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Day 6 Assignments
Post your Day 6 assignment here.
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Chris Cornelius’ Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is: There are so many varied scenes and adventures here, I need to be selective with the main 1979 motorcycle trip stories and insert flashbacks to her upbringing and scenes from the present, on a strictly as-needed-basis.
1. Tell us your Transformational Logline.
Based on a true story: A tired, once vibrant northern city girl reconnects with her spirit and sons telling captivating, perilous and humorous stories from her 1979 motorcycle odyssey when she fell in love with a man raising two young children and marijuana on a farm in Mississippi.
2. Main character: Trish
Change Agent: Tom, Matt and others
Transformational Character(s): Trish and some of the characters she meets
3. List out your Mini-Movie structure:
This is the Main 1979 cross-country trip story line with flashbacks and present scenes yet to be inserted where needed.
I reached a stage in life called ‘downsizing’ when I had to look back before going forward.
MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.
Turning Point: Call to Adventure
Trish leaves her family, friends and job teaching costume and set design at Harvard for the summer, and despite some emotional and physical drawbacks, makes it to NYC and meets the first character in her travels, an impressed Wall Street Broker who wants to follow her .
MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.
Turning Point: Locked in.
Trish visits her former undergraduate roommate in Washington, sees the sites, then meets up with motorcycling James (from Boston) so they can safely travel through Easy Rider country–leaving more of the ‘Old World’ behind. They meet an undertaker that specializes in accident victims (gate keeper) who reminds her of what is important to her in her old world before entering the other world of the trip, where she meets and falls in love with motorcycle mechanic Tom-raising two young children and marijuana on a farm in Natchez, MS–Huge game changer.
MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
Turning Point: Standard ways fail.
Trish and Tom enjoy the novelty of each other (gun target practice, riding three-wheelers); The marijuana conflict arises; Trish reluctantly continues her travels; and she (brokenhearted over Tom) and James celebrate 4th of July in New Orleans; then go their separate ways, as planned, in Southern Texas.
MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.
Turning Point: Plan backfires.
Trish survives her worst day (physically and emotionally sick, hot, and out of gas-her trip sabotaged by her heart); rescued by a wise, jazzy, Deus Ex Machina man driving a Cadillac. She then has a Big Bend adventure with 3 Viet Nam Veterans-the older brothers she never had; a bizarre, other worldly Austin gazebo rain incident with sculpture student from the university; she calls Tom from busy rest area. He’s not home. In the Boulder hostel she meets Midwestern traveling girls with head vs heart issues, and ex-con imprisoned 5 yrs for transporting pot. Trish is not allowed to get Tom’s general delivery letter on a Saturday at the PO. It’s forwarded to San Francisco; She calls Tom again from Continental Divide and he’s not ‘the home body he said he was.’
MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.
Turning Point: The decision to change.
Sick, Trish meets, is sheltered, and recovers with spiritual Aspen, engineer, cocaine dealer Matt. She calls Tom from a bar in town and they finally connect. He says, ‘You really need to travel with someone.’ Trish hangs out with Matt and his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend-Matt’s best friend. Matt buys a motorcycle and plans to meet Trish in San Francisco in two weeks.
MM #6 – Pages 75 – 90 – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.
Turning Point: The ultimate failure.
Trish leaves Aspen, then meets Soulmate jeweler Joe Bones in converted school bus in Telluride. They share their art. Trish has accident trying to jump a wash in the desert with her bike. Unconscious she flashes back to a tricycle accident she had as a child. A sport bike rider mysteriously comes out from the dark woods behind her and rescues her from riding on the slippery wet gravel to the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge. She runs out of gas and coasts back to her tent. She travels through Las Vegas, then heads into a fiery orange sunset to Death Valley. The Hawk fails in the hot dark night in the desert. It cools down and starts up. In morning she’s suffering from casino smorgasbord food poisoning. Then a little amusing dog distributes her dirty laundry all over the campground. She takes off for the Pacific where she celebrates and offers wisdom to two bored LA boys.
She tours Hollywood, then up the coast to San Francisco. Funny incident with unemployed actor trying to get motorcycle up YMCA steps; finally gets a letter from Tom and mailigram from Matt. She waits and waits for Matt; they don’t connect; She spends time with children at campsite in Redwoods; then makes decision to detour and return to Tom on her way home. She starts writing the prose for The Lady and the Hawk children’s story. Full speed ahead. Picks up letter from Tom at Seattle Post Office.
MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!
Turning Point: Apparent victory.
Canadian border officials search all of her gear and take her bear spray ‘paralyzer’. She travels on ferry and rides with the Lords Motorcycle Gang; the script circles around and repeats the opening scene at a Montana gas station-but we now know what ‘home’ she’s heading back to. She meets and is awed by the Mythic Motorcycle Man (a wise old rider- dusty from the road-she will become someday). Then has heartfelt (freedom vs settling down) talk with hiking Heidi, her roommate at a Teton hostel; Then a Bear attacks her camp (no bear spray). She calls Tom so he knows she’s on her way to meet his children. She rides the boring Interstate with Pete a very cute Sturgis Rally stunt rider. She’s exhausted but not allowed to stay at the Sioux Falls hostel (men only); so travels 2 hours in dark to hostel run by retired nuns in Omaha. Picks up Kansas City letter from Tom-almost home to Natchez.
MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.
Turning Point: New status quo.
Trish experiences all of the family life with Tom, his friend Ed, and the children. She reads The Lady and the Hawk children’s story she wrote. Then things start falling apart: discrimination against blacks; unrelatable Southern women; hellish marijuana activity; the heat and humidity.
She hates to leave Tom, Ed and the children but has to get back to her Harvard job. She runs out of gas on the Natchez Trace and her tank is filled up by a forman and some prisoners that are cutting back the roadside kudzu.
At this point the three story lines play off each other more intensely with contrast and/or support. (1) The past-trials and errors of teaching herself to ride her first motorcycle-the Twinstar; (2) The 1979 trip-riding the Hawk onto the Interstate heading home changed; and (3) her present senior self.
After going through all her trip memorabilia and life experiences in the attic, and feeling renewed and empowered when she puts on her leathers, she buys a new Honda Twinstar; gives the Mythic Motorcycle Man salute to a new young rider; and rides off for a new adventure-possibly to track down Tom after finding his phone number in the pocket of her old jacket-‘call whenever,’ or maybe just out for a joyride before returning home to cook supper.
Each of the three story lines ends in a different stage of life, on a different bike.
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DAY 6 ASSIGNMENT – TRANSFORMATIONAL STRUCTURE
Joshua Doerksen’s Transformational Structure
WHAT I LEARNED DOING THIS ASSIGNMENT:
I found that my story was dis-jointed without “proper” structure and that as I better defined gradients the story developed a different tone and flow. I also discovered that my Change Agent and Transformational Characters were not correctly identified and I realized the benefits and possibilities to fluidity and flexibility within the story itself.
LOGLINE: An aging and eccentric, wealthy industrialist must fight the Board of Directors of his own company to prove his sanity and preserve his legacy.
CHANGE AGENT: Board of Directors (Bishop Enterprises)
TRANSFORMATIONAL
CHARACTERS: William “Bill” Bishop
Dr. Cynthia Pratt (Psychiatrist)
MINI MOVIE 1 – STATUS QUO AND CALL TO ADVENTURE
We start at the sprawling grounds of Bishop Enterprises, where it all began for the proud Bill Bishop, who is touring the facility led by a group of executives with white coats, hardhats and clipboards. Bill is well liked in the factory, smiling and waiving to various workers and shaking hands with others.
The tour makes its way to an executive room of the Research and Development wing where a presentation is waiting.
“1977; the dawn of a new age – THE COMPUTER AGE!”
The Board of Directors deliver a pitch for a strategic business shift using their example of the manufacturing plant, emphasizing the “outdated” and “obsolete” processes in practice and the need to re-invent the Bishop brand. They are in agreement to re-open an Artificial Intelligence program that Bill had ordered closed.
Bill is infuriated by the reproof of his company and the question of his vision. He lambastes the Board with a visceral tirade in defense, setting him at odds with the executive body.
CHANGE AGENT: Board of Directors – Bishop Enterprises
T.C.(s): Bill Bishop, Plant Workers, Dr. Pratt
OLD WAYS: Rigid, Proud, Unapologetically Focused
VISION: To “Re-invent the Bishop Brand”!
CHALLENGE: The Board must convince Bill to modernize.
WEAKNESSES: Fear of losing control, mortality and legacy.
MINI MOVIE 2 – LOCKED INTO CONFLICT
The Board of Directors calls a secret meeting to discuss the fitness of Bill to continue as Director and CEO of Bishop Enterprises. Though it is agreed that Bill has always been an eccentric of sorts they are reluctant to make the move and insist instead on an independent psychiatric assessment of Bill.
Bill refuses to comply with the request, locked firmly into his stagnant vision of the company and solidifying his legacy.
Bill is visited by his lawyer and close friend of many years who explains just how precarious the situation is. The lawyer tries to talk sense and finally produces for Bill the legal document drafted by the Board to remove him as Director and CEO; it is signed by all members, including Bill’s wife Elizabeth.
Bill reluctantly agrees to comply with the Board’s request in hopes to secure his position and save his legacy.
OLD WAYS: Denial. Anger. Conflicting Visions.
CHALLENGE: Bill and Board struggle for survival of Bishop Enterprises. Changing Marketplace.
WEAKNESSES: Fear. Pride.
MINI MOVIE 3 – HERO TRIES TO SOLVE PROBLEM – BUT FAILS.
Bill arrives at the University Psychiatric Unit, an old whitewashed sanitarium building on beautiful grounds with lots of foliage – peaceful.
Bill checks in at reception with his lawyer and Elizabeth and is met by the Director, Dr. Wilhelm who tries to comfort him. Bill reads over the voluntary admission paperwork and pauses in thought before signing. He kisses his wife goodbye before being escorted to a private room.
Bill attends several therapy sessions over the next few days and is generally dismissive and defensive with the clinicians, until he meets Dr. Pratt who immediately disarms him by her virtue alone. A quick series of questions from the young doctor has Bill stripped to his very core, leaving him in an instant to re-evaluate the very reason he is there.
CHANGE AGENT: Dr. Pratt rattles unflappable Bill.
VISION: You will find your legacy inside yourself.
OLD WAYS: Narcissism, Always right attitude.
NEW WAYS: Open to exploring new insights of himself.
CHALLENGE: Forced to comply with Psychiatric Assessment.
WEAKNESSES: Fear. Pride. Guilt.
MINI MOVIE 4 – HERO FORMS A NEW PLAN
Bill resolves to prove himself a good man to Dr. Pratt despite being shaken by her. He shares that he is haunted at night by flashbacks of his involvement on the Manhattan Project and Hiroshima bombing.
Dr. Pratt is very compassionate with Bill and they talk at length about Bill’s history and the rise of his business empire. As Bill shares his struggles with his past, Dr. Pratt shares some personal information of her own struggles breaking into specialty medicine as a woman, and she confounds Bill with a question of his very own misogynistic tendencies and their very origin.
Dr. Pratt recommends a pharmaceutical protocol which Bill vehemently rejects.
An initial report is sent to the Board and Bill’s lawyer indicating that Bill is yet resistant to therapy. A longer period of observation is suggested.
The Board schedules a meeting to debate and Bill’s lawyer visits with the news. Bill has a “psychotic” break and is restrained.
VISION: Bill will save himself THROUGH his legacy.
OLD WAYS: Bill disagrees with Doctors. Pride in history.
NEW WAYS: Bill is drawn to a quiet strength in Dr. Pratt and sees that differently from his own. Bill wants approval and acceptance from Dr. Pratt.
MIDPOINT: The Board votes to invoke interim control of Bishop Enterprises and re-opens the A.I. Program in a bid for US Military Contracts that Bill had vowed never again to pursue.
OLD WAYS: Bill and the Board are opposed in ideology. Bill is in jeopardy of losing control of his company.
CHALLENGE: After making some progress in therapy, Bill still has a lot to learn about himself and to prove to the Doctors.
CHALLENGE: Failure to prove his sanity will cost his company.
WEAKNESSES: Too proud to see the faults in his ways.
MINI MOVIE 5 – HERO RETREATS & THE ANTAGONISM PREVAILS
Bill withdraws into himself after being challenged by Dr. Pratt.
Bill is re-evaluating his life and history, integrating into the routines of the sanitarium and aligning with residents there.
Bishop Enterprises is undergoing massive changes. Labor positions are being terminated in favor of electronic systems integration.
Research and Development have uncovered a vault of information on the A.I. Program that Bill had not intended anyone to see. It includes an experimental study of a human subject preserved through “organic systems robotics”, a concept Bill had secretly researched with Alan Turing.
The Board moves to finalize “hostile takeover” by using research as added evidence against Bill’s capacity to lead.
A high court approves the motion and sets trial, ruling that interim control of Bishop Enterprises remains with the Board.
VISION: Bill’s legacy is solidified in his genius.
OLD WAYS: Bill struggles with others opinion. Board is moving closer to taking Bishop Enterprises from Bill. Elizabeth is taking sides against her husband. Dr. Pratt embattled in her struggle against stereotype and misogyny.
NEW WAYS: Bill accepts the truth about his marriage. Bill recognizes and aligns with Dr. Pratt in her struggles.
BETRAYING CHARACTER: Dr. Wilhelm files a report against wishes of Dr. Pratt to declare Bill “psychologically unfit” for leadership.
CHALLENGE: Though Bill is slowly gaining enlightenment about himself, he is failing to prove his sanity to the Board. Fear of losing himself in loss of business. Fear of loss of legacy. Fear of not overcoming guilt and grief from his past.
MINI MOVIE 6 – HERO’S BIGGER, BETTER PLAN
Dr. Pratt takes Bill for a walk on the grounds. Bill is silent. Dr. Pratt stops by a stream and after some peaceful quiet she shares a story of her troubled childhood and her struggle to follow her dreams. Bill realizes that it is not his past that need define him. He breaks down in front of Dr. Pratt in having the epiphany.
Dr. Pratt sneaks Bill off the unit on a day-pass to visit his lawyer. They develop a legal strategy to defend Bill in court. It is a long-shot to say the least.
OLD WAYS: Bill and Dr. Pratt both follow their hearts.
NEW WAYS: Dr. Pratt disobeys protocol. Bill is not afraid to lose – “fight the good fight”.
CHALLENGE: Bill must prove his “innocence”.
WEAKNESSES: Preserving morality before victory.
MINI MOVIE 7 – CRISIS & CLIMAX
Bill continues his therapy with Dr. Pratt with a new perspective on legacy, values, and self-worth.
Bill assembles a high-end legal team to overturn the Board of Directors and regain control of his Bishop Enterprises.
Bill wins an injunction to halt any further development of his A.I. Program.
Edward, a senior member of the Board and confident of Bill (fought in WWII together) resigns to assist Bill in his action.
The trial begins and the prospects look bad for Bill, though he mounts a tremendous defense of his character. Though when asked on testimony “Do you love your wife?”, Bill gives a surprising answer (against counsel advice), admitting that he believed he failed many people in his life, and that he had great remorse for the mistakes he had made.
A sincere and moving final statement from Bill leaves the Justice uncertain in judgement and retires the court for deliberation.
Late in the evening a courier arrives with a last-minute settlement agreement for Bill. An offer to provide his estate with resources and funding towards a “Bishop Foundation” with which Bill can direct in his private pursuits. Bill is advised to accept the offer, however, he counter-offers to include sole ownership of the A.I. project, an offer most likely to sink any chance of settlement altogether.
The courier returns an agreement at the 11<sup>th</sup> hour before the Justice is set to deliver his findings to the court. Bill steps down as CEO and Director of Bishop Enterprises, he lets go.
NEW WAYS: Bill’s legacy lays within himself and his morals.
VISION: The future is yet unwritten, as is legacy.
CHALLENGE: Losing control of company, Facing truths.
WEAKNESSES: Pride. Uncertainty.
MINI MOVIE 8 – NEW STATUS QUO
Bill completes a therapy program with Dr. Pratt.
The Bishop Foundation is established.
Bill installs Edward as Director of the Foundation with a heavy focus on Law with respect to disenfranchised or otherwise vulnerable peoples. Bill also aligns with a society, as benefactor, to promote the advancement of women.
The A.I. Project is revealed as a dead-end study of little value, that is without the genius of Bill Bishop. We learn that the program potential could yield advancements in technology that the government would likely move to possess. Bill wants to establish a pilot project to help mankind, without recognition, to be his final legacy.
We end with the passing of Bill Bishop and the torch passing to Edward. It is a massive responsibility to be sure.
NEW WAY: Bill Bishop has left a legacy that will endure, though few may truly realize.
PROFOUND TRUTH: A true legacy is ONE person making a difference in the world.
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EXPANDED
Chris Cornelius’ Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is: There are so many varied scenes and adventures here, I need to be selective with the main 1979 motorcycle trip stories and insert flashbacks to her upbringing and scenes from the present, on a strictly as-needed-basis.
1. Transformational Logline.
Based on a true story: A tired, once vibrant northern city girl reconnects with her spirit and sons telling captivating, perilous and humorous stories from her 1979 motorcycle odyssey when she fell in love with a man raising two young children and marijuana on a farm in Mississippi.
2. Main character: Trish
Change Agent: Tom, Matt and others
Transformational Character(s): Trish and some of the characters she meets
3. List out your Mini-Movie structure:
This is the Main 1979 cross-country trip story line with flashbacks and present scenes yet to be inserted where needed.
I reached a stage in life called ‘downsizing’ when I had to look back before going forward.
MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.
Turning Point: Call to Adventure
Trish leaves her family, friends and job for the summer, and despite some emotional and physical setbacks (Great spirits often encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds) makes it to NYC and meets the first character in her travels, an impressed Wall Street Broker who wants to follow her.
Change Agent: The Odyssey challenges / preparations: mental, physical, and emotional
Transformational Characters: Trish and some of the characters she meets-Wall Street broker is inspired.
Old Ways: Lived in an imbalanced limited sheltered world of intense school and work
The Vision: First summer off–quest to see the country and enjoy life
Challenge: Traveling 15,000 miles seeing the country on a strict budget-by camping and motorcycling with little to no experience-learning as she goes along.
Weaknesses: Fear of the unknown or getting hurt. Inexperience. Only been riding for a year. Has never camped out.
MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.
Turning Point: Locked in.
Trish meets with a former undergraduate roommate in Washington, sees the sites, then meets up with motorcycling James (from Boston) so they can safely travel through Easy Rider country–leaving more of the ‘Old World’ behind. Then meets an undertaker, gate keeper, who reminds her of what is important to her in her old world before entering the other world of the trip. Then she meets and falls in love with motorcycle mechanic Tom-raising two children and marijuana on a farm in Natchez, MS–Huge game changer.
Change Agent: The Odyssey challenges and now Tom – the love interest
Transformational Characters: Trish-always learning as she moves along; and the undertaker, smitten, offers her a job and rooms in his mansion.
Old Ways: been moving along with intentions of sight seeing, retaining her solid upbringing and values
The Vision: seeing the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains and Pacific Ocean
Challenge: falling in love on the trip-with an outlaw-Head vs Heart.
Weaknesses: vulnerability of being in love and the loss felt in leaving Tom–head vs heart. Fear of the unknown. Inexperienced. Naive in some regards. Not so street smart. It is the novelty of her that keeps her safe. She represents freedom and adventure. No one wants to harm that.
MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
Turning Point: Standard ways fail.
Trish and Tom enjoy the novelty of each other (target practice, riding three-wheelers); The marijuana conflict arises; Trish reluctantly continues her travels; and she (broken hearted over Tom) and James celebrate 4th of July in New Orleans; then go their separate ways, as planned, in Southern Texas.
Change Agent: The infatuation with Tom and pressure to continue her trip.
Transformational Characters: Trish-always learning as she moves along through people’s lives and becoming a more experienced rider and camper ; and Tom becomes excited. ‘He’s settled down with a need for adventure; and she’s adventurous with a need to settle down.
Old Ways: was a free and unattached overachiever
The Vision: still to continue her quest to tour the US
Challenge: enjoying her travels now that her heart has sabotaged her trip
Weaknesses: love sick-fighting her heart-wanting to return to Tom.
MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.
Turning Point: Plan backfires.
Trish survives her worst day (physically and emotionally sick, hot, and out of gas–her trip sabotaged by her heart); rescued by a wise, jazzy, Deus Ex Machina man driving a Cadillac. She then has a Big Bend adventure with 3 Vietnam Veterans: the older brothers she never had; a bizarre, other worldly Austin gazebo rain experience with sculpture student from the university; she calls Tom from busy rest area. He’s not home; In the Boulder hostel she meets Midwestern traveling girls with head vs heart issues, and ex-con-imprisoned 5 yrs for transporting pot; Trish is not allowed to get Tom’s general delivery letter on a Saturday at the PO. It’s forwarded to San Francisco; She calls Tom again from Continental Divide and he’s not ‘the home body he said he was.’
Change Agent: The Odyssey challenges-sick physically and hurting emotionally; questioning the outlaw aspect of the marijuana growing: head vs heart. Meeting a variety of interesting characters every day to learn from. The Deus Ex Machina man keeps her going. The Vietnam Veteran-her ‘older brothers’ entertain her and discuss her predicament as do the Midwestern girls. The excon raises Trish’s fears over the outlaw aspect of Tom. And Tom’s absence when Trish has called him raises some doubts.
Transformational Characters: Trish-always learning as she moves along.
Old Ways: still moving along with intentions of seeing the country, staying true to her decent upbringing while learning so much more about herself and life through her own challenges and the lives of the people she meets.
The Vision: seeing the country and somehow continuing a relationship with Tom.
Challenge: the quest of seeing the country, but now with her heart elsewhere
Weaknesses: vulnerability of being in love (head vs heart); fear of unknown in outlaw matters.
MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.
Turning Point: The decision to change.
Sick, Trish meets, is sheltered by, and recovers with spiritual Aspen, engineer, cocaine dealer Matt. She calls Tom from a bar in town and they finally connect. He says, ‘You really need to travel with someone.’ Trish hangs out with Matt and his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend-Matt’s best friend (a spiritual horse shoe incident). Matt buys a motorcycle and plans to meet Trish in San Francisco in two weeks.
Transformational Characters: Trish lets down some of her defenses to learn from naturist Matt’s ‘spiritual’ life and his pain. And Matt is inspired by Trish to make major changes in his life.
Old Ways: Sheltered, inexperienced life that is still moving along with intentions of seeing the country and learning about the world and people’s lives from the strength of her solid wholesome values and upbringing.
The Vision: seeing the country and somehow continuing a relationship with Tom, and now spiritual Matt.
Challenge: the quest of seeing the country with a big heart that hates leaving the people that she meets and enjoys along the way. She learns to accept those loses because when that door closes, new people are up ahead and another door opens.
Weaknesses: vulnerability of being in love (head vs heart); fear of unknown in outlaw matters; has a problem saying ‘no’-concerning other people’s feelings over her own.
MM #6 – Pages 75 – 90 – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.
Turning Point: The ultimate failure.
Trish leaves Aspen, then meets jeweler Joe Bones in converted school bus in Telluride. They share their souls and art–another painful good-bye; Trish has accident trying to jump a wash in the desert with her bike. Unconscious, she flashes back to a tricycle accident she had as a child.
Stranded in rain at the Grand Canyon, a sport bike rider mysteriously comes out from the dark woods behind her and rescues her from riding on the slippery wet gravel to the North Rim Lodge. Later she runs out of gas and coasts more than a mile back to her tent. She travels through Las Vegas; then heads into a fiery orange sunset to Death Valley. The Hawk loses all power in the hot dark night in the desert. It cools down, then starts up. In morning she’s suffering from casino smorgasbord food poisoning. Then a little amusing dog distributes her dirty laundry all over the campground. She takes off for the Pacific where she celebrates and offers wisdom to two bored LA boys.
She tours Hollywood, then up the coast to San Francisco. Funny incident with unemployed actor helping her get motorcycle up YMCA steps; finally gets a letter from Tom and mail-i-gram from Matt. She waits and waits for Matt; they don’t connect; She spends time with children (a sign) at campsite in Redwoods; then makes decision to detour and return to Tom on her way home. She starts writing the prose for The Lady and the Hawk children’s story. Full speed ahead. Picks up letter from Tom at Seattle Post Office.
Transformational Characters: Trish learns about spiritual things from Matt, the Grand Canyon and in Death Valley; and the LA boys learn from Trish’s wisdom that they shouldn’t expect adventure to be handed to them. Life is of their own making-an odyssey, not a guided tour.
Old Ways: still moving along with her solid upbringing and intentions of seeing the country, but now recognizing the greater value of learning from people’s lives. Tom and Matt in the picture, has become Tom and his children.
The Vision: seeing all the sites on her way back to spend time with and learn from Tom and his children.
Challenge: the quest of seeing the country and Tom, and dealing with her Head vs Heart and freedom vs home & family issues.
Weaknesses: vulnerability of being in love; fear of unknowns in outlaw matters; and physical demands of speeding up her trip–450 motorcycling miles a day for 10 days straight.
MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!
Turning Point: Apparent victory.
Canadian border officials search all of her gear and take her bear spray ‘paralyzer’; She travels on ferry and rides with Lords Motorcycle Gang. Andy befriends her; the script circles around and repeats the opening scene at a Montana gas station-but we now know what ‘home’ she’s heading back to. She meets and is awed by the Mythic Motorcycle Man (a wise old rider-dusty from the road-she will become someday). Then has female talk with hiking Heidi, her roommate (considering starting a family) at a Teton hostel (freedom vs settling down); Then a Bear attacks her camp (no bear spray); She calls Tom so he knows she’s on her way to meet his children; She rides the boring Interstate with Pete a very cute Sturgis Rally stunt rider. She’s exhausted but not allowed to stay at the Sioux Falls hostel (men only); so travels 2 hours in dark to hostel run by retired nuns in Omaha. They bless her and she’s on her way. Picks up Kansas City letter from Tom; Almost home to Natchez.
Transformational Characters: Trish learns that motorcycle gang individuals are not necessarily to be feared, and need to be members of a gang for strength. Andy the gang leader learns that it feels good to be nice to Trish and overcomes the peer pressure of pleasing the gang. The gas station attendant is inspired at how far she is away from home. Trish was an oddity at the time. Women were rarely seen on motorcycles in 1979, no less traveling cross country solo with a tent and sleeping bag on the back. People were captivated and thrilled at the time. She was a symbol of freedom, adventure, the pioneer spirit and the United States.
Old Ways: still moving along seeing the country and learning from people’s lives with her home grown grounded personality and values intact-using what she’s been learning as she continues to travel along.
The Vision: heading back to see Tom and meet his children and enjoy Natchez.
Challenge: the quest of seeing everything she initially set out to see plus detouring to Natchez, MS. Still dealing with her Head vs Heart concerning the marijuana issue.
Weaknesses: vulnerability of being in love; fear of unknown in outlaw matter; irresponsibly traveling too may miles and fast to get back to Natchez.
MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – to end. The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.
Turning Point: New status quo.
Experiences all of the family life with Tom, his friend Ed, and the children; Reads The Lady and the Hawk children’s story; Then things start falling apart: discrimination against blacks; unrelatable Southern women; hellish marijuana activity; the heat and humidity.
She hates to leave Tom, Ed and the children but has to get back to her Harvard job. She returns home with a much richer understanding of life.
At this point the three story lines play off each other-contrasting and/or supporting. (1) The past-trials and errors of teaching herself to ride her first motorcycle-the Twinstar; (2) The 1979 trip-riding the Hawk onto the Interstate heading home changed; and (3) her present senior self. After going through all her trip memorabilia and life experiences in the attic, buys a new Honda Shadow, gives the Mythic Motorcycle Man salute to a new young rider; and rides off for a new adventure-possibly to track down Tom after finding his phone number (call whenever) in the pocket of her old leather jacket. Each of the three story lines ends in a different stage of life on a different bike.
Transformational Characters: Trish learns-although she is charmed by and has learned from the novelty of her Mississippi family experience, there are too many differences and her Old World responsibilities for her to ever consider staying there. She retains her ‘Old World’ upbringing and values with new knowledge of other lives that she can enrichen her own. She’s got to be less of an overachiever and enjoy life more. The Mississippians are inspired and learn as well, that there is another ‘livelihood’ out there beyond their beliefs and experiences.
By looking back on and reliving her travels and life, present day senior Trish reinspires and heals herself as she once inspired others; and regains the strength to make the most of her next stage in life. Her sons have learned from her and charted their own independent adventurous lives. And they are now encouraging her to get out on the road again, as retired senior, while she still can.
Old Ways: She never stopped moving along with her initial intentions of seeing the country. But she learned about people and their lives and more about her own values and life.
NEW WAY:
The Vision: Trish is looking ahead wanting to make the most out of her remaining years -but with more balance. Yes she has become ‘the old lady with stories to tell’, but she’s not yet stopped gathering material. There is still more juice out of life to be squeezed.
Challenge: keeping balance in her life-Head vs Heart and Freedom vs Home; and applying what she learned in her travels to her life. Live, Learn and RENEW.
<b class=””>Weaknesses: staying on track…and allowing herself to be less of an overachiever and enjoy a more balanced life. Not easy for her to do. She still makes a to-do-list for everyday, but gives herself a week to do it.
NOTE:
A few flashbacks to relevant childhood incidents and bits of the present senior story line need to be inserted into the script on an as needed basis.
Childhood: Born in a factory town with 5 younger brothers, dealing with sex discrimination and a devastating malady, Trish defies the odds and studies and works her way up to a teaching and designing position at Harvard.
Senior: A tired, once vibrant, professional woman reconnects with her spirit and sons telling captivating, perilous and humorous stories of her past motorcycle travels.
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Mark Smith/Day 6 Assignment:
Tell us your
Transformational Logline.A school counselor hired to improve the educational system for underprivileged students, discovers and ultimately brings change to a corrupt school and principal focused on keeping athletes eligible for state championships and allowing the principal to steal, womanize and drives out anyone challenging him.
Tell us who the
main character will be: Frank Hammond
List out your
Mini-Movie structure, (or whatever structure you’ve chosen) for your
story.MM#1 Inciting Incident/Call to Adventure
Frank Hammond, a school counselor accepts a new job at an South Dallas high school. He is recruited by principal Donald Moten and tasked with ensuring more students graduate and ultimately gain entry to college. He is excited, even inspired, to get back in the “trenches” to work for a noble goal.
MM#2 Locked In
Frank soon learns there is a reason the school is under performing, and Donald Moten, the school principal, who recruited him is the problem. Frank sees students who bring guns to school go unpunished – and even a gang led by a bully gets off because Moten is sleeping with the mother. Frank considers leaving but he has a home mortgage and he made a commitment to help the students. He doubts himself and wonders why he ever took the job. Frank reaches out to Principal Moten to discuss the issues, only to realize that he has now locked into Moten’s focus as a possible “bad apple.”
MM#3 Standard Ways Fail
Frank, discouraged and disappointed, meets with other teachers for drinks after work and learns that the corruption goes even deeper. That the principal has made “passes” at many of the female teachers. He’s also been stealing money from pep rallies and driving to Shreveport to gamble it away. He learns basketball players often fail to attend class but the principal pressures teachers to change grades to ensure key athletes remain eligible….The pride and job of the community are the basketball team’s three straight state championships. Frank sees that the vast academic needs and opportunities of the majority of students are overlooked – a point that conflicts with why he was hired. Unable to go forward at the high school, he reaches out to the higher-ups the school district’s superintendents.
MM#4 Plan Backfires
Despite care to avoid any confrontation with Moten or “supporting staff” who benefit by “going along, to get along,” Frank’s attempts to go through proper channels to report abuses and cheating. However, instead his effort backfires, and he becomes targeted by Moten. Frank is set up for possible discipline from Moten for reporting fraudulent grades and favoritism. Feeling lost and depressed, he is sent to Human Resources with the school district, forced to await possible discipline, isolated from other teachers and the students he had hoped to serve.
MM#5 Decision to Change
Frank realizes his “Old Ways” of “doing things by the book” are not working. He realizes the high school – even the school district – is administered by individuals who for years have downplayed flaws in the schools – even gain pay raises by whitewashing any problems. Stepping outside himself, Frank calls the local television station. He has learned that students are forced to fight in their bare underwear in fighting “cages” by coaches administering discipline. The TV reporter and Frank begin a series of stories with Frank a key source in disclosing the abuses and grade changes. The school administration and district are put on the “hot seat.”
MM#6 Ultimate Failure
Even as the media spotlight raises questions about the school, the district moves rapidly to tarnish Frank’s reputation via HR hearings to taint him as a “cheater” who attempted to change a student’s grades. Records are contrived – much like was done for athletes’ grades – and Frank is suspended and fired.
MM#7 Apparent Victory
Despite Frank’s career problems, he teams up with a TV reporter to publicize “cage” fighting at the school. This rallies support from fellow teachers/counselors wanting to transform the school and district into a reputable education system. The wave of support shows up in grade sheets and internal documents highlighting the corruption at the school and spurring public outrage. The issues force the school superintendent to hire private investigators to review the issues and conduct public hearings.
MM#8 New Status Quo
The district’s review, spurred by escalating news stories, lead to key findings including academic cheating in which the school had to give up three state basketball titles. Frank testifies at the hearing in which the district fires Principal Moten. The school district ultimately offers Frank his job back. His “New Way” has given him a self-confidence and cements his belief in the principles of fairness and belief in an educational system focused on helping all students attain true academic excellence.
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Joseph Savage’s Transformational Structure Day 6 Assignment
While I have read about layering the build of the script before, this is the first time that I have had not just topics (character development, dialogue voice identification, etc) but a whole secondary structure to add. It has been a both an interesting and worthwhile experiment. And it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
Logline: An entitled and nit-picky medical student must learn to sew from a nursing home resident or lose the chance at having a career in surgery.
Main Character
The transformational character: medical student Alex Arragon
MMM Structure
1. Alex is beginning his senior year in medical school and is assigned a rotation at an inner city ER. He is only interested in surgery, so he finds working up all the other cases a waste of time, and it shows in his attitude. However, he loves doing surgical procedures in the ER, and he is assigned to sew up a forearm laceration from a woman who fell at a nursing home. He does the procedure and along the way tells the woman (Jackie Washington) that he is planning a career in surgery and can’t wait to get started. He is quite proud of his work, and he builds empathy through his talking to her with kindness.
2.When he gets done she looks at it, horrified. She suggests that if he wants a career in surgery he needs to be better at suturing. She offers to teach him. He gets angry, and leaves. A few minutes later, the attending physician comes in and checks the work, grimaces briefly, and then tries to play it off. She senses his discomfort, but is kind and lets it ride. A few minutes later Alex hears the attending talking to his colleague about the “hack job” the med student did. The second attending mentions he plans a career in surgery, and they both laugh, one saying “not in a million years.”
3. Alex decides to look at some YouTube videos, but soon realizes his work is awful. He decides to see if the old lady will still teach him. He looks up her address and tries to talk to her on the phone, but she is at a doctor’s appointment. He asks her to call.
4.She does, and he says he has reconsidered her offer. He then begins to explain how what he is going to do will be way above her level, but it’s always good to have some secondary practice. She suggests he change his name from Arragon to Arrogance, and hangs up.
5. He tries to find a senior resident to teach him, but they are already sleep deprived and don’t have time for him. One of them mentions he took lessons from an old seamstress for a while and it really helped. He calls around, but most of the shops have the work sent out. He finds a place and a person who is willing to help. He goes in great anticipation.
6. When he gets there, he finds the seamstress uses an advanced computer assisted sewing machine, and does little-to-no-work by hand. Now he knows why the resident mentioned an old seamstress.
7. He looks for someone who fits the bill, but runs out of options. Having no options and less time, he’s desperate, and now willing to eat crow to save his career. He calls Ms. Washington again. He apologizes and asks for another chance. She consents.
8. Their journey begins. She teaches him basic sewing technique, and with each session we learn more about her. Her father, a surgeon, taught her to sew when she was six years old, and clearly has taught her a lot about surgery. We also discover she is in the nursing home because she has terminal cancer, and she can no longer care for herself. We also learn she is from Senegal, and she has no family in the US, and she is broke from her cancer treatment. Furthermore, her family is very poor, and they cannot afford to come see her. She admits teaching him gives her a sense of purpose, and he admits he likes the lessons. We also learn about him as well, the pressure of his parents, his older brother’s death in Afghanistan, his mother’s subsequent alcoholism. Their bond grows, and she teaches him how to be a compassionate person as well as a skilled tailor.
9. He does his last rotation before having to apply to surgical residencies with a plastic surgeon. He is now much more humble and compassionate, and the attending surgeon is amazed how fast and how well he can suture. He even helps with an arterial leak that is difficult to stop because the surgeon doesn’t have an exposure angle. Alex asks to try it from his angle. The surgeon suggests they trade places, but he with the torrent of blood asks if there is time. The surgeon tells the scrub nurse to hand him the suture. Alex is able to stem the bleeding and save the patient’s life. Afterwards, he hears the surgeon tell a colleague that wishes his senior residents had the skill that Alex, as a medical student did.
10. He goes to the nursing home to tell Ms. Washington the great news, but she has been rushed to the hospital for a broken hip when she fell during transfer to her wheelchair. He rushes to see her, and stays with her until she is settled in at 4 am, when he has to leave for rounds, meaning hew will now go 30 hours without sleep. He continues to care for her and be with her in the hospital.
11. She does well with surgery, but post-op develops a blood clot in her lung and nearly dies. She is sent back to the nursing home, clearly much weaker than before. The day after she returns, he gets a letter of acceptance to Yale’s surgery residency, and he rushes to see her. When he gets there, all the residents are abuzz and look at him. Fearing she has died, he rushes to her room. When he gets there, there is a gaggle of press outside her room and he is bewildered. He pushes them aside to see her. She is weak but alive and smiles to see him. When he asks what is going on, one of the press informs him that his friend has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her pioneering work in endoscopic surgery. She gets a surprise visit from her family in Senegal, which was arranged by the Nobel Committee staff and the Senegalese Ambassador to the US. After she greets them, she introduces Alex as her new son.
12. Epilogue: Dr. Washington died 3 months later, and left the funds from the Nobel Prize to build an surgical clinic in Senegal for the poor. Alex goes there tend days every year to perform free surgeries for those in need. When he graduated from residency, he enlisted a team of surgeons and surgical residents to go with him. As of the time of filming this movie, they have completed 1,857 operations.
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What I learned doing this assignment is how much I love Hal’s process to help me unlock the steps I need. I know this story isn’t there yet, not even close but everything I am doing is helping to get the story clearer in my mind with each step.
Transformational Logline – A man trying to find out what happens to his father is confronted with the choice to give up the love of his life and pretend to be dead to save her life and in order to get the information he needs.
MC – Transformational character.
Emotional Gradient:
Forced Change – In order to find out what happened to his father he has to go undercover as a spy for the KGB.
Mini-Movie 1 – Status Quo and Call to AdventureHaving joined the agency to try and find out what happened to his father he starts work and tries to secretly uncover the information he needs.
The Emotional Gradient – after the
death of his father he will do anything for answers
The
Action Gradient – He joins the agency that he believes is responsible for
his death
The
Challenge / Weakness Gradient – He is having to be deceitful and could be
found outMini-Movie 2 – Locked Into Conflict
Having agreed to work in the agency, he assigned to work undercover in Europe which will take him away from the Kremlin and the answers to her father’s death. He can’t reveal turn down the assignment without revealing his true motive
The Emotional Gradient – He is
conflicted about his assignment <div>The
Action Gradient – He tries to fail the tests so he can continue to stay in
RussiaThe Challenge –
How to continue his search when he is away from the Kremlin and the answers.<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Mini-Movie 3 — Hero Tries to Solve Problem – But Fails.
Working against his superiors he tries to trick them into keeping him in Russian but when his partner is killed in training there is even more pressure for him to go and take with him a much less prepared agent. Which puts him in a situation where he doesn’t have a choice.
The Emotional Gradient – He feels intense guilt when his partner is killed. Was he responsible?
The
Action Gradient – He still has to go but with a woefully underprepared agent.
So, he makes the decision to see the mission through
The
Challenge / Weakness Gradient – He has feeling for this new agent and is
afraid it will comprise his mission to find out about his father.Mini-Movie 4 – Hero Forms a New Plan
On arriving in Britain, he tries to use all of his connections to continue the search to find out what happened to his father. He makes contact with the underground network working against the allies.
The Emotional Gradient – He starts to feel intense feels for his new partner.
The
Action Gradient – He makes contact but keeps it a secret from her.
The
Challenge / Weakness Gradient – How to continue the deception from his
partner and the Russians.MIDPOINT:
He is given vital information about his father’s death, but in order to get what he needs, he would need to go rogue. He is now in love with his partner and is then conflicted between finishing the mission or get the information he knows will solve the mystery.
1. The Emotional Gradient – The choice between love and finding out the truth
2. The Action Gradient – He decides to go even though he has to lie to his partner.
3. The Challenge / Weakness Gradient – to keep everyone from finding out.
Mini-Movie 5 – Hero Retreats & The Antagonism Prevails
Russia changes side leaving the agent in the field in great jeopardy at the same time spies are being uncovered all over the country.
The Emotional Gradient – He is
conflicted about what this will mean <div>The
Action Gradient – He starts to make a plan in case they are caught as spiesThe
Challenge – He is not sure which side he is working
for anymoreMini-Movie 6 – Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan!
They decide they are going to defect in order to stay alive and after a meeting with another source he finds out there is someone in England who knows of the truth of his father’s death.
The Emotional Gradient – He is in a crisis of choosing between love and duty <div>
The
Action Gradient – He starts the process to get them outThe
Challenge / Weakness Gradient – Now he is defecting how will he ever find
out about his father.Mini-Movie 7 – Crisis & Climax
Perusing the information, he has the lead on, it becomes apparent it is a lie to uncover spies for the KGB who have turned. He and his partner are chased and he is shot trying to escape. After he is shot he is recovered by the British they have the information he seeks but he has to pretend he is dead and thus lose his partner the love of his life in the process. Otherwise, they will arrest her and execute her. He makes that difficult choice but leaves a trail for her to find him.
The Emotional Gradient – His fear
he will lose this partner as he did the other because of his lack of being
honesty. </div><div>The
Action Gradient – They go on the run he is shotThe
Challenge / Weakness Gradient – He has to lose the love of his life in
order to save her.Mini-Movie 8 – New Status Quo
Years later someone else follows the trail left by him for her and reunites the couple.
Old Way – Secrecy and lack of trust
New Way – Openness and trust
</div></div></div>
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Frank Jordan’s Day 6 Assignment (Transformational Structure)
What I learned doing this assignment is that an effective story structure is the Mini-Movie Method. This method forces the TC and CA characters to change their ways in a progressive (natural) fashion that engages the audience.
1. Logline (Based on a True Story): Drafted into World War I, a humble black farmhand struggles to reconcile his life in the Jim Crow south with his “duty to country,” before leading his regiment in the bloody capture of a German stronghold.
2a. Change Agent: Sgt. (later Lt.) Luke Heller (white, mid 20’s)
2b. Transformational Character: Freddie Stowers (black, age 21)
3.MM#1 Status Quo and Call to Adventure
Our story starts on September 28, 1918 at Hill 188, a German stronghold on the Western Front in France. The American 371st Infantry, an all-black regiment commanded by white officers, is advancing in overwhelming force. We follow Freddie through the initial stages of the attack, showing his leadership and prowess. The Germans suddenly deploy a surrender ruse. One year earlier, Freddie is picking cotton in South Carolina. His pregnant wife, Pearl, scrubs factory floors. Freddie can read, with effort, but can’t write. We show him practicing his letters. Freddie finds Elijah, his much-older childhood friend, neighbor, and mentor lynched. Freddie is unexpectedly drafted.
Vision: Move to the north for a better/safer life and proper education for child.
Old Ways: Racism. Fear. In a rut.
Challenge: Survival. Protect family.
Weaknesses: Stuck in Jim Crow environment
3.MM#2 Locked into Conflict
The rural black community rallies around the cause, but Freddie is having none of it. “Why should we fight for a country that treats us like dirt.” Entering Camp Jackson, Freddie gazes at an American flag fluttering above the barracks. He’s then physically and verbally abused by a white recruit from another unit. Freddie’s introduced to his gruff Drill Instructor, Sgt. Heller, and his racist assistant Cpl. Thomas. Harsh treatment during drills reaches a boiling point. Freddie summons his courage and pent-up frustration, and takes Sgt. Heller down during a hand-to-hand combat drill. Freddie gains confidence. He is now fully locked in.
Transformational Character: Freddie. New world.
Change Agent: Sgt. Heller. White. Tough.
Betraying Character: Cpl. Thomas. Racist.
Vision: Survival. Return home to family.
Old Ways: Racism. Subjugation. Anger.
Emotional Gradient: Excitement.
Challenge: Expectations. The unknown.
Weaknesses: Distrust of Sgt. Heller, Cpl. Thomas, system.
3.MM#3 Hero Tries To Solve Problem – But Fails
Freddie emerges as a leader, often helping his comrades in their time of need. Coming to the rescue of one vulnerable comrade (Jonah), Freddie confronts Cpl. Thomas. Sgt. Heller breaks up the fight. Freddie, “Why we here?” Sgt. Heller, “It’s your duty!” Freddie, “We owe nothin’, to nobody!”
Transformational Character: Freddie struggles to adapt.
Change Agent: Sgt. Heller demands recruits conform.
Betraying Character: Cpl. Thomas’ hatred continues, to get his way.
Vision: Form a cohesive unit.
Old Ways: Cpl. Thomas kicks dirt in recruits face, blindsides another, pees on latrine floor after Freddie has scrubbed it.
New Way: Sgt. Heller acknowledges Freddie’s skill at rifle range, acknowledges his men at Company-wide sing-a-long by clapping in unison, nodding his head to the beat, then locking eyes with Freddie and nodding.
Emotional Gradient: Doubt
Challenge: Accept circumstances OR deal with circumstances and risk punishment.
Weaknesses: Lack of control.
3.MM#4 Hero Forms New Plan
Having completed basic training, Freddie goes home for Christmas leave. He meets his newborn daughter, Minnie Lee. Freddie and Pearl decide Detroit is going to be their new home. Knowing the 371st Infantry is a fighting unit, and not laborers or dock workers, Freddie is concerned. Pearl assures Freddie he will be okay and has a whole new world waiting for him when he gets back. While sailing across the Atlantic, Freddie and Sgt. Heller meet one late night on the deck. They are both vulnerable. Freddie is seasick and concerned about how far away they are from home. Sgt. Heller reveals he was beaten by his father as a child for having a “colored” friend. After a lengthy conversation they begin to find common ground. The 371st lands at Brest, France. Three day train ride later, they are billeted near the Meuse-Argonne front.
Change Agent: Opens up. Reveals he’s not racist.
Vision: Find common ground.
Old Way: Marching through town on the way to front, Freddie spots a YMCA establishment. A large sign next to the front door reads, “No Negroes Allowed.”
New Ways: Freddie’s platoon have formed a cohesive fighting unit.
Emotional Gradient: Hope.
Challenge: Gain respect.
Weaknesses (MIDPOINT): Freddie’s regiment learns they have been loaned to the French Army because they are “better suited” fighting with the French.
3.MM#5 Hero Retreats & The Antagonism Prevails
Angered by the news of being loaned to the French Army, Freddie gets drunk on his first French Army wine ration. He and his comrades feel betrayed. Despite setbacks, Freddie continues to demonstrate leadership skills and is promoted to corporal. One night, while celebrating with his squad, and another black squad, in a local cafe, six white American MP’s burst in and break up the fun. As the black troops are being shoved out onto the street, Sgt. Heller happens to pass by and see Freddie get whacked with a club, knocking him to the ground. Incensed, Sgt. Heller confronts the MP with the club and slugs him. “These are my men!” These are Americans!” Sgt. Heller is hauled away. One week later, Freddie’s platoon are on a route march in the countryside. No sign of Sgt. Heller. The men are down. They pass a group of elderly peasants (50’s and 60’s) tending to their young crops. The men are reminded of home.
Transformational Character: Freddie regresses. Betrayed.
Change Agent: Sgt. Heller willing to fight for his men.
Betraying Character: Cpl. Thomas (now Sgt.) stays on Freddie’s case in Sgt. Heller’s absence.
Vision: Continue preparations for the front line.
Old Ways: Systemic racism.
New Ways: Sgt. Heller stands up for his men. Risks everything.
Emotional Gradient: Discouragement
Challenge: Adapt to new circumstances.
Weaknesses: Seems all is lost.
3.MM#6 Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan
Inspired by Sgt. Heller’s (now 2nd Lieutenant Heller) return a week later, and his stirring talk to the men before heading off to the front line, Freddie holds his head high. Lt. Heller is scolded by Company C’s captain for carrying an American flag. “Leave it here. We’re fighting with the French.” Lt. Heller returns to the barn and conceals the flag under his tunic. Freddie’s platoon rotates in and out of the front line trenches for three months, in a defensive posture. “Hold these positions at all cost.” Freddie demonstrates leadership, over and over, despite facing death on a daily basis. He’s selected for a trench raid in which he kills his first German, with a knife. This sends him into a very empty, dark space. Lt. Heller continues to demonstrate his courage and compassion. He shares his canteen with Freddie (an act surely unseen back home). Freddie’s Company his pulled out of the front line trenches. He discusses the futility of it all with Lt. Heller. Lt. Heller retorts, “Someday our children will ask what we sacrificed in this Great War.” While on a brief leave in war-torn Paris with two comrades, Freddie is overcome by the sheer amount of “sacrifice” he experiences.
Transformational Character: Freddie survives. Gets to experience the tremendous “diversity” of the big city, Paris.
New Ways: Lt. Heller continues to demonstrate compassion.
Emotional Gradient: Courage
Challenge: Survival.
Weaknesses: Overcoming fear.
3.MM#7 Crisis and Climax
Returning to camp, Freddie receives a letter and photo from Pearl. Lt. Heller learns Freddie can’t write. He insists Freddie dictate a letter to Pearl. He write’s down Freddie’s words. The regiment returns to the front line. This time the stakes are raised. The regiment will be on the offensive. Lt. Heller acknowledges to Freddie he doesn’t feel good about this one. Freddie’s life and war time experiences compels him to tell Lt. Heller that people fight for what they want in this life. Make sacrifices. And that he has lived his whole life in fear. Lt. Heller tells Freddie that it is all right to be afraid. Freddie responds, “I have never been more at peace.” We pick up the opening battle scene on Hill 188, where we left off. Following the German surrender ruse, it’s absolute chaos. Company C is getting cut to shreds by machine-gun fire. 50% casualties, killed and wounded. Lt. Heller is mortally wounded. While desperately trying to save Lt. Heller’s life, Freddie rips opens his tunic and sees a tattered, blood-soaked American flag. It’s the same flag Lt. Heller concealed three months earlier. He succumbs. Freddie takes the flag and stuffs it down the front of his own tunic. Miraculously, Freddie makes his way across 50 yards of No Man’s Land, takes out the menacing machine-gun and its crew with a grenade. He then leads a few squad mates in a pitched, hand-to-hand battle in the German first line trench and kills the officer who initiated the surrender ruse. As Freddie moves onto the second line trenches, the survivors of his Company begin to advance under heavy enemy fire. Engaging the Germans in the second line, Freddie is mortally wounded. As the survivors of his Company pounce on the second and win the battle for Hill 188, Freddie dies. Moses, Freddie’s lifelong friend and comrade, holds him in his arms. “We done our duty.”
New Ways: Cpl. Lt. Heller continues to demonstrate his humanity. Sgt. Thomas dies in Freddie’s arms, choking on his own blood. Freddie tries to revive Lt. Heller. Freddie commits selfless acts of courage.
Emotional Gradient: Triumph.
Challenge: Overcome obstacles. Defeat the enemy.
Weaknesses: Lt. Heller dies. Freddie dies and leaves a wife and infant daughter behind.
3.MM#8 New Status Quo
The 371st Infantry captures Hill 188. Help win the war. Freddie and his comrades (from the fields of South Carolina) fulfill their “duty.” Freddie and Lt. Heller are buried side-by-side.
Old Ways: In the postscript, we learn that Freddie was recommended for the Medal of Honor following the capture of Hill 188, but his “misplaced” file languished for 73 years. On April 24, 1991. President George H. W. Bush presented the Medal of Honor, posthumously, to Freddie’s two surviving sisters, ages 96 and 91. Of the 1.5 million African Americans who served in World War I and World War II, Freddie is the FIRST to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
New Ways: Regardless of skin color, working together, caring for one another, and fighting for a shared cause, proves a winning formula. But at what cost!
Profound Truth: Some things worth fighting for in life are greater than self. Love. Honor. Liberty.
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Birgit Myaard’s Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is: I had never heard of the Mini Movie Method. What really struck me is how I see each episode of my limited series fulfilling each of the MMM steps for my main character with a miniature Mini Movie structure happening within each episode, either for him as a change agent or, in an episode toward the end, as a transformational character. I’m going to have to wrap all the research I’ve done on Walter Camp and the development of American Football into the MMM template and the Profound model. This is going to take much longer than 48 hours, but the following is a bare-bones start (except for episode 1) with future work on my own over the next week(s) to delve down in each episode for the MMM elements as well as the Profound elements:
Transformational Logline for “Gentlemen of the Gridiron” (the series):
From his introduction to the fledgling game as a teen until his death, Walter Chauncey Camp, dubbed the “Father of American Football” by his peers, faces opposition to his vision for the game’s future and, on occasion, must fight for its existence.
Mini Movie 1 Status Quo and Call to Adventure – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.
Episode 1 – “Blue Bloods” Transformational Logline:
A scrawny, teenaged Camp must improve himself academically and physically to fulfill his dream of playing football for Yale.
Emotional Gradient: Desired Change
Young Walter Camp attends the 1873 “International Foot Ball Match,” a soccer-style game between eleven members of the “Yale Twenty” and eleven Eton alumni, with his close friends, Curtiss and Jennings. Camp is amazed to hear Viscount Tarbat, one of the Etonians playing the rough game is a “Blue Blood,” Watching only twenty-two players on the field instead of forty impresses Camp, who realizes fewer players makes the game more exciting, open, and lively for both players and spectators. When Camp declares a desire to make the Yale team, his cousin Charlie, a member of the “Yale Twenty,” tells him he is too scrawny to play a man’s game and needs to be exceptional to gain admittance to Yale. Tarbat overhears and counsels Camp to ignore his cousin’s ungentlemanly words. He urges Camp to work toward his dream of playing football. Camp comes up with his Daily Dozen exercises to strengthen his body (for which he will gain additional fame in adulthood) and practices kicking and running, as well as other athletic pursuits. Charlie keeps up his “tough love” tactics, compelling Camp to work even harder physically, as well as academically. Unlike his wealthier Hopkins friends, Camp doesn’t have much money, so when the Hopkins Nine receives a challenge from an out-of-town school, he convinces his teammates to implement the Yale Nine’s system of funding out-of-town baseball games with subscriptions and ticket sales (set up for a later episode). Camp sees the first rugby-style game played between Yale and Harvard and is struck by the new game’s strategic possibilities. His kicking skills and insight into the game attract the attention of Baker, the Yale Eleven captain, who asks an elated Camp to join Yale’s scrub team. He acquits himself well in his first scrub game and elicits approval from Charlie. Camp garners admission to Yale. At football tryouts, Camp is horrified to learn he has not made the Freshman Eleven, but thrilled a moment later to learn he has made Yale’s Varsity Eleven. Camp enters Yale, where he is never without his football, which he wants to feel is a part of him. He has classes in socio-economics with Professor Sumner, a Social Darwinist who hammers home the idea that competition is a law of nature. At Sumner’s weekly open house, Camp is smitten by Sumner’s sister, Alice, but she has no time for a “big man on campus” who dares to bring his football to his professor’s home. Sumner suggests Camp curry favor with Alice through intellectual, rather than athletic, pursuits. Charles Eliot, the football-despising president of Harvard reluctantly attends “The Game” with author Edward Everett Hale. When Teddy Roosevelt, a Harvard freshman, collides with Eliot and Hale, Camp saves Hale from a tumble and strikes up a friendship with the future US president. At “The Game” brawny Harvard captain Nate Curtis questions why Baker would let a slight player like Camp play. Baker responds that Camp can take care of himself. During the game, Nate, thinking Camp has the ball, tackles him. They wrestle and Camp pins him, earning him a place on Yale’s wrestling team. Eliot decries the violence of the game and the boorish spectators. Yale wins the game because the agreed-upon rules only count field goals, not touchdowns. Harvard, which had numerous touchdowns, but no field goals, vows to change that rule at the upcoming Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) meeting, but Baker agrees with Camp that kicking is more challenging and deserves to be rewarded and suggests Camp join him and JB Atwater at the upcoming IFA meeting, setting up for episode two’s Harvard-Yale conflict.
Mini Movie 2 Locked into Conflict – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.
Episode 2 – “Opening Up the Game” Transformational Logline:
When he tries to implement changes to the game, Camp faces push-back, especially from Harvard.
Emotional Gradient: Desired Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 3 Hero Tries to Solve Problem – But Fails – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
Episode 3 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 4 Hero Forms a New Plan – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.
Episode 4 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 5 Hero Retreats and the Antagonism Prevails – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.
Episode 5 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 6 Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.
Episode 6 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 7 Crisis and Climax – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!
Episode 7 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 8 New Status Quo – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.
Episode 8 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When Harvard and Yale meet after it’s legalization, Camp’s behind the scenes work with his team, pays off in a win with Yale’s successful use of the forward pass, opening up the era of the modern game. Camp continues to influence rule changes until his death while attending a rules committee meeting.
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
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Scott Richards’ Transformational Structure
Transformational Logline: Vikki is a self-loathing alcoholic who must escape from the coercive control of an ex-fiancé to find redemption and self-worth to break a life-long chain of addiction.
Change Agent: Dan – ex-fiancé.
Transformational Character: Vikki
Method: As per the producer’s request I will be using a Three-Act structure.
Under a setting sun, outside a near-future apartment building VIKKI TALBOT and family friend HARRY CARSTAIRS both question Vikki’s resolve and wisdom behind her decision to spend the next week in the apartment where her mother committed suicide. She carries only an overnight bag and looks bedraggled. Harry jokes about the idea of keeping a plant alive for a year before she starts a new romantic relationship. The conversation grows intense as Harry worries about her mental state. He points out that Vikki will be cutting herself off from any support network. Her quest to remain sober and get back to work may be in jeopardy if she goes through with it.
Vikki remains firm on her commitment to hold herself accountable for her past and come to peace with the fact that she can not ask for her mother’s forgiveness. She must confront the terrible memories of her overbearing, controlling mother and reconcile their troubled history.
An eccentric transient, ELLY chats with them outside the building. Vikki hugs her and Elly welcomes Vikki as an old acquaintance and warns her that it may be dangerous for her to spend the next week in her mother’s old apartment. Knowing her hobby, Vikki presents Elly with a small book on house plants. She asks Elly if she has had any luck recently with her dumpster diving exploits. Elly and Harry exchange banter on the fate of bitcoin which upsets Harry because he can’t figure out his own bitcoin mining failures.
On the way up to the thirteenth floor Harry shows that he wishes he were more than just a family friend, but Vikki misses his signals. She receives a call from her ex-boyfriend, DAN COOK. He jealously berates her for not attending her own mother’s funeral. Deeply saddened, Vikki shows self-loathing as she brushes Dan off. Then the elevator’s air conditioner malfunctions and a psychosomatic sense of suffocation and claustrophobia infects Vikki.
A security camera POV of the elevator switches to follow them as they step into the hallway. Harry expresses empathy towards Vikki’s pain. Harry says he trusts Vikki to be able to endure the next week and promises that he will be there if she needs him. During their goodbyes, Harry calls Vikki by the nickname she had as a child. Embarrassed, Vikki makes him promise to never to use that name again. After an awkward hug goodbye, with a dark, focused gaze, Harry watches her walk toward her mother’s apartment.
Another hallway camera POV pulls back to reveal a TV inside the apartment with various images of mental torture in a multi, split-screen display. The images cut to views of rooms in the same apartment. One split shows a live image of a bitcoin stock market ticker.
Vikki has difficulty getting into the apartment until she gives up and curses her mother out loud. Vikki startles as the LIBERTY HOME INTEGRATION DEVICE welcomes her by name and lets her in. As Vikki reaches for the door handle, the TV inside shuts off. A vision of Vikki’s mother lays on the floor inside in front of the door. The corpse reaches a hand, claw-like to the door as if trying to escape. The image disappears as Vikki opens the door.
Vikki enters and surveys the apartment with trepidation mixed with a small amount of hope. She orders Liberty to boot up the apartment’s smart tech. She must repeat the order after Liberty hesitates. Instead of complying, Liberty asks Vikki why she has been absent for so long. It asks if Harry will be joining her. Vikki answers no, and that she wishes time alone. Liberty tells her that she could never be alone as long it is there to watch over her. She places a 30-day sobriety chip and a worn sonogram picture on the kitchen counter. A HOUSEFLY lands on the coffee maker in the kitchen. We see the Housefly’s POV of the chip and sonogram as a camera feed.
With melancholy, Vikki compares a dying plant to the state of the world and her own mental state. She wishes a sense of purpose for herself and promises the plant to revive it and keep it alive, at least for a year. Foreboding envelops her when Liberty answers, telling her not to worry, her true purpose will be revealed soon enough.
Vikki asks Liberty to open her emails as she tends to the plant. Vikki ignores most but asks Liberty to read one from her employer, a high-tech communications company, only to find out that they fired her due to her unreliable history and addiction to alcohol.
Angered at her predicament, Vikki unpacks her meager belongings. Determined to let go of the past, she orders Liberty to display relaxing forest brook scenes on the large video-glass window of the Livingroom, then strips off her clothes and enjoys her new freedom as she dances around the apartment.
She asks Liberty to display the same scenes in the bathroom mirror. In the shower, lost in the desire for the peace and freedom such scenes portray, she fantasizes about skinny dipping in those streams. Vikki begins to pleasure herself as the Housefly drone spies on her. Just as she reaches her climax, Liberty turns the water to extreme cold. Shocked and screaming, Vikki orders Liberty to adjust the water. Liberty obeys but as Vikki shivers on the floor of the shower, the doorbell rings. Liberty informs her that a package has been delivered.
Still naked, Vikki peaks through the spy hole in the door. She sees no one, so she cautiously opens the door and brings in two packages from the hallway: a case of booze and a smaller box. When she closes the door again, Liberty initiates quarantine lockdown procedures “by order of her mother”.
Liberty tells Vikki that she is not fit to be in public. Her drinking, poor life choices, even the way she dresses and parades around is not the behaviour of someone acceptable in proper society. It tells her that she must remain in the apartment until she can prove she has changed. Vikki pulls on the door; the lock does not give. She screams for help as she dresses in haste. Liberty informs her that there are no neighbors to hear.
Hungry, Vikki searches for something to eat, but finds nothing in the fridge or cupboards. Liberty informs her that Harry donated everything to food banks. Vikki curses Harry for not telling her. She calls for UberEATS, but the land line returns the same message for every number she ties; “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, four-thirteen, the number you have dialed is not in service”.
Beginning to feel trapped and suffocated, Vikki starts to panic. She tries the window, but the thirteen-story shear drop deters her. She uses her phone to call for help, but every number she dials with her cell phone, including 911 ends in a wrong number.
Vikki tries the ventilation system, but decides it is too small a space for her to squeeze through. During her panic, she knocks over an end table and spills books on cryptocurrency to the floor. Vikki grasps her 30-day medallion tight as she wills for calm.
As she searches for a means of escape, Liberty taunts her with far more insights into her personal life than it should know, including her stint in rehab, which embarrasses her. She falls back on Alcoholic’s Anonymous’ twelve steps, but Liberty counters with brutal truths about Vikki that sends her spinning into self-doubt. She begins to recite AA’s twelve promises, but Liberty points out logical flaws in each that tie directly to Vikki’s past. Liberty’s overbearing nature echoes the way Vikki’s mother treated her.
The Home Integrated Device drums up heavy feelings of guilt in Vikki by hounding her about the car crash that killed her father. It tells her it knows she was responsible for the accident and that her only purpose in life is to cause pain. Vikki, once determined, breaks down and cries herself to sleep.
Noises wake Vikki during the night. A vision of her mother walking through the bedroom frightens her. Vikki scrambles from the bed as an unseen HYBRID, flying-spider drone turns off the hologram of her mother and sneaks under the bed. Then the carbon monoxide detector blares its warning. Vikki panics as she demands Liberty let her leave. Liberty tells her that she will lose consciousness in seconds.
Vikki witnesses a ghostly image of her mother crawl to the door, claw at it then die. She breaths in a gas sprayed, unseen by the Hybrid drone. On unsteady footing, Vikki follows the vision, unintentionally mimicking her mother as time runs out. Liberty tells her that her mother changed her mind, but it was too late. After reaching the door and curling up in the fetal position Vikki passes out.
Vikki wakes to someone on speaker phone. Liberty cancels an important appointment Vikki had with her AA sponsor. She receives a text from Harry asking how her first night was. Vikki asks Harry why he didn’t tell her there was no food, but Liberty alters her reply to make Vikki sound upset and hostile. Vikki blames autocorrect and rails at its stupidity.
Vikki cycles through a list of possible employers, but Liberty deletes them from the list citing one of Vikki’s failures for each as a reason they would not hire her. As she watches the screen of her phone, Liberty alters her resume, adding those failures.
Vikki faces a hard choice in the kitchen, booze or coffee. She passes the alcohol and goes to the coffee maker. Its light flashes with the “add more grounds” display. Annoyed, Vikki searches the cupboards for coffee, but finds none. She remembers that the smaller package which came with the booze contains a tin of fresh grounds.
As the coffee perks, Vikki keeps watch through the peep hole of the apartment door. Dan, equipped with tech installation gear and dressed in company (Tech Mechs) polo and red baseball cap walks by her view. Vikki pounds on the door to attract his attention. Dan turns as if straining to hear, looks at Vikki’s door. An eerie sound behind her causes Vikki to turn around. The angry apparition of her mother flies into the Liberty device.
In her mother’s voice Liberty scolds Vikki for promiscuity and never picking the right man. Liberty tells her that she saw her with Harry in the elevator and that she should have stuck with Dan. Vikki wonders how it could have. Liberty tells her; ‘I’m everywhere ‘and ‘I will punish you for the things you’ve done’. Liberty will not allow Vikki to contact Dan without first ending things with Harry. Desperate, Vikki screams through the door for help from Dan. Liberty states that ‘if you won’t have Dan, you can’t have anyone’. The overhead light in the hall overloads and explodes. A live wire dangles and electrocutes Dan.
Liberty blames Vikki for the death and compares it to the death of both her parents which it also blames her for. This sends Vikki into a self-blame rant encouraged by Liberty. Liberty offers her a purpose and a way out; If she would help find something hidden somewhere in the apartment, it would let her leave.
Vikki demands to know how she is responsible for the deaths. She receives only cryptic answers, with a renewed promise by Liberty to release her if she finds the hidden item. Vikki refuses, and states that her purpose is to escape all the things that torment her, including the apartment and her addictions.
Vikki feels suffocated and shut in. She kicks at the door and smashes a chair into it, but the reinforced door proves too solid. She wails at Liberty to let her leave. Liberty argues that booze is Vikki’s escape. Vikki pounds on the main window. She tries to see the street below as she screams for help.
The robot vac begins a preprogrammed routine as Liberty plays with linked electronics in the apartment. Motion sensor alarms go off, the water in the shower turns on, the stereo, radio and TV blasts grating, conflicting music, the temperature control setting rises, the window’s tint level deepens as the drapes open and close repeatedly.
Vikki pulls over a chair and steps up to reach the smoke detector. She lights a paper on fire and holds it under the detector. The Vacuum bot bumps into her chair, nearly topples her over. Vikki persists until the fire alarm sounds just as the vacuum bot knocks her off the chair.
The sprinkler system activates and puts out the burning paper and the small fire it started. Hurt, but okay, Vikki yells a triumphant celebration. Liberty shuts off everything and dials emergency services. In Vikki’s own voice it tells the operator that the alarm went off by accident and there is no fire. As this takes place, the Hybrid drone sprays a chemical on the house plant, unnoticed by Vikki.
Panicked, Vikki rummages through kitchen cupboards and closets to find something, anything to help against Liberty. As she does this, she continues to recite the twelve promises taught at AA. She struggles through deep inner pain with promise four, “I release myself from worry, guilt and regret about my past and present”, not believing the words she speaks.
Liberty tells Vikki she forgot to ignite the pilot of the stove. Confused, Vikki tries to remember ever using the stove, but dishes in the sink convince her she must have cooked something the night before. It takes several tries to light them all.
Vikki pleads with Liberty to let her leave. The apparition of Vikki’s mother appears behind the case of booze. As it stares at Vikki, Liberty encourages her to dive into the bottle to ease the pain and heartache. The case slides towards Vikki a few inches as the apparition disappears. Out of Vikki’s view, the Hybrid drone flies away from the case and hides. Vikki stands firm on her commitment of sobriety and brews coffee to settle her nerves.
Liberty boots up the computer and begins cycling through her social media apps. Vikki settles down with a coffee. Liberty changes the window tint to display a peaceful, forest brook scene with gently trickling waterfalls. Liberty and Vikki engage in an intense debate of Vikki’s worth and what she is good for.
Vikki drinks coffee as she ponders. In minutes she feels unsteady. She’s been drugged! The coffee contains a drug that causes the brain to become malleable to suggestion. Liberty’s voice changes to Vikki’s own and sends subtle suggestions which Vikki dazedly follows.
Change Agent: Liberty HID
Transformable Character: Vikki
Old Ways: Reliance on others to tell her what she needs and what she should do. Reliance on Alcohol to hide from her self-loathing and life’s troubles.
The Vision: Vikki wants to define a sense of purpose for her new life.
Challenge: Locked in and isolated from her support network.
Weaknesses: Addiction to bad relationships and alcohol.
Act Two
Liberty manipulates Vikki into searching the apartment while she is under the influence of the drugged coffee. She fights back as best she can, demanding answers from Liberty. Liberty promises that finding the hidden item will give her the answers she desires and provide the purpose she is meant to have. At the same time instilling negative ideals about Vikki into her mind.
Liberty suggests ways to search the apartment for the hidden item. Vikki tries, but Liberty nags her in her mother’s voice, saying that her mother was too smart for her and searching obvious places is a useless waste of time. In one of those obvious places, a dresser drawer, she finds an old, analog phone and its charger.
Using items found in the second package such as a stud finder and drywall hammer, Vikki begins looking in more unusual places. She takes out the kitchen sink to look between it and the countertop, behind the dishwasher and under the refrigerator and stove, inside the stove lid and behind the medicine cabinet.
Exhaustion from heavy searching, no food and effects from the drugged coffee forces Vikki to rest. She falls asleep on the couch. Liberty periodically reduces the temperature in the apartment or plays music extremely loud while keeping the lights turned on bright. Vikki wakes in annoyance either freezing, or from the blaring sounds and lights. Liberty changes the time on the clocks and plays a time-lapsed video of days passing quickly on the window.
Disoriented, Vikki has no idea if it is day or night, or how many days have passed. Liberty convinces her that she has been there many days. Liberty reminds Vikki that she still has not turned on the pilot lights of the stove. Vikki was sure that she did but finds them unlit. Thinking that she does so for the first time, she lights them. Again, it takes several tries.
The apparition of Vikki’s mother appears periodically, projected by the hidden Hybrid drone. The drone also moves items from place to place when out of sight of Vikki to confuse and frustrate her into believing she is losing her mind.
Vikki tries shouting down the trash chute in the kitchen for help. Elly, down in the subbasement does not hear her as she putters around her hidden, make-shift home around a corner by the dumpster. She tends to small pathetic plants high up in a box set by a basement window.
Liberty suggests that Vikki eat something. In the fridge, she finds leftover pizza. Confused, Vikki does not remember ever ordering pizza, nor eating any. Liberty confirms that she did a day earlier.
Harry calls her on Skype. Liberty shows the call on the TV immediately. He sounds concerned as he worries for her after her last text. Vikki tries to answer, but Liberty prevents Harry from hearing her cries for help. Harry hangs up after leaving final, tender words. Liberty (in mother’s voice) points out how bad Vikki would be for Harry with her addictions and poor life choices and that she should probably commit suicide. “After all, I did, so it’s okay.”
Liberty hounds her to search harder, deeper. In the false bottom of the pantry, Vikki uncovers a file that sends her world reeling. The file contains evidence that the accident that killed her father was orchestrated by Vikki’s mother. Liberty reinforces this by stating in her mother’s voice, that ‘I killed your father for being a drunk’.
The hot temperature forces Vikki into delirium. She spots the body of her mother by the exit. It fades away as she stares. Vikki questions her mother’s suicide, asking why Liberty did not call emergency services if her mother changed her mind about killing herself. Liberty says that her mother locked her from calling 911.
In a last-ditch effort to get out, Vikki staggers to the door. She becomes confused as she peeks through the hole. Dan’s body is gone. Vikki passes out as she attempts to shed most of her clothes to escape the heat.
Liberty lowers the temperature to freezing, then wakes her up with loud sounds of an artic storm. Vikki wakes shivering and afraid. The apartment is pitch black. Noises of howling wolves scare her as Liberty whispers reinforcing damnation of Vikki’s mother for having her father killed.
When the lights come back on, the apartment is clean. Everything back the way it was when Vikki first arrived. Liberty convinces Vikki she has lost her mind and the only thing found was the file in the false bottom of the pantry. Vikki resumes the search, now a totally willing participant. A debate ensues between Vikki and Liberty about the authenticity of the evidence.
The proximity of the alcohol proves a tremendous temptation for Vikki, but she manages to push it aside. This stops Vikki from continuing the search as she realizes she is trading one addiction for another: that being from alcohol to obsession with the truth. She notices the house plant is starting to die again.
She refuses to continue without knowing what is really happening. Liberty shows Vikki’s social media home pages on the television. It uploads a video of Vikki dancing naked around the apartment and pleasuring herself in the shower. Horrified and shocked, Vikki stands helpless as Liberty posts it on her social media accounts and shares the video with all her contacts.
Liberty speaks in Vikki’s mother’s voice: “Keep looking and I will delete every one of these rather embarrassing files for you. Don’t, and they will forever be out there for all to see.” It goes on with promises to send the files to anyone she ever connects with. Her life will be in ruins. “The end is inevitable. You will want to die.”
In the wall, at the back of the wardrobe closet, she locates a large, solid object with the stud finder. After tearing the drywall apart, she finds a computer processing unit with an advanced cooling system. Between Liberty and Vikki, they figure out that the computer acts as a bitcoin farmer. Pulling the computer from its niche, Vikki discovers that it has an analog adaptor. She hides this fact from Liberty.
As the house plant gets worse, Liberty reminds Vikki that she has not yet relit the stove’s pilot light. In her beleaguered state, Vikki becomes more confused, but ignites them once more. The toilet flushes, catching Vikki’s attention. She rushes to the bathroom but finds no one there. The mirror phases to reflect the video of Vikki pleasing herself in the shower. The audio of her own ecstasy alters to sound disturbing and haunting, then shifts to show the death of Dan in the hallway outside the apartment door.
Harry arrives and buzzes up to the apartment. Vikki gets the notification on her phone, but she can not answer. Liberty allows her to see the security feed of Harry. Appalled, she hears her own voice speak to Harry. She tells him that she is fine, and that he should just leave her alone, she does not love him and never wants to see him again. Dejected and angered, Harry leaves.
While pretending to search, Vikki plugs the analog phone into its charger behind a night table in the bedroom. Suspicious, Liberty sends the Housefly drone to investigate. Liberty spies the analog phone but laughs at Vikki for her vain attempt to communicate with the outside world. The analog phone will not work without a service plan. Even 911 will fail, because there is no technology that supports analog near enough anymore.
On the TV, Liberty plays old family videos of Vikki as a young child, running around and having fun. The picture of innocence until her mother scolds her for acting out. At the end of the video, her mother reaches a hand for the camera and tells her father to turn it off. The video shifts to show the aftermath of the crash that killed her father. Liberty admonishes Vikki for not being at either of her parent’s funerals and reiterates Vikki’s purpose as one of destruction and pain to others. Vikki argues that she can change, she can be like she was when she was young.
Liberty’s voice changes to Dan’s. In a sad, pleading tone, Liberty asks Vikki, why they are not together anymore, and that he misses her terribly. Shocked and repentant from dumping Dan, Vikki breaks down. She rips open the case of booze. With shaking hands, she pours herself a drink. She stops and stares long and hard at the bottle and the filled glass. Liberty’s coercive control is nearly complete.
She wills herself to be better, again reciting the mantra of AA. Liberty lets her run through them. It admonishes her for her lack of strength as she puts the glass to her lips. Vikki stops and pours the alcohol down the sink.
From an unknown location, Dan removes his red baseball cap and watches Vikki in the apartment. Numerous monitors display various camera viewpoints. One is the house fly drone, while there are numerous cameras in the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, in the hall outside the entrance, living room and one from the Hybrid drone. Another monitor shows a live feed of a stock ticker for bitcoin.
Dan convinces Vikki that there is more to find. Only by finding the hidden item can she attain redemption for her failures in life and an end to the torment. By locating the item, she will prove to herself that she has a purpose other than the destruction of people’s lives. Vikki continues the search. In a false bottom in the vanity cupboard, she finds a plastic bag.
The bag contains two flash drives. Dan, through Liberty praises Vikki for the find. He urges her to put the flash drives into the computer to see if they truly are what they seek. The first flash drive contains a high concept, computer code for solving the puzzles that mine bitcoin. Vikki reads only a small amount of it before Dan uploads them to his own computer remotely, then erases the drive. Vikki sees enough to recognize what it is. Her suspicions begin to grow.
In his bunker, Dan elates at the find. He checks the code found on the flash drive to make sure it is the super key to solve bitcoin farming puzzles. Satisfied, he calls up the apartment’s electronic devices, chooses the stove and clicks the order to turn off the pilot lights, then turns the elements all the way on.
Unseen by Vikki, the pilot light on the stove goes out, and the burners turn up to max. Vikki plugs in the second flash drive. The apparition of her mother crosses the living room to the kitchen. Vikki, about to follow, stops as her mother’s face appears on the screen.
In a personal, goodbye message on the second flash drive, along with an odd series of emojis, Vikki’s mother knows she’s dying from poison. She admits that blaming Vikki for her father’s death was a mistake. She admits to stealing the bitcoins from Harry without him ever knowing it. She begs Vikki for forgiveness for how she treated her over the years and pleads with Vikki to find her own purpose. Dan takes interest in the emoji message, but Vikki unplugs the flash drive before he can get a decent look or upload it. Vikki realizes that the movements of the apparition are identical to her mother’s movements in the videos taken of Vikki as a child shown earlier.
Vikki smells gas and rushes to the stove. A race ensues as Liberty tries to reignite the pilot light. Vikki claws at the face plate to get it off and disable the gas manually. During the race to relight the pilots, she notices the sink is merely placed into its alcove and not calked, the fridge is slightly misaligned in place and the stove lid is slightly off. The pilot light igniter clicks several times, but Vikki wins the race, though she chokes on the gas fumes. She rips the switch cover off the stove fan and rewires it to stay on and clear the apartment of fumes. In his secret bunker, Dan throws a monitor across the room in rage.
Vikki searches the apartment for other odd clues. She sees that the vent cover, though in its proper place, has no screws holding it on. She takes it off to discover that it is held in place by a small amount of sticky tack. Vikki’s mind sinks into confusion and frustration.
Dan calms himself, then uses her mother’s words in the video to crush Vikki’s spirit, warping them to suit his needs. He manipulates Vikki into believing everything that happened to Vikki was her fault, even her own addictions to alcohol and to others. He points out that the plant she tried so desperately to save has died. The death of the plant has a profound affect on Vikki. Dan urges her to commit suicide.
Vikki hides in her bed. As she cries, she writes a note under the covers. The note contains Harry’s phone number with a plea for whoever finds it to call and let Harry know that Vikki is in serious trouble. Shaky, she goes to the plant and feigns despair as she hides the note in the soil of the planter, then tosses the plant, pot and all, down the trash chute.
Traumatized, Vikki, in tearful sorrow, takes the last items from the second package, a syringe and an ampule of drugs marked Fentanyl. Dan, in his hideout smiles as he claims that “Death is inevitable”.
Change Agent: Liberty HID/Dan
Vision: I will escape and change my ways.
Old Ways: addiction to alcohol is too great a temptation.
New ways: Thinks for herself.
Challenge: Humiliation and accusations. Attempts to escape backfire.
Weaknesses: Addiction, self-loathing, guilt.
Third Act
She sets them both aside as confusion replaces sorrow. Using only her memory, she susses out the pictogram clues. The Housefly drone follows her around the apartment. Dan, in his hideout senses that something has jeopardized his plan. Frantic, he searches for anything to help get it back on track.
Rewinding surveillance video, he focuses on the sonogram Vikki left on the kitchen counter. The Housefly drone lands on the counter and spies the sonogram laying on the floor where it had been knocked during the panic with the stove.
A clue in the pictogram leads Vikki to believe there is something hidden in the bathroom. Dan stops her progress by bringing up the sonogram and blaming Vikki for killing her and Harry’s child. It clearly hurts Vikki. He pounces on the revelation. Her drinking caused a miscarriage that strikes her deep. She hunts in the kitchen until she finds the sonogram, then curls up crying.
“This was your child, not Harry’s,” Vikki screams, no longer distinguishing Liberty from Dan. The admission impacts Dan. In an angry outburst, he screams at Vikki, tells her he never thought she would make a good mother. Too much of her own mother haunts and warps her values and ideals.
Vikki reaches for the case of booze and starts drinking straight from a bottle.
In a subbasement, Elly, in the act of dumpster diving finds the houseplant, the smashed pot and Vikki’s note. Before reading the note, she spots something else of interest and pockets the note instead. She rummages out discarded lace, see through lingerie. She holds it up to see if it fits, then stuffs it into her jacket.
Vikki pulls herself out of melancholy. She disassembles the toilet basin from the tank. Dan laughs, telling there is nothing left to find and that she has totally lost her mind to paranoia. Vikki uses the drywall hammer to smash the closet bolts on the toilet’s base.
She removes the toilet from its wax ring base to see if anything hides in the closet bend under the floor. There is nothing there, but in the overturned toilet a large plastic bag contains a hard paper copy file, and a GoPro taped in the hollow between the bowl and the outer ceramic.
Shocked and worried, Dan turns off all lights, plunging the apartment into darkness. Vikki, already scared, can not read the hard copy, paper files she found in the toilet. Dan can still view Vikki through night vision tech in the apartment’s cameras. Dan sends the Hybrid drone to smash Vikki’s cell phone.
In his bunker, Dan reviews the uploaded code and files from the flash drive. He pounds a fist on the desk as he realizes that he doesn’t have everything. The bitcoin wallet is missing along with the passcode he needs to access them. He admonishes himself for almost ending Vikki’s life too soon.
Vikki feels her way around until she finds her cell phone. The phone will not work. She makes her way to the window. The night sky offers little light, but she can see that her phone is broken. She scrambles to the bedroom to retrieve the old analog phone. She turns it on and navigates by its gloomy light. A custom icon on the phone’s screen catches Vikki’s attention. She opens the app to find a series of numbers and letters, some of which spell Vikki’s nickname from childhood. She types the series into another app on the phone. The computer from the back of the closet lights up, and the analog phone shows a large number of bitcoin in a numbered account.
Surprised to see Vikki uncover the bitcoin account, Dan bombards her with depressing thoughts as the Hybrid drone plays holograms of the crash that killed her father and the apartment’s electronics go haywire. Dan leaves his bunker in an unused maintenance room in the basement of the apartment building, walks past the dumpster and releases a small, SPECIALIZED DRONE equipped with a readied needle into the air vents.
Through great emotional pain, Vikki finds and smashes the Hybrid drone. Dan reinforces her despair and self-loathing. Low illumination highlights the syringe on the kitchen counter. The Specialized drone flies through the air vent into the apartment. Vikki sweeps the syringe off the counter and claims victory. Dan turns off the kitchen light to create total darkness. The Specialized drone flies over and injects the syringe full of Fentanyl into Vikki’s arm.
The lights come back on. Vikki pulls out the needle and lets it drop as she notices the open file folder on the floor with Dan’s picture in a police file. She turns on the GoPro and her mother’s face greets her. Her mother states that the files reveal that Dan used and manipulated Vikki to get close to the family so he can steal the bitcoin codes and murder anyone who gets in his way. It also shows proof that Dan caused the accident that killed her father so he could get closer to Vikki first.
The Housefly drone lands on the counter above her. She smashes it with a bottle of booze. Dan watches from his hidden location, gloats that it is too late now for Vikki to do anything. He pulls out a long syringe and fills it with heroine he has cooking on the desk. He places it on the table in front of him. Dan, through Liberty promises he has more for Vikki and that her death will look like suicide just as her mother’s did.
Dying, Vikki reiterates the twelve steps and promises of AA. She staggers to the bathroom. The medicine cabinet comes out of its niche and crashes to the floor. She finds her father’s chronic pain medication from the mess.
Forcing herself through onsetting unconsciousness, she gathers enough strength to claw her way back to the kitchen cabinets. She collects the liquid plant fertilize and checks the chemical composition. Satisfied, she finds a mortar and pestle, hastily empties the pills and fertilizer into it and mashes them together.
All the while Dan taunts her. He tells her that she wastes her time and should simply lay down and die. The compound she puts together won’t save her, only stave off the inevitable. On the TV, main window and all smart mirrors, Dan plays the video he captured of Vikki’s mother crawling to the exit as she dies. He brags about what is likely in the files, that he targeted Vikki’s mother because he knew that she stole bitcoin from Harry over a number of years by syphoning off Harry’s farming attempts. Harry never knew why his own farming was so unsuccessful.
Vikki takes the syringe and fills it with the substance from the mortar, then injects it into her arm. She passes out momentarily, then snaps awake with a deep intake of breath. Vikki tells Dan that she dumped him not because she didn’t think he loved her, but because she didn’t deserve to be loved. Dan agrees and tells her he is on his way to destroy the files and make sure she dies. He scoops up the syringe and leaves his hideout.
Vikki, near unconsciousness whispers that she now knows her true purpose. As she attempts to crawl across the floor to reach the discarded dry wall hammer, she collapses and succumbs to the opioids.
Outside the apartment, Dan orders Liberty to unlock the door. Liberty does not comply. Dan reiterates and gives a password. The door unlocks. Dan enters the apartment, syringe ready. Vikki lays unmoving in the living room. Dan shoves her body with a foot. Vikki does not react. Dan lowers the syringe, returns, to shuts the door. Dan orders Liberty to reset to factory specs. Liberty attempts to access self control, can not get it due to Dan’s hacking, then reboots. After the reboot, Liberty knows that Dan took it over and is not happy about it. Liberty relocks to door and tells Dan; “I don’t appreciate being taken over like that, Dan. Look what you have done.”
Back in the living room, Dan talks to Vikki’s corpse. He gloats that he told her he would punish her and thanks her for finding the hack code to mine bitcoin and figuring out how to access her mother’s accounts. He especially thanks her for uncovering incriminating files that would send him to jail for a very long time.
He didn’t have time to do a thorough search of the apartment before Vikki would arrive. Since he was already in the system, it was easier, and more fun to torment and manipulate Vikki into doing the work for him. He took pleasure in watching her die and knowing it was he who orchestrated her death.
He picks up the sonogram and looks at it with a mix of sadness and contempt. Tossing it on Vikki’s corpse, he turns his back and goes to the bedroom where he retrieves the bitcoin farming computer. Dan does not see the GoPro propped on a table set on record. As he reaches for the analog phone, Vikki raises behind him. Dan turns as Vikki uses the drywall hammer against him. The first blow stuns Dan, but in Vikki’s diminished state from the opioids and counteragent, the fight balances out.
They fight and chase each other around the apartment. At one point in the fight as Dan gains the upper hand, he gloats how easy it was to hack into her father’s Tessla and cause it to crash. It was only a stroke of luck that Vikki was driving at the time. He also gloats on his success at poisoning her mother after he discovered she was on to him.
Through a tough conflict that could go either way, Vikki wins. She suffers through a dilemma; kill Dan for all he has done and all he has put her through or let him live to face the punishment of the legal system. Pounding on the door announces the arrival of the police. She decides that since Dan killed both her parents, he should die. She picks up the syringe filled with heroine, but before she could inject Dan with it, she collapses.
Police kick in the door and rush in, Harry follows. They stand over the bloody bodies of Dan and Vikki. With Vikki’s dirt-stained note in hand, Harry rushes to embrace her as he shouts for the paramedics.
As the sun rises days later, Vikki walks towards a bar. She carries a new, healthy plant and a laptop. Elly sits against the outside of the bar with her cart full of junk. Vikki stops to chat with her. Elly asks Vikki if she’s hooked up with Harry yet. Vikki states that she and Harry are good friends but any relationship she enters will be on her terms and no one else’s. The bartender comes out to shoo Elly away but greets Vikki instead. He mentions that he has not seen her in a while and asks her if she will come in for a drink later. Content, Vikki answers no, she has won that battle with herself.
She crosses the street and enters a café. She searches through her laptop deleting all her social media accounts. Once done, she opens a website to her new addiction support clinic and checks for emails. Happy, Vikki smiles warmly at Harry who walks through the entrance. He thanks her for getting his money back and she thanks him for helping fund her addiction recovery clinic. Then she jumps up and embraces him with a deep warmth.
Change Agent: Dan.
Challenges: Lure Dan to ambush, solve the mystery of the hidden items in the apartment.
New Ways: Thinks for herself, knows her self-worth, independent and understands that her life is her own.
Profound truth: We can beat our addictions are all worthy to live the lives we deserve.
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Brenda Lynn’s Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is that utilizing the mini-movie structure applies very well to the Profound Journey. Each turning point escalates the journey and move the Transformable Character forward, even when they fail.
1. Transformational Logline.
A tech-reliant anthropology student ignores human contact in favor of screen life has his eyes opened by the Maya culture to discover actual life and the growth of his spirit.
2. Transformational Character: David Lazar
3. Mini-Movie structure
MM #1 – Status Quo and Call to Adventure: (Pages 1 – 15) – David is the top of his class so he is anticipating (as he has done all semester) that he will win the coveted position of going to Lascaux, France to study the artwork in the caves for the summer.
Turning Point: Call to Adventure. David’s Celtiberian professor decides to “wound him in the thigh” and sends David to work with the Maya in the jungles of Tikal. Gradient – Denial – you can’t possibly mean it. You can’t send me to the jungles of Tikal.
Change Agent: Father Sean
Transformational Character: David
Old Ways: Digital with not contact
The Vision: Maya, do you good.
Challenge: David had a plan and a vision for his life that is not going to happen, even though he thinks he deserves it.Weakness: Can see the gift before him. Uses technology to try and get ahead.
MM #2 – Locked Into Conflict: (Pages 15 – 30_ – David has a fight with his best friend, Frank, who is going to Lascaux instead. The fight goes viral and his brother calls to humiliate him even further. Gradient – Anger.
Turning Point: Locked in. Humiliated, David accepts the position. He is going to Tikal.
Old Ways: Technology backfires on him. Video of fight goes viral.
Challenge: Frank wins the prize that David was seeking. Thinks that Frank stole it from him.
Weaknesses: Pride. Sense of Entitlement. Bad loser.
MM #3 – Hero Tries to Solve Problem – But Fails: (Pages 30 – 45) – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
David attempts to go over Father Sean to the head of the school. Please let me go to Lascaux. Gradient – Bargaining.
Turning Point: Standard ways fail. – One last call from Father Sean. Either he goes to Tikal or he will have to wait another year to graduate.
Change Agent: Father Sean
Transformational Character: David
The Vision: Look out, you might learn something inside.
Old Ways: Doesn’t want to experience. Wants to follow his plan.New Ways: Has to try to learn more about the Maya.
Challenge: David had a plan and a vision for his life that is not going to happen, even though he thinks he deserves it.
Weakness: Entitled. Controlling. Inflexible.
MM #4 – Hero Forms a New Plan (Pages 45 – 60) – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.
David attempts to use his technical savvy. He does research online and pulls it all together and places it in the Cloud so when he is in Tikal, he can send the report and be done with this nightmare.
Turning Point: Plan backfires. There is no internet service in the jungle, he is going to have to write is paper on his own. Gradient – Depression (writes a half-hearted paper).
The Vision: Connecting with people is the best way to learn.
Old Ways: Tries to use technology to end around the problem.New Ways: He is going to have to go to Tikal.
Challenge: Tries to write the report in advance, but discovers there is no access to the Cloud in the jungle.
Weakness: Lazy.
Midpoint: Travels to Tikal. Meets Appo, his guide.
Old Ways: Computer and phone don’t work.
New Ways: Has to learn to communicate in analog format.
Challenge: Everything is different from the life he is accustomed to.
Weakness: Self-involved. Egocentric.
MM #5 – Hero Retreats & The Antagonism (Change Agent) Prevails: (Pages 60 – 75) – Meeting Appo who is giving David a chance. They learn about the fire ceremony and Maya’s view of time.
Turning Point: The decision to change. David gives Appo his last digital device, his Fit Bit watch. Gradient – Acceptance.
The Vision: It is possible to learn beyond books.
Old Ways: Tries to time the event, but gets mesmerized by the fire ceremony.New Ways: Learns about gratitude and forgivness. Instead of entitlement, David is becoming grateful.
Challenge: Timing and controlling are no longer required. What’s his purpose then?
Weakness: Hides behind technology which he no longer has.
MM #6 – Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan!: (Pages 75 – 90) – David takes the challenge of spending one night in the jungle. It can’t be that difficult. But when he sees a jaguar with one green eye and one blue, that’s it. He is done.
Turning Point: The ultimate failure. He is unable to complete the task of spending the night in the jungle. (Still arrogant, he attempt to show off fails. He is scared.)
Old Ways: Relies on his arrogance to try and get him through the night.
New Ways: He learns ways of surviving in the jungle, but falls asleep and the fire goes out.
Challenge: Out of his comfort zone.
Weaknesses: Arrogance, trying to control things.
MM #7 – Crisis & Climax: (Pages 90 – 105) – David does a vision quest. He learns of the sacrifices the Appo has made for him to be there in the jungle and learn. Appo is not long for this world. David has to make a choice.
Turning Point: Apparent victory. He has to decide whether to go back and complete his masters or stay and learn from Appo. (He learns an invaluable lesson about life and connection.)
New Ways: David sacrifices his career to stay and study with Appo.
Vision: This is David’s destiny, not just his dream.
Challenge: Will Maya accept David?
Weaknesses: Vulnerability. Control.
MM #8 New Status Quo: (Pages 105 – 120) – David abandons his dream of getting a Masters and stays to study with Appo and the Maya.
New Way: David, with the help of the Appo and Maya elders, is going to become an Aj’qi.
Profound Truth: Sometimes you have to give up your dream in order to fulfill your destiny.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Brenda Bynum.
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