Day 3 – What I learned …

[Randy Hines]

In the first scene, the twist is the hypnosis. After a very warm greeting and discussion to butter him up, she engages a hypnotic tactic with the teacup and its rhythmic sounds. This in conjunction with a traumatic event in the protag’s past, sets the path to the sunken place, a point of no return – innocence, and sets the tone and stakes for the rest of the story.

The second scene relates to the flash photography which removes the black man from his thrall, his bloody nose perhaps the manifestation of his physical struggle to free himself. Our protag sees this struggle and begins to put the pieces together especially when, after the black guy “calms” down, he’s back to normal as if nothing happened.

The third scene it’s the keys that the girlfriend states she has in her possession but won’t share them for our protagonist to escape. Subsequently, the hypnotic catalyst of the teacup sends our protagonist into the sunken place for further experimentation. There’s no going back to his and Rose’s relationship after this betrayal.

I learned that there are myriad ways of amping up the engagement of the viewer by employing the tactic of a twist that keeps the audience “on their toes”. This is also why some movies persevere at the box office and benefit from word of mouth, like early Shyamalan movies, as those moments lift the narrative from its regular track and takes it to a new level and one engages on THAT level.

[Rice Rice]

As a result of viewing the GET OUT scene and doing a rewrite of my protagonist’s subtext scene, I learned that it is better to incorporate subtext in both the action and dialogue of my characters.

[Susan Willard]

Week 2 Day 3: Character Subtext #1

GET OUT – Meet the neighbors:

What I learned rewriting my scene:

 Many different processes can be used to add or enhance subtext in a scene, such as

• By action.

• By dialogue.

• By using props.

• By using background situations.

• By interactions with surroundings.

• By interactions with other characters.

• By interactions with yourself.

 I must include many of these types of subtext indicators in a few of my script’s scenes. It will take time; this is my first script.

 I am excited to try new ways of adding subtext into scenes!

[Courtney Hill]

This was harder to me. I usually struggle with “on the nose” writing. I learned to add behaviors that would push the story forward, and makes the audience question what’s going to happen.

[Zev Ledman]

We see unusual behavior and dialogue from everyone, especially in a supposedly high society gathering, ie, mother physically checking out Chris and asking her daughter about his sexual proclivity. Then, the older couple telling Chris how it’s the black man’s turn to bat. Then, seeing a black woman dressed like a guest, but being treated like a maid. And, finally with the interaction between Chris and the only other black man there. The unexpected high-society, interaction that would never be seen between 2 black men. Then, the unattractive, older lady approaches him and we see he is at her beck and call, as if he were a Stepford husband. Nothing is normal, so we know there’s something amiss. But, what is it?