Lesson 3

[Beverley]

Beverley Wood’s transformational journey

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

What I learned is that I need to give Matt my lead character more physical representations of his character, show more OCD behaviour (things must be exact in their placement, etc) so at the end, I can show more loosening of those ways. Also, my logline really doesn’t talk about his transformation. Does it have to? I think I suck big time at loglines. Maybe I need that class LOL.

Tell us your logline for the transformational journey.

When his long-lost love returns to a lonely butterfly scientist to ask for his help, he thinks his prayers are answered. There’s only one problem – she’s a ghost, and the help she needs is to say goodbye forever.

Tell us what you see as the Old Ways.

He’s a scientist, and he is very empirical in his thinking. X – Y = Z. No question. Everything is science-based and well-calculated and explained. He is almost obsessive in his tidiness. He lives in an insular world, surrounded by his flowers and caterpillars in the greenhouse while he searches for his long-lost love, whom he lost track of when he took a research assignment in the jungle five years ago (when they broke up). He can’t let go of the past. He eats take-out food and never cooks. He doesn’t, for a second, believe in ghosts or any afterworld. Dead is dead. Worms and you are gone.

Tell us what you see as the New Ways.

He cooks. His fridge is full. I need to show him being no longer as OCD. He believes not only in ghosts and the afterlife but believes Lauren (his long-lost love) will now be with him always, even though she has transitioned, with his help. He will never be able to “see” her again but he will “know” that she is there. His mind is open, and he understands that not everything can be seen and proven, nor does it have to be if you can feel it. He steps back out into the real world and starts socializing again with his old friends.

[Sandee Magliozzi]

Sandee Transformational Journey

Liz Autumn, a teenage climbing prodigy who thrives on solitude, is compelled to return to Yosemite when a destructive mining operation jeopardizes her home. Forging alliances with local activists, Liz evolves from a self-reliant loner to a galvanizing leader, realizing that the most daunting challenges can only be overcome together.

Old Way: Liz’s old way is her independence and self-reliance, believing she can handle all challenges alone.

New Way: Liz embraces collaboration and leadership, understanding that true strength comes from community and collective action.

[mark.napier2022@gmail.com napier]

Mark N: Transformational Journey

Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” (place at top of your work). I learned not to throw my old notes away from the previous classes I have taken from ScreenwritingU…. LOL. I basically modify and adjust as needed, but I am applying the new models to assist in making my existing project more in depth. I rewrote the Logline and applying the same concept to each act in a 4-Act structure for better clarity, not reflected here.
1. Tell us your logline for the transformational journey.
A CIA Whistleblower becomes a victim of injustice and must become an abandonment of self to survive; before he can force change and pursue street justice for honor.
2. Tell us what you see as the Old Ways.
The character will defend another person to the hilt first before considering his own wellbeing and aftermath. He does has not learned to trust his own gut feelings alerting him to danger and becomes helpless letting the chips fall where they may. He is not assertive but is the kind of guy that is quiet and plays by the rules according to his values.
3. Tell us what you see as the New Ways.
The character looks out for number one (me, myself and I) and if it does not affect him personally then he does not get involved. He now trusts his own gut instincts and is proactive in “shaping the battlefield” to his favor. He is more assertive making his own rules as he goes along and applying street justice as necessary to give the other a taste of their own medicine. Bottom line is…”Don’t take on an enemy if you are not prepared to kill or destroy them.”

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  mark.napier2022@gmail.com napier.

[Angela Booth]

Angela Booth:
What I learned by doing this assignment is that my logline has been focussing on the wrong elements all along! I was focussing on the surface of what they do and the outcome, rather than the true WHY of telling this particular story.

1. Tell us your logline for the transformational journey.
Four friends who lost touch with who they really are when kids came along must challenge the people and situations holding them back to rediscover their true nature and live their best lives.

2. Tell us what you see as the Old Ways.
Georgia: Working full time, making and attending all the kids’ appointments, dealing with all the emotional baggage of the family, constantly interrupted, no time for herself.
Jodie: Full-time mum, enjoying being pampered and filling days with lunches with friends, which she takes for granted. Organised in personal life, applying business skills to personal life. Caring and compassionate when it comes to helping out working mums.
Tiff: Working extra hours to make enough money for the family, sacrificing weekends, no time for herself, not appreciated for the works she does at home too.
Anne: People-pleaser who wants family to notice her and love her. Wants to be valued at work and recognised for her effort and achievements. Low self esteem.

Tell us what you see as the New Ways.
Georgia: Delegating tasks, sharing attending kids’ appointments with her husband, attending conferences and professional development seminars, watching a whole movie without interruption.
Jodie: Takes over running the business, becomes shit-hot boss, values time with friends and realises how precious time is.
Tiff: Working fewer hours, enjoying hobbies with friends and seeing kids at the weekend. Older kids appreciate the effort she has made over the years.
Anne: Feels worthy and stands up for herself. Happy to walk away from oppressive situations. Believes in herself.

[Nadiia Pavlyk-Vachkova]

Nadiia Pavlyk-Vachkova’s Transformational Journey

What I learned doing this assignment is:

1. Logline for the transformational journey
A pastor’s beloved daughter, choosing a career to becoming up an opera singer over a traditional catholic marriage, becomes an over-the-world famous, but in her own country must battle with the system.

2. Old Ways

Solomia – pastor’s beloved daughter raised to follow traditional catholic canons, brakes rules, that her father represents as a head of the church. She runs away from her own wedding, and leaves her parent’s house, chasing her dream to become a famous opera singer. Unstoppable free open-minded Solomia. Because of her young age (18) she doesn't care much about family traditions, and the fact that her decision might cause suffer for her family that eventually becoming the outsider of the society in her small village because of that, she just follows her dream instead.

3. New Ways.

The Solution State: Solomia visits her relatives in Western Ukraine, leaving her own villa in Italy, right before WWII, and never gets back. Caring about her family members, she gets home even though has been alerted about the possibility of the beginning of the war. As a result she stuck under new rules of totalitarian regime Russia, that invaded her motherland in Ukraine, loses her properties around the world, her freedom of movements, even her nationality – as a Ukrainian – that she was fighting for being recognised her entire life in an opera world. Ironically she becomes the only one, who is forced to switch her citizenship to USSR.

Her new way of being can be described as:

Family-oriented, ready to compromise her career, property and world fame name and comfort in order to save peace of mind for her family, becoming a hostage in her own home ruled by the new rules of a cruel totalitarian system.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  Nadiia Pavlyk-Vachkova.

[Mitch Haraguchi]

What I learned doing this assignment is the power of transformation as a means that makes your story interesting and drives it forward.

1. Tell us your logline for the transformational journey.
While a super-conservative, redneck, authoritative local sheriff in the Midwest is forced to deal with a young Asian man who was found in the middle of nowhere, his exclusive attitude toward outsiders gradually changes through his 14-year-old daughter who blindly falls in love with the Asian man.

2. Tell us what you see as the Old Ways.
The local sheriff, 45, is a super-conservative man who believes in jinxes. He loves his local people as much as he hates outsiders. He does not want his peaceful life to be disturbed by others. He would fight against anything that challenges his lifestyle. In short, he is quite happy with the status quo.

3. Tell us what you see as the New Ways.
The sheriff for the first time in his life discovers a value of being inclusive, rather than exclusive.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  Mitch Haraguchi.

[Christy Bley]

Christy Bley’s Lesson 3 Transformational Journey
What I learned doing this assignment is: Gradient of change doesn’t happen in a single moment, it needs to draw through the story. FORMING, STORMING, NORMING and PERFORMING is a great model!
1. LOGLINE for Transformational Journey of Lead Character
A 90-year feud between a River Town and the River Authority that’s enabling silt to bury it annoys a girl who paints china. She doesn’t pay attention to, thinks crazy, even, her closest friends, her young students, who believe that even though her river activism keeps getting her in trouble, truth is, the “safe” kids book she is painting might give her the power to save the town.

2. What I see as the OLD WAYS – she wants to ignore huge looming problems – they annoy her rather than galvanize her.
What is their current Problem State?
She could be described as frozen in hopelessness
Her MAIN RULE? Don’t get in too deep.

3. What I see as the NEW WAYS – she wants to do something about it.
What is the Solution State? Embrace the torture by risking losing everything. {I don’t yet know what “everything” is.
How has my CHARACTER CHANGED? – her care is activated – her ‘love switch’ turns back on.
She could now be described as fully engaged.

[Christy Bley]

Christy Bley’s Lesson 3 Transformational Journey
What I learned doing this assignment is: Gradient of change doesn’t happen in a single moment; it needs to draw through the story.
FORMING, STORMING, NORMING and PERFORMING is a great model!
1. LOGLINE for Transformational Journey of Lead Character
A 90-year feud between a River Town and the River Authority that’s enabling silt to bury her town annoys a girl who paints china. She doesn’t pay attention to, thinks crazy even, her closest friends, her young students, who believe that even though her river activism keeps getting her in trouble, truth is, the kids’ book she is painting might give her the power to save the town.

2. What I see as the OLD WAYS – she wants to ignore huge looming problems – they annoy her rather than galvanize her.
What is their current Problem State?
She could be described as frozen in hopelessness
Her MAIN RULE? Don’t get in too deep.

3. What I see as the NEW WAYS – she cares, she now wants to do something about it.
What is the Solution State? Embrace the torture by risking losing everything. {I don’t yet know what “everything” is.
How has my CHARACTER CHANGED? – her care is activated – her ‘love switch’ turns back on.
She could now be described as fully engaged.

[Diane Keranen]

Diane’s Transformational Journey

What I learned doing this assignment is that I’ve not been aware enough or attentive enough to how every important character is on a gradient journey. I was oversimplifying this process.

1. Tell us your logline for the transformational journey — A family struggling with generations of combat trauma welcomes home a soldier unsure of his future who must find a path from a war zone to a family home.

2. Tell us what you see as the Old Ways — A broad dominant practice of celebrating veterans of war without fully understanding the effects of trauma that lead to suicide. (I see this as a perspective that is well-intentioned and not at all intending to cause difficulty.)

3. Tell us what you see as the New Ways — War veterans are less a symbol of patriotism via a romantic notion of “soldier” and “war” and more respected as individuals who can, with proper assistance, overcome dramatic, combat trauma and rebuild (not return to) a worthwhile personal and family life. Ideally, reduce the number of veteran suicides (a silent, ongoing epidemic).

This is a start to clarifying the transformational journey of the overall story which I’m planning to tell through four parallel stories of different generations that show how young men (and women too) are taught from youth to acclimate to killing as an okay thing to do. One metaphor I use for this is hunting.

If I could, I would revise my lesson 2 in that the Entertainment Vehicle would be exaggerated as-it-happens as well as a story using an Entertainment Vehicle of metaphor.

[Beverly A Ihnen]

Beverly A’s Transformational Decisions
What I learned doing this assignment is that I can create and expand the background, viewpoints and, in this case, a very narrow field of experience for the character that form layers of reality for the Old Ways. The values of the old ways are not necessarily bad, but they do not fit in the new environment. For this story, not only is the character a fish out of water, that water is roiling with problems not ever considered in her old life. Thus there will be plenty of opportunity to explore the new universe and its denizens in order to develop the character she finally becomes.

LOGLINE:
A naïve young woman from the Midwest volunteers as a tutor in South Central LA, unaware that racial tensions are about to break to the surface; she puts her life on the line to defend and protect these children and their siblings in the ensuing turmoil.
DEFINE THE OLD WAYS:
PROBLEM STATE: Kirstin would be perfectly happy living in the world of the books she cherishes at the library, those magical universes that feed her imagination and take her to ideal lands of tolerance, compassion, love, fidelity and goodness.

She is still living in the world she was raised in, a very homogeneous rural community where religious conflict might be a snide remark added in a sermon when a young parishioner brings her Irish Catholic boyfriend to Sunday Service, and political divisiveness meant banter at the General Store and war and protest and rioting was something shown on the 6 PM news, but it didn’t really impact real life. Even though she’s relocated in Los Angeles, those small-town values are deeply ingrained and very real and valuable to her. And in her world, every princess lives in a castle high above the valley and even though bad things happen in the world, they don’t happen to people you know; every dragon is successfully battled by a virtuous knight in shiny armor, and every romance finds the One True Love for both partners, who then live happily ever after (most of the time).
DEFINE THE NEW WAYS:

SOLUTION STATE: She still believes in all the good qualities she has envisioned, but the airy-fairy sweetness-and-light of how it is all going to be ok and everyone lives happily ever after (with no real effort on her part) has crystalized instead into a self-sufficient, courageous new woman with direction and conviction who is no longer the victim of her own fairy-tale delusions.

[Natalie Hawkins]

Natalie's 3: Transformational Journeys

what I learned: I researched a math topic that helped me think of a way to define the story.

logline: the discovery of a math proof, suggests new physics, which significantly impacts our understanding of the world, and has potential for changing our world via new actions.

Old Ways: believe the existing science, and proceed as normal

New Ways: recognize a new science, and try to utilize that instead

• This reply was modified 9 months ago by  Natalie Hawkins.