Book Club: Save the Cat! (Part 2)

Mikey Mioduski (00:02)
Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA the Storyteller Study Club, the podcast digging deep into the strategy, art and science of storytelling and business presentations everywhere. I'm Mikey.

Molly Geoghegan (00:16)
I'm Molly and welcome to presentation thinking. this, yeah, okay, let's try it again. Yeah. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (00:21)
Let's redo that, Molly, because we don't have to, if I just, yeah, all welcome, and then

if you're like, and I'm Molly, and today's an episode for blank, what do think? Okay, cool, cool, cool. All right.

Molly Geoghegan (00:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that.

Nice and tight.

Mikey Mioduski (00:37)
Thanks, John. Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA the Storyteller Study Club. This is a podcast digging deep into the strategic, hold on. Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA the Storyteller Study Club, the podcast that digs deep into the strategy, art, and science of storytelling and presentations everywhere. I'm Mikey Medusky.

Molly Geoghegan (00:59)
and I'm Molly Gagan and this is an episode for film nerds, writers, presenters, and anyone that is working with Slideware, AKA PowerPoint, Google Slides, Canva, Figma, stay tuned. We've got a good episode for you.

Mikey Mioduski (01:14)
Yes, right.

And we you might have heard us an episode or two ago talk about the first bit of Blake Snyder's Save the Cat, the last book on screenwriting that you'll ever need. And this is part two where we're to talk about his kind of his fourth and fifth chapter, his own beat structure ⁓ and which I love. Chapter four starts out just structure, structure, structure. It's everything. And we're going to talk about this.

Molly Geoghegan (01:33)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (01:43)
kind of proprietary unique structure formula that he came up with. It's got like 15 parts, Molly, and we're gonna kinda, I don't know, go through it beat by beat. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (01:50)
Yes.

There's so much presentation alignment. This is the episode where,

you know, this is book club after your friends have chatted for one part of the book for too long and we just got so excited. Even though this book was published in 2005, Mikey, I feel like there's just so much presentation structure alignment, specifically in the latter half of the book that I think really aligns with how people create presentations and keynotes and the arc of the story and like the actual tactical being like.

Mikey Mioduski (02:11)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (02:20)
by slide 10, you need to have established XYZ. he says like, of course how that translates into screenplay is what page number of the screenplay. Worth noting for just for context, Mikey, Blake Snyder wrote this book to sell screenplays. Like he's like, I love indie art. We said this in the first episode, but ⁓ this is ultimately to get the studios interested and sell. He was one of the most successful spec script, ⁓ script writers. A spec script is one that isn't commissioned. So it just goes out into the.

Mikey Mioduski (02:34)
Right. you

Molly Geoghegan (02:50)
library of scripts to be sold and found by producers. And so this is a recipe for success we're looking for. It's not necessarily the most avant-garde storytelling.

Mikey Mioduski (02:55)
Yeah.

No, and yeah, so I think he just embraces the concept that, hey, three acts, it's a thing for a reason, you know? And when he had his career breakthrough, it's that revelation where he kept running up against

Molly Geoghegan (03:08)
the recipe.

Mikey Mioduski (03:22)
Sorry, John. Blake had this breakthrough in his career where he decided, hey, like he kept having meetings that didn't go well, where he thought he had a great idea. He kept pitching scenes, but it didn't really go anywhere until he had a breakthrough. I forget who he cites. read Sid Field. Do you know that name? ⁓ Some famous, I guess, screenwriter. Okay, okay.

Molly Geoghegan (03:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, author, yes, Sid Field, screenwriter

and author. Sid Field, Mikey, is who I read in film school. I didn't, I never read Save the Cat, but Sid Field I read. Foundations of Screenwriting.

Mikey Mioduski (03:50)
Okay, because. Okay, so,

okay, and his he calls his opus, ⁓ I guess it must be a book called screenplay. ⁓ Okay, so then I guess Blake goes on and says, Look, the where he turned from, you know, struggling to highly successful was when he just fully embraced structure. ⁓ It all comes together and how you execute and realize structure.

Molly Geoghegan (04:01)
It is. Yep.

Mikey Mioduski (04:18)
It is a skill you must know. So Molly, since we're presentation thinkers, we're trying to connect the dots to all these other industries and avenues that could make us better communicators at work. ⁓ Screenwriting comes up time and time again. And so today you and I are kind of framework geeks. so, ⁓ you know, like we want to add this one to our repertoire and see what like these 15 beats of Blake Snyder's are all about. And turns out like they're pretty, you know.

Molly Geoghegan (04:39)
Yes.

Be cheap.

Mikey Mioduski (04:46)
Once you hear them, you're like, yeah, hey, they have a lot in common with other structures that we've seen.

Molly Geoghegan (04:51)
Mm-hmm,

yeah, they'll feel a lot of familiarity with other things, other story structures and shapes. Yeah, so he opens up with chapter four and he's ultimate, this is like, this is the meat, like we're talking about the meat of your story. We've already established like the commander's intent, if you will, the North Star for Blake, it's the log line of a movie, right, the ethos of what it is. But now we're like, how do we do that?

We gotta get like, how do we get there? And this is the recipe of index cards of ingredients in the recipe. And this is where we're also putting obstacles in front of everything. We've introduced the characters, but now we're putting like them in different situations and remove it. But each of these situations needs to be moving the whole of the story in the movie along. And how do we do that? It's something called a beat is kind of, I guess I'm sure filmmakers would debate if it's synonymous with a scene, but a beat is like, a moment.

Mikey Mioduski (05:28)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (05:46)
of

Mikey Mioduski (05:46)
Okay.

Molly Geoghegan (05:47)
I think a beat could be comprised of a few scenes, I would argue, because a beat is like this, it's establishing something. We're either having an emotional charge moving up or an emotional knock. We're going down where someone's like, ⁓ man, there's another, there's another thing I have to overcome. there's, you know, I have to pay off, like I've lots of characters are like, now I owe this guy $500 or something. There's always something pushing them down, but also moving them along in their quest and their journey. So.

Mikey Mioduski (06:05)
Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (06:15)
there's a plus or a minus after each beat, right?

Mikey Mioduski (06:18)
yeah. And is that like a nod to music or something? Like just like the rhythm, the, I don't know, the case, yeah, whatever.

Molly Geoghegan (06:23)
That's a good question. I mean, it's a

nod to, mean, oh my God, how many story structures have we studied where people say, Nancy Duarte, right? Ups and downs, ups and downs. It has to be a roller coaster. It can't just be a flat line, because then you're dead. Yeah, yeah, so boring. I think, I mean, yeah, music. Wow, Mikey, that's a good unlock there. Yeah, you've got to have a, yeah, it's got to go up and down, because otherwise you aren't going anywhere.

Mikey Mioduski (06:37)
Yeah. That's insanely boring. Yeah. It's the beat. Okay. ⁓

Yeah.

I think our natural urge, which he even calls out, is to fight against something as rigid as saying, your catalyst should come on page 12 of your 110 page ⁓ screenplay. ⁓ my inclination would be like, I'm a creative, I'm not gonna follow some plug and play, paint by number BS. ⁓ But this is one of those instances where I think when we understand the rules, that's when you have liberty to break them. And so I think,

Molly Geoghegan (07:04)
Yeah, he has.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mikey Mioduski (07:23)
I think this is fine advice. And I do like it. I mean, if you really were, I have an idea for a movie. I'm going to just try jotting it up. This might be a really cool, almost like way to get over the blank page syndrome. Just follow the Blake Snyder, you know, 110 page beat structure.

Molly Geoghegan (07:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yeah, I love it. So the first one he comes up with ⁓ and this is yeah, not to be this is supposed this is in sequential order people, right? This is a visual that represents the struggle and tone of the story a snapshot of the main character's problem before the adventure begins I feel like there's a lot of ways you can set up the the tone of a presentation but I think for a present how it might translate in presentation is just a beautiful billboard to get us started or like I'm about to start talking

There's probably a logo present. Yeah, what do you think, Mikey? I know he talks a lot about ⁓ the Legally Blonde intro and the montage of like pink. We've got like very feminine, girly, and we're like getting introduced to like the tone. It's high school. ⁓ so we're getting school, we're getting a young girl, and we're getting like who she is as a person, what's valuable to her.

Mikey Mioduski (08:16)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

I it's it 100 % is all about establishing what this thing what are we in for here? Just with by showing typically right and it's yeah all the aesthetical treatments is this gonna be

goofy, scary, funny. Animal House, cites, you know, like the panning shot of favorite college and the school's motto, knowledge is good on a statue or whatever, right? Like, okay, this is gonna be a little, yeah, bizarre. Yeah, so boom, opening image, probably pretty quick. And then we, he talks about like stating the theme. It's called Theme Stated by Chapter, or page five.

Molly Geoghegan (08:59)
Yes.

Yeah, just... quirky.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (09:23)
somewhere in the first five minutes of a well-structured screenplay, someone, usually not the main character, will pose a question or make a statement that's sort of like the theme of the movie. Like, be careful what you wish for type thing. I think, yeah, that's like, I assume, Molly, you, me, listeners, we're gonna go watch a movie this weekend and be like, yep, boom, he's totally right.

Molly Geoghegan (09:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you can just say, you can say so much with visuals. ⁓ people like, when you hear people presenting, they're using that time to say with words, be like, hey, this is, I'm Molly, I'm from Ghost Ranch, this is what I'm gonna be talking to you about today. Like that's theme established for sure, but that's what you're saying. You don't have to put that on the slide. The visual representation should be the tone of like who you are. Is it a fun, yeah, is it funny? Is it really branded?

Mikey Mioduski (09:50)
you

Yeah.

Mm hmm. Thematic premise. That is the big idea, right? And it's like we're and you're kind of hanging it up here and hey, the rest of this talk is or this film is going to be about this theme. ⁓ And I think also.

Molly Geoghegan (10:15)
⁓ Yeah, how does it fit into the visual story?

Yeah, it's the big idea.

Mikey Mioduski (10:33)
these kind of correlate to like any, you know, we watch so many Ted talks and I think that's usually stated Molly probably within the first minute of an 18 minute talk. ⁓ and then zooming out, I guess he, I guess the opening image, the theme stated are with live within what he calls the setup, which is really the first 10 pages of a script or the first dozen. ⁓ it's just called the setup.

Molly Geoghegan (10:42)
Mm-hmm.

for sure. 60 seconds or less.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (11:03)
And

what's the what's really like the point of a setup, Molly?

Molly Geoghegan (11:07)
Yeah,

it's supposed to give you the background and the context. So you're like, and you hear this again with we hear this. So within the first 90 to 120 seconds of a TED talk, often where someone's like, so what I do, I'm a you know, I'm a psychological scientist. And what that means is x, y, z. And I went to school doing this. What I'm really interested in is in is how people make decisions, right? We hear we hear like a little bit of a story. And that's like to give them the background and the context.

Mikey Mioduski (11:31)
Yeah.

Okay.

Molly Geoghegan (11:36)
in a movie,

you're not gonna have a character look at the camera and tell you all that, but there's so many, so many fun ways. I think that's why screenwriting can be really fun because you can show, you can show things and like, can get so creative where you're like, you're learning so much about a character within the first few scenes, how they talk to people and they're like, well, this is the last day of school. So I have to do this. And like, have you applied to, I'm worried about my college applications. And there's like, there's all this background and context. You're like,

Mikey Mioduski (11:49)
Okay. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.

Molly Geoghegan (12:05)
I'm not sure if I'm gonna pass my last class. You're like, is this person a good student? This person is or is not interested in college. This is how they feel about the future. Maybe their parents are annoying them, like their siblings, they have a weird relationship with their siblings. It could be anything. But all of that can be shown within scenes. And again, this is on the overarching beat ⁓ of the opening image, themes stated, and the setup. And they come in this order, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (12:10)
Yeah.

⁓ Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

And OK, I was ingrained by years of Moana on.

Repeat as you know, ⁓ so like I i'm seeing this in my head now. It's like opening image like island island vibes a polynesian life, right? ⁓ theme stated like she's butting heads with her father. She's supposed to take over She's not sure if she wants to she she thinks there's bigger bigger things outside of this little island and Yeah, but the setup the background the context is all about just life. What is life like on an island? So that's it's all

Molly Geoghegan (12:40)
Yes, you could fill it. Yes, we should do this specifically with Moana. Yeah.

And it's fun, yeah.

Yes.

Yes, there's something hanging in the air.

Mikey Mioduski (13:07)
This is their their status quo, right? This is who these people are. Next up is the catalyst. We're still in the setup. You know, act one. The catalyst is when things just have to change, right? And Blake Snyder's first pet peeve in film is when the character isn't given that save the cat moment for us to like them early. It sounds like his second make or break moment in screen and film is a catalyst. Something has to change and

Molly Geoghegan (13:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (13:37)
You know, think Will Storr in the science of storytelling, he pretty much says like, story is basically just something changed, you know, and this is where it all kind of starts.

Molly Geoghegan (13:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And the world, the difference between establishing the old world, the current world and the new world is that whatever's happening is changing something in a way that like nothing will be the same again. And certainly this character won't. And that if we don't have the buy-in as Blake says of like wanting to cheer for the character, even if they're an anti-hero, then we don't care. We don't care where they're going. We don't care whether they do it. But by then we have to have established like rapport.

Mikey Mioduski (13:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yes.

Molly Geoghegan (14:12)
So if you think about this in the way of, well, Moana, okay, we'll come back to the island, right? Her grandma dies, right?

And it's sad, she had such a core relationship and there's this power associated with her grandma, magical, ancestral power that she's like, I gotta follow this, this urge. And in a presentation, it's obviously not as dramatic as that.

Mikey Mioduski (14:33)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (14:41)
But you are at that point bringing the audience with you. You're like, I've established who I am, what I'm here for. And I'm like, there's something that I couldn't sit home at about anymore. I had to invent this thing. I had to launch this product. This is why I'm a talk, or why I'm a

Mikey Mioduski (14:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (15:02)
speaker, and I'm on the stage today. Come along with me. Here's the experiment that I did for five years, and here's what we learned about it and why you should hear about it today.

Mikey Mioduski (15:09)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (15:11)
So there's kind of this like, away we go, let us step out into the fiery temptress of night. Doesn't that what Dumbledore says, something like that at some point. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's, yeah, they get so many wizards. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (15:15)
⁓ yeah. Yeah. ⁓ show me the meaning of haste. was Gandalf. So many wizards. ⁓ And yeah, really, Grandma Tala was one of these wizard as we as we know. So, yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (15:33)
Yeah, RIP.

Mikey Mioduski (15:35)
And so, okay, you live in this wonderful world, your coconuts start turning black. You're like, whoa, this is not good. We can't live like this. Your grandma dies. So we're into the debate section actually. Like the Moana of sorts has realized like, whoa, stuff is kind of messed up. And it's kind of that call to action moment where the hero is like, yo, I gotta go. I kinda like they were asked literally by their dying grandma to go fix this.

Molly Geoghegan (15:41)
Yeah, oof.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (16:04)
But

before jumping right in, Blake proposes, you know, a good 10, 15 pages called the debate. And that is where they actually, the hero has to decide if they're able to do this or not. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (16:07)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

that it's gonna be worth it. Because a

lot of times we see main characters be like, especially if it's like, yeah, something risky and we perceive the main character as someone that's not risky or someone that maybe is just like, doesn't want their world to change. Barbie is like, I'm not interested in the journey. I think they literally do this with Barbie, right? She gives her the two shoes, the high heel or the Birkenstock. And she's like, no, I don't want my world to change.

Mikey Mioduski (16:31)
Yeah.

⁓ That's the debate,

that's right. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (16:44)
And that's the debate. And that's

like a clear example of it, like actually being written into the script where he's like, no, the main character doesn't want it to change. And what does Kate McKinnon, the weird Barbie do? He's like, you actually have to pick this for the story to work. you have to, it's, cause otherwise the story would in there. And this is what's known as the inciting incident ⁓ for screenwriters. And Blake says like, there has to be, ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (16:48)
Yeah.

No, yeah, yeah

Right.

Molly Geoghegan (17:09)
yeah, this is a moment for them to say the character doubts the journey they must take, can they face it? This is the last chance for the hero to chicken out and they can't take it. Like there has to be something that happens where they're backed into a corner and there's no other choice. Yeah. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (17:16)
Yeah. Yeah, it's. And they have to make the choice, though they can't be kind of eased in and suddenly they're doing this thing, but it's like, all right, I got to do it. Boom. And now we're into chapter.

⁓ Section two, act two. And did you pick up on this? Blake calls, he doesn't call it act one, act two, act three. ⁓ He calls it thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, which is like brilliant. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (17:33)
Act two, yes.

Yeah. I was, yeah, I noticed that. Yeah. And he, and he's big on the first part of act two and I'm still

in my head and yeah, the thesis, anti-thesis there's act two in my mind, the second part is broken into two parts. And he even says that later in the next chapter with storyboarding where he's like, you should mark your first act with one strip of masking tape on the cork board. And then act two is in two parts.

Mikey Mioduski (17:56)
Yeah. ⁓ huh.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (18:10)
the part before the midpoint, the part after the midpoint, and then there's Act Three, which he calls Act Three the, ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (18:13)
Ooh.

Molly Geoghegan (18:17)
what is the

Mikey Mioduski (18:18)
Synthesis? Yeah. And something changed too, right? I love that, yeah. ⁓ Gephtin Lee gonna steal it and not even attribute it. It's like, here's this thing I thought, no. Yeah, so we are into, the fun in games is where you, you know, like I guess you've launched, you've decided after much debate if you're gonna do it.

Molly Geoghegan (18:19)
Synthesis, thank you. Yeah, because then it all ties together. So I really, I had not heard that before. I really liked those. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sorry, Blake.

Yes, I love this.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (18:47)
you're gonna break into two. And so here we're off and you know, you think you have an approach and you go into what's called fun and games. And this is sort of the slap happy part where you're like, hey, we're on our adventure. You know, it's like, I think of like ⁓ Tommy boy when they're on the road, they're having their fun trials and errors, you know, this is where kind of the fun happens. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (18:50)
Yeah, we're breaking it into two.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, this is where Gimli and all the ⁓ dwarves

show up and are causing kind of a funny ruckus, but they're going along with Bilbo on his journey. And this is often, yeah, and maybe they're introduced a little bit in act one, but this is where he talks about the plot A and plot B. The kind of sub characters are, even though they're kind of funny, they are contributing to moving the story along and usually contributing to the main character's arc as well. So the fun in games is like,

Mikey Mioduski (19:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (19:41)
You're seeing other types of people, other types of character doing stuff differently. Moana, she gets introduced to her little weird chicken, right? The rooster? The pig?

Mikey Mioduski (19:49)
Yeah. And they're out and they, she starts this adventure. She fights these coconut people. She meets Maui.

Molly Geoghegan (19:59)
Yeah,

Maui.

Mikey Mioduski (20:00)
Um,

they go and meet this like big crab dude. So yeah, lots of adventures, um, until we had kind of like a midpoint, um, which is awesome. Like, but it's a big turning point insight. Uh, and it's funny. Blake said when he was like really studying this stuff, he was driving a lot between Santa Barbara in LA, which at the time apparently took about an hour and a half. I'd be surprised if it takes that. But he said like,

Molly Geoghegan (20:05)
Mm-hmm.

Probably double now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (20:29)
What

do you, and this is when he would listen to tape cassettes and he said, you got 45 minutes per side and he would record the audio of films that he watched just to kind of study and see if this really worked against structure. And turns out the good ones right at about the, like the time where he hit the top of this hill and was halfway to Santa Barbara would kind of strike this midpoint. And that's where, what, there's kind of the momentum might kind of shift in the story.

Molly Geoghegan (20:39)
Yeah.

Yes, definitely. And this is where the fun and games kind of do take on. There's always been a nugget of truth of what the main character's after, what they're doing. Yeah, Moana finding her, finding her voice, right? Isn't that what she said? The call of the ocean, answering the call. ⁓ And, but they, something like is ultimately like, now they're, they might be in danger, something is afoot that's bigger than what they initially set out for. And...

Mikey Mioduski (21:14)
Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Molly Geoghegan (21:27)
Blake writes, dependent on the story, the moment is when everything is great or everything is awful. So the main

Mikey Mioduski (21:32)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (21:32)
character either gets everything they think they want and they're feeling great, but, or they don't, but they're not like there's something underlying that's bad or doesn't get what they think they want and it's all feeling awful. So not everything we think we want is what we actually need. There's like, this is where we start to flip things.

Mikey Mioduski (21:48)
Yeah, like the stakes ratchet up at this midpoint.

okay, it's not like it was a false summit, but S kind of gets real, you know, and then because that's shortly followed shortly after by what he calls bad guys close in. And here we are, like, this is pages 55 to 75 of 110 page script. And again, Molly, this does track toward like, again, I keep thinking of a Ted talk or something, but yeah, it's

Molly Geoghegan (21:55)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It's moving quick.

Yes.

Mikey Mioduski (22:17)
You know, like the debate is kind of where you kind of like propose, hey, almost like a new question. You decided to go for this new study. So we conducted this new study in the fun and games. Like we were trying these experiments. We were starting to really see something work out. But then, you know, we realized we started to see this pattern. What's going on?

Molly Geoghegan (22:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of times

with like a research Ted talk we've noticed is that someone's initial experiment will uncover a nugget they weren't expecting. And then they've conducted a second experiment based on that nugget. And that's where the core of their talk essentially comes from is like this quote unquote newer discovery. We see it with like these cool and interesting like confidence, like psychology of confidence and body language and stuff. There's always kind of like a second.

Mikey Mioduski (22:46)
Uh-huh. Exactly. Yep. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (23:05)
tier of the science TED Talks. think that's so interesting. Science is lending itself nicely to storytelling there. But yeah, so now on his beat sheet, again, we're at the midpoint

Mikey Mioduski (23:08)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (23:15)
and we're halfway through the antithesis section, AKA act two. So now we've got bad guys closing. This, you know, I think would be interesting ⁓ to see, I could see this more aligned in a presentation world with a

Mikey Mioduski (23:21)
Yep.

Molly Geoghegan (23:33)
within an investor or fundraising pitch deck where there's so many obstacles. This is where we're like, we're even just ratchet, as you said, Mikey, like we're ratcheting it up. Like there's bigger risks, there's bigger obstacles. The bad guy kidnapped your mom. Like, uh-oh, like it's worse than you thought.

Mikey Mioduski (23:44)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Molly Geoghegan (23:48)
⁓ Again, in a fundraising pitch deck, a lot of times the obstacles are things that have been tried that have like, have already not worked. Like we've tried this, it didn't work. We tried this, it didn't work. So you're really like.

Mikey Mioduski (23:55)
Mm-hmm.

Molly Geoghegan (24:00)
ratcheting up the stakes of being like, this is why my thing or this, this organization is the solution that we need right now in this moment. So there's this kind of, there's an ante that you're queuing up.

Mikey Mioduski (24:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think I could even see this as like some one of those big inspirational keynoters coming into your user conference or like, you know, we talked about Diana Nyad's swim across Florida. This is where the either like the bad guys regroup and send in even heavier artillery or

Molly Geoghegan (24:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mikey Mioduski (24:33)
where there's like internal dissent, you're doubting yourself, there's jealousy, the group starts to disintegrate, the morale shifts. And then it gets even worse. When now, like all is lost. What does he call this? It's like the, where the mentor goes to die. It's like, ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (24:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, when you think

Yeah, something, yeah, was

like truly because you're setting this person up after the all is lost, then it's the dark night. And this is the moment of like, there has to be like a character reflection. And it's like, what have I done wrong? My core wound from that I knew about from the beginning has the reason this is like, this has failed. There has, but there's, but this sets them up because if you think about our pluses and minuses, Mikey, we've had a few nice steady ones leading up to this, but now we are like.

Mikey Mioduski (24:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (25:18)
down for the count. So we've had a few minuses that put us down here. So the reason that's so important is to really pull it down is so that when you come back up, it's all it's so much more satisfying. So we've had these, ⁓ Blake calls them emotional changes, each scene and scenes contributing to the beats, of course, again, should have at the end of each one should establish an emotional change in a negative way or a positive way. And

Mikey Mioduski (25:21)
Boom boom, yeah.

Mm-hmm

Molly Geoghegan (25:44)
Right now, we've had a few hits, so we are like, ⁓ my

Mikey Mioduski (25:46)
Yeah

Molly Geoghegan (25:47)
God. So we know as storytellers, we're like, we're due for the win. How is he gonna put it together? And we might be predicting at this point, who knows, but that's where we're waiting for the character to uncover it themselves.

Mikey Mioduski (25:52)
Yep.

He even, yeah, just the darkest before dawn type thing where he even calls it the whiff of death, but like, ⁓ it's just as low as it gets in the story. Even in the movie Elf, which is like slap happy, the most jolly movie, know, even poor Will Ferrell's character like just like takes blow after blow. His own father just like, he like craps on him and he's just like on his own. It's so sad.

Molly Geoghegan (26:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's like.

Mikey Mioduski (26:27)
There's a whiff of death.

Molly Geoghegan (26:27)
And Christmas, yeah, he's resigned. It's also a moment where sometimes the hero in that moment, even the most childlike adult elf walking around New York

City has resigned on Christmas. And the only reason that he comes back in to be like, all right, let's save Christmas is from the help of a different character. So there's from his like stepbrother.

Mikey Mioduski (26:38)
Yeah.

⁓ Is that how you break into three?

Is it is that is that the transition into act three?

Molly Geoghegan (26:52)
Yeah, there's,

and that's the transition. Yeah, there has to be like a new revelation, a new plan or synthesis. And again, this puts us into the synthesis, AKA act three ⁓ for Blake. Yeah. So after this reflection and the tension, and as you said, the mourning, the loss of what has died, the dream, the goal, or the mentor character, thanks to a fresh idea, new inspiration, or last minute thematic advice from the B story. Again, there has to be those characters contributing.

Mikey Mioduski (27:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (27:22)
⁓ Blake says usually the love interest and that can be true, but I think there's so we've seen obviously tons of examples where that's no longer true.

Mikey Mioduski (27:31)
And he does

kind of show that he calls out a few examples where a love interest isn't what you think it is. It's like, it could just be the relationship, you know, between someone and some things or an idea. ⁓ yeah. So yeah. Right.

Molly Geoghegan (27:38)
be bad too.

Yes, yes, it doesn't have to be the literal definition of love.

It's like this kind of like something you thought you were, you got famous and it wasn't what you thought it was, right? And now all your friends have abandoned you and like the fame could be the love, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (27:51)
Yeah.

Yeah. In Miss Congeniality, he talks about, it's

not about Sandra Bullock and that, that one dude. It's about her and these, this group of women who she actually starts to like really form a, yeah, that friendship with. So this is when it's a new plan. Like, as you said, like there's man, just when you thought all was lost, you have no path forward. In comes the help reunited. Grandma Tala comes back is like, yo,

Molly Geoghegan (28:02)
Yeah, forms a friendship with and care about. Yes, exactly. That's a great example.

Mm-hmm.

Yes,

yes.

Mikey Mioduski (28:23)
Here's

the stone. You need this green thing, man. ⁓ Yeah, and so here you are. And then, kakak, here comes back. Maui's back too. Now we got a new plan. We're gonna go through the volcano queen. then, now this is getting fun. And now we're into the finale.

Molly Geoghegan (28:26)
I was searching the ocean to find you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

and now we're still watching. We're like, my God, if I, and if you let that, I think that's a good point. Sometimes, this is more with the avant garde or more like artful films. Sometimes if that dark night lasts too long, I'm like, sheesh, this is depressing. I'm like, let's get it going. Like get this person to therapy. All right, I need the solution. So the synthesis is usually really exciting. This is the detect, in the detective story, there's that.

Mikey Mioduski (28:50)
Yeah

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (29:06)
one piece of evidence that was overlooked and is finally uncovered, right? And that gets us into Act 3 and they're running.

Mikey Mioduski (29:09)
yeah. call. Yeah. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (29:13)
So yeah, new plan and the, what does he call it? The synthesis, fresh idea, new inspiration. ⁓ And this time around for the finale beat, the main character incorporates the theme. Again, this should like relate almost explicitly black to your log line and log line being your North Star of a presentation if you're like,

Mikey Mioduski (29:16)
Yeah. Mm.

Molly Geoghegan (29:34)
What's the point of this presentation? You should have already had that in a single line. So your finale should speak to that directly. Same words, almost you could use same copy. The repetition really comes in here, right, Mikey?

Mikey Mioduski (29:45)
Yeah.

And when I think of like a sales deck, is this line kind of hits me. the finale entails the dispatching of all the bad guys in ascending order. Lieutenants and henchmen die first, then the boss. This reminds me like any good sales deck is all about like we set up these hurdles, these obstacles, these problems that our audience is struggling with. And then when we finally, finally get to our resolution section, like our solutions, we take down

Molly Geoghegan (30:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mikey Mioduski (30:14)
those bad guys one by one. like, remember how you're using too many tools? Boom, we consolidated. Boom. And then you go through each of those, let's say there's three major hurdles, but then the boss is probably that just big concept like Salesforce when they came out with no software. So they had little features that were the henchmen, but the big concept is like, let's take down the boss. There's no more CD-ROMs that you have to install software on. We're cloud, right?

Molly Geoghegan (30:30)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (30:43)
And

so that's really the theme stated is resolved. The bow, the big idea concept that is pulled through this whole baby is we took down the big bows.

Molly Geoghegan (30:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mikey, I'm thinking of our Steve Jobs coverage. You can tune in, presentation thinkers, our series of covering every Steve Jobs keynote ever presented. And one of them with his 1998, I believe, or 97, introduction of the iMac, where he talks about the three most, like, biggest complaints about desktop computers at the time. And he, for the big finale, as he reveals, he knocks out those three big problems. He's like, makes it really obvious that...

Mikey Mioduski (31:11)
Yeah. huh.

Molly Geoghegan (31:21)
⁓ And even like does the demos right showing how fast the videos load on on the iMac versus the model of ⁓ Yeah, I'm sure it was a some kind of Microsoft computer at the time But I was it was another one that wasn't even Microsoft that is like out of business But anyway, yeah, and so I think there's there's something about saving your your final trick for this moment In your in your experience of keynoting my heat and your and we've so much about repetition. Is this where you

Mikey Mioduski (31:28)
Right. Yeah. It was like the other fastest computer on the market at the time.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (31:49)
How much are you putting in your big idea here, like rules of repetition?

Mikey Mioduski (31:57)
yeah. I mean in a good one it is you have sort of a summary section but then like icing on the cake style. I don't know your drum beat theme is I don't know somehow wrapped up so I don't know I think it needs to be restated. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (32:11)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah, restated

a couple different times in a couple different ways. I think you can use a couple of slides here. And he gets into this in the next chapter, again, with like some tactical, I think these chapters are so useful for the slideware storyboarding piece because beats and scenes can align to slide so easily. But he says for each index card that represents a scene on your, yeah, either metaphorical or literal corkboard, could be Figma, Figma board, and you should have one line.

Mikey Mioduski (32:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (32:44)
stating the purpose of each scene contributing to the beat. And if you can't narrow it down to one line or if there's multiple lines and multiple purposes, break them out into multiple slides or build a build,

Mikey Mioduski (32:51)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (32:53)
build a build into the slide so that it doesn't have to overwhelm an audience. want one. By this point, like the ante should be should be rewarding them one little one little piece at a time and and setting that that finale up for them. The final beat, Mikey, is called the final image. And this is a vision of success.

where we can see it's the opposite of the opening image. Something has changed fundamentally. Even if the world looks the same, something has fundamentally changed with the main character or the main ethos of the story where it's like we can see that the arc has occurred. Maybe they don't care about what they first cared about or they do and they got it, but it means something a little different than what they thought. Like, you know, they make a choice that's obvious and they're like, you know, walking off into the sunset. ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (33:22)
⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (33:41)
Satisfied, right? A new change has occurred within. New world.

Mikey Mioduski (33:42)
Yeah. ⁓ I think the the most like visually memorable one for me is Inside Out where they're collecting memories.

They're very much like these are all separated. We want as much joy and the joy ones are a certain color. Sadness is a separate certain color. And then you save these like core memories. And so at the beginning they're separated at the by the end all these emotions realize hey like a core memory has many emotions all inside of it. So they're like multi colored right. And so I think that's a really wonderful I guess like final image where you show a transformation that's like.

Molly Geoghegan (33:52)
Yes.

Mm-hmm

We're integrated. Yes.

Mikey Mioduski (34:19)
quite like literally physically occurred. Yeah. ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (34:21)
Yeah, yeah, and we can embody it all, yes. That's like a literal, yeah, such a literal color coded representation. That's why that, I mean, yeah, and that's why that movie, I think got so,

I mean, yeah, to talk about like mental health, something that's hard visually to understand for kids, for young people and anybody. But like, yeah, I think that's just a really successful metaphor for that. Very cool. And for, yeah, and for your audience, again, this should be something you leave them with.

Mikey Mioduski (34:40)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (34:50)
that speaks to your core theme and also like that moment where I think people can have a call to action being like, this is what I learned from this and this is what you can go forth and take away today and this is why I need half a million dollars. So like that's the call to, there should be some kind of call to action there. And often when we leave a movie, we're like, if you are excited to like go tell someone about a movie when you leave it, like that's a call to action. Like you've done, they've done their work, you know.

Mikey Mioduski (34:52)
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah,

that's a good point, Molly. Like if the

the final image might not have happened in your world yet. So it could be a vision for future success and we paint that like art of what's possible. Let's go grab this, let's do this. It could be very inspiring and motivating. So yeah, I love that kind of framing that as a call to act.

Molly Geoghegan (35:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Definitely, definitely. And that thus concludes the 15 beats from Blake Snyder's Save the Cat beat sheet. Now, like I know we kind of rolled through those, but we can include them in a blog post to make it as clickable as possible for y'all to go look at. I'll include a couple of the resources I used on some, not only Blake's website is really organized with this, but there's a few, you know, film bloggers that have written about this. I'll link these in the spice cabinet.

Mikey Mioduski (36:01)
Yeah, there's yeah, I'm sure if you prompt Claude

or chat and just say, hey, yeah, like, hey, I just watched such and such movie. Does it follow Blake Snyder's 15 beats? And I bet it's like, ⁓ funny enough. Yeah. I know. Pop a Ted talk in there. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (36:08)
Give me,

Let's see the 15 beats, yeah. Diagnose the next movie you watch and then diagnose the next keynote you hear with the beat sheet. Very

interesting. And to say, mean, yeah, this was, I know a big focus on chapter four, Mikey, as ⁓ just to add like, and emboldened this, this chapter five is called Building the Perfect Beast. And so if you are really into and you're, if you're deep, knee deep in slideware right now and you're like, I have so many slides, I don't know how to order them.

This chapter, building from the beat sheet and how to map it all out is so helpful for the storyboarding. And we've talked about storyboarding slides. It's very, very useful. this is, and you know, chapter six, he just kind of gets into his, his immutable laws of screenplay physics. And there's just some really nice, ⁓ some universals to take away. Like he keeps emphasizing how ⁓ conflict should be primal and can a caveman understand like, ⁓ can a caveman understand what's happening? Like the struggle here.

Mikey Mioduski (36:47)
Yeah.

Ooh, yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (37:11)
⁓ So the conflict is primal and universal. Like someone's searching for their love. Like someone's lost something and they need to get it back. So there has to be this like deep piece of like, is that tension that I'm building? this, yeah, is this slide purpose that I'm establishing? Even though I'm the expert, can the audience that's not experts understand why it's important? So think about how to make something primal.

Mikey Mioduski (37:34)
Yeah, I think that that'd be sweet.

I want to see if there's any YouTube videos out there of people walking through that building the perfect beast, sort of like that storyboarding with cards, even like they color code them. And then, like you said, they had that little plus or minus on the cards.

Molly Geoghegan (37:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, the plus or minus,

so useful. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (37:52)
based on,

yeah, is it an emotional upper or downer in the story?

Molly Geoghegan (37:54)
Yeah,

when Mikey and I have built collaborative decks, love when we like label stuff like that, Mikey. We do a little code label. So don't be afraid to like throw a little shape in there and do a, what's that called? ⁓ Master view. So you can zoom out and see how many slides you're using within each section. Be like, all right, I've got a big red circle here for the intro. I've got, then it moves into this orange section and how many slides, beats, know, scenes in the beat that you're using to establish your.

Mikey Mioduski (38:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (38:24)
your Blake, thanks for writing it.

Mikey Mioduski (38:25)
Yeah, cool. ⁓ We are

squarely in the spice cabinet and Molly, I'm just gonna go ahead and say this. I think Blake Snyder's walkout song will be and could be Michael Jackson beat it. What think?

Molly Geoghegan (38:41)
Yeah, perfect. Yes.

I absolutely I think you're right. I he was a Michael Jackson fan. Blake. right. P. We won't get the chance to ask him, but there's plenty of film students still talking about Blake Snyder today. It made it on our list. There's a reason that these these things kind of ⁓ transcend time and and technology. was curious to see how how Save the Cat still still landed. So we'll link where you can read his book.

Mikey Mioduski (38:48)
yeah. ⁓

You

Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (39:11)
and some resources that we had as well ⁓ for Blake's work. And Presentation Nation, if you enjoyed this and you're into the book club vibe, send us a book on storytelling, screenwriting, presentations that you like. We've covered quite a few. We'll link our bookshelf list and ⁓ send it over, molly at ghostrange.com.

Mikey Mioduski (39:13)
That's right. And if you

are a storytelling nerd who wants to help level up your company, your team, your communication discipline.

Dates are open, registration's open for Story Camp 2026. Boulder, Colorado, we're gonna be out at the Chautauqua, incredibly beautiful area, access to trails. It's gonna be, truly feel like we're out in a beautiful surrounding. It's gonna be awesome, we've got some epic programming in store. So storycamp.com, registration's open, grab a spot while you can. Molly, this.

Molly Geoghegan (39:47)
Woo woo!

It's gonna be so nice.

Camp. Yeah.

Don't miss it.

Yeah, you won't want to

miss it. So we'll sell out.

Mikey Mioduski (40:12)
This has been

fun. I'm glad we finally knocked off Save the Cat. ⁓ We'll see what's next on our book list. ⁓ Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring about making better presentations. And Molly, what do you say? Until we meet again, keep on pitching.

Molly Geoghegan (40:15)
Yeah, I loved it.

In the meantime, keep on

pitching.