Movie Cloning (Blake Snyder)

January 8, 2011 by Scott W. Smith

“Listen to Spielberg or Scorsese talk about movies. They know and can quote from hundreds. And I don’t mean quote as in ‘recite lines from.’ I mean quote as in ‘explain how each movie works.’ Movies are intricately made emotion machines. They are Swiss watches of precise gears and spinning wheels that make them tick. You have to be able to take them apart and put them back together again. In the dark. In your sleep. And your knowledge of a few movies is not enough. It is also not enough to know all of the movies of the past five years. You have to go back, see the lineage of many types of movies, know what movies begat what in the line of succession, and how the art was advanced by each…True originality can’t begin until you know what you’re breaking from.”
Blake Snyder
Save the Cat

Posted in screenwriting | 7 Comments

7 Responses

on January 8, 2011 at 1:10 pm Screenwriting From Iowa » Movie Cloning (Blake Snyder)

[…] “Listen to Spielberg or Socorsese talk about movies. They know and can quote from hundreds. And I don’t mean quote as in ‘recite lines from.’ I mean quote as in ‘explain how each movie works.’ Movies are intricately made emotion machines. They are Swiss watches of precise gears and spinning wheels that make them tick. […] Original Source… […]
on January 8, 2011 at 5:14 pm Jamie

I love Blake’s books. I learned so much from them. Anne Lower, who was mentored by Blake, was a guest on our Twitter chat a few months ago.
Nice to find another Iowa screenwriter. Wish there were more.
on January 8, 2011 at 7:59 pm carlamariasmith

I’ve just discovered Blake’s books. They sit alongside Joseph Campbell’s Hero and Stephen Pressfield’s Art of War which I read this summer. But they come with strong recommendations from one of this province’s top working directors. And your quote has inspired me to delve in. Particularly love, “You have to be able to take them apart and put them back together again.” As a fledgling filmmaker I am awed by the work behind filmmaking. The ‘parts’ are critical, individually, but still the whole is always greater than the sum of those parts and that is what I find seductive.

I stumbled onto your blog today. Very cool.
on January 8, 2011 at 11:56 pm Scott W. Smith

Jamie & Carla Maria–

When Blake’s “Save the Cat” first book came out I thought it was the best book on screenwriting that I’d read in years. His blog was also one of the first blogs on screenwriting that I ever read. I was fortunate to trade a few emails with him and always found him upbeat and inspirational.

And as much as I liked “Save the Cat” refer back to his “Save the Cat Goes to the Movies” even more.
on January 12, 2011 at 1:32 am Carla Smith

Scott – Thanks… will do.
on January 14, 2011 at 3:45 am Screenwriting From Iowa » Movie Cloning (Blake Snyder)

[…] “Listen to Spielberg or Scorsese talk about movies. They know and can quote from hundreds. And I don’t mean quote as in ‘recite lines from.’ I mean quote as in ‘explain how each movie works.’ Movies are intricately made emotion machines. They are Swiss watches of precise gears and spinning wheels that make them tick. […] Original Source… […]
on June 1, 2011 at 8:16 am patti

So sad that Blake is gone. He gave us so much…no telling what more he could have offered.

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