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Day 6 Assignments
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Budinscak Rules
Day 6
What I learned doing this assignment:
o These rules provide a checklist for a truly great ending.
o The importance of location for the final scene of the movie.
o Setup/payoff, setup/payoff, setup/payoff
o I want to ensure emotional payoffs for the audience and reader’s experience and enjoyment.
RULE 5: Don’t go On-The-Nose
I did not have any blatant examples of on-the-nose dialogue nor exposition. I do realize I’m going back to Act 1 & 2 to establish setups for emotional payoffs in Act 3.
RULE 6: The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict.
Locations:
Restaurant/Diner
Funeral Home
Doctor’s Office/Hospital
Warehouse/Docks
Meat Packing Plant
Zoo
Office above a bar/nightclub
I selected a funeral home since it’s a bookend to the opening shot, it’s owned by ourit’s where the inciting incident happens and also a payoff from the opening act that shows the nephews maturity and each cousin’s character arc.
RULE 7: Must keep us guessing to the very end.
The delivery is made on time, but Don Vito separates Jack from his nephews – when the door closes, Jack’s on his own and the nephews are on their own.
Jack – Don Vito tells Jack he won’t keep his end of the deal – he’s going to burn the restaurant to the ground.
Nephews – their mob guy walks them past the casket display room – Puck elbows Sal and eyeballs a casket, Sal nods.
Jack – Two big guys stand next to Jack for intimidation and to keep Jack calm when Don Vito says he can save the kids OR the restaurant, but not both.
Nephews – The boys stop by a large casket and start bickering back and forth until their escort has heard enough – what’s going on? Puck explains the Sal doesn’t think you can fit in that casket … because you’re too fat. The mob guy’s up for the challenge, and it’s going to be a tight one. He hands his coat, holster and gun to Puck and barely squeezes in – they shut the casket and have a gun.
Jack – Don Vito gloats when Sal enters the room and whistles – the Don sends his bodyguards after Sal.
Nephews – when the men chase Sal, Puck enters with a gun and stares down Don Vito. Puck hands the gun to Uncle Jack.
Don Vito’s men enter – the got the lowdown on Uncle Jack and the boys.
The FBI comes in – they’ve got the lowdown on Don Vito’s men, and they want to renegotiate their deal with Don Vito.
Don Vito’s other men come in – the guys set aside to wait for the FBI.
Last, but not least, Angel comes in – he’s the tow truck driver hired by LC to watch over Jack and his nephews for their trip and he gets the last lowdown on everyone. Climax over.
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Rob Bertrand Rules
What I learned: I learned the Rules for a Great Ending and how to use them to improve your third act.
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
– Cut and shorten the scene at the neighbors. It really slows things down.
– Cut the scene with Jack getting a call at the AA Meeting. His sobriety can be revealed and made more of a surprise/twist in the climax with Danny and Annie.
– Cut the dialogue with the cops finding Danny. Too much dialogue and it can be told quickly without it.
– Add Jack’s 1 Year Sober AA Chip to his pocket, to be revealed during the final showdown between Danny and Anny
– Annie comiing out and Jack’s revelation that he’s been sober for 12 months can be added to the climax, instead of the hospital scenes after.
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential
location for the conflict.– The climax is currently set in the basement of the Andrew’s home. On a rewrite, I’d like to make the room more important to the story. Jack was building a man cave that included a prominent bar. Progress stopped when Nora died. It’s a constant reminder of Jack’s demon in a bottle, so he doesn’t like anyone going in the basement.
– The bar will burn when Annie bashes a liqour bottle over Danny’s head and lights him on fire.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end.
Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end.– I want the 3rd Act Climax to rocket like a roller coaster, so I will be cutting a lot of expositional dialogue. Show don’t tell.
– I want to keep the audience engaged by upping the tension.
– I want to end it earlier, but with a sense of finality.
– Add a heroic moment for Jessica, who saves the day with her knowledge of horror villains.
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Fulfill the last three rules of Great Endings in the following methods:
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
Check the current version of your 3rd Act and tell us where
you highlighted any on-the-nose dialogue or action. Fie x it with a tangential yet symbolic conversation about something else like Pulp Fiction. I love on the nose when it is over the top so I may include it but have a running conversation about photo albums or something more superficial the way they do in Pulp Fiction.RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict.
Brainstorm possible locations for the best setting for your climax. Show us your list of possibilities and tell us which you’ve picked. Climb and Punishment ended on the climbing pitches, but the conclusion was a sweep of the village with everyone sleeping. Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan ended in an abandoned pet store based as the tour guide choked to death from COVID Easter Sunday 2020 with Lenox Hill Hospital a minute away, and this novel that shouldn’t be called Seismic Seesaw because that won’t work for the screenplay ends on a boat on the Hudson River beside the igneous rocks of the Palisades. There could be a leak on the boat. Besides poisoning, they could try to drown each other. The conclusion was going to be twenty years later with a Palisades landslide after an earthquake that kills Litonya and Jake. Yes, this is deus ex machina but rocks are personified and it might work for the theme since the climax is generated by human conflict. The Summit has already collapsed but it could end in Ibrahim’s Tudor Tower apartment in Washington Heights, a fancy NYC venue or park, but the boat provides the crucible in the helm and the Hudson River where the screenplay started. BB/Betty’s dream was to have her own boat so she could die on it.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end.
Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end. I wanted to have the trial but that sounds like a news broadcast because trials are expository and on the nose. People aren’t supposed to lie but they do. Since the kids have a personal relationship with the “bad guys,” I wonder if I could have Anahu go over a photo album, or something that documents their good deeds since films must be visual. Another idea is to put the on the nose and this photo memoir chitchat in the script for actors the way Woody Allen et al did. I think I must have a long version of the screenplay, up to 150 pages, because it adapts the last novel of my trilogy, and then a tighter one that is 110 pages. I am not sure if the last image is on the boat or if the boat could sink. They could dock the boat at the Palisades and call the police, or they could make a deal because they want the Bright Space Brain Buffet. The kids like Ibrahim and Betty for their good sides. Litonya has to choose between Jake and Ibrahim. Since I am still guessing about the ending, perhaps the reader will as well. -
Amy’s Rules!
What I learned doing this assignment is that if you wrap the story up too early, then the audience will lose interest before they get to the end of the movie.
Fulfill the last three rules of Great Endings in the following methods:
RULE 5: I don’t have any of the 3<sup>rd</sup> act written yet, but looking at my outline, having Andrea show up with the police and the news camera and Meagan being immediately taken into custody is too on-the-nose.
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential
location for the conflict.
Right now, the climax it set at Chloe’s dance recital. Since the main conflict is Andrea having to choose between her family and her job and Meagan is at the dance recital and also now part of the news story that Andrea is covering, I really can’t think of another location that would work.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end.
Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end.
1. The professor says he saw Meagan leaving the building just before the fire started, but when the police show up to the dance recital to question Meagan, Meagan’s friend Karen gives her an alibi saying that she was at the school all afternoon.
2. Andrea signs off the air risking her job and wins her family back from Meagan, but as soon as she does, she’s transported back to a year ago and everything is the same as it was at the start of the movie.
3. Back in the present, Andrea is offered a chance to go live with the network on the night of Benjamin’s playoff game.
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Janeen Rules!
What I learned doing this assignment is that somehow I must have missed the part where we actually write the entire screenplay. I have written early scenes where we were instructed to write a scene, but haven’ written the entire screenplay. I may have to “30 Day Screenplay” this pretty soon if we don’t actually write soon.
RULE 5 – Don’t go On-The-Nose
Amber and Morgan (and the rest of the Guild) are found not guilty in court after a vigorous battle that examines both sides of the Waterman Method.
RULE 6 – Climax Location
The climax is in the courtroom.
RULE 7 – Must keep us guessing to the very end.
Amber gets off on a Burning Bed defense.
The guild (and Morgan) get off because the court does’t believe what they do really works as Waterman says it does. It is both a victory and a defeat. A victory that they get off. A defeat that Waterman’s power to help people isn’t acknowledged. Medicine and Mind Control from a distance are deemed null and void.
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Armand Rules!
What I learned…
– Keep the conflict present in some form. It doesn’t have to be the main conflict, although that is the best one to build interest around.
– Give us some reason to worry about the success or failure of the protagonist.
– Add a twist or two that either introduces some new conflict or takes away an easy solution.
– Put the goal in jeopardy in some way. This creates doubt about the final outcome of the movie.
ASSIGNMENT
Fulfill the last three rules of Great Endings in the following methods:
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
N/A
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict.
The obvious answer is the room where the ghost was murdered, which he has avoided all his after-life.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end. Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end.
The killer seems poised to succeed
The ghost loses his closest living friend
The killer dies and also becomes an evil ghost -
BOB SMITHS RULES
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
To have fun brainstorming the turning of exposition and news into action in order to end with a surprising but (big) inevitable ending.
RULE 5 Don’t go On-the nose
In the current ending Major Kershaw uses as his challenge against Jannings as interview. I will switch to a court setting presided over by the Commission that must make decisions over which German does and doesn’t need denazification. The final verdict, Jannings must be denazified, although Kershaw states that Jannings was not so much a stooge of Nazi propaganda, he was a victim of the criminal Nazi government because it made him fear for his life if he said no to what the Nazis demanded. Which one of us can judge Mr. Jannings until we have walked in his shoes and lived with fear. We don’t know what we would have done had we been in the same circumstances?
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict,
Brainstorm:
The original setting was in the office of Major Kent Kershaw, the intake officer of
those seeking asylum in the American Sector of Berlin. However, the logical location is in
the court of the Commission that makes final determinations of assigning denazification and whether it is necessary for such. So we end in a courtroom drama on a moral judgment Jannings’ defense that he was afraid not to let himself become a stooge of the Nazi government which he did by appearing in propaganda films and in campaigning for the Nazi party.
Another possibility: He is detained and the discussion is among other detainees who are guilty of actual crimes against humanity. However, the courtroom drama seems the logical way to handle Act 3.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing until the very end.
I have already established the moral question at the beginning of the film (What did Jannings agree to appear in Nazi Propaganda films?) and that Jannings must face possible denazification which would halt the possibility of reviving his acting career. So what will happen to Jannings is always the yet-to-be answered question until the end.
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Jodi’s Rules! – Day 6
Ways to tighten up your ending.
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
As has been stated by a couple other members already, I have also worked on many scenes for my script throughout this program as has been instructed, but have not completed my script. But I will make sure that when I do complete my script I will steer clear of any ‘On the nose’ dialogue, as best I can.
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict:
The setting for the night of the election is in the Grand Ballroom at the Convention center.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end.
The Governor loses but refuses the outcome saying the election was riggedAt the ball The Governor shows faked video of team Karras attacking ballot boxes stealing ballots and attacking voters.
They boo and hiss at her. She crumbles feeling hated. She is escorted out of the building in her beautiful ball gown. Very Unlike Cinderella.
The next day she gets an investigative team on
the job and once the farce is proven to be a fake and most people calm down and
judge accordingly Pam is given her rightful place as Governor, but the Governor’s
base continues to believe him, the damage he did is done. -
Elizabeth’s Rules!
What I learned: super helpful high-level re-think/focus exercise. Made me reconsider—and newly consider—many things.
Don’t go On-The-Nose
A change in ending from day 8 helps with this and I’ll watch closely for this problem as I write the new scenes/make changes demanded by this new ending (should I keep it).
Quintessential location for the conflict (humans versus their protective psychic defenses—when they limit creative/playful/expansive growth): a playground and a church, as Ed, with his analytic bent and repressed trauma has trouble looking out and up for a greater sense of interconnectedness, joy/play—and meaning. Freud was highly influenced by Darwin and the anti-metaphysical thinking that directed the sciences (medicine and physics, perhaps most especially) during his time. While I’m not aiming for a science versus religion piece, I am going after a particular historical reality. Freud, for all his transformative and helpful insights (as well as those that now seem decidedly wrong and/or incomplete), lived a fairly competitive/argumentative and isolative/“other-distancing” life—and described himself as chronically pretty miserable. He was deeply committed to being a “non-believer” and this may have contributed to an over-focus on primal instincts, with their evolutionary advantages, as explanatory for, pretty much everything. Even as he sought to understand “civilizations,” he found many ascetic experiences downright aversive and seemed to have trouble imagining (and enjoying) some of the greatest achievements and experiences of the Collective—be they emergent properties of “purely natural phenomena” or metaphysical. Or both.
Other possible locations include: a Darwin-like vessel; Natural History museum, the Freud museum, a classroom, a psychoanalytic office/couch, a wilderness setting. But none of these fit the current story as a whole (with ensemble characters working out other psychological symptoms and with other psychological defenses—and, in particular, the issue of “connecting/committing/joining” with another and others).
Three things to be guessing about until the end: Will Ed and Jewels get together? How much will Ed loosen up, if at all (and what was he doing at the warehouse in Act I), will Grace and Mike every say “I do.” Why is Ed so unwilling to let himself ‘play’ and connect? Is there something in his past he’s forgotten (repressed/denied)?
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PS 80 Michelle Damis Rules!
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
-Check the current version of your 3rd Act and tell us where you highlighted any on-the-nose dialogue or action. ** I have not written all of the ending yet, so I’ll come back to this when I’ve done that and keep it in mind as I write.
RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict.
Brainstorm possible locations for the best setting for your climax. Show us your list of possibilities and tell us which you’ve picked.
I have two climaxes in my opinion. One in the vampire lair with the Nuns showing up to help. Then the second after Osgood and the family escapes the compound only to be stuck out in the open with the sun coming up. **this part MUST be in a wide-open space where they cannot find cover to get to or to use. They MUST use their own bodies for an entire day to save Osgood.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end. Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end.
1.) I’ve been planting the “rare blood” issue thru-out, but it is not revealed that it reverses a vampire and lets them die in peace.
2.) The two climaxes of one escape that leads to more danger.
3.) The very end wrap-up will show Osgood’s true “new” purpose and reveal he has a vial of K=Jims blood for when he is ready to die.
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Emmanuel’s Rules
Most great scripts avoid on-the-nose dialogue. The 3<font size=”1″>rd</font> act and ending go so quickly, there is no time, but to cut to the most important elements. The common back and forth type of banter are not required in scripts. When characters speak, they should more times than not, leap forward in dialogue. There are times when common banter is required.
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