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Day 2 Assignment
Post your Day 2 Assignment here.
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13 Replies
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A. How did this process work for me?
This process was a great way of breaking down the components of the idea that can then be examined for alternatives. I had never considered doing this, which helped to clarify the foundation of the story further.
B. What did I learn doing this assignment?
The use of alternatives pre-loaded conflict to the story idea before the outline has been started. It also eliminated 4 of the 5 ideas.
1. Brainstorm for possible major hooks:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: Remote Antarctic Research Station.
B. Unique Device: unknown, but none – really.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: Alien Probe.
D. Mystery: Is one of the visiting ecotourists causing accidents and failures?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: Winter is approaching, and they may not have transportation or supplies to survive.
F. Unique layers: Ecotourists vs. Research Station personnel vs. elements.
2. Having to do with Sci-Fi, what haven’t we seen before?
An alien probe that not have hostile intentions, but defends itself and tries to get back where it was originally hidden.
3. Components of current concept:
A. Wealthy Ecotourists
Military Personnel
Research Team
Geologic Survey Team
Scientists
B. Antarctic Research Station
Military Personnel
Research Team
Geologic Survey Team
Scientists
C. Antarctic Research Station
Military Personnel
Research Team
Geologic Survey Team
Scientists
D. Antarctic Research Station
Military Personnel
Research Team
Geologic Survey Team
Scientists
4. Selection made.
5. Selection made, but it’s a secret….
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Doing this assignment, I learned that studying the concepts of already produced movies with similar components to my story idea can give me direction on how to tweak my idea to develop a unique high concept of my own.
This process worked well for me. Switching components in my ideas and thinking about similar movies in my genre helped me find a hook and high concepts for two of my story ideas. Now, I need to decide on one of the following:
Idea 1:
A. Contained Movie Environment: Fishing boat on a big lake (Lake Tahoe/Elephant Butte Lake).
B. Contained Characters: Four people who have hit rock bottom. Three are in the fishing boat. The other is in command of a large cabin cruiser.
C. Difficult Situation: The maniac on the cabin cruiser threatens the fishing boat occupants. The fishing boat can’t get away from the big cabin cruiser.
D. Reason for containment: The person in the large boat wants revenge against one of the fishing boat occupants.
E. Unique Device: Ticking clock. The people in the fishing boat are given a time limit to decide whether to die with the object of the maniac’s revenge or to find a way to stop the maniac from succeeding.
F. Unique Monster/Villain: A person bent on revenge.
G. Mystery: Why is the maniac seeking revenge.
H. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: How do the occupants of the fishing boat avoid being killed by the maniac?
I. Unique layers: Every person on the fishing boat is considering taking revenge on someone for one reason or another.
Idea 2:
A. Contained Movie Environment: neighborhood swimming pool.
B. Contained Characters: A paranoid schizophrenic, a swimming pool lifeguard, a fireman, and a police officer with PTSD.
C. Difficult Situation: The paranoid schizophrenic is off his medication and is afraid he will hurt someone. The police officer is hanging onto his own composure by a thread.
D. Reason for containment: The paranoid schizophrenic, on the verge of a psychotic break, seizes the lifeguard.
E. Hook. Now, it’s a hostage situation. Adding to the problem, the police officer in charge of negotiation has PTSD.
F. Unique Device: Ticking clock. The problem must be solved before hostage-taker has a psychotic break and harms the lifeguard. The police officer, who suffers from PTSD after a gunfight, must keep his temper in check.
G. Unique Monster/Villain: Mental illness.
H. Mystery: Why does the paranoid schizophrenic take the lifeguard hostage?
I. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: The problem is to convince the man to let go of the lifeguard and surrender into police custody before anyone is harmed.
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SUBJECT: Monica’s Great Hook!
A. How did this process work for me? It was quite entailed but it got the creative juices flowing.
B. What did I learn doing this assignment? I learned more about asking the right questions for a high concept.
1. Possible major hooks:
Idea 1:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: New Mexico desert campsite.
B. Unique Device: A secret underground base that has spread out throughout underneath the desert interfering with the natural order of things.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: Seven foot, stinky alien with an off world weapon.
D. Mystery: Why are there aliens living under the desert? Who let them here? Why are they interfering with the protagonist’s healing?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: She has to be at this site to receive her healing.
F. Unique layers: She has the power within her to get rid of the monster.
Idea 2:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: Terrorist cave.
B. Unique Device: A ticking clock, her flute, a stolen WMD.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: Brainwashed terrorist.
D. Mystery: Why do terrorists kidnap a female conductor?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem:
F. Unique layers: She is the daughter of the lead terrorist from an illicit affair.
Idea 3:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: A house.
B. Unique Device: Wheelchair.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: Ex-boyfriend.
D. Mystery: What happened? Why did he do it?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: How will she get her revenge?
F. Unique layers: Power of the mind.
Idea 4:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: Museum.
B. Unique Device: A lead coffin containing Hitler’s body. An elixir that lets you live forever but doesn’t stop you looking your true age.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: A 132 year old Hitler.
D. Mystery: Where did he get it? Why does he look 132 years old?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: How to kill Hitler once and for all?
F. Unique layers: Hitler’s allies.
Idea 5:
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: Mountain hiking path.
B. Unique Device: Bear trap, alcohol, fire
C. Unique Monster/Villain: The government.
D. Mystery: Who is the stranger?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: How to help the creature stay hidden?
F. Unique layers: Do they fall in love?
2. High Concept Question
Having to do with a thriller movie, what haven’t we seen before?
Having to do with an alien movie, what haven’t we seen before?
Having to do with an action movie, what haven’t we seen before?
3. Exchanging Components
The current components are:
A. Terrorists
B. Cave in the mountains
C. Kidnapped a musician
D. Her real father is the lead terrorist
Alternatives:
A. Terrorists
· Cult members
· Soldiers
· Rival orchestra leader
· Leader of her religion
B. Cave in the mountains
· Monastery in another country
· A bombed out village
· A harem
· A palace
C. Kidnapped a musician
· Stalk and frighten her
· Brainwash her
· Threaten to kill her
· Ritualist rape and murder
D. Her real father is the lead terrorist
· The Pope
· Politician
· Peace negotiator
· Ghost of a dead terrorist
4. Made my selection.
5. Time will reveal it……
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6. This process was such a deliciously simple way to totally, totally expand consciousness. I started with one idea, broke it down into a couple of components, and wound up with different stories. So fun, such a trip.
I suppose I learned that: a good hook is about (someone or a situation you empathize with) overcoming (something you want to see if they can overcome.) And that translates to so, so many different iterations – and then the characters that makes sense for it, just come up as part of the process.
So you can take any story, boil it down to components, change those components – and have a totally different story…. wack.
1. Harlequin VR
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: an apartment – and, a Virtual-Reality Dating-Adventure video game
B. Unique Device: online adventure-dating
C. Unique Monster/Villain: the monsters from the game become her personification of her demons when she has a cathartic mushroom trip
D. Mystery: What will make her happy? Her current man, her new man, or something deeper? (answer is “something deeper”)
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: a love triangle with her boyfriend-of-many years versus a man who she’s only ever met online
F. Unique layers: underneath her unhappiness with her job, boyfriend, and this possible-new-man as a potential solution, its actually about her unhappiness with herself from her sense of self worth, as she deals with internalized misogyny and body dysmorphia. Her avatar in the game becomes her empowerment of her ideal self, but its not real, so ultimately she must let it go as well and accept herself as she is.
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
You’ve already put your dreams on the backburner and hate your job. So what’s going to bring you happiness – your boyfriend, the flashy new man on an online-dating-site, or a cycle of self-destruction that will force you to defeat your nightmares?
*** needs shortening
Having to do with ___________, what haven’t we seen before?
Romantic Comedy, we haven’t seen – a woman turn out to need nobody but herself for happiness
A love triangle including an online avatar of someone who is actually not physically attractive in real life
Whitewater
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: A campsite on a river with whitewater and water falls
B. Unique Device: these narcissists have to trust each other to survive
C. Unique Monster/Villain: the river, wilderness (so not really)
D. Mystery: Who killed the guide, why are they stuck there
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: They need to survive, trust each other, and get along
F. Unique layers: just the personalities involved.
Although, it would be pretty cool to add a layer of corporate espionage – they find something out on the trip that could destroy the company, and need to get back in time, but also each want to be the one to deliver the saving-message…
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
A group of arrogant, urbane CEOs in competition for a promotion get stranded on a wilderness teambuilding exercise. What’s gonna do them in, Nature – or each other?
3. In terms of (Office comedies like “the office” and high-powered-maneuvering-shows like Westwing, we add comedy and pathos and maybe a murder mystery
Captain’s Log
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: a small ship that got separated from its flotilla and blasted away on its own. A damaged ship. (What if it was an outer-space mining rig, self-sufficient but isolated?
B. Unique Device:
C. Unique Monster/Villain: aliens, space, lack of oxygen…. Maybe we introduce an alien parasite that sneaks aboard but actually helps people?
D. Mystery:
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem:
F. Unique layers:
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
Having to do with ___________, what haven’t we seen before?
The Rig
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: an offshore oil rig
B. Unique Device: a biologist shows up to investigate a strange sighting that could be worth a lot of money.
C. Unique Monster/Villain: a disease? A murderer? A supernatural ocean-killer?
D. Mystery: who or what is the killer
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: survival is hard enough on an offshore rig, the supply ship leaves a new recruit to learn the ropes as humans start to die
F. Unique layers: every employee is far away from civilization for their own unique reasons
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
A biologist shows up to investigate a mysterious sighting, but after the supply boat leaves, a dead body of an employee surfaces. Storms and sea monsters without, and human monsters within.
Having to do with ___________, what haven’t we seen before?
Homestead
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: a homestead in the woods
B. Unique Device: an ongoing civil war that pitts the daughters’ parents against each other
C. Unique Monster/Villain:
D. Mystery: who are her parents really, and how are they connected to the conflict the stranger is running from?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: the stranger reveals that her parents may be the badguys. Then it turns out they are on opposite sides. Will the stranger rip the family apart, can the daughter keep it together?
F. Unique layers: the history of both her parents with regards to the conflict, their conflict with each other, their lies to their daughter.
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
A little girl has grown up in a remote forest homestead, far away from a raging civil war. When a spy collapses on her doorstep, her parents begin to take sides against each other. Will the civil war tear them apart from the inside?
Having to do with ___________, what haven’t we seen before?
Therapist
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: an isolated safehouse/cabin
B. Unique Device: the killer has killed his father, and transferred his feelings from his now-dead abusive-father to his therapist – torturing him while begging for redemption
C. Unique Monster/Villain: a killer whose pain we feel, a therapist who is a dick.
D. Mystery: what brought them to this point? Will the therapist save the killer or become his torture-slave? Will the killer find redemption of just more evil?
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: the killer wants healing, redemtpion, but is torturing the therapist he wants it from
F. Unique layers: Underneath both characters are issues with masculinity, identity, trauma, emotional pain, that we reveal.
2. Ask the High Concept Question.
A killer searching for redemption kidnaps and tortures an online influencer-guru, begging for therapy and inflicting pain. As complex emotions surface, who is torturing who, and will anyone be saved?
Having to do with _stockholm syndrome_, we haven’t seen _a killer who actively wants redemption while torturing his only hope.
3. Pick one and do the Exchanging Components process.
Whitewater
Who: CEOs
Could be Middle Management
Could be gangsters of a new-age gang
Could be a squad of FBI agents
Couldn’t be marines, they do their training separately
Could be nerds, ie. developpers
Could be a band on a retreat
Where: whitewater trip
Ski trip, and the chalet gets isolated
Himalayans
Rock climbing
An Ashram
Device: a race for CEO
Gangster promotion
FBI agent discovers that one of them is a mole
What if
An FBI team (or bunch of gangsters in a gang-for-hire) is sent to protect a guru at an ashram who is internationally important (or important to a wealthy gangster), and have to pose as spiritual practitioners, until their emotional issues come forwards. The guru ends up saving them, and they come out saved. Along the way a mole is discovered and there are fight sequences where monks accidentally-kick-ass
A bunch of gangsters go to pull a heist on a remote mint, and wind up in an ashram. Taken in by the monks, they must dodge FBI questioning, keep an eye on the money, and report back to their evil boss – who eventually comes to extract the money and leave the ashram in… ashes… the original gangsters fight internally about what to do, one wants to take the money and go but they can’t, one wants to betray. And then the monks accidentally kick ass.
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A. How did this process work for you? B. What did you learn doing this assignment?”
The process gave me an opportunity to really consider other thoughts on how to make the story unique, instead of always going with my first choices. I learned how to think from the point of view of a producer.
Marc Lynch: Great Hooks
STEP 1 BRAINSTORM KEY COMPONENTS SEARCHING FOR A HOOK
1. Unique Contained Setting: The Sandia Mountain New Mexico Wilderness
2. Unique Device: The main character has to find medical assistance for her Father, a hot air balloon pilot, after the balloon crashes in the Sandia Mountains.
3. Unique Villian: A lethal mountain lion who is attacking everyone, hikers, tourists, and site seekers.
4. Will a search and rescue team find the main character and her father or will the mountain lion kill them first.
5. Impossible goals/Unsolvable problems: How will the main character find medical assistance in the vast open wilderness.
6. Unique Layers: Search & Rescue Team. The family of the balloon pilot. The main
character’s internal conflict. The start of the balloon festival. Story tone switch between realism and magical realism.STEP 2 <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>ASK THE HIGH CONCEPT QUESTION
Having to do with a Search & Rescue Adventure story__________what haven’t we seen before?
1. A switch in tone from realism to magical realism.2. Hot air balloon flight.
3. A mountain lion as the antagonist.
Step 3 EXCHANGING COMPONENTS
My Current Components
A. Hot air balloon crash
B. New Mexico Wilderness
C. The main character, alone in the wilderness looking for help.
D. Mountain lion.Component Alternative
A. Airplane, Helicopter, Hand Glider. Parachute
B. Lake, Tall Building, Highway,
C. An Ensemble of characters
D. A pack of wild dogs, -
Hope’s great hook
A. This process was confusing for me (at first and at second). I got myself buried in the weeds and it took me a while to climb back out. I may still have some grass in my hair. Once I slowed down, when back to the five original ideas from the pre-lesson, I was able to see things more clearly. From there, it was a lot of swapping and reminding myself to make things 10x more difficult and that I didn’t have to figure out anything at this point.
B. I learned that of those five pre-ideas, three have merit and two of those are concepts I want to pursue. In one case, I’m already into a script that I can use these new lessons in. However, it was another concept that I want to use throughout this class. Changing out components made it stronger and stronger.
I’m not posting my laundry list of component switching here, but I’m keeping every bit of it. In fact, my strongest concept was morphed from a concept list I did during MSC8. It’s always stuck in my head and using these techniques brought it back to live and fleshed it out.
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Bob Colley Great Hook!
A. How did this process work for you?
A great way to come up with a variety of options to an idea. With some of my ideas it was like putting a dress on a pig. Sometimes an idea just has to go. I also figured water or fire could put dint in the budget.
B. What did you learn doing this assignment?
Best definition of what high concept is. Better than the other 114 I’ve heard. I also Googled one of my ideas and found a movie like it came out last year. Dang! Had a difficult time creating a hook like “snakes on a plane.” I’ll have to activate a few more brain cells.
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Anna’s Great Hook
How this Process Worked for me // What I learned doing this assignment: This was amazing!! I have been working with this idea, and thought I had it pretty well figured out. But this exercise inspired many more ways to the relationship, to amp up the pressures, to make it more unique, and to spin it as a high concept variation on another movie I hadn’t even thought about! This method inspired a brand new twist with technology that it excited about – and a new title to go with it.
ASSIGNMENT:
Step One: Brainstorm Key Components for a Hook
Intrigued Contained Setting: Swampy Florida Wetlands and Preserve
Unique Device: Geocache/Treasure hunting in the wild
Unique Monster/Villain: Psychotic father seeking revenge on boys like his daughter’s boyfriend who lured her to Europe, then sold her to sex trafficking to pay his drug debt.
Mystery: What is in each hidden box? Will she survive finding them? Whom will she save? What does the killer want?
Impossible Goal/Unsolvable Problem: Every box she finds risks her life. Every box she finds contains a way to save her boyfriend AND a bigger piece of her best friend. Saving one will kill the other. She must use her cell phone to find the boxes and text contents, but she’s losing power and he will die if it runs out before she’s done.
Unique Layers: The cop seems in on it, until she shows up to help. Jazz is a fish out of water the whole time, until she realizes what drives the killer (sex trade death of his daughter) and takes the game to his turf.
Step Two: Ask the High Concept Question
Having to do with_______________, what haven’t we seen before?
Having to do with Phone Booth, what haven’t we seen before?
“Phone Booth” in the woods/swamps – phone is only lifeline, and killer controls it.
Having to do with social justice in horror/thriller, what haven’t we seen before
Personal loss through sex trafficking/sex trade.
Having to do with contained horror/thrillers, what haven’t seen before?
Characters having to hunt/ find geocache “treasures” to save themselves, others
Step Three: Exchanging Components
Concept: A black college co-ed on Spring Break has to find a trio of geocache treasures hidden in a Florida swamp to save her boyfriend from a psychotic killer.
Current Components:
A. City college Co-Ed
B. Florida Swamp
C. Find lethal geocaches
D. Save boyfriend from psychotic killer
I won’t list all the options here – but the exercise opened the door to a lot of options. I like a lot of what I have, but it allowed new thoughts and insight.
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Assignment 1: Brainstorm Possible Major Hooks
A.) Intriguing Contained Setting: the Hobbit’s Nest, an AA meeting location, a haunted house.
B.) Unique Device: an AA sponsor who uses violence to help his sponsees stay sober, Taoist principles applied in a practical manner to solve cases, two unlikely allies like a Native American warrior and a Buffalo Soldier.
C.) Unique Monster/Villain: a shape-shifting monster, a drug-dealer who takes sadistic pleasure from causing recovering alcoholics and drug-users to relapse, a cult leader who brings people back from the dead by killing their murderers, the old and embittered future self of a young activist, a monster mutated by exposure to orthogonal time who started off as an idealistic do-gooder.
D.) Mystery: who is beating up all the local druggies? Who lives in the strange house in the middle of the woods? Why is a ghost haunting the mansion?
E.) Impossible Goal/Unsolvable Problem: How do you stop your sponsee from relapsing when their friends and family are drug addicts or negative influences? How do you catch a ghost that can go through walls? How do you escape and unescapable trap, like a house in a foggy pocket dimension?
F.) Unique Layers: The Sponsor has combat training and is secretly beating up drug peddlers that are tempting his sponsees. The seemingly benign old lady is your future self when you’ve become embittered and corrupt. Someone who lies all the time would not know the truth when they experience it. Or, they have been lied and mistreated so many times that they assume everyone else is either a liar or they’ve been abused.
Assignment 2: Ask the High Concept Question
Having to do with a movie about vigilante justice, what haven’t we seen before? A movie about an AA sponsor who takes matters into his own hands when his sponsees fall off the wagon due to bad influences in their lives.
Having to do with a movie about trapped characters fighting a monster, what haven’t we seen before? We haven’t seen a twist where, by the 3<sup>rd</sup> act, the monster is revealed to be the prey and the trapped characters are actually the real predators. They engineered the situation all along.
Having to do with a Sherlock Holmes detective type, what haven’t we seen before? A detective who is a Taoist. Rather than solving cases through sheer logic alone, they use Taoist principles. Mutual arising. Wei wu wei. The soft and the hard ways. The wavelike nature of reality. The one being representative of what the whole is doing.
Assignment 3: Pick one and do the Exchanging Components process
The current components with alternatives are:
A.) A group of 12-steppers
– A cult leader and his followers
– A writer’s room
– A magician and their assistant
– A teacher and students
B.) The sponsor is beating up bad influencers
– The cult leader is conning his followers
– The head writer can’t pay the other writers and is stealing their ideas
– The assistant is trying to steal the magician’s secrets
– The students are setting up the teacher for a fall
C.) A drug peddler sets up a trap at the AA meeting hall
– The cult leader underestimates his followers’ willingness to martyr him
– The assistant is going to sabotage one of the tricks, killing the magician, and making it look like it was an accident.
– The Sponsor has been working with a gangster all along
– The Sponsor is secretly in love with his sponseeHow did this process work for me?
It required a lot of time and thought on my part but it helped me to see how I could create a tightly-woven contained story that has only three main locations. Initially, I had thought I’d need four locations, but this process helped me to see that the story could become even more impactful if the last location was the same as the second location.
What did I learn from doing this assignment?
I learned that by going through this process, though lengthy, it helps me to consider new ways to approach the original story.
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MICAH’S GREAT HOOK!
Intriguing Contained Setting:
Inside a giant mech
House boat
50s diner during an atomic monster attack
Porn set
Halloween haunt attraction
WWII London shelter during a blitz
911 call center
Cult compoundUnique Device:
Murder mystery in some kind of crisis shelter
Unable to get a dying person to a hospital
Solve corporate controversy before stocks plummet
Deal with a crisis while committing a crimeUnique Monster/Villain:
A super-hacker who can observe you from anywhere
A drunken/tripping/mentally-altered best friend
A guilty conscience made manifest
A terrorist with a fictional religious ideology (e.g. Harry Potter)
A boss the protagonist has cuckolded (or a judge, or an investigator, etc)
Spouse during custody battle
Cops pursuing criminal family memberMystery:
Where did this un-IDed space satellite/shuttle come from?
How did I get pregnant when I haven’t had sex?
How did I give birth to this baby of the wrong ethnicity without cheating?
Who is sending me threatening letters?Impossible Goal/Unsolvable Problem:
Come up with a cure/antidote while dying
Handle crisis over the phone
Navigate a major crisis while drunk/high/otherwise impaired
Convinced a loved one of the danger of their beliefsUnique Layers:
Someone in the protagonist group is secretly the cause of the crisis (e.g. murder mystery)
A friend or loved in is secretly seeking revenge against the protagonist (e.g. Othello)
An ally is secretly sabotaging the protagonist
The main location turns out to be cursed
An amnesiac is actually the villainThe High Concept Question:
HORROR
an un-ironic musical
a saint or religious figure as the villain
the villain’s perspectiveTHE LEADER
a coward
multiple personality disorder
a transsexualHAUNTED HOUSE
aliens
ghosts protecting the inhabitants
ghosts afraid of the living people
actually a reality TV showSCIENCE FICTION
a genuine utopian society
our world being the bad one
time traveling tourists
earth must be destroyed to save the universeExchanging Components:
Cheating wife must get rid of dead gigolo’s body before husband gets home.
Cheating Wife
Nun
Superhero
The President
Priest
Mother
AngelGet Rid of Body
Get rid of drugs
Fix an error in time
Hide/Destroy monstrous creation
Have lover’s baby (who is of a different ethnicity)Gigolo
Lover
President
JesusHusband Gets Home
Kids get home
Press arrives
Police arrive
Jesus arrivesThis process worked great; I actually came up with a whole new concept that I feel was better than any of my pre-class ideas. This assignment taught me the power of free-form brainstorming, and how to turn simple prompts into many different viable ideas.
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A. How did this process work for me?
I am appreciating more and more each day in this class the methods in which I am forced to look at things from a different line of perspective. This process helps me focus more on the hook rather than the concept. For a while in my process of learning to write scripts for the first time, I found that wasn’t an easy process.
B. What did I learn doing this assignment?
I learned that I still have a lot to learn in becoming a better script and screenwriter. I am just now starting to see but not reaching but seeing the tip of the iceberg, and that is okay, for it only serves to fuel the fire that makes me a good writer. I have plenty of material to work with but the structural infrastructure put it all together is lacking and I am happy to say that this class is helping me in more ways than one to pull it all together.
Step 1: Brainstorming Key Components Searching for A Hook.
A. Intriguing Contained Setting: The Lower depths of Hell
B. Unique Device: The journey out of hell
C. Unique Monster/Villain: The Dark Lord of the abyss
D. Mystery: The real connection between the three main characters
E. Impossible goal/Unsolvable problem: Escaping an eternal prison which is Hell.
F. Unique Layers: She carries the key of escape but is unaware of its full purpose, also she is not on this journey by choice for it was chosen for her so she may become wiser at the end.
Step 2: Ask the High Concept Question.
[Having to do with a “Fallen Arc Angel”, what haven’t we seen before?
What is the integrity of this Character, why is this journey before her, what is her purpose or goal in leaving Hell?
Step 3: Components of the current concept.
A. A mentor/Father who counsels the Arc Angel on her journey.
B. A sword of unknown power and a key to solving a problem.
C. A mysterious child
D. A dark and powerful demon
Step 4: Brainstorm Alternatives
A. A magical Amulet that provides guides
B. Magic that has to be learned in order to complete the mission
C. A Baby’s crib and a clue
D. A Dark secret that will reshape the purpose of her quest to leave Hell.
The most interesting and engaging for me would be:
Magic that has to be learned in order to complete the mission
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Greeting Cheryl,
Okay I have to say it: Better late than never!
Thanks for your patience. I went into this project thinking of brushing off my first script based on a short story I had published. It’s a hybrid or should I say “semi-contained” and I thought, “somehow I’ll make it work” because I really want to get back to it after several years.
But as I worked through five ideas, mostly based on revising existing scripts, the fifth one came out of the blue, brand spanking new! And now I’m intrigued. So the exercise really got me thinking and POSSIBLY getting hitched to this totally new idea.
I’m not sure how unique it is, but it keeps coming back to me visually, and I’m considering it.
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Pick a movie that is outside the Covid Guidelines and give us your thoughts on how they could make it in the current production environment.
<b class=””>3. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
This was a great assignment! It forced me to make choices that I would have to make with my own work. I chose Marty for several reasons but WOW it’s really dated even though the characters are well drawn. Paddy Chayefsky was like the king of drama as an author, playwright and screenwriter, especially in the 1950s, and I knew this was a part of the Playhouse Theatre that dominated television. I mentioned the Oscar-winning film in my first novel since it took place, partly, in 1955, so I wanted to see the film in its entirety. I would love to see it remade but I’m not sure how the story would resonate now. Regarding Contained Films, there were some obvious choices on what could be cut to keep the budget in tow and other COVID-related element but not lose the character arc.
<b class=””>Subject line: Anthea T. Piscarik Guidelines for Marty
<b class=””>TITLE: Marty (1955)
<b class=””>AS THEY DID IT:
A. People: Marty, Clare, Angie, Marty’s Mom, Cousin, and wife Aunt, Dancers, Bar guests, Marty’s other guy friends
B. Stunts: No Stunts
C. Extras: Busy NYC Street Scene, Dance Hall
D. Wardrobe: Ordinary
E. Hair and Make Up: Ordinary
F. Kids and Animals: Cousin and wife’s baby
G. Quarantine: Mostly limited locales
<b class=””>COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People: All main characters, but no dancers, bar guests, or other guy friends
B. Stunts: No Stunts
C. Extras: Leave out dancers and bar guests
D. Wardrobe: Same
E. Hair and Make Up: Same
F. Kids and Animals: Keep baby in movie
G. Quarantine: Omit opening busy street scene and start right in the butcher shop; don’t need to be in the dance floor if you hear the music in the foyer area. Cut to balcony scene where he can meet Clare and hear the music and dancing in the background.
3. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
4. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.<wbr>screenwritingclasses.com/<wbr>forums/
Subject line: (Your name’s) Guidelines for (Movie Title)
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