Book Club: Save the Cat! (Part 1)

Mikey Mioduski (00:00)
Okay, is it going? Let's see. I lost my... Okay, sorry, John. Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA the Storyteller Study Club, a podcast where we dive deep down the rabbit hole to push ourselves to become the best communicators we can be. This is Mikey Medusky, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications. I'm joined by Molly Gagan out on the West Coast.

Molly Geoghegan (00:02)
Yeah. No. Oh yeah, it's okay. I think there's someone down.

Mikey Mioduski (00:30)
Molly, we've got a good one today.

Molly Geoghegan (00:32)
Yes, welcome presentation nation to book club. ding, ding, ding. Mikey, we read a book. We're reading a book.

Mikey Mioduski (00:39)
Yo, yeah, there's these ones

where we're like, we know we're supposed to have read this and I'm surprised you hadn't given that you were like a film studies. Were you a major or a minor? Okay, so maybe, okay, you didn't do enough. You were in a formal. Yeah, but like every time I hear about like screenwriting, film studies, this book has always comes up. Save the Cat.

Molly Geoghegan (00:48)
Me too, me too. Minor, just a minor, just a little. I didn't do, exactly, this one was left off the reading list.

Yes.

Mikey Mioduski (01:09)
by Blake Snyder. What's his subtitle? last screenwriting book you'll ever need.

Molly Geoghegan (01:10)
Blake Snyder, yeah. Right.

Yes, the subtitle is The Last Screen. ⁓

Sorry, John. The last book on screenwriting you'll ever need. And he's also billed, like he has this, this came up everywhere I was Googling just about like who Blake Snyder was and kind of what, yeah, what scripts did he write. But he is billed as like Hollywood's most successful spec screenwriter. And if you don't know what a spec screenplay is, it's just when.

Mikey Mioduski (01:30)
⁓

Molly Geoghegan (01:41)
you write something uncommissioned and you're not paid for it and it gets to float around until

Mikey Mioduski (01:46)
yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (01:47)
someone buys it. You're like, I got this good idea, I got this good story, check it out Disney, check it out Pixar, come take a look. And ⁓ I mean, there's millions, millions and potentially billions of spec scripts floating around out in the world. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (01:58)
Right. Yeah. So what did he

write? I know he wrote stop or my mom will shoot. so we're, yeah, these are some gems from like the 80s and 90s. Blank check. Shout out to my wife and her brother. That was one of their favorite movies ever.

Molly Geoghegan (02:05)
Mm-hmm. Blink check. Blink check. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, it makes sense. think he has this book for context was published in 2005. So I think and a lot of his references are from yeah, classic 80s, classic 90s and then getting into the early 2000s. So if you can take yourself back to the storytelling of simple, a lot of simple storytelling in the early 2000s. I think things are different in the streaming world now, but I think, you know, if you're just tuning in presentation nation, Mikey and I love to like.

Mikey Mioduski (02:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (02:42)
storytelling is all around us and this screenwriting is one of the ultimate vessels for it. And so we are going to be translating how Blake Snyder's like epic, iconic, always on, you know, film curricula, except for mine. ⁓ I remember people talk, I actually remember a professor being like, I'm skipping Scape the Cat or something. was like, so I just probably just depends on professor preference or something, but ⁓ had a lot of.

Mikey Mioduski (02:56)
Yeah. interesting. Yeah.

I

imagine it was like, I wouldn't say polarizing, I imagine like, because Blake comes out early and says, look, like I love indie films, but I'm writing this for people who want to like sell blockbuster movies, box office. So he's going for like.

Molly Geoghegan (03:15)
Mm-hmm.

Blink check, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (03:24)
the masses. He's not trying to appeal. And so it even sounds like he's willing to make compromises to say like, hey, how can we how can this movie appeal to ⁓ people who are going to take their whole family out, you know, and that kind of thing. Right.

Molly Geoghegan (03:25)
Yes.

Definitely.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean, all the better to relate to presentation thinkers, not that we're all, I mean, the B2B world isn't necessarily winning Oscars, but we are trying to sell stuff, like at the end of the day.

So I think this actually is the night, it's not necessarily the indie formula, because I think, you know, part of.

the formula for good and new and fresh screenwriting is bucking the formula to a certain extent. But this is a really tried and true formula that we will all be very familiar with that relates to a lot of what we've talked about in book club with Aristotle, the Pixar's 22 rules for storytelling. Blake's

Mikey Mioduski (04:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (04:11)
got his own list of genres, like shapes of stories that we're gonna give you guys a nice little ⁓ toolkit to take home and see what your presentation might work with. But.

Mikey Mioduski (04:14)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (04:22)
You know, it's Oscar season, so we're watching the movie. We love the movies.

Mikey Mioduski (04:24)
Yeah. Yeah. And we'll break this into two parts today. We're going to talk about kind of the first half of the book. He has this his own structure, as you mentioned, Molly. So we'll we'll dive into that in part two. But first of all, let us let's just talk about.

What the heck does save the cat mean? Molly, what's like the general, what is that overall premise? Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (04:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, he gets it. He explains right away because I was not sure. I was like, what? How is screenwriting saving the cat? And save the cat is a concept of when you introduce a character,

you have to get the audience on board somehow. I mean, in presenting, we always talk about like you immediately need to connect and build rapport with the audience, like from the moment you're walking on stage.

Mikey Mioduski (05:06)
Yep.

Molly Geoghegan (05:08)
whether

that's a walkout song, whether it's like kind of an inside joke of what's happening at the conference, a local reference. But for screenwriting, a lot of times, and you'll see this specifically in 90s movies, is you beat your hero and they're doing something heroic or like amazing. They're saving a cat out of the tree. And you're like, all right, for the rest of movie, I'm like, that's a good person, I'm on board.

And he does introduce more nuance and complications later on with like, what happens when the character's unlikable, but we still got to root for them somehow. So

Mikey Mioduski (05:35)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (05:38)
even when something is like, like, I'm not, you know, this is an anti-hero, but we're still pumping our fists, right? For John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, know, you still ⁓ have to root for them somehow. So there has to be investment.

Mikey Mioduski (05:51)
Yeah, and he's

and it just has, you know, as a person who wrote films and screenplays, he has his I guess like pet peeves and he'll so he'll watch.

some massive multimillion dollar production like Tomb Raider 2, let's say, Lara Croft 2. And he's like, they spent, you know, two million dollars on her Lycra suit, but ⁓ they could have spent four minutes just to make us like her at some point. And that's why he's like, this is a miss because like, we don't care. Like we're not invested in her. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (06:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, she's, yeah. She's one note, one note. Although I will say, fun to watch. It's really fun. I still enjoyed

Lara Croft, right? But that's a good example of like the action overtaking, the emotion, right? Because again, characters should be able to give you emotion and you relate to them.

Mikey Mioduski (06:34)
Yeah.

that's the psychology of it is if you can hook yourself in and like the story, like the hero, you put yourself in the story and audiences need to experience a journey, not just like observe it. ⁓ And so that's what makes the best movies work. We identify with them, something in them. And that's how we decide to come along for the ride because we experience it ourselves, we empathize and it transports us along.

Molly Geoghegan (06:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Mikey Mioduski (07:12)
So

Molly Geoghegan (07:12)
yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (07:14)
some examples like that tie back to what does that mean in the context of a sales pitch? It would be like getting that we call it the head nods Molly where it's like early upfront just show that you understand the customer's pain, you know, and so now you're you're like, yep, fully get you you're in this story. This is your story. It really sucks when you're you're trying to log on. You've got all these things blah blah blah. So yeah, do that early right away so that they know that you know.

Molly Geoghegan (07:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. You can see that in the most like, I think in the kind of cheesiest, most extreme way you can see it so, so quickly in a shark tank episodes, right, Mikey? Where someone comes on and they're like, I was stuck doing this with my kid. You know, I never had enough time to do this with my kid. So I came up with the solution, right? So it's, it's like this kind of like cheese ball, but like really obvious way of like, man, like I feel your pain and I'm relating to this person a little bit. And so they like turn that around into something. The presentation translation.

Mikey Mioduski (07:44)
that you feel them.

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah, it's like shared stakes.

Yeah, I like that. and ⁓ yeah, the shark tank for sure, like demonstrating a human problem behind the prop product. ⁓ Okay, we're in, you know, so yeah, just gotta you gotta like the hero.

Molly Geoghegan (08:14)
Yeah, shared stakes, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. so, and this is kind of one of those, I think along the way, Mikey, we can do the presentation translation. ⁓ In chapter one, there was some, there, he talks about, chapter one is called Logline from Hell. That was funny. And if you don't know what a logline is, this is something that I think is super useful and comes up in story strategy and present, like planning for presentations all the time. It's essentially like a North Star bottom line.

Mikey Mioduski (08:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (08:59)
How do you pitch, how do you talk about your presentation, the story of your product, the story of your company, your brand in a sentence, a sentence or less, right? That's the tweet, get it down to a tweet kind of thing. And the logline is what will sell a studio. a studio, like, I mean, when you think, oh, I said, there's like millions of scripts floating around, not every, you're not gonna.

Mikey Mioduski (09:08)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (09:20)
they're not gonna read your whole script. They're gonna read the log line and a couple of beats and ultimately like how the story is gonna end and wrap up and maybe a few celebrity faces they can like attach to the story. So a log line is at the end of the day what's gonna sell your script or get it to jump out at a studio exec's eyes. And... ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (09:24)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (09:42)
and make it happen. I was gonna make a joke about, you know, Warner Brothers getting bought out. The studio, studio, the single studio that exists now. anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, yikes.

Mikey Mioduski (09:43)
⁓ Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. Hey, don't sleep on universal. ⁓ Yeah. We

yeah, I liked what he said about, you know, most early greener writers will come in and tell you all these cool scene ideas they have.

And he himself was doing that over and over. And he's like, no, you know, and I can relate to that because I love getting started on, I need a slide about this and like, our demo slides, we got to show this and that. But you don't have that like cohesive gel, like what the hell is this about? And that if you can't.

Molly Geoghegan (10:12)
Ha

Yeah, or have a cool idea.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (10:27)
Say that in one sentence ⁓ You might have something wrong. don't you might not know what you're trying to say So he they say this is more of like a test rather than a description and he's actually got some ingredients that he talks through that are really cool it as it relates to movies and I think they would probably relate as well to ⁓ a communication in the business world

Molly Geoghegan (10:39)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

I think they do, yeah.

And this is one of those things where you can paste it on your desk to be like, as you're working through the presentation, be like, does it still fit at the bottom line, right? Like the North Star. But yeah, he says there's three good ingredients for a log line that must be there. And he said the most important thing is a bit of irony. And I think he has a pretty broad definition of irony here, but it's something that's unexpected, something a little hooky, something, you know, the cover of a book can sometimes catch your eye and where you're like,

Mikey Mioduski (10:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (11:19)
⁓ He has all these examples from the 90s where he's like, know, a taxi driver gets, you what is, one, and now I'm gonna forget it, but it was like a taxi driver gets,

Mikey Mioduski (11:22)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (11:32)
invested in the crime, I don't know, delete this, John. What is the log line, Mikey? But anyway, okay, so a log line should have irony of combining two different unexpected elements, right? And to kind of mix those into the bottom line of what you are creating. And it's something kind of fresh, so it catches people's eye.

Mikey Mioduski (11:49)
Yeah.

It kind of the irony component makes me think of like the challenger sale where you introduce tension that a customer hasn't seen yet, where it's like, Hey, like the general challenger statement will go like, Hey, you think your problem is X.

Molly Geoghegan (12:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (12:06)
What if I told you it's actually why and you're like, it's not irony. It's more of like tension. Things are at odds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's irony. but I. Yeah, so I do think it has to have that contradiction of sort that you're.

Molly Geoghegan (12:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there's tension, yeah. Yeah, I think so too, yeah. I think it's a pretty broad definition of irony.

Mikey Mioduski (12:28)
⁓ that does get the audience to lean in a bit. You're not just stating the obvious. You're like, wait, this is kind of interesting. How's this going to work out? Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (12:36)
Yeah. Yeah. John, I found the log line for taxi driver. 1976, classic. A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action. Whoa. Okay.

So there's a lot there and obviously

it's kind of like a little removed. You're like, I guess that's how I would say it. It's not necessarily like the human, because you're like, I've seen the movie so I know the character. But think about if you haven't seen the movie, you haven't seen the character and you're like, okay, that sentence is really interesting to me. So I think for me, the word irony, if not literally makes sense, but it's like a kind of a hooky quality. ⁓ Number two.

Mikey Mioduski (13:06)
Yeah. huh. Okay. And then number so irony and

then a hooky quality number two is a compelling mental image. Is that right, Molly? Okay.

Molly Geoghegan (13:23)
Mm-hmm. Yes, must be able to see the movie

with the offer of like, I want to see what that looks like. So with that sentence I just read, mentally unstable veteran in sleazy New York City, you're kind of like, ooh, I know that's going to be like a dark kind of colors. It's like kind of seedy and you can kind of see it. you could, I'm starting to picture things for people that are visual. I know there is a small population of people that can't do this, but I think for the majority that can and are visualizing.

Mikey Mioduski (13:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (13:52)
a you want, you're like, who would I even see in that? And then you're like, okay, yeah, maybe I would see ⁓ Martin Scorsese doing that, you know? I wanna see what that looks like. I would see Robert De Niro, yeah, let's, yeah. ⁓ Yeah, close your eyes. A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.

Mikey Mioduski (14:03)
Yeah. Will you read it one more time? I'm closing my mind. Can I see this?

Bam. Okay. Yeah. So like the, yeah, yeah. I think he says you need an adjective when you're describing both the antagonist and the protagonist and that helps. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (14:22)
So you can kiss, yeah, yeah. So you're like.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we've got setting. So we have a character. We have like the tension of the character, like what he's going through. It's like PTSD maybe. ⁓ And then we've got a place, a location. We've got nightlife New York City, right? So it's like kind of sexy. It's like seedy. There's like a lot of stuff going on.

⁓ And yeah, there's the sleaze fuels his urge for violent action. So we know there's gonna be, we know it's gonna be like a rip roaring thing. Like we're not gonna be asleep during that. I feel like, yeah, that's like interesting. I'm, and log lines are like not what you see in advertising, but you'll see it on any, if you go to any IMDB, you see like it's the description on like a letter ⁓ box line IMDB. It's... ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (14:57)
Yeah. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (15:15)
it's the thing again that is gonna be spit out. bet like Claude would spit that out if you like fed it to taxi driver, right? Where it's like, this is what it's about, the bottom line. ⁓ So it's just.

Mikey Mioduski (15:20)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It's cool. And I think ⁓ this rings a bell, sort of borrowing the logline for other uses as well. think Chris Ben Porter Bagusky, that famous ad agency, ⁓ I think they did something like a like a one line brief. Like, can you pitch your new ad campaign, Molly?

Molly Geoghegan (15:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (15:50)
instead of laying out this whole presentation, like, can you pitch me on it in one line, like a one line brief? And that's how they would pressure test it themselves to see like, ooh, I get it. Yeah, like that's a big idea all right in here. So again, it's not a description, it's a test.

Molly Geoghegan (15:55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, yeah, you have to be able to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a test, yes. That's a great way to do it, Because later on, your description is gonna be like.

show don't tell. I think that's what people get caught up in. But it's like, what is the, yeah, what is it actually about? Like that's, what's the urge of that character? Yeah, I know a lot about the character already from just that log line of Taxi Driver. ⁓ And then the third ingredient is a, and this kind of is baked into it, especially with what you were saying, Mikey, of like the ability to sell because it's a, he says it's a built-in sense of who it is for and what it's going to cost. So yeah, like is it sellable, right?

Mikey Mioduski (16:12)
Yeah.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (16:40)
And like, of course, in his context, he's talking about like to the studio sales, but we can see this in time and time again and pressure testing presentations and pitches. Like, yeah, if you hear that line and you're like, that's gonna cause like, you're crazy. We don't have that technology yet. Like, you know, I can't 3D print this, you know, I think there's an immediate like impossibility level of being like, I don't think so, man, right?

Mikey Mioduski (16:51)
huh. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah, that.

That one hits home for me for like VC pitches where it's like audience is your is your addressable market or or do you have a market product market fit and then yeah cost is like are you two years out like how much how much runway you know like is this how capital intensive is this idea of yours ⁓ or is it pretty pretty turnkey good to go whatever so

Molly Geoghegan (17:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (17:32)
Yeah, it's almost like your burn rate and your, yeah, your addressable market all baked in. So yeah, and squeezing that in subtly, like somehow, is it in just the way you write the log line that makes it clear, this is for families or this is for teens, something like that?

Molly Geoghegan (17:38)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good question. I'd be curious to get his input on that, but I, I think, I think I wonder in when you submit a spec script, if there's like an ideal audience demo thing you tag, maybe, maybe there is now, but I mean, if I read the words, like I was just saying, right. A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York city. I'm like, it's not for kids. Like, I'm like, okay, adults for sure action. And then we get the word action. So we're like, it's an action story. So I think there's some.

Mikey Mioduski (18:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (18:21)
And it is like, know, there's this, Taxi's a little more artsy. It's not just, it's a little artsy in a lot of ways. I think it's viewed as, yeah, Scorsese classic, of course. So I think, I think there's, yeah, there's something baked in that for me. I'm trying, I would love to hear a log line that I don't know what it is, like what the movie is connected to it. And I'd be like, ooh.

Mikey Mioduski (18:26)
Mm-hmm.

Molly Geoghegan (18:42)
that's a Moana, like that's a this, know, that's a legally blonde kind of attach it to a certain kind of genre. ⁓ Which gets us into our next thing, our next chapter here. But at the end of the day, just to cap off the log lines, I thought this was interesting. Blake does insist that like, get your log line first and then write the story, which I think is the opposite of sometimes when people like write your story and then figure out what it's about. that's so different for different like mediums and stuff, but specifically for screenwriting, if you're selling.

Mikey Mioduski (18:43)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (19:11)
the screenplay and you want to get it sold, bake that log line and then build everything to it.

Mikey Mioduski (19:17)
Yeah. So yeah, you mentioned genres and it's funny because we dove deep because you and I had heard about these, seven plots, the seven basic plots, which is another massive book that, and you'll hear this time and time again when you're talking to people about

Molly Geoghegan (19:20)
Chapter two.

Yeah, Christopher Booker.

Mikey Mioduski (19:36)
storytelling and stories that more and there's the hero's journey like, know, narrative, ⁓ students of narrative and teachers talk about like, there's basically these archetypes, these general frameworks and plots that come up time and time again. And instead of like pretending like you're making something up out of nowhere, you know, Blake's like, look, these have been proven even if you're telling me you think you've developed this whole new genre. ⁓ You probably haven't so

Molly Geoghegan (19:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (20:05)
So get to know them more or less so that you can like know what works about them. ⁓ But yeah, like it's funny that he came up with his own labels for these instead of, you know, finding the the ones out there. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.

Molly Geoghegan (20:07)
Yes. Yes, exactly.

Yes, using previous, I mean we love collecting, we were building a collection, this whole podcast is a collection of story frameworks and story shapes and I didn't realize that, yeah Blake Snyder had his own list of story shapes.

we can cut, he has 10, so is quite a few, we can speed through them with a few examples and but then we've got a party favor from this podcast if you will, we'll leave behind of a presentation application for each of these.

Mikey Mioduski (20:39)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (20:45)
Story script so if you're a total movie if you think in movies vision if you think if you're a cinephile We've got you covered for your presentation translation here ⁓ Yeah, this ⁓ this first one is It's kind of intense right it's like the institutionalized Well actually they're

Mikey Mioduski (20:50)
Yeah. ⁓ yeah. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (21:05)
not in order. I'm gonna follow your order first. Let's go with his ears monster monster in the house Is the is the first one he lists?

Mikey Mioduski (21:07)
Okay.

Yeah. Is that JAWS?

Molly Geoghegan (21:12)
And that is just, I mean, that's like your classic. mean, that scream, that's like, it's kind of a, yeah, it

can often, yes, it gets jaws. It's something, can often be associated with horror. doesn't necessarily have to be. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a literal monster. It could just be like something I'm overcoming, especially internal, oh, through a character or like in their town, like something bad that's happening. So it's, I liked your outtake of this for the presentation translation, Mikey.

Mikey Mioduski (21:26)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (21:42)
solving a dangerous business threat.

Mikey Mioduski (21:44)
Yeah, and it's, ⁓ I liked that too, like framing it as a threat. ⁓ But you know, this is something we need to recognize before it's too late, you know? And so yeah, it can be ⁓ some type of major danger facing the organization and that can rally people, you know?

Molly Geoghegan (21:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Golden Fleece. Tell us about this one.

Mikey Mioduski (22:13)
Yes.

So, like a journey toward a goal, like people I think of Sorkin, like somebody wants something, you know, ⁓ I think so many movies like this, guess, Wizard of Oz ⁓ comes to mind like I got to go see that wizard, you know, and then the whole story revolves around the hero out on the road trying to trying to get that thing. I think this is a nod to is it like Jason?

Molly Geoghegan (22:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (22:41)
the in the Iliad, is that it, Molly? But chasing that golden fleece. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (22:43)
Chasing that dream, chasing the rainbow. Yeah, you're looking, I think also, yeah, looking for the, you

don't even know if it's real kind of thing too, of like, you don't even know if the pot of gold under the rainbow is real, but like it's worth, it's worth going towards for the greatness of it all. So yeah, there's so many golden fleece, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (22:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's so many books. These are fun. I love these types of movies.

they're chasing something and that the want to grab it helps them overcome, get through anything and everything. Because it's so motivating that they're like, they go through hell and back and that's where all the trials and triumphs.

Molly Geoghegan (23:10)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Mikey Mioduski (23:22)
occur in the story. But yeah, so many movies are a, you're chasing something like, like the golden fleece. and yeah, in a business setting, ⁓ could be what? Like,

Molly Geoghegan (23:38)
yeah, I mean, this is so, I feel like this is probably one of the more common ones for business setting. It's like, we're working towards like to hit a big sales goal at the end of the quarter.

Mikey Mioduski (23:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (23:48)
We're working towards like, we're announcing this product and we're like excited to evangelize it with the world and like, let's get the word out there. This is kind of like a world changers big call to action kind of thing too. I think to get other people along the road with you as like your

Mikey Mioduski (23:54)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (24:04)
little hobbits in arms ⁓ to destroy the ring or something. So it's a hype. Yeah, it's a.

Mikey Mioduski (24:08)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it is good for a vision. ⁓ Yeah, like

a roadmap, like here's where we're going. It's, it's all about the destination and how great it's going to be when we get there, you know. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (24:17)
Yeah. Ra-Ra sales kickoff or like, you know, in some cases, like we've heard, literally had this exact prompt from a client for a big conference where it was like, we actually don't want to show the re the top of the goal because like it's never ending. We're always

going to be kind of working towards something. And it's the, it's the beauty of the climb that was there. Like, you know, who's it like a mountain climbing visuals. And so that's that to me is a golden fleece to like this ongoing journey. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (24:39)
Yeah. I like

that. Okay. All right. What's next? We got like buddy love. Yeah. huh. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (24:47)
Yeah. The next one is so, especially since this was published in 2005, I was like, this is so perfect for this era of moviemaking. yeah, buddy movies. mean, yeah, there's so many. Thelma and Louise, ⁓

is all the Judd Apatow. Like, you know, I think The Hangover is kind of a buddy movie for sure. Yeah, there's just like.

Mikey Mioduski (25:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (25:13)
where it's just two buds getting up to absolute shenanigans. yeah, that is a piece of it, yes. They might hate each other, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (25:17)
Yeah. Maybe they weren't buds at first. Like he talked about just this like total cliche arc where it's just like they're generally opposites, but they have to work together to get to the thing.

Molly Geoghegan (25:29)
Mm-hmm. And both of

their strengths will play into how they need to get through whatever chaos they're creating, yeah. I think in a business context, this is probably less common because obviously you don't wanna talk about how you're creating shenanigans with your, I mean, just getting totally wasted in Vegas and lose your friend or something. But yeah, the kind of translation could be partnerships or mergers and all the good you're gonna get up to and.

Mikey Mioduski (25:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ huh. I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (25:57)
What's exciting about it? You know all the fun memories that you're gonna create Sure, yeah

Mikey Mioduski (26:01)
huh. Yeah. Acquisition announcements, mergers,

partnership decks, but it's like we were great alone, ⁓ but we're, we're something incredible now because we have these compatible, you know, opposites and we, we fill each other's voids and make each other bigger and better. Yeah. So, but there's tension, you know, early and you can talk about maybe some of those like, ⁓ what,

Molly Geoghegan (26:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (26:29)
what are those opposites and how can we help each other out. But I like the buddy love movies.

Molly Geoghegan (26:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so too. mean, yeah, they're so fun. I love to see them reinvented. All right, the fourth one he goes through is a dude with a problem, which ⁓ is like someone, just the innocent person. This could be a little Lord of the Rings-y too, just like unexpectedly dragged into chaos, a crisis, and.

Mikey Mioduski (26:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (26:54)
is for like whether they want it or not is like dragged into a mess without asking for it. It's like can come from a sudden event maybe like earth we see with like kind of apocalyptic stuff with like earthquakes, tornadoes, that kind of thing, like a world of hurt around them. And then there is like

Mikey Mioduski (26:58)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (27:09)
a truly like life or death battle at stake. The continued existence cannot go on as normal without this person getting through it. So they're like, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (27:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

And that is part of it, right? They're, they're

an ordinary person. They're not a superhero. And so for them to be thrust into some like pretty crazy, you know, sort of, ⁓ I guess scenario with a, with a bad, bad, bad guy or a really tough environment cast away, diehard. He talks, talks a lot about diehard. I don't know about if John McClane was that much of an ordinary person. He was super cool. ⁓ yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (27:22)
Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

He does. I agree that was not it.

Yeah, totally. I'm not like him.

Mikey Mioduski (27:47)
But yeah, he rolled up.

He was thrust into that situation unexpectedly and had to like make his way out. as far as like from a business version of dude with a problem, could be just something, some urgent operational problem that just sprung up. I imagine a lot of companies are talking about, know, how are we gonna embrace and deal with AI? Like, how are we, what's the next version of us? And how are we gonna?

sort out our supply chain issues or our system outages or security issues with shadow AI and all this stuff. So a PR crisis, you name it, lots of ⁓ ordinary customers with sudden new problems.

Molly Geoghegan (28:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm, yeah, definitely. The next one is Rites of Passage, and that is the ultimate like relatability one because this is a character that is going through something that like everyone can relate to, like it might be a midlife crisis, a death of like a member of the family, a divorce, kind of coming of age.

Mikey Mioduski (28:46)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (28:50)
but like is doing

everything in their power. Like they just are not facing it head on. And ⁓ so they have to take every other path before they're forced into a corner to like confront what is actually happening to them, right? I like these ones. Yeah, very cute. These are like kind of your, like I would say probably your most feel good ones because you're like, yeah, like I felt that way when my grandma died, you know? And like Christmas was never the same. And it wasn't until I opened her photo book.

Mikey Mioduski (29:01)
Yeah, Mm-hmm. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (29:17)
that she left me, that I, you know, like there's

usually something at the very end of these movies where someone's like, I finally read the letter, like, you know? ⁓ Yeah, kind of a, I think there's a, yeah, I think this could be a Hallmark kind of vibe as well, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (29:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Uh-huh, yeah,

so if it is, like ⁓ stories with life problems, a life passage from one age to another could be used for like in a leadership context, ⁓ maybe an annual report, like.

⁓ a decade retrospective or keynotes marking like a company's transformation. We tried to solve this the wrong way for years and here's what we finally had to accept and you know, very human, very memorable. ⁓ Did you see Licorice Pizza, Molly? Like I could never tell, I was never like able to say like.

Molly Geoghegan (29:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, I did.

Mikey Mioduski (30:13)
what that movie was about. Because it was just like kind of like, all right. It was, guess, like coming of age, you know. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (30:16)
It was about a lot of things, yeah. Yes, it was a very

weird coming of age, strange beats in that film, yeah. I could see that. There's a little young love. There's this funny young big idea with their entrepreneurial pursuits. And then there's also this thing, I think a little bit of like.

Mikey Mioduski (30:24)
So is that a rites of passage? If anything, I just.

or buddy. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (30:40)
we're in this boring town. We're just two cooler kids in this boring town at the vibe too. Which I could see maybe as like fish out of water, ⁓ or out of the bottle. Yeah, out of the bottle. I, that's true. I haven't seen it in a while, but weird. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. Cause it's a kind of a mashup.

Mikey Mioduski (30:47)
yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So next up institutionalized as a genre. That's an interesting one. I like it. ⁓ it's like reforming a broken system, stories that pit the individual against a collective. So everyone's drinking the Kool-Aid, but there's that one character who's like, y'all, what are we doing? You know? And exactly.

Molly Geoghegan (31:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, what does this really mean?

And so that can be a literal, these are literal cult films, also like could be, yeah, this sort of like, we're all thinking this one way and I've decided I've changed, you I'm different now. ⁓ Yeah, like reforming broken systems. yeah, for the presentation translation, this is maybe if something's not working anymore, we're like, you know what? Or like something new, there's a new technology introduced. We're seeing this a lot with like AI, of course. And we're like, all right, so like.

Mikey Mioduski (31:18)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (31:42)
Here we are, we're gonna take this in. This is how it, what it means to us to implement it. So I think there is sort of like an identity thing of being like, how do I use this product? How do we, what does it mean to us as the company and this brand? So I think there's something to be taken from that. Doesn't have to be a cult. It doesn't have to be.

Mikey Mioduski (31:46)
huh. Yeah.

We talked about

Abercrombie and Fitch like when they overcame that PR just just like they had a toxic culture really shitty, you know, like leadership decisions being made from the helm. And then there's a new regime that came in. I imagine you come out and say like, we are not that anymore, you know, like and so it's about modernization in a like.

Molly Geoghegan (32:03)
Yes. Yes, we've talked about that brand story.

Mm-hmm, image, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there was an explicit

course correction. Definitely. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (32:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. so, yeah, recalibrating what this institution is and stands for. First, you have to come out and say what, yeah, what was wrong with that?

Molly Geoghegan (32:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Next one, you know what you love it. There's a superhero plot line where there is an exceptional, innovate like person that has a special power, whether they know about it in the beginning or not, that is able to use this very specific power, even if it's not explicitly a superhero thing, maybe it's like their neurodivergence, right? Like this special like kind of thing that they can do that applies to the solution of the plot.

Mikey Mioduski (32:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (33:04)
Let me get my little notes up about this one. ⁓ Mikey, what's the presentation translation of a superhero?

Mikey Mioduski (33:10)
Yeah.

I mean, yeah, if we're talking about like an extraordinary person in a mundane world destined for greatness, you know, there's power, there's a nemesis, a curse, ⁓ gladiator, Spider-Man. So this for business is like, I think like product launch, ⁓ brand decks, company positioning. We have this unique capability or power. And here we are, you know.

Molly Geoghegan (33:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (33:36)
So I think, yeah, think new tech, proprietary data, positioning, differentiation, superhero all day.

Molly Geoghegan (33:43)
Yep, Blake says, your hero of your tale must have a special power, even if it's just a mission to do great or do good. They must be opposed by a nemesis and then there must be a curse that the hero can surmount with their special power. All right, next is, there's 10 of these total. This is number seven. Out of the bottle.

Mikey Mioduski (33:51)
Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, wish fulfillment. the genie out of the bottle, right? So it's like some wish is fulfilled, but there's consequences. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (34:13)
Yes.

Mm-hmm, yes, yes.

There's a bit of a like a, what's that called, cautionary tale. I see like Aesop's fables in this one a little bit, you know? ⁓ In these wish fulfillment tales, an ordinary hero's life is changed by magic that either bestows a wish or power or inflicts them with a curse, like a problem, or becomes a curse. Whichever way the magic changes the hero's life and makes things difficult, the magic is resolved in the end, but the less in the moral, there's a little morality with this one, resonates with the hero in the audience forever. ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (34:26)
yeah.

Yeah

Molly Geoghegan (34:47)
Yeah, presentation translation, mean, I don't think it's too often that we're moralizing stuff in the business world, I guess. Right? But I like what you wrote of unexpected opportunity. I think like this sort of like, ⁓ there's something we've been bestowed here. And it's kind of like our responsibility or maybe like a special moment to take advantage of it, right? ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (34:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think,

yeah, yeah, pretty, you know, topical with like AI adoption, disruptive tech, sort of a careful what you wish for, like, yes, rookie of the year, I'm gonna throw this heater, I'm gonna go to the World Series. But yeah, I better be careful also, just in case, hey, what if it's too good to be true? And so,

Molly Geoghegan (35:18)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (35:37)
So yeah, just almost like a cautionary tale as well. So it's like, hey, let's go forward with cautious optimism and let's make our wish, but let's be mindful of what kind of trail we're leaving behind us.

Molly Geoghegan (35:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Next is a fool triumphant. And this I relate to the rites of passage a lot, but maybe it's a little more exaggerated where it's like this kind of silly or like underestimated fool. I think the key is underestimated here underdog, pitted against an establishment, but proves their hidden value to everyone. Again, this could be like a special skill they might have, but they will ultimately like result in their triumph because of their foolery. Fool triumphant stories about heroes who don't fit in, but can teach us something about life. So.

Mikey Mioduski (36:04)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (36:21)
The innocence is their strength there, naivete.

Yeah. It's an underdog. Yeah, it's an underdog story. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (36:24)
Naivete, yeah. Forrest Gump, Legally Blonde. ⁓ Yeah. I liked what

he said in the chapter two about like, there's always like ⁓ someone in their story who does actively like almost like root against them or try to expose that this, this person is not for real, you know, but it always comes back to bite that person. Like he's not talking about like Lieutenant Dan is like, how this guy is an idiot. Does no one see this? And yet he keeps doing these incredible things.

Molly Geoghegan (36:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (36:53)
And so yeah, of just underdog keeps outperforming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (36:58)
Or Peewee, Herman, like, it's kind of like, he's just kind of a dummy, like so beloved, like everybody goes, like he's frustrating people, but it's ultimately like really beloved.

Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (37:08)
Yeah, maybe it's also

like, I think there's a lot of industries where everyone is so much in an eco chamber ⁓ that when an outsider comes in, like I was just learning about Wyden and Kennedy, like Dan Wyden, his story, you know, arguably they're the greatest advertising agency that's ever ever been around. They're still independent, which is one thing. Everyone else gets absorbed by the big, you know, roll up companies.

Molly Geoghegan (37:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (37:38)
But he talked early about their days, like, we just tried to figure it out. ⁓ that's, and so they didn't necessarily just copy paste from what they thought they should be doing. And they just tried to figure it out. And so I think there is that new blood, fresh eyes in an existing industry that can be disruptive. And so it's kind of like a challenger type brand story, a startup story as well.

Molly Geoghegan (37:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. ⁓ And the last one that he has on his list here is ⁓ the whodunit. And this is a, you know, knives out, this is a mystery, murder mystery detective thing. ⁓ I think there's a case for like, it doesn't always have to be a murder, I suppose, like could just be a mystery, something that's unsolved that keeps us really like tucked in of like, you know, what's gonna happen next. ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (38:11)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (38:30)
Most importantly, and Blake's saying is like the hero or detective pursues the case where the real puzzle is why the case proves so compelling. It's not necessarily like what the case is itself usually uncovers something

Mikey Mioduski (38:38)
Okay.

Molly Geoghegan (38:40)
deeper. The investigation into the dark side of humanity is often an investigation into ourselves for good who done it to turn the X-ray machine back on us and ask like, are we the E like, how did we let this happen in the first place? So it usually uncovers something deeper.

Mikey Mioduski (38:41)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay. Okay.

Molly Geoghegan (38:56)
I think in a, hopefully there's not too many presentation translations for this. ⁓ Yeah, maybe you wrote down like investigation or root cause, like yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (39:02)
Yeah. Yeah,

pretty straightforward. Like a market research, customer behavior analysis, like strategy decks, like what's the root cause? What are some customer insights? You know, discovery and then revealing a final explanation.

Molly Geoghegan (39:10)
Yeah, like what's going on?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, yes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, chapter two is a great, and he insists that genre and the shapes of story are so important because when you are talking to someone about your story, but they don't have time to read the whole script, it's really important to be like, this is Jaws meets Legally Blonde. Being able to hold up a container that is universal and will tell people what it is. I so remember we've talked about pitching Mikey with ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (39:31)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (39:47)
people comparing their business to be like, it's Airbnb for home cooked foods. Like having this sort of very clear and universal comparison so that people can plug it into their mind right away. ⁓ And of course, like being conscious of who you're talking to to make sure those containers are familiar, but I think it is helpful to have a genre or a shape. It's up to you to become like an expert in your genre or shape as well.

Mikey Mioduski (39:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And then knowing the

different options you have could help you decide.

Hey, is this budget proposal a monster in the house kind of story or, you know, our strategy roadmap? Are we chasing something golden fleece? ⁓ So yeah, just that's why we're going to put in the notes eventually our little cheat sheet for you from presentation thinking with love and rest in peace. Blake Snyder. went too soon. I'm sure he would have loved to update this for the new era of streaming and all the new new studios putting out their own stuff because I'm sure it's a lot different. We're not just

Molly Geoghegan (40:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes, could be really helpful. ⁓

with hoof.

Yes, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (40:46)
going for box office anymore, right?

Molly Geoghegan (40:48)
Yeah,

definitely, I know. Very different world. All right, well, we can, wait, quick note. Do you want to do chapter three or should we end here and kind of save it for the part two? I think, I feel like it makes sense. Yeah, this good. Okay, well, presentation nation, ⁓ this has been another installment of the presentation thinking book club and.

Mikey Mioduski (40:57)
Yeah, let's save, let's do a part two. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (41:08)
We will continue to read about all of these. mean, we have our, share publicly our list actually, Mikey, our book list, so that if you want to read along with us and you have a book recommendation, let us know. But stay tuned for part two of Save the Cat, Save the Cats.

Mikey Mioduski (41:14)
Yeah.

Say the cats will be diving into what his beat structure. He's got a very specific structure to writing a screenplay.

Molly Geoghegan (41:27)
Yeah, next thing, yeah. We're gonna talk

about obstacles, beach structure, storyboarding. ⁓ I think these, and some immutable laws of screenplay physics as Blake says. I really think there's some, this is very useful for mapping out a presentation specifically, explicit connections there, so stay tuned. ⁓ Yeah, thanks, Pres.

Mikey Mioduski (41:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, Molly.

And thank you, listener, for tuning in. And until we meet again, this is Mikey and Molly. Keep on pitching.

Molly Geoghegan (41:58)
Keep on pitching.

All right, we did it.