Day 5 Assignments

[Eric Humble]

Eric Humble’s Three Gradients

What I learned is: This lesson was especially challenging as it deals with some of the aspects of creating a transformational journey that I’ve struggled with (and which drew me to this class). My story deals with forced change, and as such a lot of the emotional gradient steps are familiar to me from the Mini Movie Method, which echoes a lot of that type of arc – but the “Desired Change” emotional gradient was eye-opening. In doing this lesson, I realized I needed to amend my Transformational Logline so that the main conflict of the thriller story came through. I feel like the ending of the logline (and the transformational journey) is a little more vague right now, which could pose problems. I stressed about this for a bit, but I’ve decided to post what I have right now and move on. Hopefully the next steps will help address some of these issues. The story is definitely starting to work on a deeper level, which is strengthening the outline I’m working off of.

What is the Emotional Gradient you’ll use? Forced Change

For each emotion of that gradient, tell us the following:

Emotion: Denial

Action: Gets back to the kitchen and pours himself into the work and the

fast-paced schedule.

Challenge: Natalia has found Victor’s chef’s knife – and wants answers as to why

it’s here and what the cryptic warning on it means.

Weakness: Hyperfocused on success – on keeping this job so he can secure the

next one.

Emotion: Anger

Action: Sets up a trail of false clues to lead Leiber to discover Victor’s body

himself and deflect blame from Raf – even if it implicates one of the

other cooks who is innocent

Challenge: Raf has been attacked by someone in his midst and is no longer safe

Weakness: Backstabs, betrays, whatever it takes to get ahead

Emotion: Bargaining

Action: Decides to ferret out the poisoner himself… so he’ll be considered a

bigger hero when he pulls it all off. Think of the connections he’ll have all over the world!

Challenge: The poisoner is someone among them.

Weakness: Only out for himself and his own glory.

Emotion: Bargaining

Action: Allows himself to be seduced by Natalia instead of looking for the

assassin.

Challenge: Natalia is stirring all the old feelings from when they were together.

Weakness: Won’t propose or commit to his pregnant girlfriend.

Emotion: Depression

Action: Comes clean to Leiber, admits to everything he’s found.

Challenge: He’s detained, with no chance of getting back in the kitchen.

Weakness: Self-destructive

Emotion: Acceptance

Action: Destroys his chances at establishing his restaurant chain by taking Leiber

hostage and moving the dinner to the adjoining kitchen.

Challenge: NATO security will kill him unless he proves what’s really going on

here.

Weakness: Vindictive – still wants to get back at Natalia for setting him up.