I decided to start with films (you can read why in this previous blog), but where and how to start now?
I have no one in the film industry, or even remotely close to it, who can help me or guide me.
Maybe someday I’ll meet someone from that world through this blog (fingers crossed).
But for now, this question kept troubling me:
How do I start?
I could have taken a course. Who am I kidding—I’ve taken many online courses already, and I’ve never really learned much from them. (If you’re also a fellow MBA, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.)
I could have gone to YouTube and followed some channels. Maybe I will do that someday. But for now, I know I should stay away from YouTube for a while.
Reason one — I know I would spend more time finding the right video than actually learning from it.
And second — the YouTube algorithm — the ever enticing one — it never lets us stop at just one video at a time, does it? Because it makes us feel that every video next to the current video is important.
(Comment below if you can relate to my pain.)
Then the next best option was a book.
First, they are not distracting.
Second, they are structured.
Third, they make us follow a thought for a long period of time, which has become way harder now due to my diminishing span of attention.
Now the immediate next question — which one?
I have always been curious about how people come up with ideas for movies, how they write them, and then actually bring them to life.
So I Googled and ChatGPTed:
“Which beginner-friendly book should I read to know about writing a movie?”
And one very beginner-friendly and practical book — Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder — came up multiple times.
So I got it.
And just turning a few pages gave me an insight that was so subtle, so obvious, but I never noticed it — or maybe I noticed it but never even thought about it.
The save the cat scene!
What is it? — In short, it is the one scene where the “hero”, the protagonist of the movie, does something good, kind, or admirable early in the story — like helping others or sometimes quite literally saving a cat from a tree (Superman comes to my mind). So the audience likes them — even if they’re flawed.
We want to root for this guy, we want to follow this guy on the journey throughout the movie. Without such a scene it becomes hard for us to care about the protagonist.
Then Blake Snyder gave one example of such a scene from the movie “Sea of Love“. And I thought to myself — what are the similar scenes in Bollywood movies?
So here are my top 3 "save the cat scenes from Bollywood"
1. Sholay
Early in the film we hear that Jai and Veeru are criminals — small-time crooks who have been in and out of jail. Not exactly the kind of heroes you trust.
But then comes the train robbery sequence, where bandits attack the train carrying Thakur Baldev Singh. Instead of running away or saving themselves, Jai and Veeru jump into the fight and help defend the train from the dacoits.
Suddenly, these “criminals” are risking their lives for strangers. That moment flips our perception — they may be outlaws, but they have courage and a moral code. This works as the save-the-cat moment that makes the audience root for them for the rest of the film.
2. 3 Idiots
When we first see Rancho, the very first scene in the hostel of the college shows an intense ragging of newcomers. And we see the other two main characters (Raju and Farhan) of the story also being ragged.
I was expecting the “hero” to have a fight with the bullies and single-handedly save others (Bollywood had trained me till then), but the most unexpected thing happens.
Rancho turns the situation around by using science, shocking the seniors with an electric shock setup and forcing them to back off. And that scene, I believe, worked as the save-the-cat scene.
3. Dabangg
Early scenes show Salman Khan as a cop — stealing from robbers, not arresting them, and keeping the “loot” to himself, and shooting his own officer. Pretty nasty for a cop.
But just after a minute in the song ‘Hud Hud Dabangg’, we see him stopping someone from cheating in a race, and then a few minutes later we see him giving money to the officer he shot after the robbery.
And these scenes work as a save-the-cat moment for Chulbul Pandey.
And just like that, with one simple idea, I started watching movies a little differently.
Something that felt invisible earlier suddenly became obvious.
Well…now I know.
I’ll be sharing more interesting concepts I learn from Save the Cat! as I keep reading it.
Stay tuned for more insights from the book.