Lesson 3

[Sydney Burtner]

Syd’s Pilot Structure

2. What I learned doing this assignment is there’s a lot to play with here and I need to do more drafts to refine and sharpen.

Teaser:

Essence: Money changes hands between cloaked figures. VO has Bhadrabahu explaining commerce to Charita. Charita secretly meets with Bhadrabahu who helps her set up her business (textile trade? Dancing? Writes stories / poetry for money?). She counts money.

Turning Point: In an effort to win points, Bhad informs Queen Vanhi of her activity, the queen summons Charita. Meanwhile, a cloaked figure whispers in Bhad’s ear and he rushes away.

Act 1:

Essence: While watching the infant crown prince, Charita pitches various business ideas to the queen. The queen rejects them. They walk through the palace fort — the queen pitches various potential suitors to Charita. Charita rejects them before she steals away and secretly meets Jagger, a soldier. General Veer tells Anala, the king’s cousin, that he plans to share a secret with the king, which pisses her off. Meanwhile, the king receives a request from his exiled cousin (and former heir), Rajendra, who has been received as a guest in another kingdom.

Turning Point: Charita finds a valuable necklace with a small gem in her room. She runs to thank the queen — but this gift wasn’t from the queen. The queen demands to know what man gave her the gift.

Act 2:

Essence: She discovers from Bhad that the necklace is too pricey for a soldier. She confronts Jagger — did he and his crafty friend Sugith do something illegal to get such a necklace? In a reversal, Jagger becomes jealous believing the necklace is from another man. In the neighboring kingdom, Rajendra skillfully steals jewels from that kingdom’s treasury.

Turning Point/Midpoint: Part of the Royal Guard, Jagger is summoned to a distressed commotion — guards have been slain — in the king’s private quarters!

Act 3:

Essence: General Veer doubles the guard on the royals. But, Charita, a commoner by birth, is free to move about. King Abzar confronts General Veer — how could this happen inside the palace? Veer decides to keep his secret for the time being. Queen Vanhi demands answers from Bhad, which seems odd to Anala, as Bhad is nothing more than a playboy from Lucknow court (why is the queen even friends with him?).

Turning Point: Charita discovers that valuable crown jewels are missing and decides not to reveal the necklace now in her possession.

Act 4:

Essence: As a female commoner (practically invisible), Charita is unencumbered by Veer’s lockdown. She questions servants and Bhad to find out the origin of the necklace and who could have left it in her room. Clues point to a seedy street in the kingdom. Anala insists that Veer have her followed.

Turning Point: From a black-market dealer, Charita discovers that the necklace may be a piece stolen in another kingdom. Veer’s guards seize her.

Act 5:

Essence: Veer questions Charita. Bhad informs the queen who summons both Veer and Charita. On there way, they hear the queen scream. They run to her in the nursery — guards and caretakers are dead.

Lock In: The infant crown prince is kidnapped!

[David Wickenden]

David Wickenden Pilot Structure

What have I learned?

This took a lot of brainstorming. Mainly it was because I already had the pilot planned in my head, but this formula changed most of it.

Teaser:

· Essence: A young teen, Susan, is molested and left for dead. During the trial, the man is acquitted.

· Turning Point: The young victim commits suicide and is found by her sister, Laura.

Act 1: Years Later

· Essence: We see Laura taking part in a SWAT training evolution at which she excels. She then speaks to the group of police officers about PTSD and how suicides among first responders can be averted through early intervention.

· Turning Point. She has been training alongside different military and first responders to understand what they face in their jobs.

Act 2:

· Essence: Laura and her best friend, Janice, an RCMP officer, are having dinner. Talking about each other’s work and frustrations.

· Turning Point/Midpoint: Laura gets a notice that a police officer she knows has committed suicide.

Act 3:

· Essence: Both women attend the officer’s funeral. Janice as cop. Laura as her position as his councilor.

· Turning Point: Widow goes ballistic at Laura for not helping her husband, which led to him killing himself.

Act 4:

· Essence: A notorious child abuser is released from prison and is assassinated at the airport.

· Turning Point. The shooter is Laura. She is the vigilante.

Act 5:

· Essence: Janice meets with Laura for drinks.

· Lock In. Janice announces the force has tasked her with finding and stopping the vigilante.

[David Thompson]

David Thompson’s Pilot Structure

What I learned while doing this assignment is that my pilot needs more elements. My original thoughts of ending the pilot with Brianna being drugged and taken, I now plan to shift this up to make it the midpoint, THEN adding a story plot element – the Underworld and dragons, plus giving the Furies another role, tracking down escaped demons from the Underworld.

Teaser:

• Essence: Tisiphone on her motorcycle chases a bad guy through the desert, then kills him after he wrecks.
• Turning Point: Just who is that woman with the black wings?

Act 1:

• Essence: Introduces Dan, during a standoff in a grocery store. Introduce Megaera and Jones. Introduce Alecto if enough room left in Act 1(2-page scene)
• Turning Point: Just who is that gorgeous woman that Dan saw?

Act 2:

• Essence: Megaera furious over issue at store. Dan spots his niece on a sidewalk going to a party. We follow Brianna, then cut back and forth between her at the party and Dan at home. Highlighting Dan’s loner existence.
• Turning Point/Midpoint: Brianna murdered by serial killer.

Act 3:

• Essence: Finding Brianna – Dan has to comfort his sister’s family. Alecto and megaera on mission (human trafficker) Brianna meets Thanatos, disguised as “Junior”, a mortician
• Turning Point: Brianna’s spirit locked in our world, but why?

Act 4:

• Essence: Bune introduced, plot line for series revealed. Brianna meets the Furies and Gaia. Dan meets Gaia. Ground rules established
• Turning Point: Furies can’t help her unless she was killed by a family member

Act 5:

• Essence: More Underworld material. Megaera confronts Dan, wanting to kill him.
• Lock In: Serial killer going to hit again. Following a young woman to a bar.

[Moses Quainoo]

Moses Quainoo

MOD 3 – LESSON 3: CREATING YOUR PILOT
STRUCTURE

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

ASSIGNMENT

1. Present the first draft of your pilot Acts.

Teaser:

Essence:

The Do-Wells takes three seconds to capture four militants hiding among the populace. Loveday Sebastian busts the front door down and enters, meeting a ferocious knife attack and gunfire from her enemies.

Loveday defends herself, attacks and floors the suspect in seconds for TeamLOVEDAY. They kill the gunman who tries to escape.

Team AC captures their suspects. The Do-Wells emphasizes team spirit and is one powerful organization today.

Jennifer Sebastian documents their times and declares this mission a success. They return to base early in the morning.

Loveday fails the assignment — capture the militants alive — because one dies. She has trouble following orders, preferring to do it her way. Lt. Col. Frank Sebastian, her father, reminds her that justice is not up to her discretion. Loveday contends the most important goal was to stop the targets, which she did. Frank states that this flaw of hers made her lose the Presidency to AC. She must learn to take orders as given.

Turning Point: Loveday receives orders from Frank to scout for talent at the Center and recruits a handful of spies, as three have recently died in Algeria and Yemen. A C gets orders to help her.

Act 1:

Essence:

Hu is a flour Loader who handles his extended family. When he returns from work, he promises to pay his and his grandmother’s share of unpaid property tax. His mother barges into
the yard to say grandmother’s malaria is worsening.

Turning Point:

The need for money is even greater.

Act 2:

Essence:

Hu arrives at the offices, where the manager hires men to offload flour. He has few jobs for the many and wants six men on each of ten long vehicles sleeping two hundred yards distant. To qualify, job seekers must race to secure positions on them. No one can tell when the whistle will go.

Turning Point: Hu connects with another job seeker for the sixth position and fights on top of the long vehicle.

Midpoint: Two female scouts capture the event on their riding hat cameras.

Act 3:

Essence:

Loveday’s interest in Hu piques. Hu stops fighting and makes it onboard his vehicle, last departing. She launches the Kingfisher drone to keep track.

Riding back, she reports she found the man of her dreams. She will issue her orders.

Eighteen miles away at the Flour Mill, Hu and Ishey’s vehicle reverses into a loading bay. And is filled by the boarding team. Hu discovers from the Flour Mills Production Supervisor the Mill is running low on wheat.

Hu buys a meager meal at the Mills canteen and saves the exact amount for a Cameo Cinema ticket. Ishey, Hu, and the workers team up again to travel around neighboring towns and cities, dealing out the flour load for compensation.

At a press conference, AC announced The Do-Wells Annual Contest is coming up in December. The Kung Fu tournament takes up the last three days. Members must enter and win this event before induction into the organization as Master Spies. The prize is six million dollars.

At headquarters, agents are wagering on possible entrants to the contests and voting on choices for the Arena, which is technologically heightened each year as an added challenge to entrants.

AC approves one technical innovation to this year’s Arena: The Essel Poles cauldron. This is a 144-pole formation hanging above a bar lattice mounted over a bottomless pit of burning fire.

Turning Point:

Hu’s ratings are soaring; everybody likes his earlier display.

Act 4:

Essence:

Late that night, Hu’s vehicle returns to the Center to drop off Hu, Ishey, and the rest. Loveday, waiting on a car bonnet not far from them, reaches up to recover her drone.

Frank is home to review Loveday’s report. She tells him of the email she sent to the Convener of Contests asking for a place for Hu in the Kung Fu tournament. Her goal is to feature her discovery, Hu, in the Contest. She believes he can win and then pair up with her to do one job no one is taking:

An oil minister in Brunei steals $8.9bn of oil money and seeks asylum in Cuba. Apart from police protection, teams of Kung Fu experts guard him. The Sultan of Brunei wants him captured and brought alive to face his people. This job is vital to Loveday because it will raise the tally of her mission successes and make an incredible $1bn income for the organization.

Loveday believes that will promote her to The Presidency when AC steps down. Frank wants Hu’s ability to fight seriously tested, and if he wins the Kung Fu tournament, Hu must train as a Master Spy before Frank considers pairing him up with his daughter.

Her problem is that Contestants must be serving members to gain registration. Loveday asks Frank if he will ask for special eligibility for Hu.

Back at home, Hu finds his mother and grandmother still awake and hungry. They assume Hu’s found a new woman and has spent all of his money on her. They talk of their readiness to negotiate with her to stop them from starving. Hu goes to sleep in the communal Den where transient workers sleep, leaving no space for Hu. Hu prays and sleeps, standing.

Hours later, a thunderstorm floods the Den with one inch of water. The roof leaks in several places, and water drips on Hu, soaking him. The squatters share the few remaining dry spaces.

When the trucks are gone, the Supervisor lies back to read newspapers whose headlines point to the government’s inability to pay for wheat imports. The shortage is a real threat.

Turning Point:

Quickly, the Supervisor calls for added trucks and men to get more flour while stocks last.

Act 5:

Essence:

Loveday reads the same headlines in news feeds on her computer and later talks to Maria, The Do-Wells’ best driver, working on a psychological profile on Hu. They discuss their following line of action – a cold approach. Loveday gauges Hu’s interest in spying.

The next day, the manager rations the trips each vehicle makes to the loading bay by day. Hu’s team makes diminishing trips to the loading bay and makes less money.

One week later, the flour Mill ran out of wheat and stopped production. He depends on himself and hates asking for help;
he discontinued his schooling after his Dad and Grandpa died. Because no one could pay for his schooling, he opted to work to support the extended family.

Turning Point:

Hu and Ishey have no work to go to – Hu’s worst fear.

Lock In: The flour Mill runs out of wheat and stops production. The government needs money to import wheat in one year. The Coop offices close down. The job dries away at the center. All other jobs at the center are secured. Hu must cater to the family. Loveday will approach him coldly. What are Hu and Ishey going to do?

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Moses Quainoo.

[Moses Quainoo]

I have posted my assignment for Lesson 3.

Act 2

Before the end of Act 2, I introduce the intriguing world of The Do-Wells with two female scouts.

Then I get to the MIDPOINT where the Main Character fights another Job Seeker to clarify whose wins the sixth position. The two scouts capture the fight.

When I get the Act 3, I introduce the Impossible goal. Then the plot begins to act on the main character.

Question: The two female scouts are also main characters. Are they wrong to have taken over the story in Acts 3, 4, and 5?

In the Teaser the mystery is the death of three Master Spies. They are difficult to replace that is why Frank sent the scouts to look for talents.

[Wayne Petitto]

Wayne’s Pilot Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is how to structure a pilot script to make it binge-worthy.

Teaser: The blastoff of Mike’s 13-year mission to Earths nearest inhabitable planet 6.2-lightyears away. On that strange planet, a humanoid raid on a secret gathering leaves a woman crying over a lifeless man who’s head lays in her lap.

Act 1: Essence: Mike returns to Earth, gets married, and has children before being awakened from his dream by the ships AI onboard computer approaching the planet they are to explore. Meanwhile, Desae, the humanoid woman in the teaser, is farming alone and goes home to check on her 3-year-old son.
Turning point: As she returns to her farming work, she’s tired and frustrated looking up to Logard (God) she asks for help.

Act 2: Essence: The fuel transfer valve of Mike’s ship is struck by a meteor causing the loss of fuel forcing a crash landing and no possible return to Earth.
Turning Point: When Desae looks up praying to Logard, she see Mike’s ship descending overhead and she heads to the crash site on her farm tractor.

Midpoint: Turning Point: Desae carries Mike’s unconscious body to her tractor and brings him home.

Act 3: Essence: Amixmu, a stern Security Force leader arrives at the crash site leading his men to load the empty craft onto a transport vehicle.
Turning Point: He personally begins to follow the dusted over tracts toward Desae’s home.

Act 4: Essence: Desae dresses a puncture wound in Mike’s side, rinsing it with a sponge very similar to her humanoid head covering. Nome stands by overwhelmed in curiosity as she works carefully and diligently.
Turning Point: Desae tells her son, Nome, that she believes Logard (God) has sent this alien to her because he needs her, and that she needs him.

Act 5: LOCK IN is when Mike opens his eyes to see Desae’s large pale magenta face looking back.

[Art Fox]

Art Fox engaging main characters

o what I learned doing this assignment: This is an excellent recipe for breaking down the main characters and starting to figure out their goals, needs and vulnerabilities, which will lead to the conflicts that will drive the story. I also relearned it’s better to write something down that’s incomplete than to write nothing and wait for inspiration.

Module 1 – lesson 3: Engaging Main Characters

· Homework assignment 1:

o Watch an episode of Mr. Robot to see what makes Elliot intriguing and give answers to the engaging profile questions for him.

§ Role in the show: Elliot: Main character, 20 something computer engineer by day, vigilante computer hacker by night. Also Mr. Robot, an alternate personality.

§ Unique purpose/expertise: He has a split personality as both Eliot and as his dead father, who used to own a computer repair store called Mr. Robot. He can hack into any computer system without a trace, finds out the deepest secrets of anyone he wants to.

§ Intrigue: His Mr. Robot personality wants to destroy the biggest company in the world by destroying the value of money worldwide.

§ Moral issue: When he is the dead father/ Mr. Robot persona, he’ll harm anyone, destroy anyone’s life, reveal their secrets to the world if they get in his way. As Elliot, he Is horrified by his other personality’s actions.

§ Unpredictable: He can’t control which personality is in control and flips back and forth. As Elliott, he is a morphine addict, and he wants to connect with other people, especially the woman he secretly loves, but is unable to. As Mr. Robot, he is brash, outgoing, controlling and able to connect with anyone.

§ Empathetic: He is a victim of his own insanity, tortured by his own misfiring brain. He is a Jekyll/Hyde archetype we all connect with; our desire to be good and fit in, constantly warring with our desire to be completely selfish without regard to consequences.

o Name and Engaging profile of at least one character from Mr. Robot

§ Role in the show: Krista Gordon, Elliot’s psychiatrist

§ Unique purpose/expertise: She is trying to help Elliot give up his morphine habit and manage his anxieties, but at least in the beginning episodes, she doesn’t know about his Mr. Robot personality. Her expertise is in knowing how to get people to communicate their innermost secrets and desires, and to help them heal from trauma.

§ Intrigue: When will she find out about his Mr. Robot personality? On the outside she is very professional but seems to have a lot of secrets of her own, so when do we get to see them? Is she in league with the secret cabal Elliot is after?

§ Moral issue: She knows Elliot can break into anyone’s electronic life because he’s done it to her and told her about others. He’s extremely dangerous, so should she turn him in or retain client/doctor privilege?

§ Unpredictable: She’s fascinated by Elliot, sees him as a challenge, but also is terrified of him because of what he can do. He could wipe out her finances, destroy her record as a doctor, ruin her life, and she can’t get away from him, so she has to try everything she can to get him on her side, even illegal or unethical things.

§ Empathetic: She is victimized by Elliot’s power over her. She didn’t ask to be his shrink but now she’s stuck with him and struggling to do the best she can. She wants to do good by him, she is trying to remain professional and ethical – the good person we all aspire to be.

· Homework assignment 2

o Describe the journey of my show: The genie is trying to find his place in the world. Is he a genie, is he human, is he both, is he neither and something new? The psychiatrist is trying to help him on that journey but is in completely uncharted waters

o Who are the main characters that will sell the show: The genie and the psychiatrist

o Answer these questions for each of those characters

o Genie

§ Role in the show: Main character. The show is about his journey.

§ Unique purpose/expertise?: He’s a genie with substantial powers.

§ Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? He’s half human, born to a human woman.

§ Moral issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? His genie side loves his power and has a certain morality, but it doesn’t align with human morality. His human side is trying to use the power for good, but doesn’t always succeed and doesn’t always want to.

§ Unpredictable; what will they do next? The genie is young and is still discovering what he can and can’t do. He is also trying to connect with the genie world, but because he’s half human, he gets rejected by them, but he keeps trying.

§ Empathetic: why do we care? He trying to find his tribe and can’t find a way to fit in with either humans or genies.

o Psychiatrist

§ Role in the show: To help the genie find his place, overcome his anxieties, use his powers for good.

§ Unique purpose/expertise? He’s the only one the genie confides in and has the ability to help the genie do the right thing – sometimes.

§ Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? Does she want some of the genie’s powers for herself, or at least to manipulate him into giving her things and people she can’t get on her own? Influence, fame, love? Is she in love with the genie?

§ Moral issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? The genie offers to do things for her she knows she shouldn’t want or accept, yet she does sometimes, then feels terrible about it. She strives to maintain professionalism in the face of extreme temptation, but also has a selfish, controlling side he taps into. And if she loves him, that’s totally wrong professionally, compromises her objectivity.

§ Unpredictable; what will they do next? Will she accept gifts and power? Will she admit her love? Does she even love him or is it just his power?

§ Empathetic: why do we care? She is tempted by power but is trying to remain professional and not give in to her baser self. She, like the genie, has trouble finding a tribe. She is brilliant and doesn’t relate well to others.