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Day 12 Assignments
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5 Replies
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Mike’s Seabiscuit Analysis
What I learned from this lesson: David MacCullough should narrate my life! Or I should at least train my inner thoughts to be in his voice. Also, how well designed and tightly structured these moments really are. That step (gradient) between intuitive and really well planned story telling.
1.) When the guy asks Jeff Bridges if he can fix his car. “Sure I can!” But he has no idea how to actually fix it. But he does figure it out.
2.) “I wouldn’t spend more than five dollars on the best horse in America.”
3.) Chris Cooper and the horse stopped by a barbed wire fence. As a car rolls past in the background.
4.) “You can call me Red.” Followed by “Where’d you learn to ride like that?” “Home.” He’s taking on a new identity.
5.) the whole sequence where Jeff Bridges son dies is a master class.
He’s on the phone while his son’s reading. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Someone else taught his son to drive the truck
HIs son “It’s about the future.”
His son rolls the truck and blows up the future.
Can he fix it?
6.) The cut from the picture of Buck Rogers fighting to Red boxing which connects the hero of his son’s future to Red.
7.) Chris Cooper stops them from shooting the injured horse. “Why are you fixing him?” “Because I can… Every Horse is good for something… You don’t throw a whole life away because it’s banged up a little.”
8.) “for the first time in a long time you weren’t alone.” transitions to Jeff Bridges alone in his son’s old room.
9.) Red accepts help.
10.) When Red walks Seabiscuit in the circle around the tree. Happily. As opposed to earlier when he did it with the other horse and was pissed off.
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Marie’s Seabiscuit Analysis
What I learned doing this assignment is that the insights/new ways I wish to explore in my own screenplay must happen in real life as I create a script that is not based on formulaic screenwriting but on original ideas supported by some important structural rules of screenwriting.
1. Watch the movie SEABISCUIT. As you do, look for the Profound Moments (any moment in the story that seems profound to you). 2. List the Profound Moments, then tell briefly what made them profound for you:
a) The parents bring Red’s books and tell him to live with the horse trainer. So many profound moments portrayed, as the strife during the Great Depression, rips through the country. But this one really hits home, as parents have to give up their beloved child for his own sake.
b) The Howard child dies. Death is profound, perhaps more so when it’s a kid, and watching the grief that the father (and mom) go through takes us into that deep dive when someone so loved is taken, and in this case, much much too soon.
c) Tom Smith saving the white horse. This was profound to me because animals are so vulnerable and such sentient beings. The way Smith soothes the terrified horse cuts deeply into our hearts.
d) Smith says to Charles of the white horse: “Don’t throw a whole life away just ‘cause he’s banged up a little.” And we know he’s speaking of the horse but also of himself and others who are not quite what “the norm” would expect them to be.
e) Hearing about when Smith saw Seabiscuit for the first time, through the fog: Narrator: “Smith would later say that the horse looked right through him.” This is profound in its mystical suggestion that animals are just as smart as people, if not smarter; profound in its acknowledgement of something beyond our own small worlds of our thoughts and feelings.
f) Smith says that Seabiscuit needs to learn how to be a horse again, and then we see the beautiful moments of Red riding him through foliage and wild nature. Profound in its suggestion that all animals need to be allowed to be their true selves, including people.
g) Narrator: “They called it relief…for the first time in a long time someone cared…you were no longer alone…” with images of children during the depression, now with proper beds and food. The profundity here is obvious!
h) The line: “Sometimes you just need a second chance” is profound as it encapsulates what we see these four broken beings going through as each is given a new lease on life – a second chance.
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Marie Turns Insights Into Action
What I learned doing this assignment is to welcome intuitions about action in scenes, write them out, and then see if they fit the criteria of bringing the audience into new insights – very often they do, so don’t discard these ideas/scenes before trying them out.
1. Create a list of the New Ways and Insights you’d like audiences to experience when they watch your movie:
a) New Way/Insight: People are not always who you think they are, so if you don’t know how they identify, then you shouldn’t care one way or the other.
b) New Way/Insight: People who seem different from you (in this case non binary and trans folks seeming different from cis people), <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>and whom you therefore look down on, <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>can be just as valuable as anyone else.
c) New Way/Insight: Conforming will lead to trouble because life is about change not stasis, life is about being creative not cookie-cutter.
d) New Way/Insight: People who seem different from you (and that you therefore disapprove of) could come to your aid in compassionate ways.
e) New Way/Insight: Putting on a play or any artistic endeavour is more about the process or journey than it is about the product.
2. With that list, brainstorm ways to turn the New Ways / Insights into Action. Come up with at least five (5) New Ways and the Action that will express them.
a) New Way: People are not always who you think they are so if you don’t know how they identify, then you shouldn’t care one way or the other. Action: Wes shows Kay a photo of himself as a child, she sees a little girl and understands that he was misgendered at birth; no one else in town knows this. Later this will be echoed when Wes challenges Eunice on her knowledge of peoples’ identities.
b) New Way: People who seem different from you (in this case non binary and trans folks seeming different from cis people), and whom you therefore look down on, can be just as valuable as anyone else. Action: The Christmas fair is put on by a merry gang of queer folk and everyone has a wonderful time, especially the children, demonstrating that these people are valuable members of society.
c) New Way: Conforming will lead to trouble because life is about change not stasis, life is about being creative not cookie-cutter. Action: Sandra, who has valued Eunice as a good friend, is not invited to Eunice’s annual big bash, forcing Sandra to realize that Eunice is only a friend when Sandra conforms to her idea of who she should be – which is the same as her whole posse.
d) New Way: People who seem different from you (and that you therefore disapprove of) could come to your aid in compassionate ways. Action: When Sandra thinks she’s having a heart attack Emoke stays with her to comfort her until the ambulance arrives.
e) New Way: Putting on a play or any artistic endeavour is more about the process or journey than it is about the product. Action: Kay has the cast go through some fun exercises to discover their characters which contrasts sharply with Eunice’s blocking by diagrams.
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Turn insight into action
1.) Create a list of the New Ways/insights you’d like the audience to experience.
A.) the lives of others are more important than our own personal freedoms
B.) True love is more important than duty
C.) Putting others ahead of yourself
D.) True love will set you free
E.) You can’t rely on others to direct your life.
2.) Actions
A.) Miguel gives himself up in order to allow Dulcinea and his friends to escape. (Also, Hamad and Zoraida have gone from being people he uses to actual friends.)
B.) Hamad turns his back on his service to the Pasha to help Zoraida escape.
c.) Dulcinea agrees to marry Hassan. She doesn’t love him, but marrying him will allow her to help the other concubines in the harem. (I need to think about this one. If she does escape with Miguel, isn’t she putting her freedom above the lives of others?)
D.) After Miguel gives himself up so that the others can go free, he is ransomed.
E.) Dulcinea chooses her fate.
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Kathleen’s Seabiscuit Analysis
1. What I learned doing this assignment is that profound moment don’t just happen in dialogue. I can be a look, or involve an inanimate object or an action.
Profound Moments:
Red made $2.00 and brought home to the family. He was proud and his father was astonished. This was profound to me that even as a child, he wanted to help his family.
The parents knew they couldn’t take care of him and saw he had a gift with horses. This broke my heart because you can tell his father loved him. He unselfishly wanted his son to have a better life.
Red was forcing himself to throw up to stay thin because that was the norm for jockeys. He was putting his life on the line for a career he loved.
The trainer told Red that he would rather Red be strong than thin. He cared about Red as a person verses just a pay check if they won a race.
When Red and Seabiscuit made a comeback after they both wounded their leg. The connection Red and the Horse had caused them to work together to come from behind and win.
2. Kathleen Turns Insights into Action
I want the audience to experience:
inclusion, acceptance, family bond, high self esteem, self-love
Cassie wore bulky clothes to look fatter. Mia show her ways to dress to compliment her body thus giving her higher self-esteem. Scene shows Mia and Cassie trying on clothes for Cassie’s first day at work. At first Cassie picks all the wrong, drab, bulky clothes, then we see her trying trendy, modern clothes that makes her look successful.
Rhonda told Cassie at the will reading that she is bastard child, a mistake and she will never be a part of the family. Cassie gets up and sign the agreement to follow her late father’s wishes.
Cassie’s coworkers accept her. At first in the office, they ignore her. The walk past her when she tries to talk to them. She is invisible. So she hides in her office. When she realizes she needs a team to help her succeed, there will be a montage of her coming out of her office and greeting them in the mornings, they drop things on the floor and she picks it up, solving problem. Things that endear her to them.
Cassie is afraid to go to her father’s funeral although it has been a dream to be a part of his family. After helping to stabilize the family business, she was asked to come to the family reunion and she was treated 100% better than at the funeral.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Kathleen Gamble.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by
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