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Summary: Guide to the Hollywood Factory
Review: Fields excels in bringing us the basics of structure and form. While this book is mostly geared to the Hollywood "cut-and-paste" style of screenwriting (hand in hand with all those PC script programs), there are valuable lessons to be learned for screenwriters from other countries.
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Summary: Great book
Review: Outstanding book!! He doesnt tell you how to write, but gives you guidelines to keep in mind while writing your story. A definite book to keep next to your keyboard to help you remember the basics,,,also illustrates his guidelines with examples from other successful screenplays.
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Summary: a wonderfully subtle information manuel
Review: Usually one should be skeptical of any book that claims to tell you how something should be written. Creative writing courses are essentially scams, intruments of brainwashing telling you what the proper way to write is supposed to be, and why you are wrong for showing any undilineated creativity. Syd Field, however, boosts the fundamentals of creativity, not telling you how to write your screenplay, simply making suggestions and proposing guidelines you should follow in the pre-writing period, how to outline your ideas so you won't forget or misplace something, how to structure your thoughts. This is almost a mathematical logic textbook, an 'I wish you luck' pat on the back. Syd never preaches, never says there is a wrong way to approach your story (although he does explain some of the cut-throat tactics of Hollywood and advises you how to skirt the single-minded, dictatorial machinations of Studio bosses.) Finally, Syd's technique is firmly in line with the era of Hollywood's final Golden age, 1967-1976 (the time when this book was written), when Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Network, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and more were being flashed on the screen, letting the viewer realize that there is more to making a movie that good acting and slick direction. This book helps you to explore what you really want your movie to be about in that easy time, before the egos set in, before your script is changed or stolen and made into the mess that finally wins you an Oscar.
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Summary: An oscar-winning performance.
Review: The first book I ever read on the art of screenwriting. Several years later, that timeworn book still sits next to my PC as I bang out my latest script. A well-rounded, beginner's tool for anyone wanting to learn the craft. Two-thumbs up, Syd!
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Summary: Insightful
Review: The granddaddy of screenwriting how to's. It shows its age, but you'll be hard pressed to find a better book. Field, working as a script reader for various production companies, shows you what producers look for in a script. Insightful and inspirational
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Summary: A screenwriter's primer.
Review: You've seen ads for his seminars - now read his book, the grandpappy in the how-to area (a fine way for beginners to get their feet wet)
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Summary: Please read this before you buy the book
Review: In one section of this book, Field discusses the necessity for "ten pages and a whammy." Meaning, every ten pages in your script you need to have a "whammy," defined in the book as violent occurence such as an explosion, car chase, etc. that will excite the audience.Anyhow, a friend of Field's once said to him, When you're writing a script, ten pages and a whammy. And then Field says to us, when you're writing a script, ten pages and a whammy. Don't let ten pages get past you without making a whammy happen. What the hell is he talking about? Seriously, folks... I NOT to write a screenplay. Eight years ago, when I first picked up this book -- and it was my first book on screenwriting -- I was thrilled, surprised, utterly charmed. But then I realized that Field had designed a system that is tepid and forumulaic to the worst extreme. Fine. Read the book. Ignore completely all of the other authors whose efforts discuss in far more detail aspects of character development, myth, storyline, etc. One more example, and then I'm done. Field slobbers over the film, Chinatown, written by Robert Towne. Granted, the film is a wonderfully written masterpiece, but Field reduces its entire meaning to WHICH PAGE THE PLOT POINT IS ON. In fact, in one section he discusses how he's told his seminar students for years that the plot point for Chinatown happened on page 27, when finally, one of his "enterprising" students pointed out that the plot point did, in fact, happen on page 33, and that Field contested it, but later realized that the student was right. And then he writes, in a kind of amazement, Here I was, telling them for years that the wrong plot point was the plot point!
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Summary: A WUNDERFUL BOOK FOR SCREENPLAY RIGHTERS!
Review: I red SCREENPLAY many years ago before righting my own movie, BILLY 'N' BILLIE. Iliked the book. It was reel good at showing you what elimints are need in construkting a movie that will cell.There was only one thing that buged me and that was he says that all good movies follow a certin pairadime. But then on page 118 he says "What about NASHVILLE? Is that an exception?" He then shows how it doesnt seem like it but NASHVILLE reely does follow the pattern. Then he winds it up by saying "Robert Altman...films may look randomly composed but in reality they are executed with sculpted finesse. NASHVILLE fits the paradigm to a tee." (It seems I mispelled paradigm earlyer but you knew what I ment right?) But what bugs me is that NASHVILLE reely doesnt fit the paradigm to a tee at all and SYD FIELD didnt have the curage of his conviktions to come out and say so. and ferthermore NASHVILLE is not a good movie at all. I tryed to watch it three times and never made it. But the rest of this book is good. My movie BILLY 'N' BILLIE nobody bought but even tho that happened to me I still think this book is good and I wreckamend it. My copy is totaly dogeared! I still dont no why my movie didnt cell but I might re-right it today on my lunch brake and try it again. Goodluck everyone!!!
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Summary: Used in Screenwriting Classes
Review: As a film student, part of my curriculum includes screenwriting classes. I've taken a few and even seminars in Los Angeles. Repeatedly, Syd Field's books are the ones we use as textbooks. My instructors are all writers who have sold screenplays, even screenplays that have become blockbuster movies starring stars like Sandra Bullock. I've written a few screenplays, and have followed along with this book. They're not movies, yet, but because I've at least gotten the structure down, I've gotten A's on the screenplays, and are on my way to being a good writer/filmmaker.
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Summary: A proven formula that, plain and simply, works!
Review: People have called Syd Field's "Screenplay" outdated. They've bashed his command of the English laguage. They've even gone so far as to throw the old cliche of "Those who can do, do, and those who can't, teach" into the pot. All I can say is this: I followed the excercises in the book and found them to work, and rather well at that. If you think his formula and screenplay paradigm structure doesn't reflect motion pictures of today, then you're not watching enough films. After reading his book, I watched "Good Will Hunting," "I Robot," and "The Punisher" to name a few, and found the plot points to fall right into place (Plot Point 1 in the first 25-30 minutes and Plot Point 2 at 85-90 minutes). I agree that emphasis should be on content and a good story, but the structure cannot be avoided. If you don't have structure and your story doesn't flow, it's not going to entertain the viewer, let alone someone who is trying to read your screenplay. With that, "Screenplay" is the next best thing to USC film school or AFI.
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