Lesson 1

[Jeremy Kirk]

Subject line: Jeremy Kirk Conventions!

“What I learned doing this assignment is, my high concept idea is pretty solid and will make for a cool script. I believe the world of hitmen with their Guardian Angel’s in tow, will make for an interesting world. This will also allow for some insane action scenes as we mix gun-play with Angelic weaponry.

Title: Divine Intervention

Concept: The world’s worst hitman should’ve died a dozen times, but his exhausted Guardian Angel keeps taking the bullets instead. Fed up with saving this idiots life, the Angel smuggles him a divine weapon – this will either get him killed once and for all – or make him a lethal legend.

Conventions

Hero: This story is about Jackie Divine and his Guardian Angel, Yael and how they both work with each other to survive the dangerous landscape.

Demand For Action: Jackie must find out who placed a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head before assassins from all over claim it.

Mission: Jackie is unaware that the Agency he works for is trying to kill him and has been for years.

Antagonist: Birchwood and S.O.C.K. Society of Contract Killers, Letha koffin and her Angel Sarial

Escalating Action: The action really cranks up when Yael smuggles a divine weapon into Jackie’s hands to help him survive.

[Tom Wilson]

Tom’s Conventions

Doing this assignment, I learned using a list of Action conventions is the best way to build my Outline.

Concept =
A severely wounded soldier who returns from Afghanistan finds someone took his place and lives with his wife and two children who don’t notice he isn’t their father. Will he ever get his life back?

Conventions =
1. Hero
When a wronged man, severely wounded in combat in Afghanistan, must reclaim his mental balance, family and sanity. He sees himself as a victim and an avenger.
2. Demand for Action
To others he appears mentally unbalanced.
3. Mission
He must discover how it happened before the impostor has him arrested for stalking his own family.
4. Antagonist
Is the impostor part of a conspiracy led by someone who hates him?
5. Escalating Action
He pitilessly seeks the truth and asks, is this a conspiracy or is it real?

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by  Tom Wilson.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by  Tom Wilson.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by  Tom Wilson.

[Jason Lauer]

Jason Lauer's Conventions of Action:
## **LAST ACTION OPS** – Action Convention Breakdown

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### **PURPOSE**

To excite your audience with an adrenaline-stirring, fast-paced, big-event story.

***Last Action Ops*** delivers a thrilling, high-stakes mission with nostalgic punch, explosive action, and emotional payoff. By dropping an aging action hero back into the real-life battleground that made him famous, the story unites old-school grit with modern spectacle. Audiences are swept through close-quarters fights, sabotage missions, rocket silo showdowns, and a race against time to stop a madman from rewriting history through destruction—all while rescuing a boy who believes in legends.

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### **DEMAND FOR ACTION**

There is a problem or goal for which the only solution is a high level of action (Intense fighting, running, escaping, and/or competing). Plot, character, and situations are all designed to demand Action!

Terrorist mastermind Damien Voss hijacks the decommissioned **Blackridge Missile Complex** and straps the **President’s grandson**—a Dutch Striker superfan—to the rocket’s launch platform. With a nuclear warhead armed and a countdown ticking, only **Rick Maddox**—the real-life covert operative behind the Dutch Striker films—can infiltrate, fight, and save the child.
No negotiation, no diplomacy. Only infiltration, combat, and survival. The only path to peace… is war.

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### **MISSION**

There is often a stated or implied mission. The Hero must take down the antagonistic force, defend against overwhelming odds, or escape the unescapable.

**Stated Mission:**

* Infiltrate the Blackridge Missile Complex.
* Rescue the President’s grandson.
* Stop Damien Voss from launching a nuclear weapon and turning Rick Maddox’s legacy into a globally televised humiliation.

**Personal Mission:**

* Confront the ghosts of Rick’s past—the teammates he lost during the original mission.
* Protect the last believer in the Dutch Striker myth.
* Prove that the man behind the movies is still a hero where it counts: on the battlefield.

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### **ESCALATING ACTION**

Overcoming the problem requires greater and greater heights of action (and involving higher stakes) as the story progresses.

1. **Cold Open Assault** (1980s mission flashback)
2. **Kidnapping of the Grandson**
3. **Rick pulled from a fan convention for one final mission**
4. **HALO jump into Blackridge + stealth infiltration**
5. **Booby-trapped base loaded with mock film memorabilia and real death traps**
6. **Showdown with elite mercenaries, psychological mind games via comms**
7. **Grandson revealed strapped under the launch platform of an armed warhead**
8. **Final brawl with Voss in the missile silo gantry**
9. **Explosive escape from the collapsing base as the warhead detonates**

Each act raises the physical, emotional, and moral stakes—culminating in a brutal, grounded fight and a race to save a life from an erupting warhead.

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### **HERO**

Highly capable and skilled. Often, they bring a unique skill or talent to the fight that has them stand out from other heroes in the genre.

**Rick Maddox** – Former covert operative turned cult action icon, codenamed *Dutch Striker*. His missions were released as blockbuster films to disguise black-ops history.
Though older, Rick brings unmatched knowledge of Cold War sabotage, facility infiltration, and guerrilla tactics. He’s analog in a digital age—making him unpredictable, hands-on, and lethal in close-quarters combat.
What sets Rick apart: **he’s not just fighting to win—he’s fighting to be worthy of the myth others built around him.**

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### **ANTAGONISTS**

Clearly evil / corrupt / malicious, necessitating decisive and expedient action to deal with them.

**Damien Voss** – A modern-day apex covert operative. Intelligent, strategic, and cold-blooded.
While Rick Maddox was paraded through magazine covers and film premieres, Voss was buried under classified victories and silent sacrifices. His envy metastasized into obsession.
His goal is not just to kill Rick Maddox, but to publicly destroy the myth of Dutch Striker and prove that *he* deserves the legacy.
His methods are extreme, his morality erased, and his plan risks millions of lives—all to make history remember *him* instead.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 1 day ago by  Jason Lauer.