The Grey Beat Sheet
Our thanks to Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez for this beat sheet. The survival story is one of the oldest: man against nature. In Joe Carnahan’s The Grey (screenplay by Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, based on a story by Jeffers), Liam Neeson is Ottway, a...
Chronicle Beat Sheet
Chronicle is released on video this coming Tuesday, May 15. Here’s Master Cat! Al Rodriguez’s beatdown of the film he believes is a powerful piece of movie-making. In the 1950s, Hollywood turned to its new and burgeoning teenaged audience with stories that spoke to their...
The Secret World of Arrietty Beat Sheet
Our thanks to Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez for this classic beat sheet on a classical story. With a unique sensibility that is as much mystical as magical, the animated films of master storyteller Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have garnered a worldwide audience thanks to...
Al Rodriguez Interviews Nancy Bilyeau, Author of The Crown
Writer Nancy Bilyeau talks about her road to writing and selling a novel -- and getting it optioned as a film.
Al Rodriguez Interviews Screenwriters Stiles White and Juliet Snowden
This week, screenwriter Alvaro Rodriguez (Machete) talks with scribes Stiles White and Juliet Snowden (Knowing, The Possession) about crafting great scares. All three writers are appearing at the Austin Film Festival and were on the panel “Words That Go Bump in the Night: Writing Horror”...
The Help Beat Sheet
Thanks to Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez for breaking down the hit film: Written by: Tate Taylor (screenplay), Kathryn Stockett (novel) Directed by: Tate Taylor Genre: Institutionalized — The Help is a classic institutionalized story that, like Paul Haggis’ Oscar-winning Crash (2005) which Blake beats out in Save...
Saving Cats Together
Thanks to Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez , who will be leading a Beat Sheet Workshop in San Antonio on July 30-31, for this advice on creating your own Dream Team: Writers are lonely. We’re shy, needy, driven to distraction, full of grandiose ideas and hopelessly...
Winter’s Bone Beat Sheet
Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez breaks down the Academy Award® Best Picture nominee: Written by: Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell This is a classic reimagining of one of the oldest stories we have: the Quest, or in the parlance...
STC! and “Machete”
In this week’s blog, Save the Cat! workshop alumni Alvaro Rodriguez and Melody Lopez discuss Robert Rodriguez’s explosive new action movie, Machete. Featuring an all-star cast including Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, and Michelle Rodriguez, Machete tells the story of an ex-Federale (Danny Trejo of...
Scare the Cat!
Today’s blog on Genre is contributed by Austin Cat! and screenwriter Alvaro Rodriguez. One of the most helpful weapons in the Save the Cat! arsenal is the ability to classify your screenplay-to-be under a specialized genre category. I say “specialized,” because the Save the Cat!...
