Lesson 2

[Ron Berti]

Ron’s Hero and Villain

Concept:

Hero Morally Right: C’mon, this is WWII and our hero is an ensign in the US Navy!

Villain(s) Morally Wrong: C’mon, this is WWII and our (series of villains) are destroyer captains in the Japanese Imperial Navy! Our commanding officer is a stuffed shirt lifer who’s spent his career as a paper pusher and has no warrior essence whatsoever. He is a bureaucrat in Navy uniform.

Hero:

A. Unique Skill Set: lack of college degree makes our hero unique in attitude and behavior. His desire for success/victory is a reflection of a sincere sense of duty to America, as well as acceptance of a great deal of action and adventure.

B. Motivation: Recruited into the Navy, our hero wants to sink Japanese destroyers out of a sense that that’s what’s necessary for evil to be defeated in his own time. In addition, he worries about his older brother, serving in France.

C. Secret or Wound: He fought with his girlfriend about signing up for PTs and no longer gets letters from her. He doesn’t have a degree, which makes him feel inferior to other PT captains. Maybe he had a cousin who was killed at Pearl. Later, he may suffer to learn that his brother has been killed in France.

Villain:

A. Unbeatable. We are talking about boats attacking the enemy’s biggest and fastest weapons systems, ~5X longer and ~10x heavier than the weapons our hero is using. In fact, there have only been a few examples of PTs sinking Japanese destroyers so far, so it’s obviously “tougher than it looks”. And until mid 1943, Japan has been able to do whatever it wants in the South Pacific, the entire US Navy has not had a lot of success except for Midway. In addition, our hero’s commander is making success difficult by imposing unrealistic policies on the boat captains out of an excessive concern for “doing it by the book”.

B. Motivation. In the case of the Imperial Japanese Navy, it’s to dominate the East economically and militarily, in the short term specifically by holding on to the Solomon Islands by keeping their troops supported with food, weapons and new GIs. The captains of the individual destroyers may not share that vision exactly, but that is the cause to which they have dedicated themselves. Basically these are professional Japanese Navy sailors, and they’re motivated by professionalism. It’s utterly impersonal.

C. What they Lose if the Hero Survives: For the destroyer captain, it is probably career limiting to lose a destroyer on the “Tokyo Express”. In addition, the captain and much of his crew might lose their lives.

Impossible Mission:

A. Puts Hero into Action. Being the FNG makes our hero’s task a little tougher because he’s trying to do things the way he’s been taught in Melville but in fact things don’t work that way out here in the real world. He’s assigned to go attack Japanese destroyers with everything he’s got, the tools at his disposal are not the best and his commander is punctilious about doing things “by the book”. Our hero’s dilemma is that he wants to do things the way the commander wants, but he has learned that that probably won’t succeed.

B. Demands they Go Beyond Their Best: as testimony to the difficulty facing the average PT boat captain, few big sinkings have occurred due to PTs. When our hero goes out on patrol, he will likely not have the support of the other three boats that go out together, they’ll have drifted off. Our hero will face enormous, dangerous enemy vessels all by himself.

C. Destroy the villain: first, stay alive, don’t fall prey to Japanese aviation or the (well armed) destroyers themselves, keep the boat afloat and upright; prepare religiously to be ready when the moment comes. Get in closer than is doctrine/prudent in an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of the lousy torpedoes.

What I learned doing this assignment: I can see these are the building blocks of a modern action flick, where the emotional impact of the action is amplified by our caring about the hero. Sometimes I feel like I’m shoehorning in my plot points to this paradigm, but I’m confident that the paradigm works, so I’ll keep rewriting until I’m sure I’ve got a compelling story. Presumably there’s a balance to be obtained between “following this paradigm” on one hand and, on the other, doing things creatively so the story and images on the scene feel fresh and new (like “gun fu”) and avoid becoming formulaic.

I am determined to spend more time discussing my attempts at a screenplay with fellow students, something I have failed to do well in prior classes.

[CJ Lyons]

CJ’s Hero and Villain:

What I learned doing this assignment is… That things can always get worse for the hero—and the story is better when you take them to the worst hell they imagine… and make it even more hellish with a twist they can’t imagine

Concept: A Pittsburgh FBI agent travels to Mardi Gras to hunt the Russian Bratva responsible for her husband’s murder and is forced to put her trust in a motley team of outsiders, a trust that is tested when her daughter is taken hostage by the ruthless Bratva leader.

Hero Morally Right: FBI agent hunting bad guys

Villain Morally Wrong: Russian Bratva establishing new drug pipeline

Hero

A. Unique Skill Set: excellent tactician, also empathy

B. Motivation: justice for murdered husband, protect and serve civilians

C. Secret or Wound: her husband sacrificed his own career so she could pursue the life of an FBI field agent, so his murder BECAUSE of the job she loves has shaken her to her core

Villain

A. Unbeatable: has money, men, but most of all no conscience, ruthless, brutal

B. Plan/Goal: use American heartland rivers to create new drug route that bypasses law enforcement

C. What they lose if Hero survives: has invested everything in this venture so loses fortune, face, and most importantly to him, his sons’ legacy

Impossible Mission

A. Puts Hero in Action: after the Bratva set a lethal trap for her team in Pittsburgh and then murdered her husband to sideline Lucy (who came close to exposing their plan), she must find a way to hunt them without endangering her daughter or her team again

B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: she does everything “right” yet still ends up overwhelmed by the Bratva, now in a strange city, with no resources/back up, her daughter at risk, forced to ask for help from strangers (a new team) as the Bratva’s violence escalates, terrorizing the entire city

C. Destroy the Villain: after the Bratva destroys the FBI office, shuts down first responders, kills hundreds of civilians, and takes her daughter hostage, Lucy takes the fight to them, willing to die herself to save her daughter and the city and stop them once and for all

Tell us your improved answers: In the Destroy the villain step, I want to escalate the stakes for both the hero and the villain, so I think taking things a step farther where Lucy kills one of the villain’s sons, and he forces her to choose between saving her own daughter and the city, it’d be stronger since it’s “easy” or at least assumed by audiences that a hero is willing to sacrifice their own lives… but sacrificing their child? That’s a real gut-wrenching dilemma with more dramatic potential.

[karl gromelski]

What have you learned doing this assignment:

Concept: After a cybersecurity freelancer with a YouTube channel exposes a sophisticated scam operation, his world is turned upside down by being accused of being a domestic terrorist. To get his life back, he must find out who’s behind this while evading the police.

Hero – morally right: Hero is a scammer vigilante – trying to shut down scam centers that prey on elderly and naive people.

Villain – morally wrong: Villain is the President’s Chief of Staff who’s using scam call centers to raise money for a Super PAC in order to get the President re-elected and continue operating his illegal activities with impunity.

Hero

Unique Skills: Hero is a cybersecurity specialist who’s good at problem solving.

Motivation: Hero must clear name to get his life back.

Wound: Hero is haunted by his favorite uncle’s death – who committed suicide after he was scammed out of his life savings.

Unbeatable Villain

Lon Krain is President Debin’s Chief of Staff who controls who and what POTUS sees – he also is able to make decisions on behalf of the President as if it comes from him… so Lon is able to use the full force of law enforcement at his discretion.

Lon’s Plan is to use scam centers to funnel money into a Super PAC so he can outspend his rival in the upcoming election and remain in power.

His Goal is to continue using his power as COS to enrich himself for the next 4 years.

Villain stands to lose all his illicit money gain and go to jail if POTUS doesn’t win another term because his unfinished illegal activities would definitely be uncovered by the next administration.

Impossible Mission

Puts Hero in Action: After hero shuts down a scam center, Villain takes revenge by putting the IRS, FBI and Homeland Security on him. Hero loses his current base of operations, YouTube channel and all assets are frozen – so he must follow the scam money trail to learn who benefits from this scam center.

Demands Hero goes beyond his Best: Normally Hero just exposes the scammers and hopes the local police clean it up. But this time, Hero must do more than just expose the scammers and he must find out where the money is going and how it’s being used.

Destroy the Villain: To clear his name, Hero must expose the Villain, which will destroy all his nefarious plans.

Improved Answers… tbd. I want to sit with this for a while and plot the structure to see how this story would play out before adding, removing or improving it.

[Pamela Rice]

PAM’S HERO & VILLAIN

What Iearned: As I got further into my homework, I realized that my initial Comedy/Thriller concept was not going to work for this class. So I came up with something completely new. There’s something fun and exciting about making something up as I go along!

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>CONCEPT: A soon-to-be-retired Hitman falls for his intended target

Hero Morally Right: He chooses not to kill an innocent, beautiful woman (the Surgeon’s Wife).
Villain Morally Wrong: He’s a Plastic Surgeon who became wealthy working for the mob

HERO
A. Unique Skill Set: he’s a highly-trained, experienced hit man
B. Motivation: he falls in love with his intended target, and wants to save her
C. Secret or Wound:
Secret: He initially doesn’t tell the wife that he was hired to kill her.
Wound: While in the military, he lost his best friend because he hesitated to kill the enemy.
Haunted by his mistake, he became a heartless killer.

VILLAIN
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>A. Unbeatable: He has access to lots of money and the mob’s best hitmen
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>B. Plan/Goal: To track down Hero, kill him, and ultimately kill his wife
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>C. What they lose if Hero survives: He doesn’t achieve his initial goal (to have wife killed), and he loses the satisfaction of making hitman pay for his betrayal. Also, Hitman knows too much about the shady side of his surgical practice, so Villain needs to end him (he could lose his practice, go to prison, etc.).

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
A. Puts Hero in Action: Once word gets out that he didn’t fulfill the hit, he becomes a target as well. He must go on the run with the surgeon’s wife.
B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: With his mob connections, the Surgeon will hire a team of younger, highly-trained hitmen to go after him. Hero’s not used to being on the other side of the gun.
C. Destroy the Villain: Hero escapes from, fights, and kills the surgeon’s assassins while keeping the surgeon’s wife safe. Meanwhile, he plots to take the surgeon down by exposing his shady practices.

Extrapolation: If the Villain is a highly-skilled plastic surgeon who creates new identities for thugs hunted by law enforcement — he could use his skills to sabotage our Hero (change one of the thugs faces to match Hero’s; frame him for a crime; have Hero be arrested etc).

[ray Moore]

Ray’s Hero and Villain

What I learned doing this assignment is.. brainstorming is one of the most important skills to learn

It opens the door to new realities and resolutions.. for a more engaging story. I’m discovering more about the hero and villain and I hate to say thinking like the villain is a strong stand.

Concept: An irresponsible street fighter searching for his father’s killer stumbles onto an alien invasion by an inhabited casino racketeer.

Hero Morally Right: hero fights to stop an alien invasion and save his wife and son.

Villain Morally Wrong: corrupt villain has been killing off lawmen when he discovered the hero were targeting his franchise and black market affairs of monopolizing the casino industry.

Hero:

A. Unique Skill Set: a street fighter with determination and persistence and will to win, losing is not an Option

B. Motivation: Save the planet and stop a killer from destroying the planet.

C. Wound: Loss of Father, mentor, and partner afraid of losing anyone else he loves and not allowing anyone else to go through this heartache

Villain: Racketeer

A. Unbeatable: inhabited by a force that gives him additional strength and an army with unique abilities.

B. B. Plan/Goal: Take over the planet kill the hero and make the acknowledge his fist of fear and strangle the law into submission. Finances to build a military army at beck and call, willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, and will stop at nothing will stand in his way of dominance

C. What they lose if Hero survives: loss of respect and power, pride, control, freedom, finances- death would be better than being put in a cage.

Impossible Mission: the hero must find out the force’s weakness and stop its army from taking over or destroying the planet.

A. Puts Hero in Action: Hero loved ones are killed attacked or captured.

B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: after losing loved ones he must fight even harder to stop the invasion

C. Destroy the Villain: changes the narrative by going on the offense with his allies and takes the fight to the villain’s doorstep

Extrapolate- digging deeper into my villain’s psyche, and his cruelty will help evolve my villain my hero’s character to evolve and change to be a better

[Deb Johnson]

Deb’s Hero and Villain

What I learned doing this assignment – oh what fun it is to ride on an “if” and “what if” sleigh… This is a great way to get the story rolling – focusing only on the two characters, filling in the blanks, and then playing with those answers. I like that I’m not married to anything and can continue to explore all the possibilities.

Concept: To save his family, a foreign super-spy goes dark and hides out on a Hollywood movie set, posing as his doppelganger; an action-hero movie star, so he can dismantle his own country’s terror plot.

Hero Morally Right: Saving his family, and their community, from a terror plot

Villain Morally Wrong: putting innocent civilians at the center of a war

Hero: Titan Benoit – a foreign undercover agent

A. Unique Skill Set: multi-lingual, master of disguise, weapons, martial arts

B. Motivation: To save his family (mother and sisters) and their community

C. Secret or Wound: Secret – He’s hidden his family in rural America to keep them safe. Wound: His work has made his heart callous – he works out of a sense of duty and has lost all compassion for others.

Villain: Calloway Taskin – head of a foreign agency and a double agent

A. Unbeatable: he has a team of special agents who work for him (all specially trained) and a group of special interest people in America (with connections to local police and national military) who want to see him succeed.

B. Plan/Goal: To unleash a terror initiative on American soil to destabilize and weaken the economy/community

C. What they lose if Hero survives: Their foothold in America (power) – and lots of money that comes from warmongering.

Impossible Mission: Titan must stop both teams – escape those who pursue him – and defeat those who will carry out the terrorist plot – to save his family.

A. Puts Hero in Action:

He escapes and hides on a movie set, where he poses as an ‘action hero’ all the while undermining the terrorist plot; appearing as different people, using different languages/accents, gun and martial art battles, and sabotaging the terror plan.

B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best:

He must fight the people who trained him – who are better than him. He must act like an actor who acts like himself. He must take on all sorts of disguises to dismantle the terrorist plot.

C. Destroy the Villain:

First, he passes off as an action hero, then derails the terrorist plot, then finally takes out Cal Taskin. In the end, he becomes a real/fake action hero.

Elevation Challenge (by asking questions, here are a few changes I came up with):

Hero:

Motivation: while his motivation to save his family is tantamount, while on the movie set, he takes on the second task of saving the movie that’s being made. By taking on the persona of this ‘movie star’ he feels it’s his duty to see it through to completion.

Secret: What If his secret is that he’s secretly married – and even his boss doesn’t know? But when it’s discovered – it puts her in grave danger. Maybe his mom died years ago – and he never had a sister (he’s led everyone to believe he had both) – but who he’s really hiding is his wife and their newborn child.

What if his wound is that his father died when he was young – and he doesn’t want this for his own family (to be fatherless)? He wants to get out of this foreign agency – but doesn’t know how.

Villain:

Unbeatable: He trained Titan. He, also, is a master of disguise and a linguist. In addition, he has the power of his own agency and agents in America who work for him.

What if – for all his bluster – he’s only as good as his agents – that he’s out of practice and not as good as he used to be. He’s full of hot air and can’t do any job himself – that’s why he has so many people working for him.

Or – maybe he’s still on top of his game – but he has some sort of handicap that keeps him from being a real threat – so he uses all the people he can to maintain his power.

What if the terror plot is on his own foreign soil? A piece of land that America wants to control. And he is the agent to bring it about. And it’s not the American government – but it’s a large corporation that wants to set up HQ in this specific territory – but they can’t without dismantling what’s already there.

What if the villain, Cal, stands to gain a lot of money with this large corporation – and he sells out his own country to make this happen?

[Courtney Hill]

What I learned from this lesson is how “connected” the hero and villain must be. It’s easy to write good guy vs bad guy, but it’s interesting to create the barriers the villains will have for the hero. It gives the audience more reason to cheer for the hero than right vs wrong.

Concept:

Hero Morally Right: To prove that she was framed to save her life.

Villain Morally Wrong: Will destroy anyone and anything to attain his goal.

Hero:

Unique Skill Set- She is a self- defense instructor and her body is her weapon.

Motivation: To save her life and find the mole in her former husband’s gang who can prove her innocence. Before he finds him and kills him.

Secret or Wound: She learned self defense due to nature of her birth family.

Villain

Unbeatable: Has support from gang members, weapons and allies.

Plan/Goal: to prove to the current leader that he is the only one that can proceed him. He also needs to find the mole to kill him before his actions are brought to the light.

What they lose if Hero survives: His lie will be exposed and he will die.

Impossible Mission:

Puts Hero into Action: Must now find allies and learn to defend herself against her husband.

Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: Learn weaponry skills, learn to trust own family members as allies

Destroy the Villain – Find the mole, and turns his gang against him.

If the hero did find allies that could help her, then the villain will have to be more cruel in killing whatever is in his way.