Lesson 14

[Julie Dod]

Subject: Julie Dod’s Meaningful Action

What I learned from doing this assignment is that in a dramatic romance film it’s hard to thrown in “meaningful” action – “meaningless” action is easy, which I have a lot of.

Looking through my script, I made one meaningful scene change – but am thinking through changing others.

Scene 50: Dan and Molly lying in bed talking about the fight she had earlier with her best friend and why Molly hadn’t talked about her best friend’s new boyfriend.

Changed Scene 50 to: Molly coming into her and Dan’s bedroom late, not waking up Dan and Dan not waking up when she got to bed, and Molly staring at the ceiling.

The scene is meant to show her jealousy of her friend’s happiness, and Molly’s despair, which I think the rewrite more shows, which followed the fight with the best friend telling her not to see her old lover, and the daughter telling her husband that she had the fight with her best friend.

[ZhiMin Hu]

Love this part. I went through the whole script and makes the scenes much more exciting and interesting. It certainly adds so much quality to the script. I also cut out quite a lot of dialogues and use only action to express the character’s inner world.

[Tita Beal Anntares]

Tita’s Meaningful Action

What I learned doing this assignment:

· A story that comes from historical events has a lot of ways to express meaning through related action. This exercise reminded me of a comment by a theater critic in a book (Walter Kerr?), you can have an entire battle going on stage with lots of active fighting but the audience will be bored if not hooked into characters and story.

· It’s a very valuable exercise to check each scene to understand it’s underlying, essential theme or idea or information about characters and articulate that… then look for ways to replace any generic action with action that aligns with, reflects, expands or deepens mood or level of plot, etc.

Analysis of Existing or Needed Action Aligned with Essence of Scene

I made a chart with 3 columns [SCENE #/Name…Essence/Meaning… Aligned Action]

· but this system cannot keep the format of a chart so if anyone reads this and wants to see it, I can email it to you. Most of my scenes had strong action (e.g., instead of just refusing to join an armed rebellion, farmers hogtie the rebel so he can’t join it either) but I strengthened some more fully

[Rhonda Burnaugh]

Subject: Meaningful Action.

I changed several scenes: 31, 32, 43, 45, 47, 55, 57, 58, 60, 71, 72, 73, 85, 86, 98, 113, 114, 120, 122, 127, 129.

What I learned: There many incidences where dialogue could be replaced with action. Added more subtext. I think it flows m uch better now.

[J.R Riddle]

Meaningful Action:

What I learned from this lesson 14:

Scenes can be weak, if too much dialogue covers the scene, rather than action. Figuring out the best action takes more time than one thought. Will the action set something else off? Does the action satisfy a past issue and could be a pay-off. Writing depth into the action is also important – rather than rambling, plus try to cut the size of the scene for a quicker read.

I will change several scenes into more action, being most aware that the action can’t be only a punch, spontaneously. but must have reasoning behind the punch – ie why? Not all bad guys mean to be bad guys; Some are forced, some enjoy the power, some are just selfish.

i changed a scene to show not only one betrayal, but two. One to the betrayed and one to the betrayer, plus added the why, which demonstrated both men were used by the same source. All based on false trust and misleading information.

Example: Purpose/meaning of scene: Who is the betrayer and why?

I rewrote this scene as a double betrayal.

Joe knows that there’s a betrayer, but doesn’t know who. He suspects someone inside his business. Blackmailed best friend John, is not even imagined as the betrayer, until John’s guilty confession. Joe is blindsided and devistatedly angry, because it’s his best friend betraying him and his family. But John is not the ultimate betrayer. It went 2 levels more in the scene. The action comes from Joe, physically attacking his long-time best friend at the end and holding the rest of his planned action against John until later, sending him to jail or worse: “Let him sweat.” Subtext: “like I’ve been sweating my life and business survival.”