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Day 13 Assignments
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What I learned doing this assignment? Take action to the extreme. Well, push boundaries, but still needs to be some-what possible to pull off by our Hero.
ACTION SCENE SET UP – Trevor interrogates German Cartel member and he is ultimately killed by mistake of his guard
1) Environment: Lavish German Estate
a) What if – apartment in high rise?
b) What if – home on cliff in mountains
c) Extreme – Climbing cliff, descending exterior high-rise building
2) Rules:
3) Villain: Ruthless Businessman
a) Extreme– also a pedophile
4) Mission: Interrogate Cartel member for Intel
a) Go opposite – Cartel member killed
5) Struggle:
6) Unique Skillset: Trained Navy Seal
a) Extreme – also martial arts, ie ninjitsu
7) Meaning:
8) Allies:
9) Weapon:
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Subject line: Dennis Chrisman Unique Action!
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” This assignment shows how to dissect action scenes and brainstorm the action to see if it fits with the rest of the story. This makes the scene unique.
Looking at your entire story, what is unique about each of these places:
– Environment: Southwest United States in a world thrust into chaos.
– Rule: The motorcycle gang has very few rules, but they still must adhere to simple physics, i.e. they must have gas to ride the motorcycles. The protagonist still plays fair and is further constrained by vehicle performance.
– Villain: The antagonist strives to live without rules. They are armed, but low on logistics, i.e., ammunition and gas.
– Struggle: The protagonist has instinctive survival skills and is more likely to fight than flight. The safety of the children is the struggle factor. While not cognizant, the protagonist’s need to protect the children is not only human/mother instinct, but she may consider them the future of mankind.
– Mission: – Get the children safely to the farm.
– Unique Skillset of Hero: Ability to assimilate her police training and complete focus on the mission.
– Meaning: The safety of the children is paramount. It’s akin to building a future for the United States.
– Allies: There are no allies until they get into the firing range of the farm and other boobytraps set by the members of the farm.
– Weapon: Guns. Chains, Molotov cocktails, etc.
Brainstorm ways to make one or more of those places unique:
– What if…? This scenario could take place in virtually any environment. The more complex the environment the more complex the scenario. This coincides with length and story. The more complex the scenario the story must be altered to fit the location and that may extend the length of the script by as much as 10 pages.
– Take to an extreme. What if there were two protagonists? This would split the antagonist forces to deal with the extra vehicle. What, if the protagonists were heavily armed or additional adults.
– Specific to character or environment. What if the character was a man? Would this affect the outcome of the script?
– Shocking or Surprising.
– Go opposite. The protagonist goes native and assimilates with the bikers.
– What haven’t we seen? Hand-to-hand combat or fighting. There should be more karate moves during the time the motorcycle gang has Nancy captive.
Tell us about the improvements that you have made. Given the brainstorming idea of “What haven’t we seen yet”, Nancy becomes a “sparring” partner for some of the members of the motorcycle gang when they capture Nancy and the kids. She shows her fighting skills until she is so fatigued, she can’t fight anymore.
Storyline. Prologue: Nancy and the kids are close to James’ farm. Their SUV is about on its last leg; with the simile “on a wing and prayer”. We see steam coming out of the radiator and a bent wheel rim. The motorcycle gang continuous their pursuit and assault on Nancy’s SUV.
They roar up to the vehicle and kick it with their feet, use motorcycle chains to flail the side of the truck, doing everything possible to force Nancy off the road so they recapture their prey.
Nancy, however, is still not ready to call it quits, especially when they are so close to the farm. As Nancy drives down the road, she sifts her knees to the steering wheel to steer the SUV; grabs her nine MM pistol from the car seat. She quickly holds the pistol in her hand and checks the clip; there are four bullets left.
She calls for Nikki. Nikki comes from the back of the SUV. She’s covered in shards of glass and carefully brushes the broken glass from her clothes; she is unharmed. Nancy gives her the pistol and tells her to shoot the gas tanks. Nikki leans against the upper edge of the rear seat as it folds up next to the front seats.
She spots a Harley Davidson Electro-Glide, a police vehicle in another life with police accouterment. The rider wears a police crash helmet. Nikki aims at the motorcycle through the SUV’s busted out rear window. BANG. She hits the motorcycle gas tank. Precious gasoline begins to spill out of the tank and on to the road.
The leaking gas spills onto the motorcycle’s exhaust pipe and catches in FIRE. The bike and rider immediately swerve of the road, into a ditch; the bike explodes. The rider appears to be unharmed.
Another biker riding a Harley Davidson Cruiser takes the place of Electro-Glide. Nikki takes aim at his motorcycle’s gas tank and FIRES. It explodes immediately and the biker flies off the motorcycle.
Nancy drives her SUV to the top of a hill; on the other side of the hill at the bottom is James’ farm. Only one lane of the road is open. The other lane is fenced along with the rest of the farm. A security checkpoint is at one end of the gate.
A biker roars up to Nancy’s SUV he has a sawed-off shotgun. He drives the bike, aims the shotgun at Nancy’s tires, and FIRES. The shotgun round destroys Nancy’s right rear tire. The SUV suddenly swerves to the right. Nancy throws herself onto the steering wheel and struggles to hold the SUV on the road. The SUV begins to fishtail then suddenly drives straight.
Out of nowhere a Molotov cocktail explodes near the biker closest to the SUV. The biker swerves to avoid the explosion and runs off the road. The bike hits the ditch and becomes airborne. The biker flies in the opposite direction.
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Subject line: Neil’s Unique Action!
What I learned from this lesson is a way to break down the pertinent elements of my screenplay. Since I started on this project, I have had a problem clearly and succinctly describing this complex, funny, sad, and educational story. This is the best I have done so far, but I feel there are a few more notches to climb before it is the most entertaining. So I am open to ideas for how I describe its uniqueness and entertaining potential.
Title: Military Family Blues (Copyrighted)
PLACES FOR UNIQUENESS
Environment: Military, Military Family issues, Honduras
Rules: Military – males and females are to be treated equally. Gender privacy issues are not guaranteed in field conditions.
Villain: Ignorance, resulting in families slow fade / Cartel
Mission: Answer the question of will families be better off divorced?
Struggle: Exhaustion, growing sexual tension
Unique Skillset: Expert facility repair team
Meaning: Each scene progresses on exploring the unexplored possibility of divorce for these two families.
Allies: Families and friends, Army and Air Force members
Weapon: Inadvertent disrespect, sexual tension / small arms, RPGs, and two Black Hawk helicopters.STRATEGIES FOR UNIQUENESS
What if…?
During a deployment, the husband of one family and the wife of the other family deploy in the same unit. They have been team members for many years during their part-time reserve duty. Through the years, the spouses have helped each other on the job with few if any sexual tension issues.
Back home, during the beginning of the deployment, the home bound spouses inadvertently meet for the first time in a grocery store parking lot during a snowstorm. They have no idea their spouses are in the same unit and deployed together. Much less know each other. When the wife and children come out of the store and find their SUV has a flat tire. The husband of the other family stops and helps change the tire in the snowstorm during this first time ever encounter with each other.
The deployment continues and the illicit relationships innocently continue to help each other while each spouse, on the down-low, continues to size up the other as a possible new spouse. As one would expect, participating partners will never admit there is any sexual tension beginning to grow despite each member secretly fighting to hold their profound body reaction in abeyance.
As this drama with comedy and action highlights continues, all the spouses remain unaware of their spouse’s other relationship until the humorous big reveal and resolution in the third act.
B. Take to an extreme.
Having the spouses not know what all is going on with each other until the great reveal is one extreme. The sexual tension building between the main characters is another extreme. The surprise ambush in the middle of the river and the surprise double-tap are other extreme examples.
But the surprise ending with the spirited hospital chaplain and their choices about their pending divorces is the last extreme.
C. Specific to character or environment.
Each main character has a revelation about how they can do better without cliches and simplistic solutions.
The military environment is a specific environment like other environments, where spouses have to operate for long periods without each other and suffer temptations that can be ignored for short periods but are more apt to cave the longer the period of time they are away from each other. Due to unexpected circumstances, both spouses find themselves going through.
D. Shocking or Surprising.
-Ambush in the River.
-How the four spouses find out about each other in the hospital chapel.
-Army vs Air Force members friendly and funny kibitzing.
E. Go opposite.
While we were waiting to be medivaced waiting for the aircraft, an Army Captain, back at the Fort in Soto Cano, set them up with sleeping accommodations in a broken down Honduran Army post. He told the AF team that they would be staying in hooches on the beach in La Ceiba, with females waiting to serve each person, a bonfire, and plenty of alcohol. So we were all excited when we left La Ceiba.
The Captain Knew we got rained on and had the worst conditions. He asked Bill how it went in La Ceiba, snickering sarcastically.
Bill shocked the Captain with his answer. Bill got positively animated and said,“Oh, it was great! Just like you said. Those special forces guys really liked us when we fixed some stuff real fast for them that they couldn’t get fixed for months. So, on the down low, they took us out on the beach but not to any hooches. They checked us in at the Grand Hotel on the beach where we all had suites using CIA funds ear marked for local spending or something like that. Our poor single guys could hardly walk in the morning after the topless servers that were assigned to us individually, took them for a full ride all night. One other thing, I hope those poor special forces guys didn’t have to stay in those rickety old canvas tents we saw on that Honduran post before they took us to the hotel.”
The Army Captain walked away with that, “Wait a minute look on his face.” Not laughing anymore. Our Captain Hensley got nervous when he heard what Bill told the Army Captain. Hensley was concerned Bill was getting the special forces guys in trouble. But Bill shrugged his shoulders and said they would laugh their asses off if they found out we told them that. They have a sense of humor and would enjoy our banter. Besides, that that was his second friendly shot across their bow after they freaked on us the night we were in their care. Hopefully, they will treat the Air Force better in the future now they know we aren’t so stupid. But mainly for the Captain’s inappropriateness of his comments when two of the wounded were barely hanging on. Our Captain smiled, patted Bill on the back, and walked away.
F. What haven’t we seen?
Military Family Blues is based on one of my deployments in 1989, so everything is unique.
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