak (2003): When the head of a statue sacred to a village is stolen, a young martial
artist goes to the big city and finds himself taking on the underworld to retrieve it.
Fearless (2006): This film tells the story of Chinese Martial Arts Master Huo Yuanjia
(1869–1910).
Ip Man (2008): A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to
teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun.
Martial arts movies typically have a clear delineation between the Good Guys and the
Bad Guys, the latter having hurt or killed somebody close to the former, or overlords
ruthlessly ruling underlings. This allows a viewer to fully commit their positive feelings
toward the Protagonist and negative feelings toward the Nemesis, thus animating battle
sequences with those dual sets of emotions.
Another feature common to martial arts movies is training, often comprising 10% or
more of screen time. This allows the viewer to see complex techniques slowed down and
broken into composite parts, meaning that when the participants use those same moves
in real time battle, we have a greater appreciation for the skill in play. There’s also this:

To the degree we identify with the Protagonist as they undergo training, there is a subtle
reinforcement that happens: If this character can master a skill, we can, too. Maybe not
becoming a kung fu expert, but other areas of our own lives.
Finally no martial arts movie is complete with a memorable Mentor character who
distills some universal truth into simple, memorable lines of dialogue. To wit:
• It is better to sweat in practice than to bleed in battle.
• Practicing one hundred things is not as good as mastering one thing perfectly.
• The mind commands, strength goes along and follows.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in most martial arts films?

Mistaken Identity
"Let me explain something to you.
Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're
Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So
that's what you call me. You know,
that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh,
Duder, or El Duderino if you're not
into the whole brevity thing."
— The Dude, The Big Lebowski
The basic premise is that a primary character is identified wrongly as someone else.
Some great examples:
The Wrong Man (1956): Hitchcock film where the Protagonist (played by Henry Fonda)
is wrongly identified as a criminal.
Life of Brian (1979): A Monty Python movie in which the main character (Brian)
spends his whole life being mistaken as the Messiah.
Being There (1979): The Protagonist Chauncey (Peter Sellers) is a dimwitted soul
whose utterances are mistaken for profundity.
Galaxy Quest (1999): Members of a canceled sci-fi show are mistakenly identified by
aliens as being actual space warriors.
But possibly the most famous mistaken identity movie

is another Hitchcock movie North by Northwest
(1959).
Here is the IMDB one-line description of the plot:
A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a
government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is
pursued across the country while he looks for a way to
survive.
Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman don’t

waste any time playing the mistaken identity card,
whereby Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is perceived by
two suspicious onlookers to be someone named George
Kaplan. How? By taking a phone from a passing
bellboy who has been calling out Kaplan’s name.
In this interview with Lehman, looking back at the movie, he concluded he didn’t do a
good job with the setup:

Once I decided Cary Grant had been mistaken for a nonexistent man called George Kaplan,
my first problem was how to do this. It’s a very hairy thing in this film. I once showed the film
to a class at Dartmouth College. After we ran it, I asked them how many understood how he
had been mistaken for George Kaplan, and only half of the students said they understood. It
wasn’t really done properly in the film, either by me or Hitch. It was a little too subtle.
It raises a critical point: In the case of mistaken identity, as screenwriter we absolutely

have to sell that conceit or else a reader is unlikely to go along for the ride.
Another classic example of mistaken identity is the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski:
“Dude” Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined
rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.
In both North by Northwest and The Big Lebowski, the entire plot spins out based on
the central conceit of the Protagonist being misidentified as someone else.
A mistaken identity element is not only a great way to propel a story forward, it also
helps to create a bond between the reader and the Protagonist: We know they’re
innocent even if other characters in the movie do not.
What other mistaken identity movies can you think of?

Mockumentary
"I wanted to capture the... the
sights, the sounds... the smells of
a hard-working rock band, on the
road. And I got that; I got more...
a lot more. But hey, enough of my
yakkin'; whaddaya say? Let's
boogie!"
— Marty DiBergi, This Is Spinal Tap
The word is a obvious combination of “mock” and “documentary”. It’s meant to present
fictitious events in a documentary format.
The movie grants the opportunity to provide commentary on either current events, an
issue or a sub-culture as a parody. While a rockumentary can be a drama, most tend to
be comedic in nature.Some examples of mockumentary movies:
Take the Money and Run (1969): The life and times of
Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber.
Real Life (1979): A pushy, narcissistic filmmaker
persuades a Phoenix family to let him and his crew film
their everyday lives.
Zelig (1983): “Documentary” about a man who can look
and act like whoever he’s around, and meets various
famous people.
This is Spinal Tap! (1984): Spinal Tap, the world’s
loudest band, is chronicled by hack documentarian
Marti DeBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.
Bob Roberts (1992): A corrupt rightwing folksinger runs a crooked election campaign
while only one independent muck-raking reporter is trying to stop him.
Waiting for Guffman (1996): An aspiring director and the marginally-talented amateur
cast of a hokey small-town Missouri musical production go overboard when they learn
that someone from Broadway will be in attendance.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999): A small town beauty pageant turns deadly as it becomes
clear that someone will go to any lengths to win.
Best in Show (2000): A colorful array of characters competes at a national dog show.
A Mighty Wind (2003): Mockumentary captures the reunion of 1960s folk trio the
Folksmen as they prepare for a show at The Town Hall to memorialize a recently
deceased concert promoter.

Mindy Sterling, Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards in Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara in
Drop Dead Gorgeous. Best in Show.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(2006): Kazakh TV talking head Borat is dispatched to the United States to report on the
greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more
interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.
For Your Consideration (2006): Three actors learn that their respective performances
in the film “Home for Purim,” a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, are
generating award-season buzz.
Bruno (2009): Flamboyant Austrian fashionista Brüno takes his show to America.
Mockumentaries, at least the comedic ones, fall into the broader category satire. They
create an intriguing dynamic whereby the filmmakers go inside a subculture to make a
commentary about it from the outside.
If we chose to ascribe a character archetype to mockumentary, it would have to be
Trickster, whereby a character or characters don masks purporting to be representative
of a specific viewpoint or sociological experience, only to use their personae to unearth
the foibles, fabrications, and fun of those cultural environments.
From a psychological standpoint, one major attraction for a mockumentary movie
viewer is the experience of being in on the joke, one that extends for the duration of the
film.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in mockumentary movies?

Post-Apocalypse
REGINA
"No I didn't make it with him last
night. Why are you so weirded out?"
SAMANTHA
"Oh right Reg, why should I be
weirded out? My sister, who swiped
every guy I ever had my eye on, has
now swiped the last guy in the whole
freaked out world!"
— Night of the Comet
Apocalyptic or Post-Apocalypse fiction covers the stories after folks were unable
circumvent the events which showed up in the Disaster movie. The Post-Apocalypse
movie tends to blur with Dystopian stories.
The characters are now dealing with the fallout of some catastrophe (nuclear war,
pandemic, technological event, supernatural phenomena or natural disaster). The film
could take place immediately after such event or many years afterward. In the later case,
the previous civilization takes on a mythology and technology may be either scarce or
sacred. Some examples of post-apocalyptic movies:
On the Beach (1959): The residents of Australia
after a global nuclear war must come to terms
with the fact that all life will be destroyed in a
matter of months.
The Last Man on Earth (1964): When a disease
turns all of humanity into the living dead, the
last man on earth becomes a reluctant zombie
hunter.
A Boy and His Dog (1975): A boy com-
municates telepathically with his dog as they
scavenge for food and sex in a post-apocalyptic
world.
Mad Max (1979): In a dystopic future
Australia, a vicious biker gang murder a cop’s
family and make his fight with them personal.

Twelve Monkeys (1995): In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back
in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the
human population on the planet.
Waterworld (1995): In a future where the polar ice caps have melted and most of Earth
is underwater, a mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaw “smokers,” and
reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land.
The Postman (1997): In a post-apocalyptic America, what begins as a con game becomes
one man’s quest to rebuild civilization by resuming postal service.
Don Johnson in A Boy And His Dog. Mel Gibson in Mad Max.
28 Days Later (2002): Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads
throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.
The Road (2009): A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any
means possible.
The Book of Eli (2010): In which a lone man fights his way across America in order to
protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.

Whereas disaster movies focus on the build-up to and experience of some sort of
extensive calamity, post-apocalypse movies deal with the aftermath.
Thus a key question posed for viewers is a powerful psychological one:
How would I survive?
The question can be played out in a lonely existential framework such as The Last Man
on Earth, one man versus an army of mutants, a handful of survivors such as 28 Days
Later, or larger groups such as Waterworld.
One narrative angle on post-apocalyptic movies is the theme of society reformed. In
stories like The Postman or TV mini-series like The Stand, the post-apocalyptic setting
serves as a sort of petri dish for a grand social experiment: How will groups of survivors
band together? Which systems of beliefs and behaviors will rise to the top… and which
will fall to the side?
Those questions get at the heart of the psychological appeal of post-apocalypse movies:
Stripped of what we experience in our ‘normal’ lives, which of our values would prevail?
These type of stories cause us to go into a more base aspect of our self, much closer to our
lizard-brain attached to survival than our higher consciousness and egalitarian instincts.
Disaster movies cause us to ask this question: What would I do?

whereas Post-apocalypse stories raise another issue: Who would I be?
What post-apocalypse movies would you add to this list?

Revenge
"Revenge is never a straight line.
It's a forest, And like a forest,
it's easy to lose your way... To get
lost... To forget where you came
in."
— Hattori Hanzo, Kill Bill Vol. 1
Ah, revenge. One of the most basic of human emotions. Someone screws with you? You
screw with them. We are talking real lizard-brain storytelling here and there have been
some big movies in this genre.
Some examples of revenge movies:
Death Wish (1974): A New York City architect

becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife
is murdered by street punks in which he
randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on
the mean streets after dark.
Nine to Five (1980): Three female employees of a
“sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” find a
way to turn the tables on him.
Cape Fear (1991): A convicted rapist, released
from prison after serving a 14-year sentence,
stalks the family of the lawyer who originally
defended him.
The Crow (1994): A man brutally murdered
comes back to life as an undead avenger of his
and his fiancée’s murder.
Payback (1999): Porter is shot by his wife and best friend and is left to die. When he
survives he plots revenge.
The Limey (1999): An extremely volatile and dangerous Englishman goes to Los Angeles
to find the man he considers responsible for his daughter’s death.
Gladiator (2000): When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an
emperor’s corrupt son, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.
Memento (2001): A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes and tattoos
to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003): The Bride wakes up after a long coma. The baby that she carried
before entering the coma is gone. The only thing on her mind is to have revenge on the
assassination team that betrayed her — a team she was once part of.
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004): The murderous Bride continues her vengeance quest against her
ex-boss, Bill, and his two remaining associates; his younger brother Budd, and Bill’s
latest flame Elle.
Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda in 9 to 5. Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta.
Man On Fire (2004): In Mexico City, a former assassin swears vengeance on those who
committed an unspeakable act against the family he was hired to protect.
V for Vendetta (2006): A shadowy freedom fighter known only as “V” uses terrorist
tactics to fight against his totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police,
he also finds his best chance at having an ally.
Taken (2008): A former spy relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who
has been forced into the slave trade.
Horrible Bosses (2011): Three friends conspire to murder their awful bosses when they
realize they are standing in the way of their happiness.
One of the main advantages of a revenge movie for a screenwriter is how clear cut
everything is: Good Guy. Bad Guy. Crime. Justification for violence. And off you go.
We live in a complex world where very little is black and white. How nice to be able to
dip into a revenge movie where we can indulge in simplistic fantasies, giving ourselves
over purely to a blood lust for retribution.
Revenge movies cut through moral ambiguity and traffic in pure violent intentions,
tapping into some of our most base human instincts. Those are powerful motivators for
any potential moviegoer who has been wronged in his/her life… which is just about
everybody.
What revenge movies would you add to this list?

Road Picture
"Remember what Bilbo used to say:
'It's a dangerous business, Frodo,
going out your door. You step onto
the road, and if you don't keep your
feet, there's no knowing where you
might be swept off to.'"
— Frodo, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Road pictures have their roots in ancient stories like “The Odyssey,” where the ‘hero’
goes on a literal and physical journey during which they explore new places, meet new
faces, and rise to met new challenges. This story type was popular in the early days of
Hollywood, but really took off with the emergence of America’s love affair with the
automobile. Examples include:
It Happened One Night (1934): A spoiled heiress running away from her family is
helped by a man who is actually a reporter in need of a story.
The Wizard of Oz (1939): Dorothy Gale is swept away from a farm in Kansas to a
magical land of Oz in a tornado and embarks on a quest with her new friends to see the
Wizard who can help her return home in Kansas and help her friends as well.
Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Judy Garland, Bert Lahr in Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in
The Wizard of Oz. Easy Rider.
Easy Rider (1969): Two counterculture bikers travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans
in search of America.
Duel (1971): A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of
a massive tractor-trailer.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987): A man must struggle to travel home for
Thanksgiving with an obnoxious slob of a shower curtain ring salesman as his only
companion.

Wild at Heart (1990): Young lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that
Lula's mom has hired to kill Sailor.
Thelma and Louise (1991): An Arkansas waitress and a housewife shoot a rapist and
take off in a '66 Thunderbird.
Sideways (2004): Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but
disappointment embark on a week-long road trip through California's wine country, just
as one is about to take a trip down the aisle.
Abigail Breslin and Paul Dano in Voices of Dwayne Johnson and Auli'i Cravalho in
Little Miss Sunshine. Moana.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006): A family determined to get their young daughter into the
finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.
Moana (2016): When a terrible curse incurred by the Demigod Maui reaches Moana's
island, she answers the Ocean's call to seek out Maui and set things right.
Why the allure of road pictures? Several reasons come to mind:
• The hero’s journey is an extension of and interplay with the emotional
‘journey’ (transformation) they are making in their Inner World, so an inherent
synergy between plotline and themeline.
• Road pictures satisfy a viewer’s desire to travel, the psychological ‘pull of the
road,’ the inner yearning to visit new places, the opportunity to present a ‘new’
face to strangers.
• Because of the travel, road pictures can be visually stimulating with different
vistas and interesting characters along the way.
• One obvious plus that we might tend to overlook is road pictures generally have a
compressed time frame (a day, two days, a week) which can sustain a heightened
sense of pace.
• A journey by definition has a beginning and an end, generally a goal associated
with that end-point, so this can create a natural ‘spine’ for the plotline.
• From a studio standpoint, the road element provides an easy marketing tool as
contemporary moviegoers are quite familiar with the concept.

In some movies, like those referenced above, the road element is directly evident in the
plot. There are other movies where it plays more of a background role such as Saving
Private Ryan (1998) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
Road pictures generally resolve in a ‘positive’ way — the Protagonist achieves their goal
and realizes their emotional transformation — either with the Protagonist going back
home or calling a new place home.
However there are movies where the experiences of the road prove too much for the
Protagonist such as Into the Wild (2007).
Have you ever written a road picture?

Was it an easy story to write or difficult?
And what are your favorite road pictures?

Slasher
"And number three: never, ever, ever
under any circumstances say, 'I'll
be right back.' Because you won't be
back."
— Randy, Scream
A slasher film is a sub-genre of horror. A near-indestructible psychopathic killer stalks

and kills a sequence of victims in a violent (sometimes creative) manner, often with a
cutting tool such as a knife or axe.
The killer appears supernatural to his victims, often young adults or teens, who are
guilty of some sin or minor vice.
Some examples of slasher movies:
Black Christmas (1974): A sorority house is terrorized by a stranger who makes
frightening phone calls and then murders the sorority sisters during Christmas break.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974): Five friends visiting their grandpa’s old house
are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw wielding killer and his family of grave-
robbing cannibals.
Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Heather Langenkamp in Nightmare on Elm Street.
Halloween (1978): A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood escapes and

stalks a high school girl and her friends while his doctor chases him through the streets.
Friday the 13th (1980): Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown
assailant while trying to re-open a summer camp that was the site of a child’s drowning.
The Burning (1981): A former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank
gone wrong, lurks around an upstate New York summer camp bent on killing the
teenagers responsible for his disfigurement.
My Bloody Valentine (1981): A decades old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer
killing those who celebrate Valentine’s Day, turns out to be true to legend when a group
defies the killer’s order and people start turning up dead.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): In the dreams of his victims, a spectral child
murderer stalks the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.
April Fool’s Day (1986): A group of nine college students staying at a friend’s remote
island mansion begin to fall victim to an unseen murderer over the April Fool’s day
weekend.
Child’s Play (1988): Young Andy Barclay gets the doll he wanted. However, he did not
know it was alive!
Scream (1996): A killer known as “ghost face” begins killing off teenagers, and as the
body count begins rising, one girl and her friends find themselves contemplating the
“Rules” of horror films as they find themselves living in a real-life one.
Drew Barrymore in Scream. Devon Saw, Randy Stone in Final Destination.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997): Four teens are in great danger one year
after their car hits a stranger whose body they dump in the sea.
Final Destination (2000): After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends
dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one
by one.
Reeker (2005): Strangers trapped at an eerie travel oasis in the desert must unravel the
mystery behind their visions of dying people while they are preyed upon by a decaying
creature.
Hatchet (2006): When a group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find
themselves stranded in the wilderness, their evening of fun and spooks turns into a
horrific nightmare.
In Vera Dika’s book “Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Films of the
Stalker Cycle” (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990), she describes narrative
elements and dynamics common to slasher movies. They include:
Past event
The young community is guilty of a wrongful action.
The killer sees an injury, fault or death.
The killer experiences a loss.
The killer kills the guilty members of the young community

Present events
An event commemorates the past action.
The killer’s destructive force is reactivated.
The killer reidentifies the guilty parties.
A member of the old community tries to warn the young community (optional).
The young community takes no heed.
The killer stalks members of the young community.
A member of a type of force (a detective, etc.) attempts to hunt down the killer.
The killer kills members of the young community.
The hero/heroine sees the extent of the murders.
The hero/heroine sees the killer.
The hero/heroine does battle with the killer.
The hero/heroine kills or subdues the killer.
The hero/heroine survives.
But the hero/heroine is not free.
The slasher represents the ‘boogeyman’ of our collective imagination, the violent
stranger out there who is always a threat to enter our lives here. The fact that we have
nightmares in which threatening characters or circumstances confront us is a reminder
of the thin membrane that exists between civilization and mayhem.
One not so subtle psychological message from slasher films is if we abide by certain
rules, we will be safe from the slasher. Then along comes a movie like Black Christmas
in which there is no reason or causality behind the murderer’s choice of victims, pretty
much blowing up the idea that we can keep ourselves safe from harm’s way.
Of course, the rampaging killer is also a projection of our own dark impulses, thus
watching slasher films enables us to get in touch with those instincts, yet not be culpable
for doing anything on their behalf.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in slasher films?

Spoof
"Merchandising… where the real money
from the movie is made. Spaceballs-
the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring
Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box,
Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal,
Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower."
— Yogurt, Spaceballs
A spoof is a comic movie that parodies a specific genre of films. It has been a Hollywood
staple since the 1940s. Some examples of spoofs:
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948):
Two hapless freight handlers find themselves
encountering Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster
and the Wolf Man.
Casino Royale (1967): In an early spy spoof,
aging Sir James Bond comes out of retirement
to take on SMERSH.
Blazing Saddles (1974): To ruin a western town,
a corrupt political boss appoints a black sheriff,
who promptly becomes his most formidable
adversary.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): King
Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget
search for the Grail, encountering many very
silly obstacles.
Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Airplane! (1980): An airplane crew takes ill. Surely the only person capable of landing
the plane is an ex-pilot afraid to fly. But don’t call him Shirley.

Hollywood Shuffle (1987): An actor limited to stereotypical roles because of his
ethnicity, dreams of making it big as a highly respected performer in this satiric look at
African American actors in Hollywood.
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988): Incompetent cop Frank
Drebin has to foil an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.
Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996): A
parody of multiple African-American movies.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997): A 1960s hipster secret agent is
brought out of cryofreeze to oppose his greatest enemy in the 1990s, where his social
attitudes are glaringly out of place.
Elizabeth Hurley and Mike Myers Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead.
in Austin Powers.
Scary Movie (2000): A year after disposing the body of a man they accidentally killed, a
group of dumb teenagers are stalked by a bumbling serial killer.
Shaun of the Dead (2004): A man decides to turn his moribund life around by winning
back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an
entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007): Singer Dewey Cox overcomes adversity to
become a musical legend.
Vampires Suck (2010): A spoof of vampire-themed movies, where teenager Becca finds
herself torn between two boys.
There are at least three ways spoofs come to be:
• A specific genre has been mined in movies so much that it has saturated the
cultural mindset, setting itself up to be parodied.
• A genre that was once super popular, but has fallen by the wayside, now
resurrected by a spoof.
• Combining several movie examples within a genre, a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to
film parody.

“That’s impossible, they’re
on instruments.”
Disaster films were once a staple of cinema
in the 1970s and resurrected with Airplane!
The spoof even mimicked the all-star cast
trope. (Pictured) Julie Hagerty, Leslie
Nielsen, Lorna Patterson, and Robert
Hayes.
From a studio standpoint, spoofs are popular because generally they are much less
expensive to produce than other types of movies, plus they have a built-in marketing
advantage, relying on consumer awareness of the movies and genre the film is
parodying, a natural form of pre-awareness.
What spoofs would you add to this list?

Sports
"The one constant through all the
years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army
of steamrollers. It has been erased
like a blackboard, rebuilt and
erased again. But baseball has
marked the time. This field, this
game: it's a part of our past, Ray.
It reminds us of all that once was
good and that could be again.”
— Terence Mann, Field of Dreams
Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, golf. Can you name a sport which Hollywood
hasn’t featured in a movie? Some examples of sports movies:
Fear Strikes Out (1957): True story of the life of
Jimmy Piersall, who battled mental illness to
achieve stardom in major league baseball.
Winning (1969): Frank Capua is a rising star on the
race circuit who dreams of winning the big one — the
Indianapolis 500, but to get there he runs the risk of
losing his wife to his rival.
North Dallas Forty (1979): A semi-fictional account
of life as a professional Football (American-style)
player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of
the early 1970s.
Breaking Away (1979): A small-town teen obsessed
with the Italian cycling team vies for the affections
of a college girl.
Raging Bull (1980): An emotionally self-destructive boxer’s journey through life, as the
violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.
Caddyshack (1980): An exclusive golf course has to deal with a brash new member and
a destructive dancing gopher.
Chariots of Fire (1981): The story of two British track athletes, one a determined Jew,
and the other a devout Christian who compete in the 1924 Olympics.
Hoosiers (1986): A coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small town
high school basketball team to become a top contender for the championship.

The Mighty Ducks starred Emilio Estevez, but also featured Josh Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightly in
Lucas, Elden Henson, and Jussie Smollett. Bend It Like Beckham.
Bull Durham (1988): A fan who has an affair with one minor-league baseball player
each season meets an up-and-coming pitcher and the experienced catcher assigned to
mentor him.
Field of Dreams (1989): An Iowa corn farmer, hearing voices, interprets them as a
command to build a baseball diamond in his fields; he does, and the Chicago Black Sox
come to play.
A League of Their Own (1992): Two sisters join the first female professional baseball
league and struggle to help it succeed amidst their own growing rivalry.
The Mighty Ducks (1992): After being charged with drunk driving, a hotshot lawyer is
forced to coach a hapless youth hockey team.
Rudy (1993): Rudy has always been told that he was too small to play college football,
but he is determined to overcome the odds and fulfill his dream of playing for Notre
Dame.
Remember the Titans (2000): The true story of a newly appointed African-American
coach and his high school team on their first season as a racially integrated unit.
Ali (2001): A biography of sports legend, Muhammad Ali, from his early days to his days
in the ring.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002): The daughter of orthodox Sikh rebels against her
parents’ traditionalism by running off to Germany with a soccer team.
Seabiscuit (2003): True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose
victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.
Sports movies are perennial winners. Youths are drawn to films featuring sports of their
choice. There’s plenty of action on the field to provide entertainment. But perhaps the
single most powerful dynamic of most every sports movie: Rooting for the underdog.

While most sports movies feature a Protagonist or Protagonist’s team that wins the Big
Game/Match, there are other sports movies with an enduring legacy in which the lead
character does not win. In this LA Times article — “Hollywood Sports Movies: Do Fans
Love Losers As Much As Winners” — Patrick Goldstein suspects there’s a new trend
emerging.
If you divided up the best-known Hollywood sports films, the vast majority could be
cataloged as stories about triumph over adversity (The Blind Side, Miracle, Rocky and
Rudy), spiritual uplift (Field of Dreams and The Natural), raunchy high jinks (Major
League, The Bad News Bears, The Longest Yard and Caddyshack) and underdog
empowerment (Remember the Titans and A League of Their Own).
But I have a hunch we’ve recently embarked on a new era of sports films whose stories
are just as compelling as the ones you’d find in any other dramatic genre, in part
because they aren’t obsessed with happy endings. (2004's Million Dollar Baby)
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in sports films?

Ticking Clock
"According to my theory, you
interfered with your parents' first
meeting. If they don't meet, they
won't fall in love, they won't get
married and they won't have kids.
That's why your older brother's
disappearing from that photograph.
Your sister will follow, and unless
you repair the damage, you'll be
next."
— Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future
Ticking Clock movies are those where there is a definitive event positioned to happen in
the near future which will lead to dramatic, even dire results. Some examples:
D.O.A. (1950): Frank Bigelow, told he’s been
poisoned and has only a few days to live, tries to find
out who killed him and why.
High Noon (1952): A marshal, personally compelled
to face a returning deadly enemy, finds that his own
town refuses to help him.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1962): An insane
general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a
war room of politicians and generals frantically try to
stop.
Escape from New York (1981): In 1997, when the US
President crashes into Manhattan, now a giant
maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber
is sent in for a rescue.
War Games (1983): A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in
which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.
Back to the Future (1985): In 1985, Doc Brown invents time travel; in 1955, Marty
McFly accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, putting his own existence at
stake.
Run Lola Run (1988): A young woman in Germany has twenty minutes to find and
bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a supermarket.
Speed (1994): A young cop must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by
keeping its speed above 50 mph.

Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy in Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken in
War Games. Nick of Time.
Nick of Time (1995): A six year-old girl is kidnapped with the criminals giving the
father 90 minutes to assassinate the Governor in order to get his daughter back.
Phone Booth (2002): Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pinned
down by an extortionist’s sniper rifle.
Crank (2006): Professional assassin Chev Chelios learns his rival has injected him with
a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops.
One of the most obvious advantages to a writer working with a ticking clock dynamic is
an overt, sustained and building pressure as the time gets closer and closer. This also
comes into play with the psychological experience of the script reader and can help
generate a powerful sense of pace.
It’s also a great way to lure the moviegoer into the story universe:
What if I was in a situation like that?
What if the clock was ticking down on me?
Adding pressure to almost any situation helps the writer make the experience ‘more.’ If
makes drama more dramatic… comedy more humorous… thrillers more suspenseful.
And if the ticking clock is a key aspect of the story’s central conceit, it can also be a great
marketing hook.
What other qualities and dynamics do you think are present in ticking clock movies?

Time Travel
MRS. WATCHETT
“Mister Filby, do you think he'll
ever return?”
FILBY
“One cannot choose but wonder. You
see, he has all the time in the
world.”
– The Time Machine
Time travel has inspired storytellers for centuries and Hollywood hasn’t slacked off in
that department either.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949):

A singing mechanic from 1912 finds himself in
Arthurian Britain.
The Time Machine (1960): A Victorian Englishman
travels to the far future and finds that humanity had
become a dark and dangerous society.
Time Bandits (1981): A young boy accidentally joins a
band of dwarves as they jump from time-period to
time-period looking for treasure to steal.
The Terminator (1984): A human-looking, apparently
unstoppable cyborg is sent from the future to kill
Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent to stop it.
Back to the Future (1985): In 1985, Doc Brown invents time travel; in 1955, Marty McFly
accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, putting his own existence at stake.
Kenny Baker, Craig Warnock, David Rappaport in Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in
Time Bandits. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986): Peggy Sue faints at a high school reunion. When she
wakes up she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989): Two seemingly dumb teens struggle to prepare
a historical presentation with the help of a time machine.
Twelve Monkeys (1995): In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back
in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the
human population on the planet.
Timeline (2003): A group of archaeological students become trapped in the past when
they go there to retrieve their professor. The group must survive in 14th century France
long enough to be rescued.
One of the most interesting movies in recent memory is this one:
Looper (2012): In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30
years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe, who one day learns the
mob wants to ‘close the loop’ by transporting back Joe’s future self.
Here is the trailer.
The time travel setup leads to great moments like where Joe first meets his future self,
but later the two meet in a diner for a conversation.

What is it about time travel that makes for a potentially appealing story?
• It’s an excellent ‘what if’ scenario, one that can grab a viewer’s imagination
• Great FOOW (Fish-Out-Of-Water) dynamic, not only different place and culture,
but also a different era
• Major complication typically in time travel movies: How the hell do we get back?
• Play to viewer’s wish fulfillment — to go to the past and see how things really were
like or go into the future and experience how things will be
There’s also this: Time travel movies will often get us to consider the mystery of time.
Every moment we live, time passes. And yet, we generally go about our day to day lives
hardly thinking about time. But think on this: If you live to be 80 years old, you will
have lived for…
948 months
4,122 weeks
28,855 days
692,538 hours
41,552, 284 minutes
2,493,137,087 seconds
Time travel movies can make it feel as though the limitations of our life (after all, each of
us is born with an ‘expiration date’) are permeable, that we can somehow stretch the
amount of time we’ve been granted to live.
Speaking of time travel, the movie Back to the Future came out in 1985.
In the 1989 sequel, Marty travels into the future… to 2015!
What are your favorite time travel movies?

And what time travel movies did I not include in my list?

Go Into the Story and Find the Animals
This mantra is both the name of my blog, and my wish for you.
It derives from a conversation I had many years ago with my then three year-old son.
It went pretty much like this:
ME
Hey, Luke, I’m starting to write a
new script tomorrow. And it’s funny,
but no matter how many times I start
a new story, I get a bit, uh,
nervous about it. Got any, you know,
advice for your dad?
LUKE
(without hesitation)
Go into the story and find the
animals.
God as my witness, that’s what my son said.

Now who knows what Luke was really thinking at the time. Stupidly I didn’t follow up with him,
flummoxed as I was at his comment. I remember mulling it over and thinking that the whole idea
of going into a story is precisely what a writer does, immersing themselves in a narrative
universe that they create. That has always seemed just right to me, both in its simplicity and
profundity, which is frankly why I named this blog GoIntoTheStory.
But over time, it’s the other part in which I’ve discovered more and more layers of meaning.
Start with the verb “find.” Is there any word more appropriate to describe the writing process?
Here are some of its definitions:
to come upon by chance:
Doesn’t that sound like brainstorming?
to locate, attain, or obtain by search or effort:
Doesn’t that sound like research?
to discover or perceive after consideration:
Doesn’t that sound like what happens when we mull over our story?
to feel or perceive:
As we go into the story, we become more emotionally connected to it.
to become aware of, or discover:
The biggie, where as explorers we uncover a story’s hidden gems.
Then there is “the animals”.
I’m almost sure what Luke was thinking about was how a children’s story so often is habituated
by animals. Thus in his eyes, my task was probably pretty simple: Go find the animals. They are
your characters.

But what if we think about it more symbolically?
● Animals can be both domesticated and wild. So some things we discover as we go into the
story are what we might expect (domesticated). Other times we’re surprised, even shocked by
ideas and thoughts that spring to mind (wild).
● Animals are alive, organic, and intuitive beings. So are our story’s characters.
● Throughout human history, animals have come to mean something in stories. A fox is sly and
cunning. A crow in many cultures signifies death. An owl is wise. Per Jung and others who study
myth and psychoanalysis, animals can serve as conduits into the mind of the dreamer.
Which reminds me of something I read about a movie director who in prepping to make a movie
gave each of the actors their own animal token as something they could reference in interpreting
their character.
I’m sure if you think about it, you could probably come up with other shades of meaning for the
mantra.
I just know that this one’s my favorite mantra of all because of its source.
There you have it: My approach to rewriting a screenplay and my wish for you.
I hope that you have resonated with at least one of them. Use them to help you focus your
thoughts and bring clarity to your writing process.
But for now and always, my wish for each of you is the same sentiment as once uttered by a
cherubic youngster with bright blue eyes and a look of deep intention in his face:
Go into the story… and find the animals.

Resources
Go Into The Story: https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/
Screenwriting Master Class: http://screenwritingmasterclass.com/
DePaul School of Cinematic Arts: http://www.cdm.depaul.edu/about/Pages/School-of-Cinematic-

Arts.aspx
Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731218807011913/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoIntoTheStory
Email: GITSblog@gmail.com
Special thanks to Franklin Leonard and the entire Black List team. In the 12 years of its
existence, the Black List has evolved into the single most important screenwriting brand in
Hollywood. Their commitment to shining a spotlight on the craft of screenwriting and notable
screenplays, and to create new avenues for outsiders to break into the movie and TV business is a
vision I share. I’m proud to contribute to the Black List’s efforts through Go Into The Story and
serve as a mentor at their outstanding screenwriter labs.
For more information about the Black List: https://blcklst.com/

09 Story Types Scott Myers

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Your September Free Screenwriting ebook from Go Into the Story

The adventure continues...

Volume 1: 30 Things about Screenwriting

Volume 5: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Aristotle’s Poetics

Volume 6: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Reading a Screenplay

Volume 7: Everything You Wanted to Know About Spec Scripts

Volume 8: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Character Types

About the Author

Assumed Identity Biopic

Go Into the Story and Find the Animals

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On the thriller front, they make for great date movies.

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“I can’t take it anymore, Felix, I’m

The classic buddy picture where two different “worlds” collide:

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Another approach is to make the two characters more similar:

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Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman in Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis in

Why is this story type so popular?

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Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.

Franka Potente in Run Lola Run Saoirse Ronan in Hannah

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Carol Kane in When a Stranger Calls. Colin Firth in Phone Booth.

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The subject disaster film chronicles an impending or ongoing disaster – such as a

The early 1970s featured disasters in a vehicle or building.

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Voice of Ming-Na Wen in Michael Cain and Sandra Bullock in

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Adventure, sci-fi, thriller: Jurassic Park

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The Blair Witch Project (1999): Three

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Some Like It Hot (1959): When two

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A heist movie can be in different genres, like comic book movies:

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The Chinese Connection (1972): A young man