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Lesson 3 Assignment
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Madeleine’s Subtext Characters
Vision: I am going to do whatever it takes for me to be a writer of amazing stories with meaning who can move the audience and change the world resulting in financial, critical and audience success.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: What I learned this is a great approach to get to know the characters better and add the subtext levels. Every tool adds more depths and creates more interest.
2. With your example movie, give us the following answers for the character with the most subtext:
· Movie Title: About a Boy
· Character Name: Will
· Subtext Identity: A self-declared single dad who looks for single moms to have sex.
· Subtext Trait: scheming, lying
· Subtext Logline: Will is a single / “fake” single dad who looks for noncommittal sex.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: …
3. For your two leads, brainstorm these answers:
· Character Name: Alex Friedman
· Subtext Identity: A growth economist who is afraid of his own decline and death.
· Subtext Trait: secretive, in denial
· Subtext Logline: Alex is an aging growth economic professor / discovering that his character changes are due to menopausal symptoms and wants to deny them.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: trying to hide his new physical symptoms, trying to become dean, dealing with his new condition, aggressively trying out a new lifestyle. etc.
· Character Name: Corrie Friedman
· Subtext Identity: A wife who is tired of pretending to be a happy wife and wants a new life.
· Subtext Trait: secretive, suspicious
· Subtext Logline: Corrie is Alex’s wife / close to a midlife crisis and trying to avoid it with a new job and an affair.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: organizing a party for Alex but actually signaling that she wants a new life, discovering Alex’s self-medication drugs and suspecting an affair, having an affair herself, etc.
· Character Name: Eva Friedman
· Subtext Identity: A daughter who is terrified that her parents will separate.
· Subtext Trait: secretive, conspiring
· Subtext Logline: Eva is the daughter / she engages in clandestine actions to keep her parents from separating and unintentionally changes the family’s garden into paradise.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: noticing that her father changed, overhearing that her parents have issues with each other, looking for Mirai to get her help in finding a new dean, sabotage her mother’s affair, spiting everywhere to build a garden of eden, building a floating bonsai green house to get the family back together, etc.
· Character Name: Luke
· Subtext Identity: A dean who wants to retire because he is terminally ill but still wants to be in charge of his succession.
· Subtext Trait: manipulative, insidiously
· Subtext Logline: Luke is the dean / secretly uses his charm and take care of his succession.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: secretly trying to influence his succession, trying to take care of Corrie, etc.
· Character Name: Mirai
· Subtext Identity: A student leader who sees herself on a mission for a better future.
· Subtext Trait: scheming, conspiring
· Subtext Logline: The subversive student leader / uses sketchy, underground methods to fight by any means for a better future.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: she knows how to trigger Alex’s weak points and exploits it, she uses unfriendly action to get to her right, etc.
· Character Name: Flavia
· Subtext Identity: treacherous, underhanded
· Subtext Trait: An over rational professor who becomes deputy dean and starts to love it.
· Subtext Logline: A rational economic professor / when she becomes deputy dean by coincidence she secretly starts to love her new role and think she in entitled to it by higher forces.
· Possible Areas of Subtext: playing uninterested, although interested in the new position, scheming against Alex, using Luke’s death to strengthen her position, etc.
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Vision: To master screenwriting and be able to turn my many ideas into salable scripts.
What I learned from doing this assignment: Thinking through the subtext ahead of time helps generate plot ideas.
With your example movie, give us the following answers for the character with the most subtext:
Movie Title: BRINGING UP BABY
Character Name: Susan Vance
Subtext Identity: The seducer
Subtext Trait: Scheming
Subtext Logline: Susan is in love with David and does everything she can to keep him from marrying Miss Swallow
Possible Areas of Subtext: Pretends to be attacked by the (tame) leopard so that he’ll help her. Convinces him to come with her to her Aunt’s home. Sends his suit to be cleaned while he’s in the shower so he can’t leave. Makes him completely undesirable to Miss Swallow, so that she drops him.
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Character Name: WENDY
Subtext Identity: Blackmailer, Competitor
Subtext Trait: Duplicitous
Subtext Logline: Wendy is a ruthless competitor who finds people’s weaknesses and uses the information to win negotiations
Possible Areas of Subtext: Wendy negotiates in low-stakes situations that she treats as though it’s life and death. She tries to negotiate Darwin into bed at a conference, but can’t come to terms. She tries to get information out of Darwin that will benefit her in the upcoming negotiation. On the Nirvana train, she double crosses Darwin when she thinks she’ll be able to return to reality without him. She negotiates with Myra to force her to take them back to reality.
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Character Name: DARWIN
Subtext Identity: Seducer, Competitor
Subtext Trait: Manipulative
Subtext Logline: Darwin is a ruthless competitor who targets people’s vanity and uses flattery and seduction to win negotiations
Possible Areas of Subtext: Negotiates with his mother, who wants to arrange a marriage for him with a nice Indian girl. Tries to seduce Wendy at a conference, but their negotiations cancel each other out. Flatters Myra in an attempt to get her to return him to reality. Attempts to get information out of Wendy that can be used in the upcoming negotiation.
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Character Name: MYRA
Subtext Identity: Suppresses her natural tendencies
Subtext Trait: Competitor (in her own way)
Subtext Logline: Myra is a well-meaning spiritual egotist who thinks she’s not competitive, but who actually is.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Forces her mind to go blank when she’s confronted with unpleasantness. Meditates at inopportune moments.
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VISION – To write touching, entertaining family stories that have a message to teach and entertain audiences at the same time.
What I learned doing this assignment is brainstorming the subtext of characters.
With your example movie, give us the following answers for the character with the most subtext:
Movie Title: A Bronx Tale
Character Name: Colagero
Subtext Identity: A young boy admires a mob boss in his neighborhood and sees him kill someone yet befriends him in the process
Subtext Trait: Naive yet streetwise
Subtext Logline: Colagero is a naive kid yet knows not to “rat” out his neighborhood mob boss who killed a man and forms a strong friendship with him
Possible Areas of Subtext: Colagero befriends his neighborhood mob boss despite his father’s warnings of him being a “bad man.” Colagero gets paid big money from the gangster and his crew for working at their bar. As the years go on, Colagero idolizes the mob boss to the point he’s not only his friend, but also a father figure
For your two leads, brainstorm these answers:
Protagonist
Character Name: Tina
Subtext Identity: Single church going mother with a pattern of bad romantic relationships, struggles to find the right man
Subtext Trait: Too giving, too open, desperate, doesn’t take her time to get to know a new love interest
Subtext Logline: Tina, a single church going mother, has a series of bad romantic relationships and falls for a great new guy who loves kids but doesn’t know he’s a child molester
Possible Areas of Subtext: Tina moves men into her home to early into the relationship, she wants to be loved so badly and she doesn’t care who she exposes her kids to
Antagonist
Character Name: Barry
Subtext Identity: A teacher’s aide at an elementary school who is attracted to little girls
Subtext Trait: Sly, sneaky, only dates women with young daughters, only works at places kids frequent
Subtext Logline: Barry is a charismatic yet perverted man who is on a mission to abuse children and he plays on the gullibility of needy women who have them
Possible Areas of Subtext: Barry dates needy women with young daughters so he can abuse them, he comes across as a fun/loving/sincere family man
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Danielle Dillard.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
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Brandyn Cross’ Subtext Characters
My vision for success in this program is to develop and hone my skills to the extent that my screenplays will be produced and widely viewed.
What I learned from this assignment is a means of developing much deeper layers into the principal characters.
Example Movie
Movie Title: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
Character Name: The Earl of Dorincourt
Subtext Identity: Grandfather to Cedric, a young boy he has never met.
Subtext Traits: Cold-hearted. Matter of fact, business-minded.
Subtext Logline: The aging and cold-hearted Earl of Dorincourt attempts to model his innocent young grandchild in an image of himself.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Has Cedric observe his authoritarian interactions with the townspeople and tenants to learn the responsibilities he will experience when he becomes the Earl.
Ghost Writer
Character Name: Alex
Subtext Identity: A struggling children’s book author who is disabled in an accident.
Subtext Trait: Despondent, negative, little empathy or concern for others.
Subtext Logline: Alex is a struggling children’s book author obsessed only with reviving his flailing career.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Single-minded in reviving his career, but is inconveniently interrupted by psychic abilities connecting him to ghosts following his accident. The ghosts seek his help, but he is not interested. At the same time, he senses there are aspects of his life that he has no memory of, and engaging with the ghosts helps unveil these secrets, so he can’t help but interact with them. Over time, he develops more and more empathy for these ghost children, while also tormented by the nature of his re-emerging memories.
Character Name: Sandy
Subtext Identity: A child ghost who connects Alex to other ghost children in need of help.
Subtext Trait: An engaging child intent on convincing Alex to help ghost children, and their families, obtain closure in the untimely deaths of their children.
Subtext Logline: Sandy is an engaging child ghost intent on convincing Alex to help other ghost children, and their families, obtain closure in the untimely deaths of their children.
Possible Areas of Subtext: He knows all the truths Alex is struggling to remember, but isn’t allowed to reveal them. He has to navigate Alex along his own journey to discover his own secrets. On the surface, the relationships he helps Alex forge with the ghost children and their families appear to be their own goal but, in reality, they are Sandy’s means of helping Alex complete his own eternal journey.
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Paul’s Subtext characters.
4. I want to write scripts that become movies that change people’s lives.
5. What I learned from this assignment is that it helped me discover more about my character and give her more depth and added intrigue.
2.
Title: THE INTERPRETER
Character name: Sylvia Broome
Subtext identity: An Interpreter at United Nations Headquarters who used to be an armed freedom fighter.
Subtext trait: Politically savvy. An affair with high-level politician
Subtext logline: She says she prefers words over guns, but now she’s holding a gun to the head of the man responsible for her brother’s death.
Possible areas of sub-text: In early scene, her African past revealed in her knowledge of the language. The fact that she has sub-text is shown by Secret Service Agent’s (Sean Penn) question, “Who is she?”
3.
Character name: Lilia
Subtext identity: A hard-working Mexican single mother who once had an affair with a DEA agent.
Subtext trait: Hard-nosed; ruthless; not averse to physical violence.
Subtext logline: Her daughter dies of drugs in the house of a US senator who is a hawk in the drug war, so she uses her connections in the cartel to get revenge.
Possible areas of sub-text:
Act 1: confronting armed soldiers though see appears to be a harmless woman.
Act 2: on hearing of her daughter’s death, she revives her contacts with the cartel.
Act 3: she uses what she learned from her past relationship with a DEA agent against the DEA.
Act 4: the revenge scenario shows she is more than the protective mother we saw in earlier scenes.
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Mhmd’s Subtext Characters
My Vision: I will keep creating constantly and effectively; in order to be the most demanded and influential glorified writer within the industry and with the audience.
What I learned from doing this assignment is..
– The more we go, the more dramatic opportunities continue to emerge.
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Movie Title: The Mountain Between Us
Character Name: Ben Bass
Subtext Identity: A brain surgeon who is traumatized by the death of his wife from brain cancer.
Subtext Trait: secretive, not taking risks, afraid of losing.
Subtext Logline: Ben is a brain surgeon who fears loss and doesn’t take non guaranteed risks.
Possible Areas of Subtext: caution in social relations, little initiative even in crucial matters, does not express his feelings and has negative behavior keeps him in the reaction zone, etc.
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For my leads:
Character Name: 84
Subtext Identity: A working conjoined twin with the gift of perfect will.
Subtext Trait: sneaky, shrewd.
Subtext Logline: 84 is a conjoined twin worker in a tightly controlled colony where no one should have any will, and he faces a scheme from some of his peers to subjugate his will.
Possible Areas of Subtext: keeping the gift he has secret, repelling any attempt to expose or blackmail him, preparing a counter-conspiracy along the way, keeping the last and decisive cards, procrastination, gradual or direct confrontation with those who want to subdue him, etc.
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Character Name: 3
Subtext Identity: Head of a secret, religious criminal cult within the colony.
Subtext Trait: immoral, cunning schemer, manipulative.
Subtext Logline: 3 is the head of a secret cult within the colony, with a grand and ambitious plan for world domination, but depends on 84.
Possible Areas of Subtext: every step is more or less within the scheme, no one should know its intentions, teachings can be invented daily to achieve the purposes of the scheme, every element of strength required must be incorporated, each soul subject to submission in the appropriate manner, etc.
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Character Name: Spider
Subtext Identity: A loyal secret agent
Subtext Trait: Sneaky, Undercover.
Subtext Logline: Spider is a secret agent who is transplanted into a colony where everything is deadly somehow.
Possible Areas of Subtext: making allies, engaging in shady business, facing the risk of exposure, having to kill or hide those whose identity he suspects, sacrificing some allies in order to complete the mission, going too far with helping the bad guys in order to get to the deepest point of the conspiracy.
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Raquel Solomon’s Subtext Characters
I want to go deeper into my writing to create screenplays where characters of depth are placed in compelling journeys with a fresh voice that Hollywood producers as well as independent film cos. know they must make!
What I learned from doing this assignment is subtext makes a character more believable, more compelling, and multi-dimensional rather than a flat less interesting character.
Film- The Art Dealer
Character Name: Esther
Subtext Identity: while politely investigating she breaks into apartments, forges signatures, and is relentless in gaining a confession of a collaborator from her own family.
Subtext Trait: Cunning, Skillful, Insistent, Forgery, break-ins.
Subtext Logline: Esther, the granddaughter of an Art Collector murdered by nazis will find out where his looted art is and who collaborated in the stealing of this work.
Possible areas of subtext: thorough investigation of family papers and photos, able to solve the puzzle.
Screenplay-Blue Eyes:
Character: Miri
Act I: Subtext Identity: Stand-offish with children she teaches but really cares and worries about them.
Wound: her younger brother died before the war when she was away at a music gig.
Act II: Subtext Identity- while playing music for nazi officers, being flirtatious with them, secretly smuggling weapons and plotting their death.
Act III: Frequent meetings with Polish resistance outside the ghetto- passes for non-Jew – keeps her identity hidden. Goes into a church to pray when she is followed by suspicious collaborators.
Act IV: When caught with weapons hidden in a potato sack by the Nazi Officer she is the mistress of she is frightened, crying – quickly pulls out a gun hidden in her clothing and kills him.
Subtext trait: resourceful, talented, caring, brave, can hide her identity outside the ghetto.
Logline: A young musician uses her skills to smuggle weapons for the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Subtext traits- even though forced to be a mistress she is capable of falling in love. Talented violinist plays at Nazi club-pretends to enjoy this while plotting to kill.
Character: Avi
Subtext Identity: from Hasidic community sheltered from secular world, able to quickly adjust to his situation. Speaks re: Jewish philosophy and mysticism often but secretly helps Miri in the resistance. Falls in love with Miri- sacrifices himself to save boy.
Subtext traits: soft-spoken but learns to shoot guns. Able to learn about the world and grow- willing to sacrifice himself to save another.
Subtext Identity-
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