The Trailer Park

I certainly agree about formulaic documentaries. We have a show here called Horizon (which gets exported as part of Nova in the States) that I used to love but is almost unwatchable now. Still like those nature shows though.

As for movie running times, these days I find a lot of films are always about 15 mins too long and that has a lot to do with formulas too. They seem to love sticking rigidly to that Five-Point-Finale, adding in one extra false ending/action sequence that just takes me over my level of tolerance.
Also it was much easier to enjoy films before I knew about those formulas and how they're structured. The instant you read about The Hero's Journey and the Save The Cat format you suddenly care a little less about the characters and start playing Beatsheet Bingo where you sit there waiting for the next familiar beat and quietly celebrate when it arrives just as you predicted.

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I don't mind non-customisable games. I like the ones that have a strong story to them and sometimes changing too much about the characters can undermine the story and its meaning. But I confess there is silly amount of fun to be gained by collecting absurd outfits.

The Hero's Journey has been around for eternity. (Even though Star Wars is the iconic example, the most obvious and formulaic version of it I've seen is Rise Of The Guardians, a CGI thing about Jack Frost and Santa Claus. Right from the first Call To Adventure and the immediate Refusal, every one of the familiar stages clunks into place in a way that's initially funny then increasingly irritating.)
Save The Cat (named after the scene in Aliens) is just a modern generalisation of the same format that also happens to fit movies that aren't epic, fantasy adventures. Because of its popularity most movies now tend to be deliberately based first and foremost around a series of "Beats." Save The Cat has 15 that look like this…


Once you're aware of them they're easy to spot, it's a fun game to play when you're not really enjoying a film and there are websites that over-analyse all your favourite movies to break them down into their beats. (And look, I've even added the link.)

There was a bit of a backlash against the format a few years back when people realised that a few blockbuster films (Avengers, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Skyfall) all had very similar second acts where the bad guy allowed himself to be captured (and if you know the beats you recognise this as False Victory Midpoint.) But the format isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself and sometimes you can use it to your advantage to surprise the audience. A good example of this is Rogue One and the early scene (SPOILER ALERT) where Cassian meets the informant. It looks like the Save The Cat beat, it feels like the Save The Cat beat, if you check your watch the timing and placement are about right. And then when the expected thing DOESN'T happen it's genuinely shocking and the subsequent uncertainty helps you enjoy the rest of the film. (Of course there's a real version of the beat later on but the earlier subversion stops you thinking about it.) Contrast this with the Save The Cat moment in Jurassic World (ALSO SPOILER-ish) when the hapless fellow falls in the dinosaur pen and has to be saved by Chris Pratt's magic Velociraptor-calming powers. It was so painfully and cheesily predictable that it was almost like they were being ironically obvious in allowing you to recognise it and I felt like I was determined not to like the rest of the movie after that.

Peter who?


I'm not usually a fan of short films to hype up big movies but this is still looking good.


And this looks fun (but not real)