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Lesson 2: Elevating The Impact of Your Reveals
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WIM Module 7, Lesson 2
Lenore Bechtel’s Dramatic Reveals
My vision: I want to create enough salable screenplays that an agent will want to market my work and recommend me for writing assignments.
What I learned from doing this assignment is that the viewer needs to be led to almost demand knowing certain things. However, the word “demand” didn’t seem appropriate for me while I was evaluating my script. So instead I’ve used “Hint” while checking my script to make sure I had enough.
I’d like the viewer to be wondering why Libby reacts to certain things about Freida, so they’re not surprised when Libby tells her she’s Stuart’s mother.
I also want them to pick up on the things Allison says that might connect her to Libby, so that when Allison deduces she’s Libby’s granddaughter, the viewer might have already thought of that possibility.
For this assignment, I evaluated my reveals and hints and decided if I added any more, the relationship of Libby, Freida, and Allison would be too obvious. So I have not made any changes.
Of course, the big suspense isn’t answered until the very end. Will Zhores keep his promise and arrive at their usual Schulenberg Park spot on the day the Wall comes down?
Reveal: In 1989 Libby is keeping a 1961 promise to meet Zhores when the Berlin Wall comes down.
Reveal : Freida is leaving her San Francisco husband because of earthquakes.
Hint: Freida is protective of her pendant.
Reveal. Allison has an appointment to audition for the Berlin Philharmonic.
Hint: Libby does a double-take at Freida’s name. Why?
Reveal: Libby thinks the Major is a bad father for having so little contact with her during her eighteen years. Libby will later realize she’s been like him—a bad mother.
Reveal: East Berliners coming to the West to stay have to sneak out and leave behind everything, but many are coming everyday to be processed at Mariensfelde where Marilyn, Libby’s stepmother, works. Foreshadows Helga’s family having to escape.
Hint: East Berlin children must become Young Pioneers and get programmed to love communism more than their family. Foreshadows difficulty getting Sonja to defect.
Hint: Freida is again protective of her pendant.
Hint: Zhores’ father was a musical prodigy, like Allison is.
Hint: Allison was born of a young unwed mother and doesn’t know who her father is.
Hint: Freida’s husband and Libby’s father have the same name—Stuart.
Hint: Freida is again protective of her pendant.
Hint: Allison’s grandparents were in Berlin when sputnik went over. Conclusion: they were there at the same time as Libby and Zhores.
Hint: Freida’s Stuart told her men have a hard time handling mother-desertion.
Hint: Why does Libby get defensive? Does she think she might be that mother?
Hint: Stuart’s mother didn’t attend his and Freida’s wedding. The way Libby’s acting—could she be that bad mother?
Reveal: The Major helps Helga’s family escape, then he helps Libby have one more meeting with Zhores, so he’s not such a bad guy.
Reveal: Libby ended up loving the Major who was later killed in Vietnam.
Reveal: Libby dated lots of men, but never received a marriage proposal.
Big Reveal: When Freida mentions her husband made a living playing a child’s game, Libby realized Freida has to be her daughter-in-law, and tells her.
Hint: Allison has an Aunt Sonja—the name of Helga’s young sister.
Reveal: When the earthquake hit, Freida was taking a picture of the pendant hanging from a chain around her neck. She hadn’t intended to steal it, just take a picture to show her aunt.
Reveal: Libby chose to go to an awards banquet instead of her son’s wedding, but then she didn’t win the award.
Reveal: Freida becomes a sexy provocateur to get them a cab to the airport.
Hint: Allison’s mother requested Lufhausa Airline to have Allison call her. That means her grandparents weren’t available to receive a call from the school, or her mother wouldn’t have been notified.
Hint: Allison was born in 1978, the year after Libby took Stuart to visit Helga and Heinz. Is that significant?
Hint: Helga and Heinz had a daughter named Olga, and Allison thinks that was her mother’s name, which was changed when her grandparents moved to America, and they all changed names.
Hint: Allison says Olga—only 14—and Stuart might have had more than batting contests, if they were in love.
Big Reveal: Allison speaks German which she uses fluently to get the crowd to clear a path for their car to get on a side street. Allison thinks Stuart impregnanted her mother when he and Libby visited her grandparents in 1977. She thinks Zhores is her grandfather, and she inherited her musical talent from his father. She tells this story perched on the hood of a car after a violin rendition that stops the crowd. Very dramatic!
Reveal: The truth of her conclusion is revealed when Allison asks her grandparents for the truth in Schulenberg Park, and Stuart is there to hear for the first time that he’s a father.
Reveal: Allison loves Libby and trusts her implicitly. She demonstrates this fact when she gives her her violin so she can jump straddle-legged on Stuart.
Reveal: Zhores keeps his promise and arrives at their special place in Schulenberg Park a moment before midnight on the day the Wall came down.
Their reunion is very dramatic and hopefully a tear jerker.
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Margaret’s Dramatic Reveals!
Vision: To be the best faith-based screenwriter.
What I learned: I worked on four major reveals. I thought I had already done a good job of writing the reveals but I utilized A.I. to brainstorm additional ways to increase the drama. I rewrote each of the scenes and know the script is stronger because of the changes.
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Lloyd’s Dramatic Reveals
Working hard every day to become the best writer I can be and as a result I do become the best writer in Hollywood.
What I learned from this assignment that despite having gone over this script a dozen times there were areas that the reveals could be much better.
We reveal Reese didn’t kill Carlos the gangbanger,
Reese will profess his feelings for Fazziz.
Reese begins to reveal more of his character instead of hiding behind his rank.
Reese finds out Hammad knew Abu Rami’s Lieutenant
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Module 7 Lesson 2 Elevating the reveals
Marguerite Langstaff: THE BILLIONAIRE IN 501
Vision: I want to write and market screen plays.
State/activity: creating powerful reveals
1. Reveals: My reveals include: Act 1: why Mimi wants to move to SA (her husband’s crash).
2. Reveal: Walter, the financial adviser, tells Mimi she’s lost all her money.
a. Reveal: Mimi suggest starting a business….needs to be better reveal.
3. Reveal: Act 2…column in paper with Mr. Oliver…
4. Reveal Act 3: Market fails miserably
. 5. Reveal Act 4: Mimi becomes a Billionaire…with advice column
6. Reveal Act 4: Mimi and Pappy are a couple and everybody is happy
What is the DEMAND
1. The crash demand is ok, but there need to be more demand from living on a secluded ranch to make Mimi want to be around people and make more friends.
2. Demand ok for Walter telling Mimi about financial disaster.
Need better reveal for necessity for starting a business.
3. Demand comes from Mimi’s profession as a counselor giving advice to everybody. She even does it at SA…can’t keep from it.
4. Build up for Market needs to be smoother…and perhaps an enormous rainstorm comes and ruins the day….for the reveal that the Market is a failure.
5. More demand for buildup for Mimi to keep giving advice….whether she wants to or not.
6. The demand is throughout the entire script for Mimi and Pappy becoming a couple.
For each of these reveals I will plant more demand … with the exception of 5 and 6. The entire script plants the demand for these reveals.
What I learned: I learned that there must be a demand for a reveal.
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H. Vince Dramatic Reveals!
WIM Module 7 – 2023
Lesson 2: Elevating the Impact of Your Reveals
My Vision: I will be a professional screenwriter.
What I learned from doing this assignment along with others is that I had to present dreams within dreams.
TITLE: DREAM VACATION
WRITTEN BY: H. Vince
GENRE: DRAMA/THRILLER
HIGH CONCEPT: When a retired couple finally take their dream vacation, the husband starts showing signs of rapid dementia and leaves his wife in distress in a foreign country.
MAJOR STORY HOOK: Imagine thinking you can trust your doctor to prescribe you something to block your anxiety and instead you become a guinea pig for a clinical trial drug that causes extreme memory loss while you’re in a foreign country on your dream vacation!?
On the basic surface, this is just a couple with a humdrum life going on a retirement vacation but then, we start to see things like the wife is hallucinating, the “son” is lying about his job, the family doctor did a bad thing in the past but is not doing a bad thing this time (as far as we know) and even bigger picture items happening. Reveals upon reveals.
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Brian Bull – Dramatic Reveals!
VISION!!!
My ultimate goal is to get my scripts from my hands to the SILVER SCREEN!!“What I learned from doing this assignment is…
I love reveals and this this is something that I believe makes any movie intriguing.The ONE THAT GOT AWAY – A Fisherman’s Tale
A fisherman is determined to catch the fish he blames for his younger brother’s death, however, in the end, it turns out the fisherman is the one who had gotten away.ASSIGNMENT
4. For any that don’t have strong answers to the above, brainstorm ways to create more demand or reveal dramatically and rewrite the scene.
5. Tell us how you improved each scene – demand, reveal, and/or written dramaticallyREVEAL
”No Swimming” sign – The ending will “reveal” why there is no swimming.
Fishing Hat on the front seat of the boat – Jim, John’s brother, goes missing when John fell into the water and Jim dove in and cut the line – so the hat reveals Jim’s absence.
The “Indian knife” – is revealed to have been found by Great Grandpa and handed down and John steals the knife which in turn Jim uses to cut the line and then it is revealed at the end in the Catfish’s head proving it is the same fish that John has been stalking for 25 years.
John’s Dad goes missing – in the end, with John being eaten by an enormous catfish reveals that maybe the disappearance of John’s Dad was caused by same enormous catfish eating John’s Dad.
This has been a long work in progress and I just continually keep at it, working and re-working until I feel I finally got it right.
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