Syd Field
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This article is about the screenwriting guru; for information on the British comedian, see Sid Field.
Syd Field is an American writer who has become one of the most popular screenwriting gurus in the movie industry. He writes books and holds workshops that help aspiring screenwriters to produce the kinds of screenplays that will sell in Hollywood. Field's ideas about what makes a good script have become very influential on Hollywood producers, who increasingly use his strictures as guidelines to whether or not a proposed screenplay has potential.
Field's most important contribution has been his articulation of the ideal 'three act structure'. In this structure, a film must begin with less than half an hour of 'setup' information before the protagonist experiences a 'turning point' that gives them a goal that must be achieved. Approximately half the movie's running time must then be taken up with the protagonist struggling to achieve his/her goal: this is the 'Confrontation' period. Field also refers sometimes to the 'Mid Point', a more subtle turning point that should happen in the middle (approx. at page 60 of a written screenplay) of the Confrontation, and is often an apparently devastating reversal of fortune. The final quarter of the film then depicts a climactic struggle to finally achieve the goal, and the afermath of that struggle.
While Field's strictures have helped many screenwriters to tailor their ideas to the Hollywood model, his rigorous demands (sometimes stipulating that the first turning point must happen in exactly the 27th minute of the film) have been accused of stifling innovation and experimentation; many studio executives now refuse even to consider a screenplay that does not perfectly match the three-act structure. However, Field himself does not consider his guidelines for screenplay structure (or his 'paradigm') to be so rigid.
In addition to his many workshops, Syd Field currently teaches screenwriting at the Master of Professional Writing Progam (http://www.usc.edu/mpw/) at the University of Southern California