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Day 7 Assignments
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8 Replies
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Eric Humble’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is: that I can create more terror and suspense by parceling out the information regarding the monster’s nature so that each attack reveals more information. In past horror scripts, I often made the mistake of providing all the information about the monster up front, thinking that was the “hook” and thus should be delivered as early as possible in the screenplay. But I would then proceed to get lost in a series of repetitive monster scenes with the characters figuring out things we already knew as the audience and the second act would be weighed down by all the information. This lesson has really given me a great tool to make the horror scenes have relevance to the story as well as impact and helped me flesh out the structure.
1. MONSTER:
Who or what is the monster?
The Wino, an undying man who needs drugs and alcohol to survive, but can’t consume them unless they’ve already been consumed inside living people.
What are its powers?
Invisible to others unless they are intoxicated.
Super-strong.
Uses a broken bottle to carve out the body parts it needs to consume.
What are its limitations?
It’s lumbering, not fast.
It’s constantly detoxing – sick, weak, in pain, decrepit. Only achieves its strength once it consumes drugs or alcohol.
What are its weaknesses?
It is jonesing for a fix, constantly in a state of detox soon after it consumes drugs or alcohol.
It can be distracted by using its desperation against it.
What is its Plan/Purpose/Appetite?
It needs to consume alcohol or drugs through people to feed its endless addiction.
2. SEQUENCE/DEMANDS:
Create an order that the information will be delivered to the audience.
Start at the beginning with us knowing nothing about the monster and end with us knowing enough to stop or destroy the monster. There will be some clues that obviously go in front of others. But some clues could actually be anywhere in the script.
Just pick some kind of order and list them. You can change the order at any time.
Terror: Opening sequence/Prologue – we don’t see it, but we do see that it uses a broken bottle to carve out the preppie kid’s jugular so it can slurp up his blood.
Foreshadowing: When they’re deciding whether or not go up, Veronica sees The Wino and is creeped out. But Mackenzie brushes it aside; she doesn’t see anyone.
Discovery: They discover the party girl dead, her spine ripped open. She has a glass pipe in hand, charred from recent use – she smoked meth. And there are glass bottle fragments around the wound. Monster Reveal: Someone did this with a bottle.
Conflict: They smell and sense its presence, then see The Wino coming for them. They bolt for it… and outrun it, shoving a massive piece of machinery in front of the door as a barricade. Monster Reveal: It’s lumbering, not fast.
Demand for Monster Reveal: Roach brings up that they just outran it. Why don’t we just run for this next elevator? More to the point, there are six of us and one of him. Bill focuses everyone—the first rule in war is to know your enemy. We don’t know who this guy is, or what he wants, but we do know what he’s capable of. We’re on his territory. What if he has the place booby-trapped? What if he has friends? We need to know more before we engage him.
Terror: Just as they’re coming up with a plan, the huge piece of equipment they barricaded the door with is moved away—fast– and Veronica is pulled away by The Wino, who stabs Veronica in the gut with bottle and drags her away. Monster Reveal: Super-strong.
Midpoint: Conflict: Bill is going to take him out with a makeshift knife from behind… but realizes he’s too drunk. He forces himself to vomit, sobers up… and can’t see it, even though the others can. Monster Reveal: Invisible to others unless they are intoxicated.
Curiosity: Rachel hides and watches as it stalks Mackenzie and Bremmer. Sees that it’s sickly. Constantly detoxing – sick, weak, in pain, decrepit. Only achieves its strength once it consumes drugs or alcohol.
Trying to Figure Out the Mystery: Rachel helps Mackenzie burn it… then sees that it’s sick, stumbling and shaking with DTs. Monster Reveal: It is jonesing for a fix, constantly in a state of detox soon after it consumes drugs or alcohol.
Trying to Figure Out the Mystery: Rachel finds a rat and injects heroin into it. The Wino chases it instead of them. Monster Reveal: It can be distracted by using its desperation against it.
Putting Together the Pieces: Rachel pieces together that it consumes the drugs and alcohol – took meth from the spine of the party girl, ate cocaine out of Roach’s brain, but didn’t eat anything off Bill, just killed him in a rage because he wasn’t drunk… and got the cold medicine out of Veronica’s gut. Monster Reveal: It needs to consume alcohol or drugs through people to feed its endless addiction.
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Lance’s Monster Reveal Track:
What I learned this lesson is that certain things are starting to click. I think we’re being given some useful tools and I look forward to trying these techniques out with a couple other story ideas.
I’ve always had a hard time delving into the rules of the monster and I think these lessons are helping.
Opening / Prologue:
Demand – Curiosity – Two people enter a dilapidated apartment. The apartment looks like a hoarder lived there with garbage everywhere. The room looks dark.
Monster Reveal – Marshall’s corpse is found in the middle of the apartment. It looks like he died there years before. The head of the corpse seems to move.
During 1st Act:
Demand – Characters trying to figure out the mystery. There is something strange about Hailey and Nathan’s new condo. They recently married and this is their first home.
Monster Reveal – Hailey sees an image of Marshall (the dead man) in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. When she turns around, she sees her husband Nathan standing there.
1st Act Turning Point
Demand – Conflict – Hailey’s friend Vanessa feels something strange in the condo. This leads to conflict between Hailey and Nathan. Nathan is dismissive.
Monster Reveal – Marshall takes control of Nathan’s body.
1st half of 2nd Act:
Demand – Conflict – Nathan starts acting strangely. He starts drinking and smoking. Hailey never saw him act like this before they were married.
Monster Reveal – Marshall hurts someone at a local bar.
Midpoint:
Demand – Curiosity – Hailey tries to reconnect with Nathan. She wonders if she did something wrong or if he has misgivings about being married.
Monster Reveal – Marshall uses Nathan’s body to sexually assault Hailey.
2nd half of 2nd Act:
Demand – Terror – horrified by what happened between her new husband and herself, Hailey leaves their condo to stay with her friend. She doesn’t know yet that Nathan has been possessed.
Monster Reveal – Marshall shows up at Vanessa’s and Everett’s home. Marshall kills Vanessa’s boyfriend Everett.
3rd Act:
Demand – Discovery – Hailey and Vanessa realize that Nathan’s body has been possessed by an evil spirit.
Monster Reveal – Marshall attack Vanessa and Hailey but they are able to subdue him.
Resolution:
Demand – Putting together the pieces – Hailey and Vanessa go back to the condo and cast a spell to remove Marshall’s spirit from Nathan’s body.
Monster Reveal – Marshall is an evil force which cannot be killed. He’s just waiting for one more trick to play.
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Cameron Martin’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is…The importance of setting up the question prior to giving an answer. I started this assignment by just filling in the blanks with what I already knew I had, and found that I have a lot more monster reveals than demand for the monster. Some of that could be because the demand for more is found in each tiny reveal, but being conscious of the intent of a scene is the important takeaway when it’s time to write the scene into a screenplay. I’ve never seen THE THING prior to the assignment, so it and the example were a helpful reference when considering how I revealed my monster. Part of the issue for me, as it relates to the exact setup of this outline, is that the characters must know how to kill the monster at the midpoint. However, similar to THE THING, killing the monster isn’t the main issue for the latter half of the script. The big problem to solve in my third act is how to extract the eggs before they hatch in the son’s lungs. BUT, to get there, I needed to do a better job at setting up the demand for more information, before just giving it. I think I also relied too much on one unknown (is the bunker compromised or safe?) instead of setting up others.
Monster: Alien Worm/Snail
Powers: Spreads eggs like a fungus spreads spores. Has no natural predators. Can infest at an alarming rate, similar to yellow-jackets. Can infiltrate and make little to no sound. Takes over a host and uses their corpse as a shell. Can use the corpse’s body with impunity to damage and harm, going so far as to use broken, exposed bones as weapons.
Limitations: Can’t see, but is hypersensitive to light, touch and hearing.
Weaknesses: Is extremely susceptible to alkaline. Can be seriously harmed when not in a host body, or when its cadaver shell is punctured, and the monster itself is stabbed. Can be calmed through white noise, and certain texture: Slimy is good, Scratchy is avoided.
Plan/Purpose/Apatite: It’s just an animal acting on instinct. It exists solely to eat, mate, and propagate its species. However, with the removal of its natural predators, it is able to overwhelm an ecosystem, similar to fire ants in the south or other invasive species.
Demand/Reveal Sequence
Demand: Scenes of carnage. What happened in this space colony?
Monster Reveal: Spacemen are getting slaughtered by something unseen.
Demand: The spacemen are trying to kill a father and son. The father survives by killing one of the spacemen with a MacGyvered weapon.
Demand: What is the monster, and why does no one seem to distinguish between friend or foe.
Monster Reveal: The son’s very sick. He’s coughing in a very odd way, and his mouth is trying to split open.
Monster Reveal/Demand: Something about this monster has to do with the lungs, because we see the father makeshift a breathing device for his son. But what is it and how does it spread? Is it an alien virus?
Demand: The alarm goes off, signaling the presence of aliens. How do the way things are 12 hours ago (peacefully bureaucratic) lead to the mayhem we just witnessed?
Monster Reveal: We see a teenager coughing the same way we saw the son coughing in the teaser. The seems of his mouth tear down to his jaw. A doctor administers a lethal injection.
Demand: Did he actually kill it, whatever it was? What is it about this monster that kills in such a horrible way. What does it even look like. Most importantly, was the bunker kept safe?
Monster Reveal: A large, cobra-like worm slithers toward the father and son.
Demand: Is the worm connected to the coughing? What will it do?
Monster Reveal: It can be tricked by sounds/vibrations. It also kills by sliding down a person’s throat with serrated teeth on its head, and takes over its victim, going so far as to separate the mandible and bottom of the maxilla from the rest of the skull to form a fish-like snapping mouth.
Demand: Why did the worm take over the host? What are the extents of its newfound power.
Monster Reveal: The monster (human shell) can’t be killed with blunt force, headshots don’t work, and it just makes it more dangerous when it can use fractured bones like shivs.
Demand: How do you kill it?
Monster Reveal: They don’t like bleach or paint thinner. Is there a connection? Also, once inside a host, they can only be killed by puncturing attacks. Otherwise, the worms themselves are very susceptible to damage.
Demand: What does the son, who has Asperger’s, know about the aliens?
Monster reveal: The spy is infected.
Demand: Who else could be infected? How do you get infected if not by a worm slicing down your throat?
Monster reveal: The monster has a matriarchal hierarchy, where the queen metamorphosizes into a fungus that spreads its eggs like spores.
Demand: Where does the infestation end? Is there any safe space, including the bunker? Is the bunker really safe?
Monster Reveal: The infestation is severe, as a nest extends out of the space colony.
Demand: How do you get past the nest?
Monster Reveal: Both the Aspie son and the worms are sensitive to the same things: light, sound, and touch. The same things the son uses to calm down, calms the worms down. The same things that aggravate the son aggravate the worms.
Monster Reveal: The bunker is completely compromised, and the only survivors are the son and the father.
Demand: The son falls and accidentally breathes in the spore eggs. He’s infected.
Monster Reveal: The son’s lifespan is dependent upon the amount of moisture in his lungs. When his lungs are dried out, the eggs will hatch.
Demand: The father asks his son for help curing him. How will the father extract the eggs?
Monster Reveal: As long as there is moisture in the lungs, the eggs won’t hatch. But, there is a trade off. The longer the eggs are in the lungs, the larger they may grow, reducing the chances of a successful bronchoscopy, and requiring a thoracotomy.
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Alfred’s Monster Reveal Track
This assignment taught me to think about spacing out the reveals of the mystery and not do one big massive data dump.
Monster:
What is the monster?
White Jesus. A demonic entity that devours people.
What are its powers?
Can control people, can shape-shift. It affects the awareness and attention in people.
What are its limitations?
The creature doesn’t have free rein. Must be summoned usually by singing “Jesus Loves Me”.
What are its weaknesses?
The creature is weak to iron. Cold Iron is believed to repel, contain or harm malevolent supernatural creatures.
What is its plan?
To devour people.
Demand – Mystery. Why are these weird guys knocking on doors.
Monster Reveal – They serve the creature and summon the monster to kill Malik.
Demand – People acting weird at Malik’s funeral
Monster Reveal – creature has dominated some adults
Demand – Deon, Malik’s father, acting strange and dies in front of Gabriel
Monster Reveal – Gabriel sees things in Deon’s eyes
Demand – Trying to figure out what happened Gabriel goes to their home
Monster Reveal – Gabriel sees the creature feeding on a child.
Demand – Gabriel tries to warn people
Monster Reveal – He’s shut down by the police. The police are in on it.
Demand – Gabriel needs to learn about the creature. Meets Omar that tells him about the creature
Monster Reveal – People in power are working with the creature
Demand – Why are people working with the creature
Monster Reveal – People are controlled
Demand – Need a form of protection
Monster reveal – Discover iron can protect and kill the creature.
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Scott Kaplan’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is that discovering the origin of the monster(s) is of paramount importance. The key is to align the reveals within the structure of each act.
1. A. Monster(s): Cult of evil men who summon the undead.
–Powers: Possessed…control the spirits to possess people and kill.
–Limitations: Not every character can be controlled (“The Mighty Shwin”).
–Weaknesses: Cult…descension amongst ranks/Spirits…are slaves to the Cult.
–Plan/Purpose/Appetite: The Cult’s plan is to possess the spirits and kill the neighbors through the gateway their ancestors established 154 years ago.
B/C. Sequence the Reveals:
1. DEMAND: Intrigue. Why are these spirits obeying the villainous cult to carry out the horrendous murders of innocent people?
MONSTER REVEAL: There is a deep, dark secret that goes back 154 years.
2. DEMAND: For the protagonist and those who believe in his quest to save their town.
MONSTER REVEAL: The ghastly spirits being summoned are not only a gateway, but also remanded as slaves to the cult.
3. DEMAND: Understand why this is happening. If not, we all might die.
MONSTER REVEAL: A secret that goes back to 1868.
4. DEMAND: Men, women, and children are being killed. Why?
MONSTER REVEAL: Because the cult “gets off” on torturing people.
5. DEMAND: After seeing the black eyes of the cult, and the undead spirits rise from the depths underground, the audience needs to know why.
MONSTER REVEAL: The cult’s ancestors are responsible for the extinction of the Marsapeaques in 1868. Their motivation was for the sole purpose of building a new town…the one that still exists today. The Native American tribe of Marsapeaques were buried alive; their souls unable to rest. Unbeknownst to the cult, there is a member amongst the protagonists, aka “the revolt against the cult,” who is a descendent of the aforementioned tribe. He/she discovers a way to turn the spirits against the cult, thus enabling their souls to rest in peace.
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Marc KOENIG’s Monster reveal track
What I learned doing this assignment is how to analyze the monster, think about it as a main character of the movie, get familiar with it, to make its resume! Its nature, where it comes from, its flaws and strengths, its main traits, its goal, its needs…
- What the monster is: a mineral, the undiscovered chemical element 119
- Powers: a shape-shifting mineral, radioactive, acts as a living creature, can spread itself in thousands of spines, can take cerebral control of human brains, turns them into predators
- Limitations: depends on its hosts to grow, ensure its protection, its transport, and its survival.
- Weaknesses: high temperatures, magnetic fields
- Purpose/Appetite: to grow and reproduce, using available organic creatures, and feed with iron, silica, and other metalloids.
REVEALS SEQUENCE
1. DEMAND: What caused these people’s violent deaths in ancient times, and why is one of them tied up with chains?
MONSTER REVEAL: A mysterious metallic stone is found unexplainably amalgamated with the body’s bones and remains of flesh, and paintings warn of danger.<div>2. DEMAND: What are these spines? Are they harmful?
MONSTER REVEAL: The metal spines turn a nice man into a mindless killer.3. DEMAND: What is the nature of this metal?
MONSTER REVEAL: Jennifer makes an analysis and reveals that it is an unknown metal, element 119.4. DEMAND: The piece of metal blows up into millions of spines that hit Jennifer and get inside her body.
MONSTER REVEAL: The element 119 is capable of spreading itself inside a human being.5. DEMAND: Jennifer kills the doctor. She drinks his blood and eats broken glass and bolts
MONSTER REVEAL: The element 119 has turned Jennifer into something inhuman. Killing people and feeding with metal and blood.6. DEMAND: They fight against Jennifer who spits in Julia’s face.
MONSTER REVEAL: The new host can directly contaminate other people.7. DEMAND: We need to know what is happening inside Jennifer’s body.
MONSTER REVEAL: They make a scan and see the metal spines converging to her brain and the guts, amalgamating with her organs as well as with the glass and iron she absorbed. This is a mineral parasite.8. DEMAND: paranoia – anyone who gets infected becomes a killer.
MONSTER REVEAL: element 119 wants more hosts and more blood.9. DEMAND: the hosts can reject seeds that blow up when close to a human being.
MONSTER REVEAL: You may get infected from a distance by being hit by spines or inhaling them.10. DEMAND: Julia and Jennifer join forces to attack the team.
MONSTER REVEAL: The hosts keep all their intellectual capacities, and their mind is focused on killing and feeding element 119.11. DEMAND: Irina throws the seed into a jar of water and avoids being contaminated.
MONSTER REVEAL: on its own, element 119 can be contained.12. DEMAND: They try to burn and blow up the lab to destroy or confine the element 119.
MONSTER REVEAL: The element 119 has contaminated the soldiers and the last survivors, except Irina. And they can join forces to make this plan fail.
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by Marc KOENIG.
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by Marc KOENIG.
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by Marc KOENIG.
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Brandon’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned: A series of clues must be sprinkled throughout, not given all at once.
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
• Powers: An unstoppable force that collects heads with an axe.
• Limitations: He’s bound to the village of Sleepy Hollow and cannot cross the threshold of the bridge without his original head.
• Weaknesses: Physical weapons/fire can at least stall him; Hats confuse/distract/frustrate him; destroying his original head is the only thing that can kill him
• Plan/Purpose/Appetite: An insatiable appetite for heads for lack of his own.
B. Sequence the reveals + C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
1. Demand: Newt hears a horse neighing in the woods and must follow the sound.
Monster Reveal: Julian watches Newt trampled to death by a demonic horse.
2. Demand: Julian has a terrifying vision of a Headless man and decapitated children at the schoolhouse. What does it mean?
Monster Reveal: The schoolmaster gets halfway through the classic legend of Sleepy Hollow—when they’re suddenly interrupted by the monster himself.
3. Demand: Why is the HH collecting heads?
Monster Reveal: Set loose on the town, we learn that the HH has a mad obsession with chopping off heads.
4. Demand: The rich eccentric pulls a gun on the kids, thinking they are the killers.
Monster Reveal: When the HH appears, we learn what the monster is after and what awoke it in the first place – its original head.
5. Demand: Oscar blows up the HH in a Revolutionary-era tunnel.
Monster Reveal: The monster can be stalled but not killed.
6. Demand: Will the kids cross the threshold of the bridge on time?
Monster Reveal: The girls nearly make it when one of them is trampled and beheaded.
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Mark Veau – Attack of the Killer Refrigerator 2″ – Lesson 7: Monster Reveal Track
What I Learned Doing This Assignment is: Creating Demand for each clue and reveal was tougher than I had expected.
The Steps:
1) Who is your monster and what is their terror?
Powers:
A 1948 GE Spacemaker Refrigerator… state of the art and built to last for generations to come. One of General Electrics best-selling units of all time.
The Refrigerator’s terror is imposed on its victims from many different macabre and bloody angles.
Rows of bloody, razor-sharp, shark-like teeth chomp you in half like you’ve been caught in a giant metal bear trap. Its metal shelving can cut you to pieces in a fraction of a second, either being caught in front of its snapping jaws – or – trying to outrun them when they are launched rotating with velocity through the air.
The hulking metal beast can crush your bones by forcing its weight. Its can run you over like you’ve been hit by a bus. It can fire rounds of frozen peas and other small arms frozen food products like a Gatling-gun. Higher caliber weapons, such as frozen freeze pops and icicle-spears can be deployed at any time. Cans of soda and beer can be launched either as mortar and grenade rounds – or – fired at high-velocity like a Pedro Martinez fastball.
It’s massive jaws can crush your bones before swallowing you into its hellish alligator-like bloody pulsating gullet where you are processed and regurgitated to serve the Refrigerator as one its Zombie Guards forever.
It can appear on any level of the mansion at any time without warning – and – when it grows a horrific, rotten, grotesque head giving it a new face and voice really raises this evil appliance’s ultimate terrifying weapon – its unpredictability.
Limitations:
This terrifying ice box seemingly has zero limitations. It moves, hunts and kills at will –
Weaknesses:
The Killer Refrigerator does have one glaring weakness – it needs power to keep killing. Like a vehicle that needs to gas up, the Killer Refrigerator can pull up to any of the mansion’s electrical outlets to recharge.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite:
To continuously grow its army of Zombies through killing as many victims as possible and claiming their souls to do so. The more Zombies, the more powerful the Refrigerator becomes.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite:
To continuously grow its army of Zombies through killing as many victims as possible and claiming their souls to do so. The more Zombies, the more powerful the Refrigerator becomes.
2) Sequence:
Opening/Prologue:
We first see the power of the Killer Refrigerator in a SERIES OF SHOTS from the original short film being viewed on a laptop screen.
1st Act: Foreshadowing
Fred, the protagonist, wins the original actual Refrigerator from the first movie in an online auction. It arrives at his family’s mansion on the day of his sister Molly’s party of the year.
1st Act: Turning Point
Fred is bullied and assaulted in his own bedroom by Derek, Nick and Joey.
At one point, they stuff into the Refrigerator and close the door to increase the torture before plugging in the appliance, a huge no no. The Fridge comes to life bringing the wrath of Hell with it.
2nd Act: 1st Half
By now, the monster hides and attacks from within the mansion with devastating guerrilla warfare-like strategy.
2nd Act: The Monster is Worse Than We Thought
When the appliance integrates human-like qualities – like growing a head – it becomes a lot more worse than we thought it could.
2nd Act: 2nd Half
The Refrigerator hunts, pursues and attacks any remaining high school students still left breathing within the walls of the mansion.
3rd Act:
Fred and the small group of survivors solve the mystery, find out what the Refrigerator’s Achilles heel is, then fight back – “killing” the monster.
RESOLUTION:
After finally defeating the Refrigerator – the script takes a plausible but total turn. This is one ending you should’ve seen coming – but – didn’t. And again… NO… it is not a dream/nightmare.
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