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Lesson 1
Reply to post your assignment.
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29 Replies
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I learned that the woman whom the counselor tries to help is an antagonist because she opposes the counselor during their sessions.
Genre: Drama
Title: The Way Out
Concept: What if a counselor has 6 days to save a woman from a husband who brainwashing her?
Main Conflict: The counselor is determined that the woman leave her husband; The husband is bent on having her home.
Transformational Journey:
External Journey-The counselor knows nothing about brainwashing./ She learns how to save the woman.
Internal Journey–The counselor trusts no one and has no one in her life./ Her mentor becomes a surrogate mother and Selma becomes a close friend of the woman.
Internal Journey—Selma believes she is responsible for her mother’s death. / She blames her father for the death.
Opposition:
The husband and the woman’s belief that he is a good man.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Joan Butler.
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Your story sounds intriguing! Why does she have to save the woman in six days? – What happens if she doesn’t?
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The funding for a counselor gets cut and she and her boss get fired.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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PITCH:
GENRE: Drama, thriller
TITLE: Obedience
HIGH CONCEPT: A devout sister must find a way to get her and her fellow sisters to safety after discovering their charming priest is using their congregation to fulfill his own wicked desires.
MAIN CONFLICT: Colette discovers father Kinsley has been murdering girls who try to leave the convent, just as she has indoctrinated a bunch of new recruits.
TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY: After years of indoctrination, Colette learns to think for herself and that she is capable of achieving what she sets out to do.
OPPOSITION: Father Kinsley. As well as, the belief system instilled by the congregation and her own shame and guilt.
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The title definitely fits! I can see your character’s arc the way you’ve presented it! Nice work.
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I don’t usually watch thrillers, but I would like to see this one.
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Elizabeth Cochrell’s Project Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment is having more clarity on what is happening beneath the surface of an action-packed and scandalous story. I also came up with a new title from “Mother Love” to “Mom Fight” which is more catchy and gives a better idea of what happens in the movie.
Genre: Drama
Title: Mom Fight
High Concept:
Mom Fight is about what happens when a stripper MMA fighter with a bad temper named Misha tries to take responsibility for her dog-whispering daughter Rebecca, who has run away from her rich and twisted stepmother to be with her.
Main Conflict:
The main conflict is about the jealous stepmother Emily, who’s stuck in a loveless marriage and uses the wealth and political advantages of her husband to de-moralize the stripper fighter in order to make her give up on providing Rebecca with a secure and happy life.
Transformational Journey:
At first, Misha doesn’t feel she is good enough for the task of motherhood because of her past and not-so-profitable risqué career. But in the process of training for the big MMA event she learns to control her temper. Then by allowing Rebecca to run her dog business, Misha learns that having money is not what is good for her daughter but rather being responsible, striving for a meaningful dream and not giving up on herself is what inspires Rebecca to grow and fight for her own happiness.
Opposition:
The opposition is Misha’s internal lack of self-esteem, external society’s general lack of respect for strippers, an entitled materialistic stepmother and the devious finagling of officials willing and able to commit criminal atrocities with money and power.
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Such a unique premise. And “mom” fight is definitely a better title. This pitch makes me want to see the film!
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Thanks for your comment! xo E:)
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Logline: A woman haunted by her past lives, finds redemption when she reconnects with the man who kindles those memories.
Love and Destiny is a feature film drama about love and past lives. Victoria Barkley is haunted by past lives and her present-day obsession with the man who shared those lives with her. Despite the challenge of her memories and her resulting mental breakdown, she uncovers the truth that leads her into freedom from her troubled history. A story of courage and resilience it illustrates the power of love to bring us back to life when we are challenged. It reminds us that no matter how far we may have wandered, redemption can be found in even the most forgotten corners of our soul.
HIGH CONCEPT: A woman, haunted by past life memories and her obsession with a man who shares them, finds redemption through her search back in time.
MAIN CONFLICT: Victoria struggles with her own mental health and past life memories. A doubting therapist and friends provide little support.
TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY: Victoria is vindicated when her boyfriend’s father remembers sharing her past life traumatic event when he was a young boy in Dachau.
OPPOSITION: Victoria’s mental health, her therapist, her best friend, and boyfriend.
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I’m also fascinated by past lives and this sounds like an intriguing love story. Does she actually go through time or is this a metaphorical search?
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What genre would you put your story in?
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I learned that my script has four acts, not three.
PITCH
Genre: Drama
Title: SAY THEIR NAME
High Concept: When a young person dies, all that they might have accomplished, had they lived, dies with them.
Main Conflict: Moses Kincaid is an African American elevator repairman. A regular guy. A family man. All he wants in life is to live in peace with his white wife Polly. But the racism of the Jim Crow South in the mid twentieth century is a constant source of obstacles and challenges.
Transformational Journey: Moses grows up believing America is a white man’s country. At 14, he says; “Not my world. I’s just tryin’ to live in it.”
Moses has a random encounter with a biplane pilot from India who tells him all that he is, is what the white man tells him he is.
Nevertheless, Moses serves heroically in the US Army during World War II. He changes the anti-interracial marriage laws in Texas. Tries to raise his bi-racial daughter in the South of the 1960s.
In 1963, while repairing an elevator in Dallas, he encounters a white gunman who challenges the big lie Moses has believed all his life. He tells him white people believe America is a white country, because blacks like Moses let them get away with it.
Moses and the gunman fight. The gunman knocks out Moses with the butt of his rifle. But during the fight, the gunman’s target slips away. The gunman was Lee Harvey Oswald. His target was President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy is not assassinated.
As years pass, Moses becomes a more radicalized proponent of black pride and black power. He has a politically charged encounter with a Black Panther in a black owned coffee house. When the FBI raids the coffee house Moses is beaten by the police and arrested.
A concurrent, non-linear story line follows Moses as a teenage shoeshine in a small Texas town in the 1930s. He meets Polly. It is a sweet, romantic story of young love.
Until the white townspeople, including Polly’s father, accuse Moses of raping young Polly.
Despite his denials and actual innocence, Moses is tortured and lynched in front of the whole town.
When Moses dies at 14, all that he did in his life, had he lived, is erased.
Polly marries a white neurosurgeon.
Interracial marriage continues to be outlawed in Texas.
John F Kennedy is assassinated.
The story ends, where it begins, in the present day, at the lynching Memorial in Alabama. 97 year old Polly, who has never forgotten Moses, tells three generations of her multiracial family that while the lynching of the hundreds of memorialized souls is a shameful cataclysm, the deeper tragedy is the loss of what might have been.
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This pitch is fascinating. So, essentially the premise is that if one man had lived history would have been completely rewritten? – Love it.
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Actually, if thousands had lived, how might history be different.
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Wow. What an amazing story.
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Lora Keleher’s Project Pitch
I learned also learned that a script can have four acts instead of three. Also, outlining showed me that my story is thin and repetitive in certain places.
A. Fantasy / Sci-Fi
B. Title: The World Bender
C. High Concept: After a recently fostered teenager is given magical powers, she embarks on an epic quest to rescue her biological father and save the dragon race from a cruel business mogul who captured them using spells for his financial benefit.
D. Main Conflict: Lisette must battle Dwyvel (the businessman) to get her father back and save the dragons
E. Transformational Journey: Lisette’s quest to find and rescue her father while growing into her own magical powers and learning the real reason he abandoned her.
F. Opposition: Lisette’s opposition is her foster family, herself and her insecurities, and Dwyvel.-
Do you see this as animation or live? I would be great for kids and adults. (Teens might like it too as long as they watch it in private so they don’t get teased.)
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Joan Butler.
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Live action.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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LESSON 1 Deanne’s Project Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment =
It’s much easier to create an outline for a story you’ve already thought through than to try to create the story during the outlining. Know the basic story before trying to pin down the pieces. (This script started with a short story I wrote over a decade ago.)A. Genre = Horror-Comedy (comps = TREMORS, THE LOST BOYS)
B. Title = COVER BAND (working title)
C. High Concept: When a burnt-out rodeo manager signs up to be a roadie for a rock band, he discovers the band is a front for space aliens preparing to invade Earth.
D. Major Conflict = the leads must figure out how to quit the job and still survive.
E. Transformational Journey = the protagonist, CB, starts with the attitude “This isn’t my herd, so it’s not my problem” and ends up at “If I don’t save the world, who will?”
F. Opposition = the band manager, a human who is an alien-collaborator selling out humanity for personal gain-
Your idea is very creative!
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Thanks!
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Day 1:
James’ Project Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment is that by focusing on the pitch I’m able to better avoid extraneous elements within the script. This focus allows me to keep the story on track and lets me see where I may be veering off course. In essence, I ultimately have a tighter script.
Create your pitch. Fill in the blanks.
· A. Genre: Romantic Comedy
· B. Title: The Toy of My Life
· C. High Concept: An R-Rated romantic comedy where the female lead must conceal her sex industry past for her current relationship to flourish.
· D. Main Conflict: both the love interests must overcome their pasts in order to make their relationship successful.
· E. Transformational Journey: the female protagonist learns to put herself first in life and establishes a viable business alongside her new companion.
· F. Opposition: both leads must overcome their pasts and find a means to develop a healthy relationship.
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I like the having to overcome their pasts and her having been a sex worker – it’s not something I’ve seen before.
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Title: Home with a Past
Genre: Horror
High Concept: A teenage girl must deal with the demands of a hostile Entity in her new rural home even as she relives the dying moments of children from around the world, while trying to convince friends she’s not a witch and parents she’s not psychotic.
Main Conflict: Teenager vs. this mysterious entity, that goads her at every turn and makes her life miserable but will not communicate with her.
Transformational journey: Azuri goes from thinking it would be cool if her “new” home was haunted to how to deal with an actual entity that resides there and wants her and her family dead or gone. And why is she having to deal with the dying thoughts of other teens around the world that she never knew?
Outline done; corresponds well to genre convention but I can already see portions that need beefing up, change in order of events, or slow the action.
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I’m intrigued by how she is reliving the dying moments of children around the world and how it relates to the entity. I like how she wants to be haunted then realizes she doesn’t after it actually happens but I’m also not sure if this is a very profound transformation.
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Jonathan Clark’s Pitch:
I learned that I need to lean more on the Thriller side of this story and let the love story grow naturally throughout… until it leads to the surprising ending.
A. Genre: Crime Thriller
B. Title: Saving Mona
C. High Concept: This is the conspiracy theory about what happened when Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa back in 1911, and how, in the end, he actually got away with it.
D. Main Conflict: Forced to become a serious grifter, selling forgeries of the Mona Lisa, Vincenzo meets the love of his life, a woman already engaged to Count Eduardo De Valfierno, the self-obsessed head of the gang that’s got Vincenzo in its grip.
E. Transformational Journey: Orphaned early on, Vincenzo lives free on the streets and becomes a grifter, eventually stealing the Mona Lisa to save it. However, pulled into a dangerous fraud with a powerful gang, he begins to second guess his actions. And when he meets the love of his life, he realizes he must fight back against the gang to save her, even if that means sacrificing his own freedom, and maybe even his life.
F. Opposition: A self-appointed Argentinian Count, Eduardo De Valfierno, 40, is far more comfortable with a rusty bloody knife in his hand than a gentleman’s dusty bottle of Port. But he’s obsessed now with more than just money and power. He wants to legitimize his offspring by marrying an actual blue-blood. And he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.
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I like the combination of a heist/love story with high stakes!
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Thank you, Lora!
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