Lesson 3

[Andre]

Andre’s World and Character’s.

What I learned doing this assignment is…
A. Since I am building a Thriller, it would be very helpful to have a world and Characters that ALREADY have Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense around them.
B. Throughout most of this program, going to discover the THRILLER MAP of my story. Advice given is to fill in all of the blanks that are present to me, then go back and edit them to fit my own unique way of expressing the story.
C. Focus on Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense, rather than all the other normal details that go into screenwriting. Build around the M.I.S. to create amazing Thriller.
D. Where in this World does Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense naturally show up?
E. Take my subject and brainstorm possible “sub-worlds” that will intrigue my audience.

Remind of CONCEPT and Big M.I.S. of my story.
CONCEPT-
• MITRE Cyber-Attack.
a. Big Mystery (What is the main mystery of my story that will keep audience wondering throughout the story?)
i. A file, labeled “APT28”, the same apartment number of our Hero, is attributed with a terror threat group.
ii. APT28 reportedly compromised the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2016 in an attempt to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.
iii. What happens to Hero, can it happen to you-the audience?

b. Big Intrigue (What is the covert, clandestine, underhanded plot that will live under the surface for most of the movie?)
i. Lawfare and Character Assassination.
ii. Romance and biased cultural jealousy.
iii. Partisan divide- The United divided States of America.

c. Big Suspense (What is the main danger to Hero that will continue to escalate throughout the script?)
i. Being labeled and targeted a terrorist by every three-letter acronym governmental agency (domestic and international) and their For-Hire Contractors; who pose as friends, lovers, and neighbors is the basis of suspense and thrill.
ii. Having his credit (financial, medical, et al) compromised.
iii. Audited by tax department with false claims he must invalidate.
iv. Forced into bankruptcy by corrupt us senators, attorney generals, state governors and vice presidents seeking presidential appointments, simply by towing party lines of lies and bullshit.
v. Once they get you in their target hairs, they don’t ask questions, no matter how UNJUST.
vi. No Thing nor Person can be trusted. Friends and family are separated and distanced from his life, creating isolation. His only loyal friend is his pet, but even his pet has a tracking device embedded in it.

Tell of the Intriguing World I have selected for this story.
• The coveted world of a rich black prodigy.
• The Sub-World of US Code Title 51 Subtitle V Section 50101-51501: Programs Targeting Commercial Space Opportunities.

With my top 2 or 3 Characters, tell the role they play and then answer these three questions:
PROTAGONIST HERO- Protagonist Hero
A. Mystery of this Character.
a. While doing research for a project, a mechanical-electronics college prodigy locates a file labeled Apt28. The intrigue is, he lives in Apt28.
b. He becomes a targeted asset of Lawfare and Character Assassination by agenda seeking partisan political operatives.
c. Romance.
i. The beautiful women of intrigue: Asian, Russian, Indian, etc.
ii. You can imagine the issue this causes with the black female sista-hood, they don’t like it.

B. Suspense of this Character.
a. Unwitting yet resourceful.
b. False attribution of a us citizen with a foreign threat group.

C. Intrigue of this Character.
a. A Mechanical-Electronics student prodigy with a very bright future.
b. Rich/wealthy yet does not flaunt it. Think old money.
c. On the autism spectrum.

ANTAGONIST VILLAINS- Domestic Political Operatives
A. Mystery of this Character.
a. Agenda based Partisan Political Operatives with deep cultural biases.

B. Intrigue of this Character
a. Extremist view of If they are not with us, then they are against us.
b. Lazily associates and labels, our Hero lives in apartment 28, target opposition based on that connection, even when there is no association. Think immature high schoolers with power and authority.

C. Suspense of this Character.
a. Personal vendettas mixed with professional power and control.
RED HERRING- APT28
A. Mystery of this Character
a. While this entity may be “A Threat Group has been attributed to Russia’s General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate GRU 85th Main Special Service Center military unit 26165 ‘APT28’”, to the US or no other government, there is no correlation with our Hero, other than he lives in apartment 28, and he votes republican (which is enough partisan validation to cancel culture him). Think totalitarianism and communism.
b. Some of these operations were conducted with the assistance of GRU Unit 74455, which is also referred to as Sandworm Team.

B. Suspense of this Character
a. Engages in cyber warfare.
i. Registered domains imitating NATO, OSCE security websites, Caucus information resources, and other organizations.
ii. Performed large-scale scans in an attempt to find vulnerable servers.
iii. Uses self-registering Google mail accounts and later compromises email servers of its victims.
iv. Can perform brute force attacks to obtain credentials.
v. And the list goes on…

C. Intrigue of this Character
a. In 2018, the US indicted five GRU Unit 26165 officers associated with APT28 for cyber operations (including close-access operations) conducted between 2014 and 2018 against the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the US Anti-Doping Agency, a US nuclear facility, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Spiez Swiss Chemicals Laboratory, and other organizations.

End Andre's World and Character's.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by  Andre Howard. Reason: * Think immature high schoolers with power and authority
• This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by  Andre Howard. Reason: * c. On the autism spectrum. * to the US or no other government, * Think totalitarianism and communism

[Chris Wood]

“His only loyal friend is his pet, but even his pet has a tracking device embedded in it.” LOVE IT!

[Nadira Pankey]

What I learned doing this assignment is that my story must be like a mysterious puzzle that will not be complete until the end of the story. Every element such as the town and characters must have MIS.

Big Mystery: Where is the missing girl?
Big Intrigue: Who kidnapped the girl and why? Is it the weirdo Dick Looney? Who is Dick Looney? Why is he so weird? What are his secrets? Why are his bullies disappearing?
Big Suspense: Samuel needs to find the missing girl and the killer before he/she strikes again.

World: In a modern day “segregated” abandoned town, an inbred white man fits in with the black community.

Hero: Samuel Harrington
• Mystery: Will he find the missing girl before it’s too late?
• Intrigue: Samuel (a black investigator) risks his life unraveling town secrets to get to the truth, putting him in danger with the rednecks and black community.
• Suspense: Will Samuel survive and save the girl?

Villain: Judas
• Mystery: Who is Judas and why is he kidnapping and murdering people?
• Intrigue: Judas has been disguising himself as someone else so he could always have the upper hand against his foes. He’s a mastermind who has been deceiving everyone in town.
• Suspense: Will Judas win and get away with his crimes?

Red Herring: Dick Looney
• Mystery: Did he kidnap the girl?
• Intrigue: He’s an inbred that looks and acts strange. Always isolated except for work, and he has no alibi.
• Suspense: Will Samuel learn the truth and expose Dick before he kills the girl?

• This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by  Nadira Pankey.

[Chris Wood]

“Judas has been disguising himself as someone else” — sooooo much to unpack here, visually, subtext, and straight plot. GREAT turn.

[Matteo Ribaudo]

Matteo’s World and Characters for Sangre
Day 3
What I learned: I learned to be clear on who my Red Herring and Villain are. Making sure they’re indistinguishable, but that they have different agendas, and that our villain is the worse of the two evils.

1. Remind us of your CONCEPT and the Big M.I.S. of your story.
Concept is a Soccer legend fends for his life in the jungles of Colombia.

Big Mystery: What purpose does this aging soccer legend have in life now that soccer is over and who is trying to kill him and who will succeed.
Big Intrigue: Why does a mother of a young girl who needs blood to survive, using men to feed her.
Big Suspense: The jungle and all it’s dangers, a vengeful manager, and the mother all prey upon our hero, but his worst nightmare is the mysterious girl hungry for blood.

2. Tell us the Intriguing World you have selected for this story.
A vast jungle with no help in sight and a cottage residing in the middle of nowhere.

3. With your top 2 or 3 characters, tell us the role they play and then answer these three questions:

Hero Bravo the legend
A. What is the mystery of this character? He’s an arrogant unlikely selfish hero that rises to the occasion when he learns humility.
B. What is the suspense of this character? He’s left helpless when he gets injured and has to use his wits instead of his advance physical nature.
C. What is the intrigue of this character? He has to figure out how to survive the jungle as well as how to fend off a vampire.

Villain Magdalena the Mother
A. What is the mystery of this character? A strange woman in the middle of the jungle that will stop at nothing to feed her vampire daughter.
B. What is the suspense of this character? She’s a ex nurse of the guerrilla army and looks like she’s helping, but really she’s leading them to their demise.
C. What is the intrigue of this character? She lures men into the jungle to her cottage and bleeds them dry until they’re empty.

Red Hearing Carlos the Manager
A. What is the mystery of this character? A submissive man who wants to see our hero get what’s coming to him.
B. What is the suspense of this character? He schemes to take revenge from years of psychological abuse from his boss Bravo the legend.
C. What is the intrigue of this character? Will he go through with killing our hero or does he fall prey to Magdalena first.

[Chris Wood]

I really like the idea of a mother trying to feed her vampire daughter. It reminds me of the dual horror/pathos of the family in the basement in Night of the Living Dead, and how they try so hard to save the daughter they know is already a zombie!

[Matteo Ribaudo]

Thanks Chris! It’s a great conflict for the audience to witness and pose the question, what would you do for your child?

[Joan Philo]

Joan Philo World and Characters

What I learned doing this assignment is that more ideas are coming through as to the mystery and intrigue of the characters.

The Vanishing is a feature 1960’s thriller script about a 12-year-old girl, with a history of “crying wolf” who must convince the police that the man they have behind bars for the kidnapping of a college student, is the wrong guy, or the sick fuck she saw in the field shoving a girl into his truck, will murder her too.

Big Mystery: Where are the missing college women and is Paul, the villain, going to catch Maura spying on him and will she be murdered.

Big Intrigue: What is the clandestine part that lives under the surface for most of the movie? A group of the college women are walking around at night to try and lure the kidnapper into a trap to catch him.

Big Suspense: What is the main danger to our Hero that will continue to escalate throughout the script? Paul, the villain, is getting closer and closer to finding out what Maura knows. Paul is not certain that Maura is spying on him

The intriguing World selected for the story is a small Catholic all girls college that is the backyard to all the surrounding homes.

Paul is the villain and kidnaps female college girls, and they are never found

Maura is the hero who is playing in the grassy hills making a fort with the dried brush who just wants to be alone and make cool forts.

Paul
Mystery: Walks the college campus at night, stalks female students
Suspense: The cops can’t find him and don’t think it’s him when Maura tells them
Intrigue: His charming and smart and starts a neighborhood watch

Maura
Mystery: Stinging from constantly being reminded of burning down the field, and blaming it on two guys in jeans, she takes this mystery of finding Paul on by herself, knowing no one will believe her.

Suspense: catches some of the female college students planning their own take down of the kidnapper.

Intrigue of this character: Maura feels ashamed of her fire field burning past and keeps everything a secret from her parents and siblings, until her life depends on her telling her family.

[Chris Wood]

INCREDIBLE!

[David Harper]

David’s Wolrd and Characters

What I learned doing this assignment: When writing a thriller, I can get a head start by creating a thrilling world. For example, The Bourne Identity might have made a fine drama if it was just about some poor sod who works in a shoe store and lost his memory. But since it’s in the world of spies and assassins and Treadstone, things are going to get thrilling whether the protagonist likes it or not.

1 What is the main mystery that will keep us engaged throughout the story? Who exactly are these people who are coming after him, and why, and will he be able to defeat them?

2. What is the covert, clandestine, underhanded part that will live under the surface for most of the movie? The world of organized crime hiding just beneath the surface of the world we walk through every day.

3. What is the main danger to your Hero that will continue to escalate throughout the script? The threat of death. First to him, then to those he loves.

4. Tell us the Intriguing World you have selected for this story. A) The world of organized crime, B) the secretive world of the FBI WITSEC program

Top two characters:
Protagonist
1. What is the mystery of this character? Who is he, and what exactly did he do to get into this situation?
2. What is the suspense of this character? He’s lived in the world he is fighting, so he knows how to navigate it and knows the players and their strategies.
3. What is the intrigue of this character? He’s a high school english teacher, well versed in the classics.

Antagonist
. What is the mystery of this character? Who is he? And why is he so hell-bent on his mission against the protagonist?
2. What is the suspense of this character? He keeps sending prople to do his dirty work, but never gets his own hands dirty.
3. What is the intrigue of this character? He does not give up or give in. Ever. He’ll do it, or he’ll die.

[Chris Wood]

Subject line: Chris Wood’s World and Characters!

What I learned doing this assignment: I feel like all of my characters need MORE levels of MIS. They feel flat and cliche. I want to layer and relayer and get them complex and provocative and nuanced in an ORIGINAL way. This was a tough assignment, I almost felt like I needed a lot more discovery, but I went with the directive and just FILLED IN THE BLANKS!

1. Remind us of your CONCEPT and the Big M.I.S. of your story.

RAINBOW CHILD: A college co-ed discovers a deep well of psychic abilities when she’s lured into a hippie-drug cult that’s robbing banks and being watched by a secret agency bent on turning ESP into a physical weapon of mass destruction.

Big Mystery: Who is the real Rainbow Child prophesied to reveal ESP as a real, practical [and practically devastating] sixth sense?

Big Intrigue: Dr. Richard Forsythe’s underhanded plan to exploit the academic and intelligence communities for sole dominion over psychic energy on earth.

Big Suspense: Will Samantha learn to control the agathokakological psychic forces within her in time to save her unborn child from a drug cult, a government conspiracy, and a renegade psychiatrist?

2. Tell us the Intriguing World you have selected for this story.
The world of mind- and aura-reading psychic misfit bank robbers hiding in plain sight as a late 1970s hippie commune

3. With your top 2 or 3 characters, tell us the role they play and then answer these three questions:

HERO: Samantha Hamilton
A. What is the mystery of this character? Does Samantha really have ESP? Is SHE the Rainbow Child?
B. What is the suspense of this character? Will Samantha be brainwashed by the drug cult, destroyed by Forsythe, or disappeared by the government?
C. What is the intrigue of this character? Samantha is ambivalent, and is attracted to any intense forms of energy, good or evil.

VILLAIN: Dr. Richard Forsythe
A. What is the mystery of this character? How can Forsythe turn Samantha’s ESP into the ultimate psionic weapon of mass destruction?
B. What is the suspense of this character? Unhinged, desperate, conniving, and brilliant.
C. What is the intrigue of this character? Why was Forsythe expelled from the Duke paranormal research program and what is his real connection to the Parallax Project?

RED HERRING: Dr. Marquis Allen
A. What is the mystery of this character? What is Allen’s connection to the Parallax Project?
B. What is the suspense of this character? Everytime Allen makes a decision, people die.
C. What is the intrigue of this character? Where does Allen land on the moral question of eugenics and the release of ESP as a psionic weapon?

• This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by  Chris Wood.

[Matteo Ribaudo]

Sounds interesting, familiar, and marketable. Kinda Manchurian Candidate meets Manson.