Syd Field Movies and Career Information

Syd Field is an American writer who has become one of the most popular screenwriting gurus in the movie industry. Field has written several books on the subject of screenwriting, and holds workshops and seminars around the world that help aspiring and professional screenwriters produce the kind of screenplay that will sell in Hollywood. Field's ideas about what makes a good script have become very influential for Hollywood film producers, who have increasingly used his ideas on structure as a guideline to a proposed screenplay's potential. Field wrote and produced the television series Men in Crisis, "Hollywood and the Stars,""National Geographics" and Jacque Cousteau Specials from 1963–1965 for David L. Wolper Productions. Field's most important contribution has been his articulation of the ideal Paradigm "three act structure". In this structure, a film must be set-up within the first twenty to thirty minutes before the main character protagonist experiences a 'plot point' that gives him or her a goal that must be achieved. Approximately half the movie's running time must then be taken up with the character's struggle to achieve his or her goal: this is the 'Confrontation' period.