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Day 9 Assignment
Post your assignment by replying here.
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7 Replies
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What I learned doing this assignment is setting up future reveals without exposing too much detail is a great way to keep the audience engaged and interested in watching future episodes.
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Daniel Melin’s Setting Up the Future
What I learned doing this assignment is the value of having your framework, not only to refer back to when doing subsequent lessons, but to update it with each lesson as your vision for the story becomes clearer. I loved going back and realizing that I had much better ideas for different character and plot layers, or that I had a much snappier idea for the emotional profile of a given character. It keeps me from getting lost in the weeds, and reminds me to keep a clear, unifying idea of the show in mind.
STEP 1
TV Pitch Bible
Concept: Levi is an spiring magician. His mentor has placed a curse on three men. Levi will also start to resort to darker forms of magic as he progresses. It isn’t just exposure to the real world that threatens Athens, Everlasting Summer will begin to influence and wreak havoc on Athens in turn.
Episode Descriptions: Episode 2: Mark reveals himself as a fellow magician. Episode 3: Levi gets bitten by one of the wolves. Episode 4: Levi finds a hidden library in Everlasting Summer. Episode 5: Titania is actually a human witch named Ruth, who created Everlasting Summer after her son died in a harsh English Winter. Episode 6: Levi’s magic will eventually sabotage a work-site causing problems for him at work. Episode 7: Levi will find out that a young man harassed his sister and will sacrifice him to preserve his cover with Ruth. Episode 8: Ruth will eventually kidnap Nick, Miguel’s son and Levi will have to confess what has happened to him. Episode 9: Ruth will get to Oberon’s staff before Levi does. Episode 10: Levi will stop Ruth from killing Jeptha.
This character will know that Jeptha is partly responsible for his son’s death, but that Ruth is responsible for turning Jeptha’s descendants into werewolves. Levi is hiding the nature of the magic he is doing from Ruth. Levi will learn the location of Oberon’s staff.
The mystery is that Titania is actually Ruth, and wants to kill Jeptha, her lover and the father of her dead son. I can have Titania make passing mention of someone dear to her who died. There is also a clue about the way that her son died in the nature of Everlasting Summer. Mark will make mention of the fact that one of his children is under Titania’s curse.
BW Framework
Levi’s family has a certain amount of tension in it, especially between Levi and his sisters. At one point in the pilot, Levi can go over for Sunday dinner, and one of the family members can mention that they went to see Talia, and Levi will mention that he hasn’t gone. His sisters will goad him during dinner when he corrects them on a point of history and they will say that he’s just a know-it-all. I can hint at Titania’s hatred for the deer early on in the pilot. I can mention some of the strange and troubling history of Levi’s family in the dinner scene. I can also establish some of the tensions going on in Miguel’s family early on, with Millie making passive-aggressive jokes about Miguel seeing other women, and about some of the drama Miguel has going on with Nick.
STEP 2
To what lengths will Levi go to learn more magic?
Who is the stranger who shows up asking about the
break-in at Clarence’s?
Why can Levi only hunt the deer on the full moon?
What is the tragedy in Titania’s past?
What dark history is Levi’s family hiding?
Why does Titania want to hunt down the deer so badly? -
Renee Brown’s Setting up the Future
In this assignment I learned my Open Loops set up the questions that must be answered in future episodes, so here I am just making sure I nailed the loops and mysteries that point to my big Open Loop, which is the point of my show.
What is Planet X and how did it get here?
Will all humanity find out about earth’s true and diverse history?
What keeps Earth Aliens from killing off humans or each other and taking over earth?
What is the Prophecy and why is Tallas forging it?
Who destroyed the Starfinder?
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What I learned is that I’m really being challenged in a way that I haven’t been before and being asked to think and plan more on the plotline, the characters, the layers, the reveals, and so on down to the scene level.
While I understand for the most part the difference between open loops (future) and mysteries (past) I’m finding myself over thinking the categorization of open loops and sub open loops and mysteries and sub mysteries and is interfering with my creative flow. WIthout a doubt this is an invaluable exercise and I’ve learned a lot about how to improve my writing, the outlining process, the structure, but the flip side is as I dig deeper, I’m spending more time on the categorization and re-categorization than on the creating and flow is blocked. Maybe that’s the point: it’s an iterative process back and forth between creation and outlining until there is no distinction.
What I need to do is to continue to categorize as much as possible and that includes surface layers and reveals.
Season 1: Welcome Back
Episode 1 It’s Not Pretty – The Pilot – I’m not sure whether to start the episode with Jess getting her court case thrown out or with her arriving at the murder scene.
Jess is reassigned and demoted from Sergeant to Senior Detective. She arrives in Lakeside and the next day is sent to Green Lake to help Sheriff Moore solve a murder and disappearance case similar in MO to that of her brother’s five years earlier.
• Judge throws out Jess and her Department’s high profile case.
• Jess is called to a case. We see that it’s three local people (Steve and Anna are murdered and Luke Smith has disappeared) but we don’t know the perpetrator(s) or the reason why.
• Jess realizes this crime scene has the same MO as her brother’s disappearance five years before.
• Jess is returning to the town where she used to summer vacation with her parents and brother.
• Jess checks into the town’s notoriously haunted bed & breakfast run by Peg and Pat Johnson. Is not afraid to confront ghosts of the past.
• Jess receives an update on the case: Nick Beresford who discovered the bodies is caught on video surveillance tailing Steve, Anna, and Luke. Case closed?
Surface: Jess is a Sergeant who always wins her cases.
Plot Layer: The Judge throws out one of her high-profile cases after finding irregularities in the evidence gathering.
Reveal: Jess obtains her evidence through her secret hacking skills very few people know this.
Mystery: Did someone leak to the Judge? And why this case? Are there unknown stakes at play?
Turning Point: Jess is reassigned to another jurisdiction, Lakeside, and is demoted to Senior Detective.
Surface: Jess arrives at her new office and the next day is sent to investigate the gruesome murder of a local couple and the disappearance of their friend.
Mystery: Who is the killer? Why did they do it? Where is Luke Smith? Is he the killer?
Surface: Jess strikes up a friendly relationship with Sheriff Moore.
Reveal: Green Lake is where Jess used to summer vacation with her family, her brother, Adam disappeared in similar circumstances, the murder and disappearance has the same MO.
Reveal: Sheriff Moore investigated Adam’s disappearance and has history with Jess’ family. Jess thinks Sheriff Moore botched her brother’s investigation.
Open Loop: Can Sheriff Moore and Jess work together to solve this case?
Mystery: Are the two cases connected?
Reveal: Jess wants to reopen her brother’s case.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Barbara Gilmore.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Barbara Gilmore.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Barbara Gilmore.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Barbara Gilmore.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Molly McNeal Carrington Manor, Setting up the future
What I learned during this assignment is that the pilot actually sets up for the WHOLE show. Cool. And I think mine has everything set up?
Event: When Gwenn talks to Sally about the billable minutes she could mention the continuing education they have to do.
Spirit needs to sign over her POA and does not want to
Terry is married to a man or a woman as seen in the picture?
Terry likes to sexually harass people as she talks to nurses on the floor about their body parts.
Skeleton Key falls out of Gwenn’s pocket
The Key to success at Carrington Manor is every saying on the wall.
She is in debt from the phone calls and letters
The company has cameras installed due to something fraudulent happening with medicare.
The Dr is a slut according to the description of Sally.
Carrington Manor thinks it’s amazing and is obviously not.
Gwenn’s mom may or may not be demented according to their conversation.
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Sherri D. Coffee Module 3 Lesson 9 Setting up the Future
What I learned doing this assignment is to really focus on the set ups in the pilot and make sure they ask big picture questions and set up for future episodes.
What is the past life relationship with Grace, Sam and Carlton?
What happened in the past life that places Grace in danger today?
What do Sam and Carlton have to hide?
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Donna Stockwell’s Setting Up The Future
What I learned doing this assignment is that my living documents, namely the bible and the framework need updating, since I have far exceeded the complexity of the subplots in my story, and incorporated more intrigue. I also have to make sure that the main plot doesn’t overtake the sub-plots.
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