Lesson 10 Assignments

[Erin Ziccarelli]

Erin Ziccarelli’s Counterexamples

What I learned from doing this assignment is: how the three types of counterexamples are manifest in scripts. From this assignment, it seems like the change agent is automatically a counterexample….since Rita and the people of Punxsutawney seem to be Phil’s change agents.

Brainstorm at least 5 Question challenged and 5 Counterexamples you can put in your screenplay.

Go through your story outline or
script and brainstorm the following. This might be 5 questions to one Old
Way or 5 questions to 5 Old Ways.

Unbreakable
alliance with the Donovans and South End families: Alex surrenders
himself up for the family

Need for family
support structures and guidance: Alex is out on his own for too long,
which is out of his comfort zone – he goes back to the South End

Reluctance to
accept a rival family member’s money: Alex refuses Nathanial Caden’s
estate

Fear of living life
honestly: Alex is best at counterfeiting and black marketeering.

Suspicion of
Roger and his motives to help: Alex questions Roger to find out why he went
to jail, refuses to trust him at first

5 Question Challenges to an Old Way.

Alex questions if
the old life was good for him at the car auction – he’s in the middle of
starting to live his new ways and expresses a counterexample about his
old way of life

Alex rejects
Patrick’s offer to come back – he says he’s on his own now, and doesn’t
need the family to make it

Alex tells Roger
that Nathanial was “never one of his” – therefore, he cannot accept the
money.
The first 10 mins
of the film show Alex’s illegal activities, all of which are challenged by
Will, the one character who has never been to prison

When Roger
reminds Alex that he’s sold nothing, Alex turns the conversation on Roger,
asking him what he did to land in prison

5 Counterexamples to an Old Way.

The whole
car-buying montage shows the problems with dishonesty when doing business
– Alex, Jack, and Sean are now on the receiving end of the scamming and meet
honest and dishonest sellers. The honest sellers are counterexamples to
their old selves while the dishonest sellers are counterexamples to their
current personas.

Patrick is still
held hostage to the old system. He still believes in it and expects Alex
to leave everything behind for it.

Alex accepts
Nathanial’s money. He begins to use it to build his business and invites
Scarlett to work for him. He wants to get to know her. He treats her as a
friend and colleague, despite her being from the other side of Boston.

Alex engages in
legal activity – the car resale business is entirely legal and Alex’s
most productive venture. It’s a new feeling for him.

Alex opens up to
Roger, entrusting him with his conflicted feelings about Kitty, Scarlett,
and his old life – the first moment of trust in their relationship.

[Wayne Petitto]

Wayne’s Counterexamples
What I learned doing this assignment is that applying the challenges and how they play out to my two main characters provides a better map for reconstruction of my script.

~~~~~ Jeannie ~~~~~
Old Ways: Too confrontational
Challenged: Does not want to hurt Peter
Play out: (Questioning) To correct Peter judiciously

Old Ways: Distrusts Men
Challenged: Assumes Peter is trying to seduce her
Play out: (Counter Example) Discovers Peter is a virgin by choice

Old Ways: Impatient
Challenged: Peter clumsily leads her to think he’d trying to seduce her.
Play out: (Counter Example) She storms out, later to learn otherwise.

Old Ways: Is a Tom Boy
Challenged: Peter puts her in ladylike positions
Play out: (Counter Example) Knocks out a guy who gut punched Peter.
Storms out of a nice restaurant.

Old Ways: Just wants to be a normal college girl
Challenged: News goes viral (international) about who they had been
Play out: (Questioning) Jeannie receives healing requests from terminally ill people.

~~~~~ Peter ~~~~~
Old Ways: Guilt Complex
Challenged: Discovers his past life as responsible for Joan of Arc’s execution
Play out: (Questioning) Must realize his innocence despite social hatred for him

Old Ways: Fear of attractive women
Challenged: Vows to approach the next attractive woman he sees
Play out: (Counter Example) Offers to buy coffee for Jeannie

Old Ways: Non-confrontational
Challenged: Afraid of angering Jeannie
Play out: (Questioning) Fails at addressing differences

Old Ways: Super critical
Challenged: Gets him in trouble with a professor
Play out: (Counter Example) Jeannie comes to his defense

Old Ways: Strict Catholic
Challenged: Confronted by Monsignor for believing in past lives
Play out: (Counter Example) Is threatened with excommunication

Old Ways: Peter just wants to be a normal college jock.
Challenged: News goes viral (international) about who they had been
Play out: (Questioning) Peter receives death threats for having killed a Saint.

Both Jeannie & Peter
Old Ways: Their differences often escalate into fighting
Challenged: They shall appear together on a popular TV psychologist show.
Play out: (Counter Example) They defend each other and turn the audiences’ polarization into an example for all, when Peter, as the Bishop Cauchon, asks Jeanie, as Joan of Arc, to forgive him for what he’d done to an innocent woman nearly 600 years ago. She explains that she’d gone to the hypnotist the evening before and experienced Joan of Arc’s death, discovering that with her last breath she’d asked God to forgive the Bishop.