Day 6 Assignments

[Emmanuel Sullivan]

Emmanuel Sullivan’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is the show summary must quickly get to the heart of the main character’s conflict or dilemma.

49:50

One Hour Drama

**Pilot as Inciting Incident**

The former 50th president, Mark Cason, a democrat, served one term in DC. Now back in California, his home state, he teams up with the former 49th president, Andrew Brice, a republican, to launch an innovative and bipartisan foundation – 49:50.

A festive party is in progress at the Cason home to celebrate the foundation’s 1st anniversary. The two former leaders of the free world are running late but finally arrive. Their excuses were never revealed. However, Andrew is racing down the highway with the secret service after enjoying a night of indulging in his vice in Reno, Nevada. Mark is upstairs with his wife bickering about their lackluster marriage.

Soon the ballroom wing is brimming with local and federal politicians, associates, press and family. The Cason and Brice offspring mingle, small talk turns to partisan jabs. It is generation alpha on full display. The matriarchs wrangle their young adult children to keep the celebration festive and to remember they are the face of the foundation’s management.

Leading up to his speech, Mark works his political charm with the revelers wearing donkey and elephant party hats. On stage, he announces forming an exploratory committee to review a possible bid for a second term in the White House. The crowd cheers. Andrew is surprised. His wife Sarah is not amused because she was kept in the dark and has no interest in trekking back to DC. She gulps more drinks than she can handle and swings into flirting with her husband’s former Vice President.

The former first lady and VP take the flirting to another level and head off to a bedroom to continue the on and off affair. While their intense action heats up, there is a party guest in the closet, he is scrolling his phone and puffing a blunt. Noticing the action, and who it is, he pulls out his phone to record.

Mark announces at a press conference that he is running for a second term. A reporter asks about the sex tape that just hit the press. The shocking news catches Mark off guard and he ends the presser early. He confronts Sarah and she admits to the long-term affair, but she is committed to the marriage and does not want a divorce.

Mark desperately wants a second term that he felt was sabotaged. To keep his bid for the White House steady, the pair devise a media spin to push out a message that they are committed to each other, but as a modern family, decided to pursue an open marriage.

Will the public accept the nontraditional marriage in a bid for the White House?

[Daniel Melin]

Daniel Melin’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is the value of constantly keeping marketability in mind. It’s tempting to delve into the details that are fun to get lost in as a writer, but that hold little interest for potential producers. The more you get used to it, however, the more fun it becomes. Learning to make others excited to see your show, makes you more excited about it.

Engage Us in the Main Mystery.

Set up — Character’s normal
situation: Levi moves from one meaningless job to another, currently making
his living as a carpenter. <div>

Twist/Hook: Then, someone in
his hometown is attacked by a werewolf.

Real situation – Major Empathy
/ Distress: Levi has also been learning magic in secret from a fairy
queen, who, it turns out, was responsible for the werewolf attack.

Twist/Hook: A stranger then
comes to town, who is also interested in magic, and he and Levi begin
investigating the deeper motivations of the fairy queen together.

Impossible to solve conflict or
major mystery. The fairy queen’s wolves are actually young boys that she
has lured into her kingdom of Everlasting Summer to help her hunt down her
unfaithful lover, whom she has cursed to turn into a deer every full moon.

Final Hook into the Series –
Extreme Dramatic Question Will Levi manage to stop the fairy queen’s
bloody vendetta and save the young men who are under her curse.

Levi appears to be an aimless young man moving from one meaningless job to another, currently paying his bills as a carpenter. It turns out, however, that he is leading a second life, visiting the fairy kingdom of Everlasting Summer, ruled by the mythical Titania. While he is a nobody in the real world, in Everlasting Summer, he is the master of the hunt, leading Titania’s pack of wolves into the forest to hunt down a deer that keeps eluding them.

One night, someone is attacked in Levi’s hometown by what is assumed to be a wild dog. After being shot, however, the attacker turns out to be a young man who disappeared many years back, and seems not to have aged a day since his disappearance.

With the help of a mysterious stranger named Mark, Levi begins to look into the disappearances of other young men who have disappeared over the past several decades. Feigning his continued loyalty to the powerful fairy queen, Levi secretly delves deeper and deeper into Everlasting Summer’s dark secrets: why it is that Titania needs these young men to hunt down the deer that lives in the forest outside her fortress What—or who—is this deer, and why does she want it dead? As Levi penetrates deeper into the mystery, magic begins to take over his life, and the lives of his friends and family in increasingly surprising—and sometimes deadly—ways.

Will Levi increase his magical abilities enough to find the truth and potentially face Titania, or will he, perhaps fall under the same curse as the other young men and join her pack?

</div>

[David]

What I learned doing this assignment – Balancing perfection and using the tools. These are all just tools that help us investigate our pitch bibles and eventual series in a writer’s room. I wrote an inciting incident pitch easily and quickly. Then I wanted to write a full season summary which led me to fill in more blanks and find deeper layers of the first season. It had nothing to do with perfection and more to do with expanding with the tools of the assignment. When the next assignment came out I found myself already doing the same types of things while trying to write a compelling season-long summary. If you are still getting results, using the current tools it is hard to move to another assignment and start new tools.

Also, the audio recordings on the website are released a few days after the assignments have been posted. And, I have been getting my assignments emailed to me days before they are released on the website. I don’t know which schedule to go by. But since I am work in the Film and TV industry already these types of things are actually SOP.

Hybrids Summary

Rebecca, a UN Court of Justice worker, has her life changed when she witnesses a UFO abducting a person on the side of the highway. She becomes obsessed with finding a reasonable terrestrial explanation and embarks on a search for the victim with an ex-police officer turned paranormal investigator Jacob. Her only clue is the license plate number/make and model of a car she witnessed at the scene as she drove past but was missing when she returned. She asks an estranged childhood friend, Lukas, that works in Air Force Intelligence to quietly make inquiries.

When the Abductee Elizabeth is finally located, she doesn’t remember what happened, it is just missing time. Elizabeth agrees to be hypnotically regressed by a local professor, Julianne and reveals a fragmented story of environmental disaster and alien beings. Rebecca is traumatized because she recognizes some of the same feelings in her past. Julianne is well aware of who Elizabeth is because she is an unwilling accomplice and frequent abductee herself.

Rebecca continues to try and discover a more reasonable answer than “beings from space” but is presented with increasingly incredible information that begins to unlock her memories and mystical talents. Dreams of teaching hybrid children, of her own supernatural heritage, first childhood abduction, have Rebecca doubting her own judgments of what is reality and what is suggested fiction. Is this a government operation creating a psychogenic illusion or is an alien takeover on Earth a reality?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  David Stam. Reason: Grammar editing

[Renee Brown]

Renee Brown’s Show summary

What I learned in this assignment is less is more. It’s not about telling the whole story. It’s about grabbing the imagination of the reader and making them want to know the whole story.

Renee Brown’s Alien Earth

Show summary:

Summary:

The leader of the most ancient alien species on earth learns his lineage has jeopardized world peace. His loyalties and ancestorial wisdom are tested as he emerges from underground seclusion to salvage interspecies balance and save humanity.

But he is not alone. He is joined in his quest by leaders from high atmosphere and deep-sea alien species, as well as by a human military operative and a renegade archeologist.

The power-hungry overlord of the Skyfliers is set on world domination. The sultry leader of the Deepers is trying to clear her species’ name, and the Longhead wise man is lying to everyone in the name of world peace. The human military liaison allies with and mediates between the factions while running the propaganda machine that keeps most of humanity in the dark, and the fiery academic wants to rewrite ancient history to reflect its diverse truth. And beware the Greys. They have been here before, long ago….and now they’re back. The timing couldn’t be worse.

How does humanity and four alien species keep from alienating each other when a strange planet parks next to earth and blows everyone’s cover?

[Sherri Coffee]

Sherri D. Coffee Module 2 Lesson 6

Plot: Pilot as inciting incident

(Set up) Lobbyist lawyer Grace Hunter spent years looking for love. Finally, at her 50th Birthday party she meets the accomplished semi-retired physician Sam and falls in love for the first time. But the happiness is short-lived when Sam is diagnosed with cancer and she becomes his caretaker. (Empathy/Distress)

When Sam falls into a coma, his estranged son Carlton arrives at the hospital. (External Character conflict) He is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who is divorced with 2 children. Carlton appears to be concerned about Sam but he is really here to protect his secret. (Secrets/Deception) Carlton’s ex-wife is suing him in court again for money owed. Money that cannot be found by the courts. But Sam knows where to find the money. (Twist/Hook/Secret identify) And if found, Carlton stands to lose everything. (Intrigue)

Grace is by Sam’s side everyday at the hospital hoping he will awaken from the coma. (Undeserved Misfortune) Sam has named Grace the executor of his will and estate. (Twist/hook) As she begins to go through Sam’s papers, she discovers some inconsistencies. (Intrigue) Carlton, who must gain control of the estate to protect his secret, hires an attorney to start the process of removing Grace not only from the will but also from Sam’s life. (Major scheme revealed) When Grace finds out, she launches her own investigation but is betrayed by her attorney who gladly takes Carlton’s money. Sam remains in a coma when Grace is forced out of their home and out of his life. (Undeserved Misfortune/Shocking Event) (Forced Decision)

Heartbroken and living alone in her strange new home, Grace is consoled by her housekeepers’ message. (Intrigue) The housekeeper has sent her a box of things by a messenger. The messenger accidently delivers the box to the psychic next door. (Open Loop) Harmony Rose tries to deliver the box to Grace in the garden but she stops when she hear gunfire. Grace runs towards the door and barely misses the last shot when Harmony Rose pulls her into the vestibule and down the stairs. (shocking event) They descend the stairs and exit into 1884 Brooklyn NY. (Hook, cliffhanger)

Why does Grace have to travel back to her previous life to find out why she is in danger in her present life? (Final Hook and Cliffhanger)

What I learned is asking the questions around plot and character fuels creativity. And to write the assignment even if not even close to perfect!

[Barbara Gilmore]

Green Lake

50 Minutes Crime Mystery Drama

Green Lake

(Setup) Jessica (Jess) Pearson is a Big City detective (Expertise) sent to investigate the gruesome double murder of a young married couple and the disappearance of their friend, Luke Smith, (Mystery/Intrigue) in the small vacation town (World) where she and her parents used to summer vacation until her brother, Adam, disappeared (Undeserved Misfortune) in now what appear to be similar circumstances to the Smith case.

Jess is ambitious and wants to be Sheriff, but so does her boss Captain Anderson, and the incumbent, Sheriff Linda Moore, herself fighting retirement (Conflicts).

Jess finds herself trying to solve both cases (Mystery), reliving the pain of her brother’s disappearance five years ago (Empathy/Distress), while rekindling her secret relationship with local architect and artist and love of her life, Sarah Watson (Secrets/Deception).

However, Sarah has big plans of her own all the way to the Senate (Twist/Hook/Secret Identity) and those don’t involve Jess.

As Jess works both cases using her secret hacking skills (Secret Identity), she uncovers an elaborate trafficking network that connects the Sheriff’s Department to her boss, Captain Anderson, Big Oil, and Sarah (Conspiracies).

Jess is left wondering how much she’ll risk to solve both cases, and bring her brother, Adam, back home without sacrificing her ambition to become Sheriff (Impossible Goals).

Final Hook/Extreme Dramatic Question: How do Jess and Sarah get what they want without sacrificing each other.

What I learned from doing this assignment was that I used the Pilot as Inciting Incident format but I’m not sure whether that’s the most effective Show Summary to use for my show so I might try the other formats too.

[Norene Smiley]

NORENE SMILEY – MOD 2 – LESSON 6 ASSIGNMENT – SHOW SUMMARY

What I learned doing this assignment: This is a process. Had to take the time to adjust the original BW Framework because the details have changed in the last 5 assignments.

SUMMARY FORMAT: Pilot as Inciting Incident

2. OUTLINE:

Set up – Scrap is a darkling orphan under the care of her guardian Bardo in the superstition- riddled hide-hole of The Keep, a haven for all things outcast and discarded remnants of the natural world. Like any kid she rebels against authority. Scrap struggles with the crazy restrictions she is forced to live with. Come on! How many times does she need to wind up the wards around the doors and windows anyway. The Keep is hidden. Who would want to get in to big old pile of junk anyway.

Twist – When he saved her as an infant, Bardo gave her a mechanical heart. This threw the relationship between nature, humans and the machines they created out of balance, setting off an ancient Chaos Prophesy, an environmental apocalypse that will wipe the slate clean. Scrap is destined to be the instrument of destruction, which completely sucks.

Real Situation/ Empathy & Distress – Scrap just wants to be loved and be safe. She didn’t ask to cause the end of world. This is just too much responsibility for one small kid. Resentment builds and Scrap is consumed with an uncontrollable rage. Marks appear on her arms. What do they mean? She is more and more filled with a power she has no control over.

Twist/Hook – She wants control over her life but everything is out of control.

Impossible to solve Conflict/Mystery – she wants to save the natural world but she is destined to destroy it.

Final Hook/Extreme Dramatic Question – Will she have to sacrifice herself to change her destiny?

3. ROUGH DRAFT:

Scrap is a darkling orphan under the care of her guardian Bardo in the superstition-riddled hide-hole of The Keep. This bunker holds the last remnants of the natural world cast out by a society overrun by machines. The Keep is the last stand before nature is completely eradicated. Bardo with the help of Scrap and her junkdaw Fidget, strives to fortify and protect The Keep under increased danger of exposure to the Outside World.

Like any kid, Scrap rebels against authority. Scrap struggles with the crazy restrictions Bardo has imposed and all the tasks they have to constantly perform to make The Keep tight as a drum. Come on! How many times does she need to wind up the wards and concealing charms around the doors and windows anyway. The Keep is hidden. Who would want to break into the big old pile of junk anyway?

But Scrap couldn’t be more wrong. There are signs that things are not as they should be and The Keep is feeling the strain. The walls groan all night long. The collections are acting out and disrupting the order of things. No matter how much Bardo reinforces the barricades, he can tell they are failing. Bardo is forced to tell Scrap the awful truth.

When he discovered her as an infant, Bardo had to give her a mechanical heart to save her life. This threw the relationship between nature, human and their machines out of balance, setting off an ancient Chaos Prophesy. Scrap is destined to be the instrument of destruction in an ultimate battle. Which completely sucks.

Scrap just wants to be loved and be safe. She doesn’t want to cause end of world. This is just too much pressure for one small kid. Resentment builds and Scrap is consumed with an rage that is out of her control. Marks appear on her arms. What do they mean? There is a voice in her head constantly urging her to do things that she knows she will get in trouble for.

And now Bardo is acting weird around her, like she is some kind of bomb that is ready to explode. And maybe she is. He hovers. His eyes are always watching her, even when he tries to hide it. He has a funny look on his face when he thinks she’s not looking. Scary but sad. He has been sharpening his knives a lot lately and he can’t stop crying. She even catches him about to put poison in their nightly pudding. He wouldn’t really do that, would he?

Is Bardo her enemy now? Is there no one she can trust? Fidget has been trying to tell her something for days but he malfunctions so much she can’t make out what he is saying.

Of course Scrap wants to save the natural world but she is destined to destroy, well, just about everything. What is a kid to do? Will she have to sacrifice herself to change her destiny?

When they hear the first sounds of drilling and an ominous grinding shakes The Keep to its foundations, Bardo knows they have run out of time. The machines are attacking. And they want Scrap.

[Molly Gagnon]

What I learned during this assignment is that I don’t have to do it perfect. I am going to put what I have and come back and tweak it.

Show Summary

Carrington Manor

Drama/Comedy

30 minute drama

Portland, OR occupational Therapy Assistant Gwenn Forrester is a hopeful and skilled Occupational Therapist Assistant who is excited to work with the geraitric population and move closer to her mother who is gradually becoming demented. Although her life as a new graduate is hopeful, her student loan debt is overwhelming from bad investments in Southern California real estate just before the crash of 2009.

Gwenn’s mother is a famous published author who prefers Komono’s over clothes and is in denial of her failing memory but she seems to have everyone fooled except Adult Protective Services who is constantly calling Gwenn due to the newest onset of accidents that have occured at her home.

Gwenn’s boss is a mystery mostly to herself. Her outwardly sexual comments and commons are considered normal if she only would admit she is a lesbian. Her coworkers are quirky and some carry around a plunger, while others jump at the chance to throw people under the bus, mostly ones under 70.

In the hopes she will talk her mother into signing over her Power of Attorney and finally get her out of debt, Gwenn finds it difficult to reason with her demeted mother, and in the midst of being let down takes on the care of her patients as her own. Her company is horrible, and she will do anything to save her patients even if it means the risk of going to jail.

So why does she continue to work at Carrington Manor? It’s not the pay, but her willingness to prove to herself and the world that she cares, that she is in control, and that she can save anyone.

[Donna Stockwell]

Donna Stockwell’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is working the characters and plot layers from different angles really hones in on the core and structure of the story.

Betrayals
One Hour Thriller
Security salesman, Ben Huber, is the head of a seemingly traditional family as a father who works long hours, and who is married to his high school sweetheart Petrina, who is a part time mother with home-based cosmetic line. His two children are in their late teens – the older daughter Celeste is a freshman in college who starts dating a chippendale-ripped handyman , Jasper, and a younger sibling in high school who struggles with his identity.

Ben’s brother, Jasper, due to his selfish righteousness, is a failing moral conscience for Ben, and becomes a bit unstable when their mother dies and put her in a vault at the cemetery he works as a grave-digger. He is able to visit her nightly and bring her flowers and the cosmetics he steals from his sister-in-law.

While most people will go home after a hard day dealing with the boss to drink a beer in front of a sports game, a security salesman, Ben Huber, shakes off the verbal abuse from his high-powered boss and avoids more demands from his overbearing wife by looking for women to control in the bedroom. But his controlling nature goes to far one day and he accidentally kills the lady-du-jour. Instead of panicking, he devises a plan to use his brother’s identity of a grave-digger and bury the body in a pre-dug grave. After the body is buried, Ben realizes he is energized by this empowering act, only to be quashed by his wife as soon as he gets home and again the next day at work. He uses the contacts at work to find new, unsuspecting victims to re-energize himself.

When Ben & Jasper’s mother’s body is missing from the vault, Jasper’s stability is shaken and threatens to reveal Ben’s secret.

Patrice feels lost and lonely in a marriage that should have never been except for doing the right thing and getting married when she found out she was pregnant. When she notices her daughter, Celeste is not treating her boyfriend and the handyman, Luke, properly, Patrice starts to make Luke feel needed and important until the inevitable affair leads to the elopement.

What happens to a family when the father turns into a serial killer and the mother steals her daughter’s boyfriend and elopes with this younger man , but comes back remain the demanding wife and mother, and to challenge everything each of the rest of the family members do?

How many betrayals can each member of this family endure.. individually and as a unit?

[Cooper James]

What I learned doing this assignment is to keep building on what came before. You’ll make discoveries along the way which will lead to changes thus making your idea stronger. Trust the process.

EDGEMONT

Pilot as Inciting Incident.

(SET-UP) A former assassin, now single mother (EXPERTISE), Simone, deals with her twin son’s sibling rivalry. Her father, King is trying to sell off the family’s last asset… Edgemont and the mountain it sits on. Alone in the world and without companionship, Simone must fight to save her family by bringing them together. (EMPATHY/DISTRESS) But her father is determined to gain power by putting money behind his favorite grandson, Roman, to become Senator in Region 26. (INTRIGUE)

(TWIST/HOOK/SECRET IDENTITY) Why Region 26? After the United States broke apart, the states became regions with each run by one Senator. Region 26 is the most powerful region and King wants power. (INTRIGUING WORLD)

(SECRETS/DECEPTIONS) Many years ago, Simone was a secret partner of Senator Green that helped him into office by taking down the former Senator. (INTRIGUE) Now, Senator Green needs to destroy Region 9 and Edgemont to fulfill his re-election campaign promise of stopping disconnects from escaping to Region 9. (EXTERNAL CHARACTER CONFLICT, EMPATHY/DISTRESS) Against Simone’s wishes, her son, Remy, rescues a young disconnect from Region 26… Senator’s Green secret “love-child”. (SHOCKING EVENT/UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE) With no other option, Simone returns to being a ruthless assassin and trains the homeless kids living at Edgemont for battle against Region 26 and Senator Green. (FORCED DECISION THEY’D NEVER MAKE)

(TWIST/HOOK) But can Simone kill her former partner and lover, Senator Green?

(DECEPTION/LAYER UNCOVERED) Simone calls Senator Green’s wealthiest donor, Owens, for support. (MAJOR SCHEME REVEALED) Simone has rejected Owens’s romantic pursuit for years. (WOUND) To prove his commitment to her, Simone gets Owens to publicly speak harshly of Senator Green’s leadership and withdraw all support of him. (UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE/SHOCKING EVENT) Afterward, several of the homeless kids are ambushed and killed in Region 9 by Region 26’s military. (UNDERSERVED MISFORTUNE) Simone springs into action to track down and single-handedly kill Region 26’s covert military team. (FORCED DECISION)

(OPEN LOOPS) Senator Green suspects Simone is behind the military killings, forcing Simone to step up her combat training of the homeless kids (EMPATHY/DISTRESS) to prepare for the imminent attack she expects from Senator Green and Region 26. (IMPOSSIBLE GOAL)

(FINAL HOOK/EXTREME DRAMATIC QUESTION) How do you kill the man you still love, who might be the father of your kids, to protect your family and their fortune?