Meow!

The Cats have been in their den, pouring over the Beat Sheet Challenge nominees. What a great group of suggestions! “Chinatown,” “Annie Hall,” “Sunset Boulevard”… the list goes on and on!

However, we must narrow it down. And that’s what challenged us.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a tie!

We had planned, in the case of a tie, to throw the titles into a hat, and draw out the winning selection. However, you Cats are so clever, and exuding such fine tastes in classic film, that we simply could not eliminate one in favor of the other, for they are both excellent films, different in genre and in journey — and polar opposites in terms of filmmaking. So, we said, “What the heck? Let’s do them both!!”

And so, great Cats, this is what we are going to do. We are going to beat out 2 classic films over the course of the next couple of weeks, and ask for you competitive Cats to send in your beat sheets — for either one or both of these films! We will announce the first contender today, and the second contender when we upload the STC! beat sheet and the Cat! winner. That gives everyone 2 chances to win! (The winner of the first Beat Sheet will be eliminated from the second competition, in order to allow another Cat-tastic scribe the opportunity to get some swag)

So, here are the guidelines. Please read them carefully — entries that do not follow the specific guidelines will be eliminated without being read:

1) Create a 2-page Save the Cat! Beat Sheet following the Save the Cat! system of story structure principles. For examples of how these Beat Sheets are written, please take a look at our archived Beat Sheets from this year. (Is your Finale broken down into its Five Points?)

2) Email your beat sheet as a .PDF or .doc attachment to our contest email address: [email protected]. Your emailed Beat Sheet must be received by 11:59 pm PST, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. Please enter as the subject header: STC! Beat Sheet Challenge. Please include your full name in the body of your email.

That’s it! 2 simple rules! 15 beats! Sharpen your claws, get out your screenplays, fire up the DVD and prepare to beat out our first challenge… may we have a drumroll, please…

“The Apartment”

1950

Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond (Read “The Apartment” by clicking HERE)

Roar!