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Day 1 Assignment
Reply to post your assignment.
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22 Replies
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Jeanne’s Conventions!
What I learned doing this assignment is how to use the genre conventions for action movies to elevate my script and meet viewers’ expectations.
Title: Near Miami Jai Alai
Concept: Danny fights the temptation of being lured into a life of crime.
Conventions
Hero: Danny is a street-smart café worker who only wants a simple life.
Demand for Action: To escape the dangerous situations he gets caught in
Mission: To outsmart the crime underworld of Miami
Antagonist: Bato is a chef at the café who runs his illicit enterprises out of the kitchen
Escalating Action: To find ways to avoid being trapped in to doing illegal activities.
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Mary’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment. Having the conventions explained in this way is very helpful, especially thinking about the “mission” and “escalating action”.
Concept: Four free black boys are kidnapped by a gang of slave traders and one is determined to do whatever it takes to escape before they’re sold south.
Conventions
Hero: Sam: A lone-wolf, highly skilled in horsemanship<div>
Demand For Action: If Sam doesn’t escape he’ll be sold into slavery or killed
Mission: To escape and get back home at a time when many blacks are slaves
Antagonist: Accomplished slave trading and kidnapping gang
Escalating Action: Each time Sam tries to escape the gang leader becomes more ferocious towards him and the other boys. There are hunts, captures, betrayal and chases.
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Janeen’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment is that no matter how many times I return to a concept, it can always be improved, modified, reinvented or augmented to make it better.
Genre: Holiday Action/Comedy
Concept:
A former Army Ranger and his PTSD teacup poodle rescue the President’s parents, vanquishing foreign kidnappers and a rogue Secret Service agent, during a holiday chase to a lakeside cottage safe house.
Conventions:
Hero: Mall cop (Former Army Ranger) with a teacup poodle as his PTSD animal
Demand For Action: Someone has kidnapped the President’s smart-mouthed parents who mall walk every day, shooting their Secret Service/Personal Assistant in the process.
Mission: To keep the parents safe and off the grid until the bad guys are caught or neutralized.
Antagonist: Rogue Secret Service agent working for a foreign government wanting to manipulate the President’s foreign policy. Foreign agents trying to independently kidnap the parents. And, for a time, the parents’ personal assistant who faked being fatally shot in the abduction so she could live to rescue her charges.
Escalating Action: They go cross country, off the grid, to a safe house (the mall cop’s great aunt’s cottage, okay, actually some friend of hers’ house on a lake in the off season), battling the bad guys and evading Feds of all kinds until the bad guys are vanquished and the rogue agent is arrested.
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Renee’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment is how important it is to think about and include the action conventions in every decision you make when writing your script.
Title: Saving Isaiah
Concept: A former FBI agent travels to Thailand in an attempt to expose the seedy, underground world of sex trafficking and save a young boy.
Conventions
Hero: an former FBI agent
Demand for Action: to bust up a sex trafficking ring in Thailand.
Mission: to save as many children from Thailand’s seedy, underground sex trafficking industry.
Antagonist: the people running the sex trafficking ring.
Escalating Action: he must escape the sex traffickers, a corrupt police force & government and make his way out of Thailand.
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David Mailman
What I learned during this assignment. It is difficult to think outside the box. Trying to come up with a different hero with different skills, considering the 10,000 action films with different heroes and different skills, taxes one’s imagination. Then, one comes up against the feeling that what you are considering is too absurd to be considered.
TITLE
ALIEN RESURRECTION
CONCEPT
What if aliens arrive to save the earth from its inhabitants, but some humans fight others to prevent it?
CONVENTIONS
Highly Skilled Hero:
An ex-FBI agent and martial-arts expert who is now a profiler for a special government agency. The agency protects ET aliens, who have conquered the world, against an anti-alien cult. The agent was crippled during a fight with the cult. He has learned to compensate.
Demand for Action:
The cult is developing plans to kill aliens and humans who support them. If the plans succeed, the aliens may wipe out most of the world’s population.
Mission:
The agency must protect the aliens and find the mysterious head of the cult.
Antagonist:
The hero’s antagonists include: bureaucrats in the agency who are jockeying for power; the head of the cult; and a scientist who wants to control the aliens.
Escalating Action:
As the mission proceeds, the cult’s attacks escalate from directed at the aliens to include the hero and his family.
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Emmanuel’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment is conflict must drive an action movie forward. The hero and antagonist should have intense interaction that continuously escalates to keep the viewer engaged and the script reader turning the page.
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What I learned – To keep brain storming rather than throw out an entire concept. Let it evolve.
Concept: After several members of a cycling team die, a former professional cyclist must prevent more deaths before the end of a week-long race.
Hero: Bike mechanic who is a former professional cyclist.
Mission: Prevent the successive deaths of the team before the end of the week-long race.
Antagonist: Disgruntled former cyclist who is now the president of a company that is a rival of the team sponsor.
Demand: Hero is the only one who recognizes that the deaths are not accidents and must identify the antagonist and helpers and prevent further deaths.
Escalation: Location of deaths continually expands from contained areas, to within the race, to the spectators.
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Erin’s Conventions!
What I learned doing this assignment is: It’s okay to start with what we have; over this course we will elevate what we’re doing and make it stronger.
Concept: An ex-SEAL on death row escapes prison and blackmails his FBI agent sister to help him prove his innocence
Conventions:
Hero: An ex-SEAL on death row for a murder he didn’t commit
Demand For Action: He’s escaped prison after his last chance appeal was rejected and is being hunted by the authorities; being caught means returning to prison and certain death
Mission: to prove his innocence (and the innocence of his friend who was also wrongfully convicted)
Antagonist: authorities searching for him; secondary antagonist his sister, a corrupt FBI agent he’s blackmailing so she won’t turn him in but will help him in his mission
Escalating Action: he needs to do more and more to prove his innocence but that puts him at greater and greater risk of being caught
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Brad’s Conventions!
What I learned doing this assignment is how important it is for the hero to have a clearly defined mission.
Title: Wedded Revenge
Concept: Innocent newlyweds become serial killers to avenge the crime that cost them their honeymoon.
Conventions:
Hero: The newlyweds (co-protagonists)
Demand for Action: If they can wipe out the Romanian pickpocket ring in Amsterdam, they’ll save other tourists from the same fate they suffered.
Mission: Inflict as much suffering on the Romanian pickpocket gang as possible and kill the gang’s leader before their trip is over.
Antagonist: The cold-blooded pickpocket gang leader who seeks to destroy the mysterious couple killing his thieves.
Escalating Action: The gang leader learns the couple’s identity, and sends assassins to kill them on a cruise ship as it passes down the Danube along the Romanian border.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Bradford Hicks.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Action – Lesson 1 – Creating your Action Concept
What I learned from this lesson was how to start with the conventions to deliver on the action genre.
Ira Drower’s Action Conventions:
Hero: Ex-military hero falsely convicted of war crimes.
Demand for Action: Failing his mission means serving his sentence in a Military Prison.
Mission: Transport Alien Prisoners for return to home planet.
Antagonist: Devious Captain who set him up for war crimes wants to use Frank to locate Gold.
Escalating Action: Prevent secret mission from being exposed as Captain intervenes and Aliens escape.
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George’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment is that there are some ways to quickly and easily develop an idea by fleshing it out and answering some simple questions… even if the idea is as cheesy as “What if Arnold Schwarzenegger or Stephen Seagal were a Supreme Court Justice?”
Concept: “Justice Under Fire.” Former special forces operative and current Supreme Court Justice Marshall Steele finds himself on the run from a shadowy organization looking to gain a majority on the high court by any means necessary.
Conventions
Hero: These days, Marshall Steele has a reputation as an even-handed judge willing to weigh all sides in an issue, leading to a role as the swing vote on the Supreme Court on most issues. In his younger days, he dispensed justice in a completely different way – as a special forces operative in the jungles of South America and Asia.
Demand For Action: When a minor accident puts Justice Steele in the hospital, he finds himself targeted by a mysterious group looking to turn a fender-bender into something with more dramatic and permanent results.
Mission: Justice Steele must survive against an army of assassins intent on removing him from the court and preventing him from writing a series of opinions on a trio of potentially history-making cases.
Antagonist: The Monopoly is a sinister syndicate representing political interests, and employing a seemingly endless army of expert assassins and agents, the most prominent of whom, Ursula Pierce, shares a personal history with Steele.
Escalating Action: As a runs for his life, Steele realizes that what appeared to be an accident was actually a staged attempt at murder, and the group calling the shots may have connections to the White House.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by George Krubski.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Margaret’s Conventions!
What I learned is that the hero has to have incredible skills for the mission.
Concept An exception thief/con artist is forced to escape a death sentence by fighting for her planet against a champion from an invading world who will destroy her world and everyone on it if she loses.
Conventions:-
Hero – An exceptional thief and con artist
Demand for Action – forced to fight to save herself and her homeworld from death
Mission – To complete 12 challenges in 4 hours against a champion from an invading planet
Antagonist – Invaders from another planet personnified in their champion. They will destroy her planet and everyone on it if she doesn’t win at least 7 of the challenges
Escalating Actions – the challenges get tougher and the time to complete them in gets shorter
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Kathy’s Conventions!
Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is more about art stolen from museums worldwide.
Concept: As a dangerous hurricane tracks northward up the east coast, a rookie detective uncovers a smuggling ring with ties to important members of NYC society.
Conventions:
• Hero: Danny Rizzo, a NYC detective, Italian, Colombo-type, clothes look like he’s slept in them
• Demand For Action: Danny overhears a conversation in a rug shop. The carpets are from Pakistan. A piece of sixth century Indian art is to be sold at a Christie’s auction. It has been stolen but was reported as sold by an art dealer in London in 1989.
• Mission: He must find the thieves and stop the auction.
• Antagonist: Ruthless art thieves from Pakistan need the money from the Christies sale to buy weapons for an attack on the UN building. It is just one of many art thefts. Another heist is in motion: Cargo workers at LGA steal a painting from a secure cargo area and take it to a warehouse.
• Escalating Action: Danny must find and stop the thieves before a hurricane hits the city. And is the director of Christies on the take too??
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Mark Dotz – Conventions
What I learned from this Assignment is – 1) The ordinary man doesn’t work for high impact action 2)Highly skilled or naturally skilled soldiers make the best protagonist in an action script 3) Your will make many drafts so don’t get plagued with perfection
“Road to the King”
In a medieval world, Damian, the Kings bastard son is sent to train to become a warrior with Archibald, the kings favorite soldier and self proclaimed “greatest knight of all time”. However, Archibald attempts to murder Damian and lead his army of Marauders to claim the kings throne. Only Archibald underestimates Damian who survives the attack, and badly wounds Archibald. Damian journeys back to his father to warn him but he is endlessly confronted by Archibald’s Marauders in an action-packed battle after battle. Eventually Damian is forced to fight a battle on two fronts, one is to get to the king and past his men without killing them (Cold-coking soldier after soldier in battle) and the second front he needs to fend of the impending marauders of Archibald’s army.In the end proving that he is the rightful true heir of the kingdom.
Hero – Damian, the kings bastard son
Demand for Action -Damian not only has to endlessly battle to stay alive against a secret army of marauders but he also finds himself fighting his own allies in order to save the king.
Mission – Defend himself against an underground medieval army and save the king from being dethroned.
Antagonist – Archibald, the self proclaimed “greatest knight of all time” Escalating Action – First Archibald and his assassins and then an army of marauders and then a kings army that he can’t kill but has to knock out if possible.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Mark Doddy.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Dave’s Conventions:
What did I learn? I
learned to just write, don’t let the details bog you down at the beginning.
Patience and polish will help refine the story.Concept – A
dishonorably discharged Army Ranger attempting to move on finds himself having to
protect what he left behind by any means necessary.Hero: The Army Ranger
Demand for Action: The most ruthless mob boss in New Jersey will stop at nothing to kill the Ranger and everyone he cares about.
Mission: Protect his friends and rescue his family.
Antagonist: A vengeful mob boss.
Escalating action: The number of enemies increases as does their skill level as the Ranger attempts to protect his new friends and find his kidnapped family.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by David Gutosky.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by David Gutosky.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by
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Marco’s Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment is the conventions of an action film and that writing is a refinement process.
Highly Skilled Hero: An aging and disillusioned police officer turned vigilante whose secret identity has been revealed.
Demand for Action: A crime syndicate wants vengeance while the authorities want to bring him to justice.
Mission: Protect his family by all means possible.Antagonist: Brutal crime syndicate boss.
Escalating Action: Protecting his family from the crime syndicate, evading apprehension by his fellow police, and eliminating surmounting threats to his and his family’s lives by all means possible, even if that means losing himself and what he stood for.
High Concept: After having his secret identity revealed, an aging and disillusioned police officer turned vigilante must protect his family by all means possible even if that means losing himself and what he stood for.
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Sung-Ju Suya Lee – Conventions!
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
All the elements, components, etc. that go into Action. Stakes are very high. Elevate everything. You must have a unique setting, while still having a character arc. It’s not easy to write an action screenplay. A lot goes into it. You have to make sure it’s all there. Don’t be a perfectionist. Write bad drafts. Don’t worry about it. Keep doing it. Improve.
Concept: When a group of old timers in a veteran’s home win the mega lottery, they buy an old cruise ship to sail around the world with their extended families, but pirates in the South-East Asia attack their ship, so the veterans face the last battle of their lives to protect their families.
Conventions:
Hero: Old veterans (in a
retirement home)Demand For Action: Protect
their families and their cruise shipMission: Keep safe while
sailing around the worldAntagonist: Pirates in South-East
AsiaEscalating Action: Pirates
try to take over ship in different ways-
Great concept! I love a good pirate movie and creating a vehicle for older actors will be very appealing in Hollywood.
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Thanks, Harry. Your concept is cool. All the best.
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Harry’s Concept
What I learned doing this assignment is… It is so great to start with an embryo idea. Developing via the conventions will keep me on track rather than wasting effort going doing down rabbit holes!
Concept: A Masters student doing research on La Palma uncovers a plot to hold the USA to ransom.
Conventions:
Hero: Tom – Geophysics student. A beanpole with a brain who expects a cushy ride and gets tangled up in a rescue gone wrong.
Demand For Action: Girlfriend abducted
Mission: a) Rescue girl; b) Uncover mystery; c) Foil plot
Antagonist: Ringmaster of alternative circus. Middle East ancestry
Escalating Action: Bar brawl to gang to terrorists
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Linda’s Conventions!
What I learned doing this assignment is figuring out these key aspects of an action story saves a lot of time and starts the brainstorming process off on an improved path.
Concept: The US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner rules the border with a firm hand, but can he stop a ruthless terrorist group who will stop at nothing, including kidnapping the Commissioner’s estranged son, to implement their plan to set off bombs in 50 cities across America.
Highly Skilled Hero: Commissioner for the US Customs and Border Protection and ex-military black ops operator who has lost empathy.
Impossible Mission: To keep a powerful terrorist group intent on killing millions of Americans from crossing the border.
Demand for Action: The terrorist group, which uses children and immigrants to manipulate and carry out their mission, kidnaps the commissioner’s estranged son.
Antagonist: Head of the terrorist group.
Escalating Action: Conflict at the border kills low level terrorists. Then they use children to try to sneak across and are caught, chase scene. Attacks at the border. A few terrorists succeed in crossing and kidnap the commissioner’s son in an attempt to distract him from their mission. The commissioner hunts them down and kills them, finding other children with his son all mistreated. Then goes after the head of the group in an unauthorized mission.
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Deanne’s Conventions
Highly skilled hero: an asphalt contractor, good at math, drives big vehicles, familiar with local roads and resources
Demand for action: wildfire his trucks started is approaching his house
Mission: save his family
Antagonist: climate doomer who hates the asphalt industry
Escalating action: increasing level of difficulty to overcome obstacles preventing hm from getting to his house.
What I learned: it’s the details of character interaction that will make this story interesting to me. Special effects — not so much.
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