Day 6 Assignments

[ROBERT Ingalls]

Rob’s Synopsis Hooks

COM:

– Similarity to a box-office success

— (PLACES IN THE HEART – Sally Field, Danny Glover, Ed Harris, John Malkovich)

– A great role for a bankable actor

— Strong female heroine – feisty, gutsy.

— Entire cast can attract talent. They are distinctive and complicated.

MIT:

– Corrupt banker who raped heroine 17 years ago now controls her future livelihood

– Despite the violent mob and ruthless NY bankers, and despite the approaching Dust Storms of the 1930s, the real force of nature is Molly, a gutsy uneducated widowed farmer’s wife, forced to protect her family and farm in a man’s world.

– Son Adam conspires with the town’s banker (who is also his biological father) against Molly and family. Betrayal.

– Adam is drawn towards up and coming Nazi propaganda

– Henry accidentally dies in a grain silo accident. Molly & Sheriff believe foul play

– A mob enforcer is killed with a pitchfork. The new schoolmarm, young innocent mother of a child with Polio, is seen holding a bloody pitchfork.

SYNOPSIS:

Despite the violent mob and ruthless NY bankers, and despite the approaching Dust Storms of the 1930s, the real force of nature is Molly, a gutsy uneducated widowed farmer’s wife, forced to protect her family and farm in a man’s world.

Corrupt banker who raped heroine 17 years ago now controls her future livelihood

Besides finances and farming, Molly has three teenagers she must deal with. Son Adam, a product of rape by the town’s banker, conspires against the family while being indoctrinated into up coming Nazi propaganda. Rose seeks her missing father’s love in the wrong places. Willie explores his sexuality, which goes against the church doctrine.

Molly and Sheriff believe Henry’s death was no accident – despite many suspects, who is guilty?

HORIZONS is similar to PLACES IN THE HEART with a strong female heroine – feisty, gutsy. The entire cast are distinctive and complicated and can attract talent.

[Mary Emmick]

Mary Emmick’s Synopsis Hooks

What I learned doing this assignment is that hooks engage the reader. They make the story more interesting because every line is designed to attract the reader’s attention.

Title: DON’T LOOK AWAY, ISABEL

Written by Mary Emmick

Genre: Drama/Coming-of-Age

What happens when a teenage girl from a small farm town during the time of COVID-19 discovers her fiancé and childhood sweetheart is a louse?

When Isabel sees her fiancé throwing up in the bushes at her sister’s wedding reception, she begins to have second thoughts. When she goes to Tyler’s work and sees him kissing the receptionist IT’S OVER FOR HER!

There’s danger and high stakes when Isabel disobeys her father to save the family farm from a raging fire.

When a friend is pulled over by the police one night just for being black Isabel is angered by the racism in her town.

I wrote a song called Look Away because I saw people looking away from injustice. Then I turned it into a story.

Isabel is outraged when she learns that her ex-fiancé’s father, State Senator Ted Cramer, in revenge, turns her friend Victor Sanchez into the sheriff for being undocumented. He was arrested on his family’s prosperous vineyard even though the family had been in the country for several generations.

How will Isabel respond to the challenges and injustices she faces and find true love when her world is swirling in a vortex of uncertainty and upheaval?

[Melanie Forchetti]

Melanie’s Synopsis Hooks

What I learned in the assignment is that the worst thing you can do is to bore someone with your pitch – so you have to keep things moving with the twists and hooks in your script. Focus on the shiny objects.

Synopsis based on the hooks:

A best-selling author is found washed up underneath Savannah’s Talmadge Bridge just like the protagonist in his latest novel. The next day his book sells out. Was it suicide or murder? Blake, an aspiring writer herself, is about to find out.

Stripped of courage, pride, and her savings after an identity theft, Blake enrolls in a writing class, determined to prove herself and take charge of her writing career. The problem is – a team of grifters has the same idea. It’s not until her newly wed husband goes missing that she realizes that was the same plot point in her thriller’s last chapter. Just like the dead author – her words start to come true. Writing has become dangerous – so she stops. However, her world gets even worse – a drained bank account, intimidated by thugs, an eviction notice, and her literary agent threatens to drop her publishing deal if she doesn’t finish the book.

With only a few clues to go on and no help from the cops, Blake’s search for her husband leads to finding the killer on top of a high rise. As she dangles off the roof, she must find a way to write herself out of death.

[Lenore]

Lenore Bechtel Synopsis Hooks

I learned from this assignment that a synopsis should hook the reader but not tell the whole plot.

Title: SWEETIE HEAVEN

Written by Lenore Vinyard Bechtel

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Meredith goes rogue on stage at an early 1984 Sweet Adeline show, baffling and enraging the others in the Dapper Dolls quartet. Audience members, except for barbershop zealots, love her singing of original lyrics, written by her and her boyfriend Quincy, a Native American, with whom she plans an album, “Songs of the Sages.”

After her controversial performance, Meredith is thrilled when Quincy proposes until she discovers he thinks being engaged makes pre-marital sex okay. At age twelve, Meredith took a vow of chastity until marriage. She won’t accept the small diamond ring with sexual ties to it.

Dapper Dolls’ tenor Ashley fears Meredith unpredictability will spoil the quartet’s chances of winning the Gulf-Atlantic regional, so she drops out to join a quartet which dropped Neva, who’s not married, because her pregnancy interfered with competition timeline.

Marilou, Meredith’s mother and Dapper Doll baritone who’s very angry at Meredith, arranges tryouts for tenors. As six tenors blend their voices singing “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” with Meredith, Marilou, and Meredith’s Gran, Citrus Chorus members make catty comments throughout. At the end Kelly, a Native American and new Sweet Adeline, whispers loudly, “I could do ten times better!”

Amused at first that a new member thinks she’s good enough for the Dapper Dolls, Meredith befriends Kelly who shows her how to write harmony for her originals songs so she might persuade her quartet to use them. They see Maryjane, Marilou’s sister, singing and dancing in a small practice room and wonder why she dropped out (or got kicked out) of the original Dapper Dolls.

While walking across campus after their last philosophy class, Quincy pulls Meredith behind bushes for passionate kissing which almost goes too far. Sadly, Meredith leaves, telling him she can’t be alone with him any more. His erection keeps him from following her.

When Meredith discovers Kelly is Quincy’s sister, she doesn’t let Kelly know how much she loves her brother. Meredith is with Kelly at her father Gerald’s music store when Quincy comes in with Sexy Squaw to pick up drums for a drum circle. After awkward introductions, Meredith flees, but waits outside, hoping Quincy will follow her. He doesn’t, and she’s devastated.

Will the Dapper Dolls find a tenor in time to win Gulf-Atlantic so Gran can have her first chance at nationals? Will Meredith have the spunk to defy Marilou and sing her own style with her own quartet? Will she and Quincy ever get back together? And will she remain a virgin if they do?

All these questions get answered at the Gulf-Atlantic Regional competition when Meredith’s quartet, The Rhythmettes, sing her original “Biblical Brushoff” about dumping guys who pressure gals for pre-marital sex and happily squealing females, ages fifteen to twenty-five, swarm the stage and hug the quartet members.

[Robert Bland]

Bob Bland…. Synopsis Hooks…

Learned? The hooks are what attract a reader, making the story more interesting with each line purposeful in drawing the reader’s interest.

Title: Doc Band-Aid

Written by Bob Bland

Genre: drama/romance

HOOKS:

–Frank, traumatized, homeless vet, spots a Vietnamese woman spreading flowers on the ocean.

–He is shocked to find out Tam is his fiancé from the war whom he thought was dead.

–He is blindsided when she angrily tells him he abandoned her in Vietnam and tells him to leave.

–She softens when she finds a drawing he left of their favorite spot in Vietnam.

–Frank is shocked to find out she has a Chinese doctor boyfriend

–At a family get-together, he is devastated to find out she is now engaged. But he still holds out hope, finding an old drawing of his she kept from Vietnam.

–She encourages him to pursue his art, but he tells her he loves her and wants more. She pleads for time to sort out her true feelings.

SYNOPSIS:

On the beach, after waking up from a drunken hangover, Frank, traumatized from the war and homeless, is intrigued to see a Vietnamese woman spreading flowers on the water and decides to follow her.

Thinking Tam, his former Vietnamese fiancé was dead, he is shocked to spot her handing out sandwiches at a breadline behind a market and runs away, afraid and embarrassed to approach her.

But going back to the market to hopefully talk with Tam, Frank is blindsided when she angrily tells him he abandoned her in Vietnam and to leave.

Tam’s feelings soften when she discovers a pointillist drawing Frank leaves behind of a special spot in Vietnam where they used to share their hopes and dreams.

Frank feels shocked when her doctor boyfriend, Jin, suddenly shows up and she tells him that Frank is just some homeless guy looking for work.

Feeling better when invited to what Frank thinks is a family get-together, he is devastated to find out it is a wedding engagement party for Tam and Jin. Believing his hope to reunite with Tam is all but impossible, he discovers a drawing of his that she kept from Vietnam and feels there is still hope.

Tam encourages Frank to pursue his artwork but he declares he wants more. She pleads for time to sort out her true feelings, whether to marry Jin, with whom she feels safe, or to reunite with Frank, which she still feels hesitant about.

[John Stimson]

John Stimson’s Synopsis Hooks

What I learned doing this assignment is that “A great pitch is built on hooks!” so I used the hooks and found that I was able to write a concise synopsis.

Harold Case, PhD, is a charismatic, handsome, and popular engineering professor at the University of Washington. He is a member of a domestic security policy think tank which specializes in devising scenarios to keep people safe from terroristic threats caused by someone like him, because Harold Case is a bomber who creates sophisticated explosive systems. Case is on retainer for a political power broker, Jordan Pearce, who uses a Gulfstream G-550 private jet for an office. An impending federal grand jury criminal indictment against Pearce is never to be handed over when a massive bomb concealed in a city bus parked next to the 23-story federal courthouse explodes, killing everyone inside, including the wife and son of Seattle police office Danny Baylor, who were inside the build on a grammar school field trip.

Federal law enforcement comes in to investigate the crime, including ATF agent Miranda Tucker and her bomb sniffing K-9. As brilliant as professor Case is, he is a sociopath. Case leads the cops and the local vain politicians in a game of cat and mouse—they being the mouse. Specifically, Baylor, who Case choses to deliver a ransom and Baylor accepts because Baylor sees it as an opportunity to mete out vengeance or justice—he’s still undecided. And as charming as Case is, he is not above using his lover to deliver a bomb meant to kill the feds and also take her life with it. Professor Case is multifaceted, multi-layered and reveals himself to be a Nihilist in a rare moment of self-reflection in his interrogation scene.

But, as in all conspiracy thrillers, like “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of The Condor,” it has twist ending.

[Laura Hyler]

Laura Hyler’s Synopsis Hooks Lesson 6 5/30/22

What I learned doing this assignment is that I was having difficulty understanding what the synopsis is supposed to do. Is it like a query letter, or like the back of a book jacket cover? I have a difficult time trying to relate the science fiction example from the class notes to what I am trying to accomplish with my script. I hope I’m going in the right direction with this.

What’s worse than stubbing your toe on the nightstand in the dark? Could it be stubbing your intellect on the belief that we live in a post-racial America?

Quite possibly. Meet Naomi Steele, a young widow who has a fear of relationships-until she meets Kofi, an African doctor at her employer’s fundraiser.

Things take off quickly and the happy couple don’t seem to take notice of the behavior of some friends, family, coworkers and even their employers. Tensions escalate as friends and relatives leave Kofi and Naomi out of invitations and the couple is faced with the conundrum of addressing the issue with one another or avoiding it all together.

Even their employers cast their votes-Naomi is passed over for a promotion, and the man who gets the job has been in hot pursuit of her and is a racist. Kofi’s employer conveniently “forgets” to file HB-1 (Visa) paperwork for him and some other employees, causing the deportation of several doctors. Kofi is next on the list to be deported. Will he be able to stay?

When things heat up to the breaking point and Kofi moves out, the couple is forced into addressing the issue head on, or risk losing their relationship forever.

[Nancy Lucas]

Assignment 6 Synopsis and Hooks.

Nancy Lucas Synopsis Hooks

What I learned from today’s assignment is that it is the hooks that will sell the story to the producers. The hook is needs to be strong enough that the producer will WANT to read the script.

* * * *

*****Like Laura, I was having a bit of difficulty in understanding what a synopsis is- what it seeks to accomplish and how long should it be?

Is it a few paragraphs? An elevator pitch?

If you could please give us definitions of what each of these things are—it would be greatly appreciated.

For instance—this pitch goes to :_____? ******

* * * *

Title: A TROPICAL CHRISTMAS

Written by Nancy J. Lucas

Genre: Made for TV G- Rated Romance/Comedy

(I think I would like to approach Peter Sullivan to produce this.)

Great news, Peter, your best friend is getting married!

How does a big city procedural lawyer overcome his need for order when planning his best friend’s wedding? Peter has lived his entire life with strategic decisions and intentional moves. When Dan, his best friend, and a newly- minted partner at the law firm they work at, asks him to be the best man at his wedding, Peter happily accepts until he discovers he is responsible for more than he bargained for.

Peter Duncan returns from a trip abroad to discover his best friends’ engagement. After several mishaps, it is Peter who is tasked to make the arrangements of a Christmas Day wedding on a beach.

*Upon arriving in Cupid’s Cove, Florida, Peter Duncan, finds that the last room available to him is at the mid-century modern Flip-Flop Motel, located next door to the very upscale Clarkston, which, is where the entire rest of the wedding party is staying.

*Cupid’s Arrow Wedding Planners came highly recommended by the motel’s beautiful Italian receptionist, Nicole. But…

*Sophie, the actual wedding planner gets sidelined with a sick child so, Nicole steps in as the Wedding Planner until…

*The local Health Inspector shows up just as key coworkers are in the lobby. Peter is alarmed that the Health Inspector knows Nicole by her first name because “she has been working with her so much lately,” causing Peter to second guess his choices and desperately wants to use the wedding planner at the Clarkston since he just found out…

*the owner of the law firm was invited to the wedding – and he and his wife are used to the finer things in life…..so Peter is worried… and unsure of Nicole’s competency at wedding planning.

*Peter also has to deal with a lost wedding dress, a noisy construction site, an Italian Restaurant owner and getting Christmas cookies baked before he realizes…

*sometime, the best times are spontaneous.

[Gordon Cowan]

Gordon’s Synopsis Hooks for Hardwired

I learned the importance of choosing among MITs or high impact scenes to create a one-page synopsis for a great thriller.

TITLE: Hardwired

AUTHOR: Gordon

GENRE: Thriller

LOG: When mistakenly given a file outlining a wealthy psychopath’s heinous scheme, Gwen must trust her very survival to the deadly assassin who’s sent to retrieve it.

Synopsis: In the hours before the next hooded assassin would come, Gwen works past her sheer fight to prepare. Not knowing if her efforts might save her, she nervously glances from her focus on the shiny new front door mat to eye the fresh chicken breast in her hand.

She relies on a stranger’s instructions left on the recorder she found on her steps. Its message from the first assassin who came, says, “If you wish to survive you must trust me. Because others are coming.” And she does over all others, even police and the FBI.

Gwen never asked for any of this. A brilliant cyber analyst, she lives a peaceful, discreet life. By design she works from home, remaining a ghost to public and electronic worlds. But her tranquility is shattered when she’s mistakenly sent a file, one so horrid it causes her to violently retch. And one she knows would result in her death merely because she’s read it.

Adding to her fright Gwen’s confidant and lover, a deputy, files an incident report outlining Gwen’s emergency call after her tense face-to-face standoff with a home intruder, a hungry bear. This report, she knows, would become the assassins’ roadmap to her doorstep.

With a final glance of resolve toward the chicken breast she gently lobs it toward the shiny new outdoor mat. On contact the deep electric HUM is instant. The meat POPS, SIZZLES, then BURSTS into big flames. Gasping in shock Gwen quickly clicks off the big power switch. She dashes to the kitchen, returns with an extinguisher, aims and sprays. Flames at the entrance disappear into a billowing white fog. When clearing Gwen stares in disbelief at the charred, smoking remains of what was once a chicken breast. It is also the spot where she hopes the next assassin might step.

The timer counts downward on Gwen’s computer. It marks the next killer’s arrival. She remains on edge and in a quandary over why the first assassin didn’t kill her and instead, becomes eager to help her. Or is any of it even real?

But the first assassin knows it’s real. As a black woman MARA is perhaps the world’s most formidable assassin. But she too is now marked for death when foregoing the hit on Gwen.

Mara’s reversal of deadly intent occurs with her first glimpse of Gwen’s face just as she’s about to pull the trigger. It also brings Mara back to haunting memories of the day when she was but ten years of age, when standing before her mother’s newly placed headstone.

That frightening memory from thirty years past recounts when Mara’s identical twin sister, Gwen, was cruelly torn from her side to never be seen nor heard from again. It’s also the identical memory Gwen relives often.

Not yet revealing her identity to Gwen, Mara does what’s necessary to protect her twin sister at all costs, including eliminating evil at its source, the file’s author, and where more surprises lurk.

And so, here they come.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Gordon Cowan.