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Day 6 Assignments
Reply to post your assignment.
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10 Replies
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Aliyah’s Action Structure
What I learned doing this assignment was 1) how different teachers define the second turning point differently; and 2) that I may want to change what happens to my heroes when they get to Romania, which will also change the location of the climax.
Opening: Bachelor and bachelorette parties for Carlos and Aliyah; he breaks open a piñata; she’s at an axe bar with friends. Purpose of both is to foreshadow and contrast how their innocent fun here becomes their means of killing later.
Inciting Incident: Their bag is stolen
First Turning Point at end of Act 1: They realize they enjoyed seeing the guy who stole their bag die; and from this point forward embark on their mission to kill.
Mid-Point: Omor Net learns the identities of our heroes; they are now the hunted.
Second turning point: Our héros have been captured by Omor and he’s going to torture and kill them.:
Crisis: They must decide between helping the girl who saved them get home and fleeing for their lives.
Climax: They’re isolated on a boat with killers all around
Resolution: They kill Omor Net. Go on a different honeymoon months later and become victims of identity theft — so they have a new mission to kill.
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Mark Dotz
What I learned from this assignment is that leaving some facts or structure to be ambiguous is okay, as you keep writing and rewriting more ideas come and build on your previous ideas. Writing is rewriting and this is fun.
Act 1 – The hero is captured and with an ally he escapes is now on the run. The villain’s plans are thwarted so he decides to launch his attack to steal his throne early.
Act 2- The Hero’s are constantly attacked and are getting ore and more beat up every battle. They eventually have to get on horses and run to warn the king.
Act 3 – It’s too late to warn the king of his friends betrayal. The Villain is attacking the King’s castle and the hero’s attempt to get in to save the king. All of the action is resolved when all three parties fight each other. Leaving the villain dead.
Opening- A competition amongst Squires has the best young men fighting each other- it is clear that our hero, Damian, who is a mixed race, is a strong and skilled squire and almost good enough to be a knight. A mystery knight wins the competition and Damian, our hero is defeated, he is honorable & humble about his defeat.. The mystery knight will not reveal herself. During the competition the King talks to his good friend Archibald about how his illegitimate son, Damain’s training is coming along. His friend Archibald assures him his secret connection to Damian will remain his secret. And both men are intrigued by the mystery knight who takes “his” winnings and leaves. Fans are disappointed that the knight didn’t reveal herself as she rides off.
Inciting Incident – Archibald thinks the kingdom is rightfully his and has raised an army through aggressive murderous fear tactics., demonstrated by the way he treats his men. A chambermaid, Isabella is watching his actions as she cleans chamber pots.
In order to eliminate the kings heir, Archibald attacks Damian in the middle of the knight in a great brawl that ends up with Archibald getting injured and Damian getting shoved into the dungeon while Archibald gets attention to his deadly wound. Archibald decides to use Damian as a bargaining chip to lure the king out and steal his crown.
First Turning Point – Damian is surprisingly broken out of the Dungeon by the chambermaid, Isabella. Damain and Isabella fight their way past a few castle guards and escape into the forest.
Mid-Point- Isabella and Damian have a quite night together in a cave. Isabella is secretive about her past but they agree they want to protect the king, for duty and honor. There is more to both of their stories. However Isabella doesn;t want to reveal her past and in order to distract Damian, Isabella seduces him as she cleans his wounds. Isabella offers to keep Damian warm during the cold night and they lay together. They are woken up in the middle of the night by Isabella, who yells to Damian that they are being ambushed. They fend off the men in a tremendous violent cave battle where both Damian and Isabella demonstrate their diverse use of weaponry. And sustain some more painful cuts and bruises. After they defeat all of the men, our hero’s start hiking onward in the middle of the night toward the castle.
Second Turning Point – Archibald is enraged and decides it’s time to wake up his troops and begin the attack on the king, despite differing opinions from one of his few advisors. He pushes the advisor out of a window to his death. “Anyone else have any ideas?”.
Meanwhile Damian and Isabella come across a burning village and help the villagers escape and save a child from a buring hut. They are again cornered by Archibald’s men in the backdrop of a burning medieval village. This time Archibald’s men are heavily armed with archers and axe wielding men. Our hero’s get into a violent bow and arrow shoot out with axe wielding men and a barrage of arrows. Isabella Our hero’s learn from the attackers that Archibald is getting an attack ready and closing in on the king that night! And his troops may already be nearing the castle while the fire draws castle troops away. Damian and Isabella are outgunned and outmanned, they decide to run.
Crisis – Being outnumbered Damian and Isabella jump on horseback and make their escape out of a field of arrows and soldiers and through the remains of a burning village. As they ride they realize they are wearing signifiers that they are with Archibald and need to change because the King’s men are attacking them too. They head towards the king’s castle to warn him.
Pre-Climax – As our hero’s approach the castle they can see that Archibald’s troops have already wheeled up catapults and are hiding them in the forest outside the castle along with a group of exhausted soldiers as the moonlight shines. Isabella and Damian knock out a few men and put on their uniforms. They manage to disable several catapults, until they are caught and they use the last catapult to fly over the moat to the bottom of the castle. Isabella goes first and lands in the moat just shy of the castle. Damian however hits the side of the castle hard and is pretty beat up. Within moments of this, Archibald leads the command to attack the castle. As the King’s castle guards start seeing what is going on, they see many of Archibald’s men are running into the castle whose drawbridge is down from the fire. The bridge is being pulled up, which violently kills any men aboard. Archibald’s catapults start firing off fireballs but the disabled catapults start falling apart and the fireballs roll after Archibald’s men, killing many. There is a large army outside of the castle now. Archibald’s is frustrated with how slow his men are getting access to the castle so he leads a group of men to throw ropes over and are able to pull down the drawbridge again, and Archibald himself goes inside. Meanwhile Isabella and Damian, climb their way up the quieter side of the castle using rope. They sneak around the castle, choosing to knock out any castle guards and not killing them.
Resolution/Climax- Inside of the castle Archibald, Damian and Isabella all arrive at the King’s door. The King, his most inner soldiers, Damian and Isabella end up in a brutal brawl inside the king’s chambers. The King recognizes Isabella as the princess of a rival in China. Isabella says she wants one mans blood, Archibald. The King is a strong fighter and face to face with Archibald they both are seriously wounded and lay dying. Without hesitation Damian and Isabella lift up Archibald and throws HIM out the window to his death where he lands in the burning shrub below. Isabella spits out at his body, this makes Damian have a cute dimpled smile.
The King with his last energy announces that the Kingdom has won, causing many of the men to drop their sword sin surrender. The King announces his last living heir, Damian- the boy who is to be king! The kingdom cheers and the opposition surrenders.
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Emmanuel’s Action Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is creating a top-down view of the 3-act structure is an excellent way to see how the story starts, what happens in the middle, and ending resolution, which also helps with writing beats or an outline.
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David’s Action Structure.
What I learned doing this assignment is…?” Once you start making a structure, other parts, such as dialogue, locations, actions and plot begin to take shape.
1. OPENING. – FBI OFFICE – FBI agents just doing their boring jobs. Saul receives a phone call. Conversation and desk photos show Saul, the Hero, is very happy with his family.
2. THEME – OUTSIDE SCHOOL – Conversation with cop. Many people are too stupid to make choices that are good for them.
3. INCITING INCIDENT. – OUTSIDE SCHOOL – Saul’s daughter and other children are murdered by Cult. Saul is wounded.
4. CATALYST – HOSPITAL – Saul faces his choices due to injuries. Saul joins the Agency.
5. DEBATE – AGENCY OFFICE – Weighs Agency methods against legal and ethical solutions.
6. FIRST TURNING POINT AT END OF ACT 1 – HOSPITAL – Saul sees his wife is near-catatonic. Vows vengeance.
7. MID-POINT – AGENCY OFFICE – Saul learns of secret agenda of the Agency and that there may be another would-be dictator.
8. SECOND TURNING POINT AT END OF ACT 2 – SAUL’S HOME – Saul’s wife is kidnapped by Cult.
9. CRISIS – CULT SAFE-HOUSE – Saul kills Cult leader. Records her screams. Leaves her in agony to die.
10. CLIMAX – BENEDICT’S LAB – Saul fights off hitmen and robots. Turns Benedict into a babbling idiot with his own mind-control device.
11. RESOLUTION – SAUL’S HOME – Saul plays tape of screams to his wife and she begins to recover.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by David Mailman.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by
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Janeen’s Action Structure!
What I learned doing this assignment is that with my various tracks (a technique I have used in novels for years), it is easy to put together the structure/order. I struggled to NOT include all of the details I already knew between the turning points, but managed to skip most of them that related to subplots of romance and intrigue.
OPENING: A failed Army mission in the war left a soldier with PTSD and a teacup poodle as a PTSD assistance animal. Working as a Santa at the mall, his elves point out the President’s Parents who mall walk every morning. Villains plan to use an inside double agent in the Secret Service and some low level mercenaries to kidnap the President’s Parents and force the President to pay a huge ransom and release members of a terrorist network before killing the parent and escaping.
INCITING INCIDENT: A man with FBI ID shoots the Secret Service agent with the parents and with the mercenaries, takes off with the parents. The mall santa ditches his hat, stashes his little dog in his “handy carrier” and knocks out the bad guys with military precision. He puts the parents on the mall cop’s Segway and sends them to a side door where he will meet them.
FIRST TURNING POINT AT END OF ACT 1: In a chase scene, the Santa heads to his locker to pick up his go-bag, knocking out the FBI guy and one of the mercenaries. He whisks the President’s Parents away in his car, causing the bad guys to wreck theirs. The FBI guy tells the authorities that Santa is kidnapping the President’s Parents.
MIDPOINT: During a cross country chase during which he thought he had removed all of the trackers for the President’s Parents, they stop at a rest stop. The Secret Service agent who was knocked down by a shot to her vest, has followed them and now disables the vehicle of government agents who are following them at the rest stop. Apparently, the Santa missed a tracker.
SECOND TURNING POINT AT END OF ACT 2: The terrorist organization boss sends in assassins to clean things up and finds that the Secret Service agent is on the trail of the parents. He tells FBI double agent who gets all of the government’s assets tracking her. Using off-grid tactics from his wartime training, the Santa uses travel by water, hiking and a borrowed cottage to lose the bad guys who have been tailing him.
CRISIS: The villains track the Secret Service agent when she leaves her car to follow the Santa and parents into the borrowed house and capture all four of them, calling the President again to reinforce their threat. He tells them they have his parents’ doubles. His parents are with him in the White House. They decide to kill the doubles.
CLIMAX: Using items from the cottage, the parents, Secret Service agent and Santa escape from the bad guys and hide the parents in a new location, arming them, setting booby traps and using McGyver-isms to defeat them, tying them up and using comm devices to notify the President that they are safe and to call off all of the searchers, identifying the rogue FBI agent. The President is shocked to learn that he was lied to about the doubles.
RESOLUTION: The terrorists defeated, the Secret Service agent, Santa and the parents prepare to return to DC in a private jet. The agent and Santa have become a couple and the parents wink as though this was their plan all along.
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Renee’s Action Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is how important it is to figure out the structure of your film before you start writing.
Opening – A flashback of the hero watching his daughter die at the hands of human traffickers.
Inciting Incident – the hero gets a phone call from an associated informing him that the traffickers that kidnapped and killed his daughter has popped back up in Thailand.
First Turning Point at end of Act 1 – while the hero is undercover, he is shown a young boy to bid on who looks exactly like the hero’s dead daughter.
Mid-Point – the villain sends a different girl to the hero’s hotel room. The girl that is sent in his place was friends with the hero’s daughter. They make a plan to rescue the boy and get out of Thailand.
Second Turning Point at end of Act 2 – the hero is captured and tortured.
Crisis – the hero must decide if he is going to go on or cut his losses and go home.
Climax – the hero must defeat the henchmen to get to the villain. He tracks her down and they go face to face.
Resolution – the hero is back at home with his grandson, telling him about his mother.
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Sung-Ju Suya Lee’s Action Structure!
Lesson 6: Creating Your Action Structure
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
Action movies have to start with Action. I had the Veterans sitting around a TV, watching them winning the lottery. Oops. I learned to establish the Veterans in Action scenes. Also, later 2 Veterans sacrifice their lives for their Families. This is still a work-in-progress. I will think of more stuff as I go along.
Logline:
When a group of old timers at a veteran’s retirement home win the mega lottery, they buy an old cruise ship to sail around the world with their extended families, but Pirates hijack their ship in South-East Asia and the Veterans must face the last battle of their lives to save their families.
Create the 3-Act structure for your story.
Look through your three tracks (Mission, Villain, and Action) and find the points that could work for this structure.
Opening: Establish the veterans’ retirement home. A country setting like cottages near a big lake. Establish the 4 leads, the Veteran old timers, 2 males, 2 females (revised from 3 males, 1 female). Each doing an Action scene. Such as water-skiing, fishing, shooting clay pigeons, scuba diving, rock climbing, racing on motorized dirt bike, tennis, badminton, lawn bowling, regular bowling, archery, paint ball teams, horseback riding, some farm animals, etc. One Veteran fixes a motor (on bike, boat, etc.). Establish the South East Asian Pirates on an old fishing boat, fish escape through hole in net. Some other Veterans (and their spouses) come back from a cruise, they feel young, refreshed, can’t wait to go, again. [Their adult children had paid for those cruises.] The 4 Veterans have never been on a cruise before (so they are jealous). Their adult children are not rich. That night, they watch the lottery winning numbers announced. They win.
Inciting Incident: They buy the old second-hand small cruise ship, 100 passengers, at the last minute before it sails off to the ship graveyard in India. They call their Families, invite them on an around the world cruise trip. It’s the start of summer, so many Families can go.
First Turning Point at end of Act 1: They sail off Hawaii. Families enjoy the cruise ship, get to know the layout, all its quirks/ eccentricities/ malfunctions. A skeleton crew onboard. One of them calls the Pirates to let them know about the Families onboard. They are anchored. An uninhabited island with a lagoon nearby. Two Veterans and some Family members go by 4 jet skis, plus 2 dinghies pulled by jet skis. Two Pirate boats seek refuge. The Veterans and Families let them onboard, take care of them. Once the Pirates have some food and drinks (including alcohol), they hijack the ship. The Pirates torture one Family member. One of the Veterans tries to escape with some of the grandchildren, a Pirate tackles them. Makes one Pirate shoot his gun into the air. Alerts the People in the lagoon. The Pirates demand ransom money. One Veteran starts transferring the money. They are in the luggage holding area. The internet is disabled by another Veteran on the chip’s tower. Lights go out. A fight. Shots get fired. Bullet holes throughout the ship. Start of ship sinking. More malfunctions within the ship. One Pirates goes up the ship’s internet pole, tries to fix it.
Mid-Point: The Pirates gather the grandchildren in the crew bunk rooms (away from future shooting). If the Pirates don’t get their ransom money, all the grandchildren will die. A fire engulfs in the engine room. Another fight in the engine room.
Second Turning Point at end of Act 2: One Pirate radios in for more back-up. Another Pirate boats comes with 3 more Pirates. One Veteran overhears that one of the two Pirate leaders has a son onboard. The Veterans kidnap that son. The ship takes on more water. A ticking clock of ship sinking. One Veteran dies trying to hold off a fight.
Crisis: The Veterans must rescue the grandchildren in the lower deck. They fight the Pirates. Find the crew bunk bed room. No grandchildren, no Pirates. They must go find the grandchildren.
Climax: As the Veterans race to find the grandchildren, they fight the Pirates in submerged water. More bullets create more damage within the ship. One Veteran dies, sacrifices their life, so others can get away. A fire blasts in the engine room. The ship tilts. People are underwater within the ship. The Veterans keep looking for the grandchildren. They lock the Pirates in various rooms that have locks on the outside, or have wonky locks.
Resolution: The 2 Veterans (2 got killed/ sacrificed their lives) get the grandchildren off the ship. They release the tender boats. The Veterans and Family get off the ship safely. An explosion on the ship. The Pirates drown in the ship, as it sinks from view. They use the Pirates radio, call for help. A local fishing boat hears it, sounds the alarm to the authorities.
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Denice’s Action Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is that this process simplifies the planning of the story so there’s a jumping off place to keep creating with better ideas.
1. Opening: Triple shoots targets on an indoor rollercoaster that tests her telekinetic abilities
under high gravity forces.
2. Inciting Incident: Triple learns that her father has lied to her about letting her be a spy
causing her to run away to see her mother in Poland.
3. First Turning Point at end of Act 1: Triple learns her mom has been kidnapped from the
Assassin who almost kills her.
4. Mid-Point: Triple learns that the Villain plans to destroy the world’s silver.
5. Second Turning Point at the end of Act 2: Triple is caught by the Villain.
6. Crisis: Triple decides to go after Villain against her father’s orders
7. Climax: Triple confronts the Villain and kills for the first time in an aerial chase scene.
8. Resolution: Triple becomes an agent against her father’s wishes.
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Mary’s Action Structure!
What I learned: I need to keep working on my hero to show how he is “highly capable and skilled” in horsemanship, and put in more how this will help him. I’ll also work on escalating the adrenaline.
•Opening: Sam is a black teen who runs away from his apprenticeship and arrives in 1825 Philadelphia.
•Inciting Incident: Sam is tricked and captured by Eb Johnson of a kidnapping gang.
First Turning Point at end of Act 1: Sam realizes that the gang intends to sell him south into slavery.
Mid-Point Sam escapes into Choctaw Indian territory when Joe offers a diversion
Second Turning Point at end of Act 2: Sam’s escape doesn’t work, he’s returned to find Joe, very weak.
Crisis: Eb (kidnapper) Kills Joe, and finds a plantation owner buyer. It’s Sam’s last chance to escape.
Climax: Sam stays and finds a solution to help all the boys get to freedom through his horse knowledge.
Resolution: Sam and the boys get their freedom and are returned to Philadelphia.
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Linda’s Action Structure!
What I learned doing this assignment is I needed to move up a few actions and move back a few different actions and results to make the structure more compelling.
Opening: Skirmish at the border with orders from an unseen person to individuals to cross at all cost.
Inciting Incident: Terrorists cross the border and the Commissioner is alerted. He goes to the border to lead the response.
First TP at end of Act I: Commissioner’s estranged son is kidnapped.
Mid-Point: Torture of terrorists uncovers the plot to bomb 50 cities across America. Learns the lead terrorist’s identity – the torture victims hint that the Commissioner is a target as well, and it’s personal.
Second TP at end of Act II: The Commissioner is led to believe his estranged son is dead and the attacks across 50 cities is imminent. His choices in life have led to complete failure and the loss of the one person he truly cares about.
Crisis: Tracks down the lead terrorist and battle. Learns the villain is his son.
Climax: The Commissioner comes face-to-face with the villain, the son he never knew. Must decide between his two sons.
Resolution: Kills his terrorist son to save millions of Americans.
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