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Lesson 2
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I can’t seem to cut and paste my assignment. Here is the header:
What I learned was the structure of an action movie. My purpose for taking this class is to set action scenes effectively. Rethinking in the structure of the Action Movie clarifies several plot points. Spoiler – no guns, no martial arts. I have a 1930s melodrama with some action scenes. The main characters were real people, and they were bold. The wild action scenes derive from true stories. However, I want to explore character depth and complexity to set up the puzzle.
Connie Hood
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ASSIGNMENT: #2:
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
Outlining series of tropes towards discovering a full outline. I’m a pantster and don’t do outlines. Outlines complete the story in my head and need blanks to motivate my Muse.
1. Fill in the blanks and see what shows up.
Concept: A rookie CIA officer Riley S. arrives to her assignment just as her mentor is assassination by an explosion.
Hero Morally Right: Riley S. must find her mentor’s killers to expose a plot against NATO—and expose a CIA mole.
Villain Morally Wrong: The Mole murdered a fellow CIA officer and conspired with an enemy nation to disrupt NATO.
Hero: Riley S. – rookie CIA officer
Unique skill set: Raised in foster care homes in dangerous environments and spent one supper with an Apache family as a teen.
Extrapolate: Fostered at the age of three, her parents are a mystery. Besides the good fortune of a summer with an Apache family, the family who adopted her at the age of 14/15 and nurtured her talents may know more about her past
B. Motivation: Complete her mentor’s assignment and expose a mole and enemy nation’s actions to disrupt NATO
Extrapolate: She realizes her rookie training pale in comparison to her natural abilities to defeat experienced enemy combatants may be unnatural
C. Secret or Wound: Loss of parents at 3, a decade in abusive foster care homes, and not really knowing the truth about parents
Extrapolate: She finds hints to a past she knew nothing about
Villain: CIA mole and enemy country
Extrapolate: Mole has own agenda and maybe deeper connections to Deep State besides helping the enemy country and stopping the growth of NATO
Unbeatable: Mole has access to CIA actions and resources of enemy nation
Extrapolate: Uses CIA resources and information on Riley’s progress to further the obstacles in her path
B. Plan/Goal: Kill Riley and disrupt NATO using CIA assets and enemy country assets
Extrapolate: Mole suspects something special about this young woman able to defeat multiple experienced enemies and investigates her past while working to stop her
C. What they lose if Hero survives: Mole’s life and exposure of enemy country on world stage
Impossible Mission: Riley must expose mole and protect NATO and find clues to her past
Extrapolate: Exposing the Mole may reveal deeper connections to government bad agents
A. Puts Hero in Action: She battles enemy combatants across Europe at every exposure of evidence and finally confronts and battles a seasoned CIA officer
B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: She’s not just solving a murder finding evidence, but saving NATO in a constant series of violent confrontations
C. Destroy the Villain: Expose an enemy nation and CIA mole, and defeat the mole to expose him/her while discovering a truth to her past
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Natalie’s Hero and Villain
What I learned in this assignment is that things will evidently change as I dive deeper into my story.
1. Concept: A single mom leads a group of students on a State Fair field trip, unaware her fiancé’s plot could turn the amusement park into a battlefield.
Hero Morally Right: Brie fights to stop her fiancé’s plan to destroy her father’s reputation, to stop the hitmen from damaging the rides and Ferris Wheel, to save lives of fairgoers and her own children
Villain Morally Wrong: Carry out his plans for land development, even if it means putting Brie’s life and her family in danger.
Hero: Brie, mother of two children, Pilate’s instructor
A. Unique Skill Set: Exceptional physical strength, flexibility, agility and balance; ability to remain calm under pressure, control over her body movements, accurate and focused strikes, resourcefulness and intimate familiarity with the fairgrounds as she grew up on her father’s land
B. Motivation: Protect her children and find a way to escape the danger, while mending her relationship with her estranged father
C. Secret or Wound: Struggles with guilt over her past decisions against her father’s will, which resulted in her failure in marriage and broken relationship with her father
Villain: Cooper
A. Unbeatable: Vast wealth and connections at his disposal, strategic brilliance, dirty tactics, unwavering determination to his commitments and goals, charismatic facade, no moral boundaries, total control over his goons
B. Plan/Goal: to acquire Brie’s father’s land by orchestrating a crisis during the fair that would not only create chaos, but also lead to devaluation of the land, so he can strong-arm Brie’s father into selling the property at a fraction of its worth
C. What they lose if Hero survives: immense financial profits, his reputation as an unbeatable force, control over Brie
Impossible Mission: To find a complex and dangerous network of explosives that Cooper and his associates ostensibly have placed throughout the State Fairgrounds
A. Puts Hero in Action: She believes that the explosives are set to detonate at the climax of the State Fair, endangering lives of thousands of innocent fairgoers and causing irreparable damage to the fairground property.
B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: Brie figures out a schematic of the explosive network. However, she soon finds out that the network is ingeniously designed to be untraceable and virtually impossible to find and disarm conventionally.
C. Destroy the Villain: In a final confrontation with Cooper, Brie uses nontraditional way to get him killed.
2. Improved answers: Brie becomes suspicious that the explosives may have been a decoy designed to mislead from something else Cooper will use to demolish the rides so that it will look like mechanical failure due to negligence. Now she needs her wits to figure out how.
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LESSON #2 CONNIE HOOD
What I learned was the structure of action movie. My purpose for taking the class is to set action scenes effectively. However, rethinking in the structure of the Action Movie clarifies several plot points. What I am writing is a 1930s melodrama with some action scenes. The action scenes are mostly TRUE stories. The characters of Clifford/Clara/Johnny are real people. We do want to explore the character depth to set up a puzzle.
I. MORAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HERO AND VILLAIN
Our heroine, Clara, is investigating fraud in 1931. A lot of anamolies have come up in tax records and her father is the auditor. – a lot of it emanating from a traveling circus. She can gain easy access to speakeasies and male performers.
Much of the fraud is tied to alcohol sales. While she is not against beverages – the manufacture and sale are not legal. Underground sales can’t be taxed.
Our villain, Ringmaster? Literally runs the ring – the circus performers drink…but he is gaining vast wealth in another way – very flashy. Or do I want the villain to be some sort of simple clown – the hobo, the drunkard, the clown car? Nothing threatening on the outside – sinister on the inside.
Talk to Judi Garratt
Clara is trying to do her job – even though she is beginning to understand that the Prohibition laws they are enforcing does not benefit anyone. Instead Prohibition builds a criminal class in the US. She is a newlywed. Husband Clifford is a doctor/dentist. They are “nice” people, WASP and at times their comments about others are shocking.
Works for an IRS agent who is on the take.
Villain – already an extortionist, willing to kidnap, threaten life – someone in the circus is squealing to Clara – who is it, and what kind of accident will happen?
Mission: moves from information gathering to saving Clara?
MORALLY RIGHT: Enforce the law and bring people to justice? Fair for everyone.
Question the law? Scenes will cause the audience to question the role of prohibitions and consequences in American lives.
MORALLY WRONG: Use any means to get to an end – including violent crime.
II. HIGHLY SKILLED HERO:
A. UNIQUE SKILL SET
CLARA
Clara is a mathematician. Also a linguist – she begins to pick up the Russian – she is clever, intuitive, and knows how to throw things – rocks, bottles, shit. CLARA – A co-ed University of Michigan; Phi-Beta Kappa in mathematics and Linguistics, speaks fluent French. A real stunner –brunette and startling blue eyes. Great social skills and is able to make friends. She volunteers to visit some of the individuals in question – get to know them and their social circles, including speakeasies.
She’s deathly afraid of heights. Naïve regarding secrets, desperate people, and violent crime.
Clifford is a doctor but also owns an airplane, brilliant mechanic – also surgeon, first aid,
Johnny – the trapeze artist, befriended Clara – literally knows how to fly. JOHNNY – A very young Irish trapeze artist in a traveling circus. Circus Balkanski – a Bulgarian troupe of performers, clowns, and small fry bootleggers. Mick has a crush on Clara and often accompanies her, even though he is only 16. She welcomes his presence in questionable locales.
B. MOTIVATION
Protect Clara – Clifford
Get back at villain – Johnny
Eliminate all three – Villain
What is the movie with all the failed efforts to commit suicide or kill somebody? A Man Called Ove? Lots of rope around the circus.
C. SECRET OR WOUND
Clara’s secret is that she and Clifford have gone to speakeasies. Have paid doorkeepers. She doesn’t think this law is of value to society. She can present herself as worldly or sophisticated, but doesn’t feel she is.
Johnny’s wound is that he is in love with Clara, will do anything to protect her even if she is not to be his.
Wound/Secret – Clifford. Has lost his brother in an accident. He identified the body. Not sure what his brother was involved in.
III. UNBEATABLE VILLAIN
He holds all the money, the power, the connections. He owns the mayor of any town he visits.
He is a controller.
BORKO
The controller who has big money and power. I’m thinking of a circus clown, gentle and funny. Serious disguise for whoever this guy really is. Romanian, American, Italian – maybe a gypsy mutt. Clown character name?
In the US the big children’s clown was Bozo. In your language…Borko would resonate with Americans. May I use that? Clown is all action, no talk. Then we need a name for the big spender, suits, a flashy lucky gem – maybe a pigeon blood ruby. This guy is not shy about violence. Haven’t decided on action vs talk for that one. Very tough guy.
IV. PLAN/GOAL
Borko:
Plans to kill Clara when he finds out she is an investigator. – girl for the knife thrower? Tightrope? Lion?
One possibility is that he invites her for drinks, makes it clear that “no” is not an option. Then, in performance he forces a drunk woman up the tightrope platform and makes her walk.
Take the money and run – let the revenuers know to never come near him again.
BORKO
WHAT DO THEY LOSE IF C&C WIN?
Their lifeline of cash and high living.
His freedom to do as he pleases
Possibly his secrets – reputations ruined, his fan base – he holds power over them
His power over others
V. IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
Puts the hero into the action
Clara must move into danger. Her father thought she would do a little fact finding and come home. Instead, as the problem goes deeper, she dives deeper, putting herself in danger. Borko kidnaps her – not for ransom. She must survive.
Demands she go beyond her best
Her brains and beauty are one thing; she must confront her fears – If she doesn’t walk the tightrope he will throw her off the platform – if she does? Does he find another way to do away with her?
Destroys the villain
Clifford climbs up the platform on the other side…
Clara and Borko end up in the Model T – Clifford apprehends them by air, propellor falls off…
Plane crash into a stone wall, fire
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