Lesson 13

[Evelyn Brooks]

Evelyn’s Unique Action!

What I learned doing this assignment is the power of focused brainstorming–having a list to follow step-by-step leads to breakthroughs, compared to staring blankly at a scene or plot point and wondering how to improve it.

Improvements I made in my outline include:

ENVIRONMENT: world of pro MMA; underground fight clubs; Las Vegas and nearby Lake Mead. Improvement = Adding a backroom casino scene; see STRUGGLE below.

ALLY: Before this lesson, Mikki had no true allies. Improvement = Creating an unusual but plausible ally (a retired DA with dementia) for my hero Mikki who must work alone to find her kidnapped daughter Ava, or risk her daughter being killed if she tells anyone about the snatch. This is a big change for my story and adds intrigue and interest. Previously, Mikki’s only apparent ally is her cousin Shayla–who is not revealed to us as the villain until midpoint, and Mikki doesn’t know Shayla is villain until act three. Now Mikki has a real ally in earlier scenes who gives Mikki advice and support–but only in moments of mental clarity (taking it to an extreme).

RULES: Rule of silence about the kidnapping. Improvement = adding a true ally allows Mikki to change the RULES of silence about the kidnapping without actually endangering her daughter.

STRUGGLE: Mikki’s struggle is to get the cash ransom to free her daughter. Improvement = Adding an intense blackjack game, where at first Mikki wins the jackpot but then a video faked by the villain “proves” Mikki cheated and so she must return the money (a deliberate move by the villain to pressure Mikki into fighting in an underground fight club to get the ransom money while destroying her professional career by doing so)

UNIQUE SKILL SET: MMA champion; clever and versatile; has friends in high places. Improvement = Adding Mikki’s blackjack skill, see above struggle, so we already know from a setup in act one that she’s great at the game and therefore her win is plausible instead of convenient and seemingly random.

WEAPON: MMA skills, knows how to drive a speedboat. Improvement = Adding skill with knives. Expanding an otherwise brief scene at MMA gym in act one’s “ordinary world” to now include M-1 advanced knife training. This will set up Mikki’s expert-level skill when she uses knives in a fight in act three against the villain who has guns. (Yeah, I know: never take a knife to a gunfight but my hero doesn’t own a gun and she must improvise with weapons at hand.)

[John Woodward]

John Woodward’s Unique Action!

Doing this assignment, I learned to employ brainstorming to improve the action.

Brainstorm ways to make one or more of places unique:

A. What if…?

Rules: Trey must discover in pieces the clues that reveal the power needed to re-imprison the undead Makepeace (villain). It’s more intriguing for the audience to go on a journey of discovery with Trey to solve the puzzle as opposed to having most everything explained to him in the first act.

Weapon: Trey must find a way to incorporate the ancient Obeah voodoo talismans with unusual weapons and strategy to defeat Makepeace.

B. Take it to an extreme.

Unique Skill Set: Patricia Hamilton has a unique skill set with weapons she uses to delay her demise at the hands of Makepeace long enough for Trey to arrive and save her.

Weapons: Trey and Joe must resourcefully discover, steal, or build more powerful weapons to fight the evil fiend.

C. Specific to character or environment.

Villain: Before killing the beautiful Hamilton, Makepeace ignorantly tries to exercise his privilege as a white slave-trader to have her sexually before terminating her.

Environment: Because Makepeace pursues Hamilton as she campaigns for President, any environment in the country is appropriate for chases and the climactic battle. In the case of a smaller budget, Hamilton’s campaign stops could be in rural locations. With a bigger budget, the showdown could be in a major city where riots, looting, and arson form the backdrop.

D. Shocking or Surprising.

Struggle: Hamilton feigns attraction or admiration for Makepeace to delay his assault.

Allies: Trey convinces Joe, an utterly unlikely ally, to help him.

E. Go opposite.

Meaning: Trey has reasons not to trust the police, but he’s moral and saves a cop from being killed by Makepeace.

Struggle: Even though the gangbangers have tried to kill Trey, as Makepeace slaughters them one by one, Trey attempts to save them.

F. What haven’t we seen?

Environment: The high-speed freeway gun battle continues onto a ferry until the massive ship crashes into the harbor. Many passengers are gunned down in the crossfire between Makepeace, Joe, and Trey.

Rules: Even fiery crashes and explosions don’t kill Makepeace.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  John Woodward.

[Monica Arisman]

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Subject: Monica’s Unique Action!

What I learned
doing this assignment is to use these “places” and continue to drill down until
your script is not boring!<div>

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: The “underworld
of crime” of a big city
Rules: Follow police procedure for undercover
whereas the human traffickers has an anything goes policy.
Villain: Fit into the
high echelons of society.
Struggle: Think like the
human traffickers without losing sight of who you are.
Mission: Infiltrate the human trafficking ring. Find Victoria’s sister
who has been missing for several years.
Unique Skillset: The
ability to fit into the human trafficking ring and switch back and forth
between them and the police.
Meaning: Keep law and
order but slowly sees that law and order are chains that bind the ordinary
person and must think outside the box to bring the human traffickers down.
Allies: Undercover
officers, HT victims wanting justice
Weapon: Guns

2. Brainstorm ways to make one or more of those places unique:

A. What if…?

Villain
– what if the villain also belongs to a satanic cult and some of the
victims are meant for human sacrifice.
Mission
– what if the undercover operatives also infiltrate some of the country
clubs where girls are being sourced – how far up the societal chain does
the trafficking exist – who knows? what do they know? How are they to be
stopped?

B. Take to an extreme –
Weapons – use drones, body cams, bugs, more surveillance, use white magic
to counter their dark magic

C. Specific to character
or environment – Could make the environment a small town instead of a big
city – more shock value when the human trafficking comes to light.
D. Shocking or
Surprising – Villain – Victoria could try to seduce the guy to get secrets
as she’s a big fan of the Allied female spies in WWII and how they got
information from the Germans, instead of plying him with more drugs.
E. Go opposite.
F. What haven’t we seen?
– Rules – hack into the villain’s personal information, bank accounts,
etc. and move out the money. And NOT get caught.

These are the improvements that will be made:

F. What haven’t we seen?
– Rules – hack into the villain’s personal information, bank accounts,
etc. and move out the money. And NOT get caught.
D. Shocking or
Surprising – Villain – Victoria could try to seduce the guy to get secrets
as she’s a big fan of the Allied female spies in WWII and how they got
information from the Germans, instead of plying him with more drugs.
A. What if…?

Mission
– what if the undercover operatives also infiltrate some of the country
clubs where girls are being sourced – how far up the societal chain does
the trafficking exist – who knows? what do they know? How are they to be
stopped?
</div>

[BG]

ACTION LESSON 13: Making Action Unique

ASSIGNMENT

BG’s Unique Action!

What I learned doing this assignment: I thought this was a great exercise. It stretched my brain and, actually, made me learn more about my story. However, many of these would change my story too much and require a major re-write. And I just want to finish this thing first.

[Pat GALBRAITH Galbraith]

ASSIGNMENT: 13 Pat Galbraith’s Unique Action

What I learned doing this assignment is how to improve by adding my unique ideas.

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:

1. Environment: The wild west

2. Rules: Fighting against the government and the renegades.

3. Villain: is the government and renegades for the government.

4. Mission: To stop the renegades from burning and killing.

5. Struggle: To stop burning houses, and killings of civilians.

6. Unique Skillset: Wild West Outlaws

7. Meaning: Moral ground is to protect family and neighbors against the renegades.

8. Allies: Younger brothers and Jesse James

9. Weapon: Rifles, Grenades

2. Brainstorm ways to make one or more of those places unique:

A. What if…? Make the audience
think Myra is dead.

B. Take to an extreme.
Fire she enters a burning home
to save a child.

C. Specific to character or
environment. Picnic with one of the younger boys at a waterfall.

D. Shocking or Surprising.
She finds and kills the man who
killed her brother. but let his family go.

E. Go opposite. She let his
family go.

F. What haven’t we seen?
A dance where the younger boys
attend.

[Patricia Steffy]

Patricia’s Unique Action!

What I learned doing this assignment is that I can use this brainstorming technique not only for the high action scenes, but for the quieter, desperate moments of the movie. I also like the variation on part of the mission for Donovan. I’m curious to see how that addition impacts the rest of the outline and the re-write.

1. Looking at your entire story, what is unique about each of these places:

Environment: Inside a prison, during a polar vortex, and the power is out.

Rules: The inmates left behind must rely on each other and put prison rivalries aside.

Villain: An embittered guard who blames our hero for his situation. Also, the storm certainly plays an antagonistic role.

Mission: Donovan must lead a daring prison break in order for everyone to survive.

Struggle: Fight against a crumbling building, a raging storm, and his own guilt.

Unique Skillset: Survivalist skills

Meaning: Each action scene progresses to a point where the remaining men have hope for survival.

Allies: Brian, the remaining inmates of PCU

Weapon: Physical strength, survivalist skills

2. Brainstorm ways to make one or more of those places unique:

A. What if…?

Weapon: The building becomes a weapon.

Unique Skillset: Ordinary prison supplies can be transformed into tools for survival.

B. Take to an extreme.

Environment: Everything that can go wrong to a structure during an extreme weather event will go wrong. Steel becomes brittle. Electrical fires start even as a building is filled with ice and snow. Drifts inside, bursting pipes, blown-out windows.

Villain: Even in the face of total collapse and certain death, he won’t stand down.

Mission: Even though it means going in the opposite direction, Donovan chooses to try to save one of the inmates in SEG.

C. Specific to character or environment.

Environment: Polar vortex creates the perfect storm where the men have to decide if it is safer inside the crumbling building or outside in a raging storm. No good answers for them.

D. Shocking or Surprising.

Villain: Angry, yet trying to do the right thing, his insistence on being right actually kills a busload of inmates. Explosion tosses him into the snow. But he survives, somehow.

E. Go opposite.

Mission: Donovan sacrifices himself so that the men can survive.

Weapon: The villain’s rage results in his death — not at the hands of Donovan, but by an act of the storm/building.

F. What haven’t we seen?

Environment: A hellscape of fire, wind, and snow inside a prison

Unique Skillset/Weapon: A new use for duct tape!

[Daniel Burt]

Dan’s Unique Action

This assignment taught me that rewriting is the real heart of movie making.

Pilot/Scene: The Bridge of WIG – Japan when their initial geothermal vent collapses.

Looking at your entire story, what is unique about each of these places:

Environment: deep ocean trench aboard a submersible city atop a
huge volcano in the seabed when an earthquake hits.

What if…they sprung a leak? Or were dragged beneath the tectonic plates when the vent collapsed? (future episodes?)

Go Opposite.. the seabed and thermal pressures settled into a better and more favorable geothermal vent or several of them.

Rules: geotherms are the lifeline to the vital heat from the
Earth’s core.

Surprising.. in ice age conditions, many of the vents are producing way more heat than anticipated, improving several conditions ship-wide.

Specific to Environment.. a new species of extremophile is schooling near the deepest vents and serves as an excellent food source.

Villains: the ice age, then the earthquake, then immediately gravity,
and every hazard of the submersed city turned at 90°.

Mission: undersea survival operations in an ice age

Struggle: WIG-Japan is incorrectly crewed, provisioned, trained,
and now the entire system is traveling in search of a new heat
source, traveling by an as-yet-untested backup propulsion system.

What haven’t we seen.. an all-hands-on-deck struggle that unabashedly involves anyone aboard, from whatever demographic, everyone who might possibly help them survive this impossible gauntlet.

Unique Skillset: Unfortunately, not in evidence. Revealed in the
trials/episodes ahead.

Meaning: This population is in extremis going forward,
persisting on raw adrenaline, adaptation, and grit.

Allies: Their counterparts are over 4,300 miles distant, in Sydney,
Australia, and aboard SIG 11, in orbit.

Take to an Extreme.. Depressurizing and surfacing in the middle of an ice flow, they discover and take aboard an Inuit family, who have survived in -60 ° conditions for nearly 10 weeks.

Weapons: Equipped with a surprisingly complete arsenal; everything
from melee weapons to sidearms, and torpedoes to tactical nuclear weapons,
cable nets, and combat submarines of various scales.

Tell us about the improvements that you have made: this exercise has improved the already intense baseline conditions of DIG 4 by tying in seemingly disparate storylines and placing exposition for future episodes within the pilot.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  Daniel Burt.

[Bent Hanlen]

Bents unique action!

what I learned doing this assignment is this ……………… I love what my characters are becoming. This might be my favorite script to write out of the rest of them. The details are apparent, so I know why they clash with others.

Environment – The North Pole

:Rules: Only a little oil is allowed to be drilled for and sold to countries.

Villain = The General

:Mission = He wants more oil drilling allowed at the North Pole. Not only to purchase already made presents but to build up the North Pole as a legitimate super power. He wants a military and upgraded living conditions for the elves and himself. But Santa objects.

:Struggle – Santa wants to remain practical and old school. Santa feels there is no threat to the North Pole but the General says one day other countries will invade like all expansionists do.

:Unique Skillset = The General is methodical and thinks ahead. What he says is good for the elves is actually serving himself.

:Meaning – The area is mythical as children have always been aware of the North Pole

:Allies: None. The General serves only himself,

Weapon: Santa only allows him to have antiquated weapons that are specifically for Krampus. They are useless.

What if…? The General intends to replace Santa with himself so he can push his agenda forward

B. Take to an extreme – The General forms an alliance with Krampus?

.C. Specific to character or environment – against Santa’s wishes, the General has acquired a weapon and destroys property with it. which is a rule not to do to retain the mythos.

.D. Shocking or Surprising. = General leads Santa into an ambush from Krampus

E. Go opposite – The General truly cares about the elves and wants to bring the North Pole forward.

.F. What haven’t we seen? The reveal to society that the North Pole is actually real and Santa is not a legend but a human person.

[Andre]

1. Andre’s Unique Action!

2. What I learned doing this assignment is … Never ordinary, never boring!

· Identify Places for Uniqueness.

· Brainstorm using Strategies for Uniqueness.

Places in my story where I can easily improve the Uniqueness of my Action sets (A-I).

A. Environment

B. Rules

C. Villain

D. Mission

E. Struggle

F. Unique Skillset

G. Meaning

H. Allies

I. Weapon

How to- First identify what is already in each of those places. Then, once I have a set of answers, apply Step 2 to brainstorm ways to elevate one or more places for my Action set pieces.

Use these Strategies For Uniqueness to brainstorm ways to elevate or improve the 9 Places above.

STRATEGIES FOR UNIQUENESS

A. What if…?

B. Take to an extreme…?

C. Specific to character or environment…

D. Shocking or Surprising…

E. Go opposite

F. What haven’t we seen?

I can apply every one of these to Environment
for example. Or I could go down the list of Places and try “What if’s” on each of
them.

3. Looking at my entire story, what is unique about each of these places:

a. Environment: Space.

b. Rules: No oxygen. No gravity. Extreme cold when no Sun, extreme heat with Sun. Micro meteorites. The Unknown. Space is unforgiving.

c. Villain: Space. Human mistakes in: Equipment, Technology, Calculations (Math), Emotions.

d. Mission: Get into Orbit. Land on Moon. Conduct Research. Return Safely to Earth.

e. Struggle: Equipment. Technology. Human (Egoism, Ignorance, Body, Mind, Soul- Consciousness), Gravity (on Earth, not on the Moon), Vacuum of Space, Money/Budget, The Unknown Variable.

f. Unique Skillset: Breaking the bondage of fear to embrace launching on a rocket to land on the moon, conduct research, and return safely.

g. Meaning: tba

h. Allies: Onboard Crew, Mission Control, Family, Friends,

i. Weapon: Space itself, no oxygen, no gravity on the Moon, nearly everything that could go wrong (equipment failure, mental/physical breakdown), doubters and naysayers, the Unknown.

4. Brainstorm ways to make one or more of these places unique:

What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

b. Take to an extreme. What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

c. Specific to Character or environment. What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

d. Shocking or Surprising. What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

e. Go opposite. What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

f. What haven’t we seen? What if the mission was a lie; they never went? What if it was a one-way trip, and they never returned.

-Andre