My very first screenwriting seminar focused on "Breaking Away."

One of the amazing realizations I made was how integrated all of the scenes were in the movie. At one point, the instructor screened the film and stopped action at every set-up -- then again at every pay-off -- to explain all the unity that was created by effective writing.

Plus Dennis Quaid was PDCute in the early days.

My first training in screenwriting began with Syd Field's book, "Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting", and three scripts: Witness, Back to the Future, and Breaking Away. It is a great script. And you're right, Judy, the movie is all about set-ups and pay-offs.

Paul Dooley nearly steals the movie as the father. Here are a few lines of his dialogue:

"No, I don't feel lucky to be alive! I feel lucky I'm not dead. There's a difference."

"I didn't want you to be this miserable. A little bit's all I asked for."

"I was proud of my work. And the buildings went up. When they were finished the damnedest thing happened. It was like the buildings were too good for us. Nobody told us that. It just felt uncomfortable, that's all."

Boy, you picked good scripts to start with!

"Witness" and "Back to the Future" are two of the best I can think of in terms of having wham-bam act breaks (Syd's Plot Points) and amazing "New World" Act 2's that slam the Old World and the New World together with a wallop in Act 3.

BTW, have you checked out sydfield.com recently? He's offering online courses now. He has a "getting started" 5-week course and will debut an "act 1" course this summer.

Odd you mention sydfield.com as I just visited it for the first time the other day. I've always like him the best of all the 'screenwriting gurus', maybe it's because he was the first one I read. I've added his website as one of the Screenwriting Resources at the bottom of the blog home page.

For people who may not know, Field came up with his "screenplay paradigm," including the concept of plot points, after reading hundreds scripts and watching hundreds of movies -- he saw these patterns emerging, where certain things would happen at certain times, and he was quite specific about it. For example, he said that the big plot point that ended Act I and spun the story into Act II occurred between P. 25 - 27.

His paradigm has evolved over time, but the basics are pretty much still there.