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Lesson 13
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Tim’s lesson #13
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Dave’s Unique Action Inspiration
What I learned doing this assignment:
I’m sick and tired of reading about “The Matrix.” I couldn’t watch it for more than 5 minutes on first viewing. Then I had to watch it for one of Hal’s classes. Boring. I guess I just didn’t buy in to the concept.
When I think of great action movies the first one that comes to mind is “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Classic.
What is Unique about:
Environment – The Sherwood Forest. Living off the land.
Rules – Everything is in turmoil upon Robin’s return from the Crusades.
Villain – Prince John. He usurped the power from King Richard while he was in The Holy Land.
Struggle – Robin must regain his land and title with just a ragtag band of merry men.
Skillset – The greatest archer in the land.
Meaning – An end to tyranny.
Allies – An obese clergyman. A handmaiden in the enemy camp. A big oaf who’s handy with a staff.
Weapon – Aside from Sword and bow, the hero’s compassion and wit.
What if … Robin lived in The Matrix:
Take to Extreme – The story becomes a franchise and never ends.
Specific to Character or Environment – Sherwood Forest becomes a giant computer construct where Robin clones Maid Marian. Hmmm? Not a bad idea.
Shocking or Surprising – The Sheriff of Nottingham loses his re-election bid.
Go Opposite – The Sheriff wins in a landslide. Robin declares the election was fixed.
What haven’t we seen? Robin opens a martial arts gym called “Men in Sweats.”
Build an Action Set for my outline – I think I’ll just watch “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” 1938.
Written by Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller, and Rowland Leigh.
Classic.
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Raz Ray: Unique Action.
What have I learned doing this assignment? I haven’t learned much. To be a writer, you must brainstorm as much as possible and rewrite a lot.
1). Environment: 100 years into the future. 400 years into the past. Dystopia/ Utopia: Unique: Maybe to see if the past or future affects present-day Earth.
2). Rules: The rich live in a Utopia the poor live in a Dystopia. The hero is kidnapped from the past to the future. Only the hero can time travel. Unique: The villains can also time travel; The hero kidnaps the Villain.
3). The Villains can reincarnate: They control a specific societal institution. Unique: The villains can time travel to assassinate her.
4.) Mission: Assassinate each villain to break the spell on societal institutions. Unique: Society does not want to be saved.
5.) Struggle: Belief system. They are defeating people with vast resources. Unique: The hero is overconfident. Change the resources, big or small.
6.) Unique Skilset: The Hero is a great warrior who rejects her own skill set. Unique: The hero has to find the right skill set
7). Meaning: Each scene prepares the hero to confront her fears and face her oppressors. Unique: The people who kidnapped her are her oppressors.
8). Allies: The Death Squad team. The Freedom Fighters. The people in poverty. Unique: Some of the villains are actually helping the hero.
9). The cosmic sword. Advanced technology: Unique. No weapons the Hero can use her hands.
My improvements were to make some of the villains give up their control and power. Also, some of the heroes are actually Villains as well.
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Kevin Lobo’s Making Action Unique
What I learned…is that focusing on a unique action set helps drive the plot in a targeted direction.
Pick at least one action scene that you want to make more unique. Then use this process to generate ideas.
1. Looking at your entire story, what is unique about each of these places:
- Environment:
- Rules:
- Villain:
- Mission:
- Struggle:
- Unique
Skillset: This is the focal piece I chose from my hero who is cyber
security specialist now on the wrong side of the law – hacking and
executing cyber attacks – everything he fought against. - Meaning:
- Allies:
- Weapon:
2. Brainstorm ways to make one or more of those places unique:
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- A. What if…
his actions set of a chain reaction across all the financial networks. His aim has now switched to taking down his controlling gang’s money laundering network. In doing so he risk causing a cyber threat across the financial markets as he has now penetrated the government networks, obtained the secret codes of the gang he had to primarily take down who in reality are a government front to take down the controlling gang.
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- B. Take to an
extreme –The extreme danger is that in the mayhem that occurs he can forever become the villain who took down the good networks.
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- C. Specific to
character or environment –In addition to his above reality, he knows that the controlling gang have an insider in the government who has been tracking all his actions, updating his file with all his hacking actions and this could lead to his wife and brother being bumped off as revenge.
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- D. Shocking or
Surprising –He begins to realize that members of the rival gang having seen the pattern of his attacks are now collaborating with him anonymously on the attack, being government agents themselves and are accenting the attack to take down the controlling gang.
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- E. Go opposite
–The hero now thinks of himself as a white collar hacker whose negative mission now has changed colors and if it succeeds might win him redemption from the authorities in the final analysis with having helped to end a huge arms and money laundering operation.
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- F. What
haven’t we seen? –We haven’t seen the original gang lord himself. We have seen his signature and his presence inside the government as having access to the most secure assets of the government. Will he use that ultimate trump card to bring down the entire government and thus let the hero become the ultimate villain facing a death sentence.
3. Select the parts you like and build them into one or more Action Sets in your outline.
An attempt to build the above actions from bullet (2) into an actual sequence of actions.
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- A. What if…
The hero begins to monitor his attack as he escapes to lower levels of the building as he is being attacked by the local gang and the government agents. He browses into the financial markets and sees jitters across the news as anomalies are noticed and trading is halted at some of the largest stock exchanges. Are his attacks on his controlling gang indirectly also taking down the good networks?
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- B. Take to an
extreme –The hero begins to wonder if the entire financial world goes down with cascading effect across the world markets, will he forever be doomed to a jail cell or even a death sentence as the one who brought about financial doom on the world.
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- C. Specific to
character or environment –His ultimate fear comes true when he logs back into the government network using the stolen credentials and sees that the gang lord of the controlling gang who initially sent him on his mission has left him an open message with telling proof of his action already updated into his file building a rock solid case against him.
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- D. Shocking or
Surprising –As the hero fears the fall of the economic cyber world across banking and stock exchange networks, the rival gang begins to communicate with him and stabilize things. They help in localizing the attacks to the one particular controlling gang network. The hero thus shockingly and surprisingly finds that he has help on the inside.
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- E. Go opposite
–With the help of the rival gang his attack begins to work. The hero logs in and sees the chaos erupt across the controlling gang network, and begins to actively message back. He sees light at the end of the tunnel in believing that he might actually come out a hero through this ordeal.
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- F. What
haven’t we seen? –The gang lord of the controlling gang begins to attack back furiously. The hero loses the government codes and thus is now back to his starting point. He has also lost contact with the gang and thus is unaware of the state of his wife and brother. We haven’t yet seen the original controlling gang lord and are reaching the climax where it will become a one on one battle, both cyber and physical between the hero and the gang lord.
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