Lesson 14

Timothy Barley

Member

November 15, 2023 at 4:17 am

Tim’s lesson #14

Raz Ray

Member

November 27, 2023 at 4:17 pm

Raz Ray: Great Action Set Piece. Lesson 14.

What I learned from doing this assignment? Honestly, I learned A LOT! Thank you, Hal. I learned that action needs meaning and needs to be transformative. I learned that a change in emotion needs to be in place. Also to test the relationship needs to happen. The best prat is I also understand why these need to be in place.

Pre-Action:

Create the need for action: The villain has located our heroes, a band of freedom

fighters and the one warrior they kidnapped. The Heroes decide to hide inside an

abandoned shack.

Demand a change that the characters need to go through:

Upon opening the door, the freedom fighters also find poor escaped civilians hiding

from the villain as well.

Put a plan into action and see if it works: The tech expert of the freedom fighters

pulls out a tech that can hide the Freedom fighters but not the Civilians.

Test a relationship: The warrior asks the Freedom Fighters why everybody can’t be

saved. The fighters respond that their only mission is to save the warrior.

Set up a question that matters to the audience: The warrior is torn between saving

her own life or risking it to save others.

Action Sequence:

The heroes put the tech in place, which screens the heroes from being detected. Some

heroes set up outside the shack to ambush the villains when they come. Anxiety: The

villains arrive and hover over the shack with their CorporationShip. The Villains demand

that the warrior they are looking for surrenders. Fear: One of the Freedom Fighters

decided to surrender by sacrificing herself to the villains so the warrior and the others

could escape. Relief: The Villains take the hostage but are still engaged in killing the

other Freedom Fighters in hiding. Surprise: They shoot out a bean to extract a certain

piece of the human soul. Shock: The Heroes are safe. Suspense: but the Civilians are

dying right before them. Danger: The warrior can’t take it anymore and saves the

civilians by using her body as a shield, putting herself in danger. Excitement: Her

secret weapon is activated when she protects herself and the civilians. The other

Freedom Fighters are amazed at her courage. Adrenalin: They see another ship

attacking them from the other side when the Freedom Fighters spring into action and

start attacking the enemy ships, working together to destroy them.

POST ACTION:

The enemy is forced to retreat. The Freedom fighters gather together and look at each

other with admiration. They feel happy that they survived but are sad that one of

their members has been taken hostage. The warrior was amazed that she sacrificed

her life for her and now wants to help the Freedom Fighters in their mission to free

Humanity.

STEP ONE: List the nine places for uniqueness.

1. Environment: The future inside a scrap metal junkyard.
2. Rules: The Villains are searching for the warrior but also running from the Calvary. Both have access to highly advanced tech and magic.
3. Villain: The Villain is engaging the heroes through advance tech. He is determined to find a certain individual.
4. Mission: Protect the Warrior at all costs. Flee the scene with everybody together.
5. Struggle: The Villains are using all their resources to destroy the hero.
6. Unique Skillset: The Warrior has a special weapon to protect herself and others.
7. Meaning: To stand up for others and dare to fight back.
8. Allies: The Freedom Fighters, the Civilians, the Calvary.
9. Weapon: The cosmic weapon of an assassin only the hero has.

STEP 2: Use Strategies For Uniqueness to elevate them.

• A. What if…?: The freedom fighters turned on the warrior, and she had to defend herself against them.
• B. Take it to an extreme: The Civilians all got killed, and the Warrior had to avenge them.
• C. Specific to character or environment: The Warrior could handle all the enemies simultaneously.
• D. Shocking or Surprising: The enemies defeat all of the Warrior’s allies, making her alone in the battle.
• E. Go opposite: The Villain captures the Warrior, and the Allies must save the warrior.
• F. What haven’t we seen?: The civilians doing something for themselves.

3). Create through nine action emotions (See outline).

4). Add in more twists: a) The Freedom Fighters abandon the Warrior, and she takes the Villain on all by herself. B). A new threat comes from the environment. C). Creatures come out that threaten both the heroes and the villains.

5. Rewrite by going over steps 1-4 to elevate it: I already did the rewrite when I did the outline, but I’ll add the extras I didn’t have before. I didn’t require action so I added the civilians being in danger. I didn’t have a transformation with the emotions, so I added meaning. The meaning was deciding between letting the civilians die or springing into action. I also didn’t test the relationship, so I added that in.

Kevin Lobo

Member

December 1, 2023 at 2:35 pm

Kevin Lobo’s Writing Great Action Set Pieces

What I learned…is that writing Action Set Pieces is more of a scientific art use the model presented rather than dream it, live it and let it flow on the page! I used the model in the lesson rather than the one in the assignment to create the action set piece.

1. Build in Meaning (Lesson 14)

Pre-Action

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In the opening sequence, the hero and his reluctant wife’s birthday party for the hero’s rogue brother is attacked, the brother taken away captive, and the hero left with a note to come to a secret location if he wants to see his brother.

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The hero is a righteous guy, always on the good side of the law, fighting for it through his cyber skills. This is the first time he faces a decision to go into the underworld. He is warned, and decides not to go to the cops, and decides to go to the secret location – all against the values he has stood for.

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The hero with his rudimentary, bookish skills decides to take a round about hidden way to reach the location rather than just drive direct. He knows he will be watched, followed and probably picked off at some stage. He decides to surprise the abductors and free his brother.

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The bone of contention, the errant brother, comes full circle and becomes the deciding point. The wife challenges the hero, choose her, go to the authorities or just walk away from the whole situation rather than get embroiled in a messy situation that will forever change their lives.

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Will the hero try to convince his wife to stay, will she give him another chance and stand by him no matter what or is the end of their marriage. What is more important, save his marriage or save his brother who faces certain torture and death.

Action

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The hero slips out of his back yard, uses an unknown burner phone map app to guide him to the location and for the first time, he hops on and off late night taxis and buses to reach the given location.

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Anxiety – The hero is out on a dangerous journey for the first time in his life. Sticking to the shadows, using a burner phone, going roundabout through crime ridden neighbourhoods, cash transactions and being on the lookout for anyone suspicious on his tail – all activities that are totally alien to him.

Fear – This is new unknown reality for the hero whose normal routine is to kiss his wife, head to the car, and drive to work with a drive thru Latte in hand.

Relief – The hero begins to enjoy the adventure, finding it surprisingly safe realizing that most people on the late night buses, trains and taxis are going about their work.

Surprise – The hero’s surprise, rather naively, is beginning to think how easy the journey was to the rendezvous point and that he can surprise the gang and free his brother.

Shock – To his utter shock, the hero realizes that he has been on the gang’s radar all the time, been followed and the surprise raid he plans is going to blow back in his face. He is easily, violently picked off by the gang.

Suspense – Now a blindfolded captive, being driven away a prisoner in the back of a dark van, the hero shivers in suspense as to what fate awaits him.

Danger – The hero gets a real sense of danger when he sees the lair of the gang, other tortured prisoners and a matter of fact execution right in front of him.

Excitement – Knowing that his brother is safe, knowing that he will not be harmed, knowing that the gang holds him in high regard – vainly accepting the praise for his high tech cyber skills.

Adrenaline – The hero realizes that there is hope to save his brother, and that even though criminal he has to dive into an all out attack, all by himself and execute an end-to-end dark web attack – something he has done as a preparation only in table top exercises.

Add in More Twists

Danger (The hero – from a captive for the first time to knowing that there is no immediate physical danger to him – the gang needs his intellectual skills) Safety

New Threat (The very clean life that he has led is about to come to an end – his unexpected support comes from the underworld) Unexpected Support

Plan Fails (His initial cyber-attack completely fails but he ends up finding that the rival gang is a government red herring to trap the gang that has recruited him) Plan Succeeds

Identity or Plan Exposed (The hero’s elaborate plan to conceal his identity and remain hidden fails. He realizes that someone on the government side knows everything about him but is keeping his identity hidden) Identity Hidden

Betrayal (Some internally has betrayed him, exposed him but he now has an ealliance with the rival gang he was to take down – they have a common objective) Surprising Alliance

Attacked (The hero is attacked by local goons for crypto but protected by his controlling gang; he is attacked by his controlling gang for failing but protected by the rival gang as they see a strong ally in him) Protected

Lost Resources (The elaborate underground lab he has setup in a secret neighborhood is destroyed by the local goons but he gets access to new resources from his controlling gang) New Resources

Post-Action

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The hero comes back with the realization that it was never about the brother. The brother was used to bait him and as a hook to get him to take up a cyber hack of a rival gang.

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The hero begs his wife to understand that brother or not, the gang would come after him either way. The parting shots at his beautiful wife make him further suspect that if not the brother they would come after him through her. Will their love stand the test?

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The hero now realizes that his ideals and principles, his brother and his wife are all on the line as a result of his expert skills that the gang needs.

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Not applicable here.

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The hero is shocked to know that the demands made of him are based off his very unique skill sets and the secret privileged access he has to secure resources. He realizes that someone on the inside has definitely helped that gang and led them on to him.

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The big realization – he and not the brother is the subject of the whole operation. The birthday party at his home was the perfect entry point for the gang to scare him and his wife and abduct the brother.