Screenplay Analysis

Screenplay Analysis

The Blake Ratings are based on my book Screenplay: The seven moments that will captivate your audience.

There are seven moments that make an audience take notice and pay attention to your story. The Blake Ratings establish how often these moments occur for every 10 minutes of screen time. The more often these moments occur, the more you will captivate your audience.

The Seven Moments In Screenwriting That Really Matter

"There is a secret method to captivating an audience that you don't know about. Screenwriting courses aren't discussing it, and you won't find it in books. Nor will they teach you this method in film school.

You can only learn this information right here, in this book. Keep reading; your screenwriting career depends on it. This information has never been discussed before." - Christian Blake

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If you would like me to establish Blake Ratings for your script, I will need the following:

Here is what I need in order to begin:

A digital file of the script in Word format (preferred), on CD-ROM. -OR- Seven hard copies of the script (8.5"x11", Courier, 12 point, 1.5" LeftMargin/ .5" RightMargin, 1/2" Top/Bottom, single-sided, 2 or 3 hole punched with brass brads).
Treatment (hard copy and/or a digital file in Word/PDF format)
Print and sign this Submission Release Form. Your script must be registered with the WGA.
A check payable to OMC for $2,500. If your script exceeds 100 pages, add $35 per each additional page.
Mail all of the above to: P.O. Box 166, Zephyr Cove, NV 89448

Please email me at contact @ christianblake.com prior to submitting your script.

SAMPLE SCRIPT WITH MY NOTES

Once I have reviewed your script, I will provide you with Blake Ratings for your screenplay along with hard copies of your script with my notes. I will also elaborate on the strongest and weakest scenes within your script. If you do not submit your script in Word format, you will receive a copy of your script with my handwritten notes.

* I reserve the right to refuse any submissions. Make sure your script is in proper screenplay format!

* All calculations are based on the above page specifications.

* Each script takes approximately 30 man hours to properly establish ratings.

* I will keep a copy of your script with the signed release form for my own records.

* If possible, please submit your script in Word format.

I will do the following for your screenplay:

Provide a numerical analysis of the seven moments throughout your script
Find the three weakest scenes (and I'll explain why)
Find the three strongest scenes
Expose weak dialogue
Expose irrelevant information and/or unnecessary character details
Expose storyline inconsistencies

In addtion to the above items, I will also:

Recommend scenes that should be eliminated altogether (and explain why)
Provide suggestions on how you can strengthen your best scenes

Explaining, Pushing, Plotting, and Dialogue % are the most significant indicators between successful and non-successful movies. If you want a successful film, you need to have ratings equal to or higher than:

Every film will have Introductions, Reunions, and Goodbyes; however, not every film will combine these moments with conflict, humor, or discoveries. If you want to strengthen these scenes, combine them with the other moments.

Antitrust had a combined total of 8.3 in Discoveries which was not quite enough to keep the audience interested in the story. The dialogue rating of 33% indicates weak dialogue.

Death To Smoochy had a combined total of 6.1 in Discoveries which is too low for a successful feature film. The dialogue rating of only 34% indicates weak dialogue.

Simone had a combined total of 6.0 in Discoveries, which is too low to maintain an audience's interest. The dialogue rating of 29% for Simone was one of the worst dialogue ratings I have calculated.

As you can see from the above numbers, American Beauty, Get Shorty, and Something About Mary had much higher ratings in Explaining, Pushing, Plotting, and Dialogue than Antitrust, Death To Smoochy, and Simone.

A more recent movie that is an example of the power in the seven moments is Borat. Other than blatantly defrauding people, preying upon people’s good nature, and scripting an entire movie with one-sided conversation, what was original about this film? Not much. There are only two or three actors in the movie, everyone else was deceived. Is the story decent? Let’s see: A guy driving across America who lies to people and deliberately humiliates them in their own home and then distributes the footage around the world. Hmmm. Sounds like a lawsuit. Despite the lack of any redeeming qualities, the American public responded to this recreation of Candid Camera. The one thing Borat definitely has is the seven moments in every scene.

As seen with Borat, you don’t even need a great story or special effects or even a mega-star to make a successful movie. You just need to film the seven moments and the audience will respond. In fact, they’ll throw money at you. And if you’re not shooting a well rounded blend of the seven moments, then you’re shooting air and you’re going to bore your audience and you will most likely end up with a weak film.

Great stories don’t make great movies. It’s the expression of the story that makes it memorable and pleasing to the audience. How many real life stories seemed promising for the big screen yet when it was finally delivered, it failed miserably? Realize that it wasn’t the story that failed; it was the expression of the story that failed to captivate.

The one moment that I didn’t elaborate on for tracking within a script is Reinforcement. Mainly because it is beyond the screenwriter’s control and the focus of the book is about enhancing or finding a great screenplay.

The reason for not discussing how to track Reinforcement in a movie is because it is a difficult task. I can usually track reinforcement without having to hit play/pause and deliver a fairly accurate Blake Rating. But I have watched more movies in eighteen months than most people will watch in their lifetime.

For those that wish to try to track a movie with maximum use of reinforcement, I can suggest two: Monsters, Inc. and Spiderman. The amount of reinforcement (along with the other seven moments) in the first three minutes of Monsters, Inc. is absurd and mind boggling. If they would have continued that pace for the duration of the movie, they probably would have fried the audience’s brain. Spiderman is also reinforcement-heavy, but it is more evenly distributed throughout the film. And I’m not saying that the amount of reinforcement in Monsters, Inc. is bad, I’m just noting there is a lot of it. I’m not even sure a film would be able to come close to the levels of the seven moments expressed within the first three minutes of Monsters, Inc. because it might be physically impossible to choreograph real people to such an extent.

Before I established The Blake Rating system, I actually tracked a hard count of the seven moments within movies. Both Spiderman and Monsters, Inc. broke 1,000 occurrences of the seven moments. Other blockbusters ranged between 800-1,000 occurrences. Average performing movies were around 700. Weak movies ranged between 300-500. Although the hard count sounds like a nice idea, the numbers are not comparable because every movie has a different length to it. A movie with 1,200 occurrences sounds like it would be a major hit. But what if it was a five-hour movie? In order to take the length of a movie into consideration, I decided to establish a 10-minute time frame of comparison for each of the seven moments.