Lesson 4

[Will Jennings]

Will Jennings: Character Intrigue

My Vision: I will write movies that are extremely funny and entertaining that bring a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment to a world starving for true enjoyment.

What I learned from doing this assignment is how to bring out their hidden personality traits to develop the characters’ depth.

Character Name: Gwendolyn

Role: Dual Protagonist

Hidden agendas: Sent on a mission to help earthlings from her Queen mother in Fairyland.

Secret Identity: An otherworldly entity that is from a world that is far more advanced than Earth.

Character Name: Abigail

Role: Dual Protagonist

Hidden agendas: Sent on a mission to help earthlings from her Queen mother in Fairyland.

Secret Identity: An otherworldly entity that is from a world that is far more advanced than Earth.

Character Name: Brandi

Role: Antagonist

Conspiracies: She is from a family that has roots in organized crime and everyone fears them.

Unspoken Wound: Having been raised by two pathetic people, she is demonstrating narcissistic tendencies that will inflict deep emotional pain on all around her for the rest of their lives.

[Anna Burroughs-Merrill]

Anna’s Character Intrigue

My personal vision: to get my writing mojo back.

What I learned from doing this assignment: this helped me flesh out the characters a bit more, but I still need to do a lot more work. I’m a hopeless “pantser”, so at some point I’m going to have to put them in the sandbox and play with them to finish fleshing them out (yeah, I know, inefficient, but it is what it is).

Title: La Sirène (The Mermaid)

Character Name: Capt’n Jack (not his real name)

• Role: villain. He’s a Captain Nemo type character.
• Hidden agendas: to rid the oceans of his enemies.
• Competition: law enforcement, the Navy, and Lorelei
• Conspiracies: he intends to escalate to much larger targets. Woods Hole is just a test run to train his team of dolphins.
• Secrets: he bears a deep grudge against the U.S. military.
• Deception: he moves inconspicuously among the temporary fishermen’s mates, sizing up the targets he intends to hit next.
• Unspoken Wound: he blames the entire U.S. military for the death of someone he once loved.
• Secret Identity: he’s former Navy.

[Tony Scott]

Tony J Scott Character Intrigue

My true vision as a writer is to fall in love with writing and stay motivated to write from the love of writing and not as a chore and then hoping others will love my creations and become well known as a top writer in the screenplay community.

I learned that creating character intrigue gives the characters the edge they need in the story and that it helps the writer get to know more about the characters before writing the story begins.

· Character Name: Najah Blackman

Role: Granddaughter, Vampire, Time Traveler <div>

Hidden agendas: Kill her elder while he is in a century long
sleep. It Fails. She time travels to kill her elder in the past where he
lives as a slave.

Secrets: From her grandfather’s ancient journal, Najah finds
out who the true interim leader of the family should be, Winston Blackman.

Unspoken Wound: At 12 years old she finds out what her corrupt
vampire father is truly up to. She uncovers the true fate of all humans when
she discovers her missing mother’s body hanging in the human/food
processing center and this long time suppressed memory traumatizes her for
the rest of her life only to have it triggered during the ceremony.

Character Intrigue Subtext example:

For reasons she has never been unaware of, Najah Blackman has always been stubborn, outspoken and ashamed of her family heritage and everything her father stands for, until a traumatic event memory was triggered during her 21^st birthday Vampire coming out party. Najah refuses to take her family oath and perform her first human kill, refusing to become a vampire.

· Character Name: Horace Blackman

Role: Najah’s father, interim Lord of the Vampires</div><div>

Hidden agendas: Wants to become the official Lord of the
Vampire clans.

Conspiracies: He tries to have his father killed twice while he
is asleep.

Secrets: He has stolen the birthright from his older brother.
Building a human food processing facility.

Deception: He deceives his daughter into attempting to kill his
Father, the True Lord of the Vampires while he is asleep.

Unspoken Wound: Horace
has hated humans since witnessing his father being captured by slavers and
stolen away to America from Ghana in the early 1600s and despised his
older brother for wanting to keep peace with humans.

Character Intrigue Subtext example:

Horace hates all humans and never wants his father or brother to assume the Lord position over the Vampire clans. He twice schemes to have his Father killed during his century long sleep. He wants all humans kept in their place as a food source even if it means the Vatican/Vampire wars never end.

· Character Name: Winston Blackman

Role: Najah’s Vampire Uncle confidant to Najah, History Professor </div><div>

Secrets: Winston is the only one who knows why his father gave
himself over to slavery. He also is the only person who knows about Najah’s
time traveling. Had an affair with Najah’s mother while she was married to
Horace. Najah is actually his daughter.

Unspoken Wound: He feels guilty for never telling his brother
the truth about his father’s capture by the slavers. He wants desperately to tell Najah that he is her real father.

Character Intrigue Subtext example:

Winston gives Najah an ancient family heirloom that causes her to time travel. He explains the history behind the elders slave capture. He discovers Najah’s attempt to kill her grandfather while he sleeps and then helps her time travel in hopes of changing her mind about the family heritage or do whatever she must to break the family curse.

</div>

[Claudia OBrien]

Subject Line: Claudia’s Character Intrigue.

My vision: To become the best screenwriter I can be, and to find success in the industry.

What I learned from doing this assignment is: brainstorming intrigue is fun. Plus it adds depth to the characters and results in concepts that will help fill out the script in interesting ways.

For each of your main characters, use this list to brainstorm one or more Intrigue items that might apply. You don’t need all of them; just one or two.

· Character Name: Grace O’Malley

· Role: Protagonist

· Hidden agendas: She wants to find her disowned brother.

· Competition:

· Conspiracies:

· Secrets: Her brother was a deserter and her family expects her to restore their family honor by being completely above reproach.

· Deception: She lies about her brother – first pretending he doesn’t exist, then claiming he was killed in action.

· Unspoken Wound: Her ambitions and brains were discounted by her parents, who favored their sons.

· Secret Identity:

· Character Name: Ann Wahl

· Role: Antagonist

· Hidden agendas: To make Grace fall in love with her.

· Competition: Competing with Booker for Grace’s affection

· Conspiracies:

· Secrets: Closet lesbian

· Deception:

· Unspoken Wound: Family disowned her when they discovered her sexual orientation.

· Secret Identity:

Give us an idea of how that character’s subtext might show up in your movie.

Ann seeks to undermine Booker in Grace’s eyes. Ann feigns interest in a male soldier.

Grace secretly tries to find where her brother is hiding. She secretly watches the doctors and then tries to mimic what they do.

[Maureen Tilyou]

MY
VISION: By nurturing fun and curiosity in the writing process,
I will do my very best to create a successful writing career full of
love, full of awe, full of productivity, and full of joy!

What
I learned from this lesson is that what I would previously think about, and contemplate, and ponder for weeks and months, now comes forth almost miraculously quickly when the right prompts and questions are posed.

Character Name: Daniel

Role: Protagonist/Hero

Hidden agendas: Daniel is investigating the Hidden
Agenda of conspiracy group Reboot. Daniel has his own
Hidden Agenda which he carries out in the end.

Competition: Daniel is competitive. He competes
online in Act 1. Daniel competes with Reboot to
out-think and out maneuver them.

Conspiracies: In Act 1, Daniel amuses himself by baiting
conspirators in online chats, until he stumbles upon the dangerous
conspiracy that is Reboot.

Secrets: Daniel has Secrets that he doesn’t address, but that haunt him and color his choices and behavior. He is keeping the secret of Reboot- because who can he trust to tell?

Deception: Daniel is on the run and deceives people in
order to stay alive. He deceives himself that he can hide from
the world.

Unspoken Wound: His toxic relationship with his Mother. / His
betrayal of Gideon/ Possibly his fear of Johanna because of a past
event.

Secret Identity: Pondering this. Does he have an internal Secret Hero
Identity in the beginning? Or does he just grow into a hero in
the end? Or both?

Daniel’s subtext shows up as he hides from Reboot, and lies to people
in order to stay alive. The fear he tries to hide is
palpable. Subtext also comes out because he is paranoid so he
watches everything with suspicion and trepidation. He’s obsessive
so it drives him crazy when he can’t make little
‘adjustments’ to his environment because it might get him might get
pinned. Trying to control that creates other behavior. Subtext shows up when he hides his real plans from
Gideon, Johanna and others. Also with Gideon, and beforehand- his guilt over his betrayal of Gideon lives deep in him.

Character Name: Gideon

Role: Mentor-Support Character / Red Herring

Hidden agendas: Do not let Reboot succeed.

Competition: With another Reboot big shot for Johanna

Conspiracies: He is part of Reboot. He is also
conspiring with another group to spy on Reboot and weaken them.

Secrets: He knows about Reboot. He knows his wife
is one of the leaders. He has kept himself involved with them,
but is working against them in secret.

Deception: Johanna believes that despite his
reservations, that Gideon will side with Reboot in the end- and he lets
her believe that.

Unspoken Wound: Daniel’s betrayal./ His realization that his
wife- whom he loves – is going to betray the world. /The loss of his son in the past.

Secret Identity: Three layers of Secret Identity 1) He is a
revered member of Reboot and is set to give their keynote speech
before the ‘Vote’, 2) He has been working against Reboot for years,
spying on them and trying to weaken them. 3) Protector of his wife:
Gideon secretly believes that if he exposes Reboot before they
create massive harm, he can save Johanna from paying a price.

Gideon’s subtext shows up in all his relations with other people,
including Daniel. He is almost always pretending to someone he isn’t. He pretends to have the opposite / different intentions from what he actually does
have. Subtext also shows up with Daniel when he first tries to see
Gideon, because he is wounded by Daniel’s betrayal.

Character Name: Johanna
Role: Antagonist/
False Friend

Hidden agendas: Help Reboot take over the Sovereignty of the
World’s nations and consolidate power.

Competition: With her husband (secretly)/ With Daniel

Conspiracies: She is part of Reboot.

Secrets: She doesn’t trust Gideon. She knows he
has been working against Reboot, and, even though she loves him, she
is committed to sacrificing him if she has to.

Deception: Johanna pretends she is not aware of
Gideon’s working against Reboot- which she considers a betrayal.
Although Johanna wants Gideon to side with Reboot in the end,
she doesn’t trust that he will, and is prepared to sacrifice him if
she must

Unspoken Wound: Her husband’s Nobel Prize./ Her own working
class background/ Loss of her father’s love/ Her husband’s betrayal
of Reboot./ Jealousy about Gideon’s affection for Daniel

Secret Identity: A Top Honcho for Reboot.

Johanna’s subtext shows up all the time because she is involved in
a major conspiracy that she has to hide from most people- even some
of the other people who work for Reboot. Since Reboot works in
‘blocks’ not all of it’s members know the other ‘blocks’. At
Joanna’s level, she knows everyone’s Reboot identity, so she is
almost constantly performing at some level. Subtext shows up for
Johanna with Gideon, because she knows of his ‘betrayal’ of Reboot, but
pretends not to and hopes he will come around. She is ashamed of her
background and upbringing, so she takes on a different persona, and
pretends her upbringing doesn’t exist. She pretends to be a friend
to Daniel, when we know she harbors resentment and jealousy towards
him.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  Maureen Tilyou.

[Ron Johnson]

My Vision: I want a space that is dedicated to writing, so I can have an entire wall for notecard storyboarding. I want my projects to advance in competitions and then be requested by the studios. I want to see those projects in festivals, in theaters, on streaming platforms. I want writing and producing to be my full time job.

What I learned doing this assignment is I had some ideas for subtext earlier and now I have actual events from the characters past that explains behaviors and decisions made in the script. This will make writing those scene flow with confidence.

Eddie Tanner:

Hidden Agendas: Keeps finances secret. This stems from a home invasion robbery his family experienced as a kid, his father ended up dying from this event.

Unspoken wound: His fathers death as a kid.

Family tragedy/trauma effects his decisions as an adult. He keeps his finances hidden so no one knows what he has and thus, won’t try to take it. He had the money to pay for the spilt cocaine that started his journey into the drug world, but even then doesn’t let on he has money.

Det. Taylor:

Feels disrespected on the job and in life. Hidden agenda’s and secrets are his thing. He uses his job to get what he is owed by the world around him. Lack of respect on the job pushes him further. Det Taylor thus uses manipulation on the job and blackmail to drive his agenda.

[Mahee Sanapareddy]

Mahee’s Character Intrigue

My Vision – I want to be a great writer who is well-respected and recognized in the industry, with successful books published and blockbuster movies produced. I want to create a successful movie franchise that audiences all over the world will love, rave about, look forward to, and continue to enjoy many years from now.

What I learned from doing this assignment is discovering the intrigue of my lead characters.

Character Name: Trevon

Role: He rebels against Reverend DuVernay as he embarks on an interdimensional journey searching for his father’s assassin.

Hidden Agenda: What if the whole interdimensional journey was a covert plan intentionally put in place to bring down an evil, immoral, and hegemonic leader?

Secret: What if Trevon possessed Reverend DuVernay’s dirty laundry but keeps it from being aired in public until the time was ripe?

Trevon’s subtext shows up in his constant fight with Reverend DuVernay, a man he used to idolize before his father was murdered.

Character Name: Reverend DuVernay

Role: He’s a corrupt, immoral, and crooked politician whose main focus is his political career.

Conspiracy: What if Reverend DuVernay was conspiring to sell out his own followers in order to move up the political ladder?

Deception: What if Reverend DuVernay was deceiving his innocent followers by hiding his disturbed personality from public?

Hidden Agenda: What if Reverend DuVernay was using his loyal followers as pawns to propel him into political fame?

Reverend DuVernay’s subtext shows up in his speeches, rallying cries, and flamboyant media interviews.

[Natasha Paris]

ASSIGNMENT

I am a uniquely amazing, inspiring, prolific, and successful writer/director whose name alone sales. I have a huge following because I help change the world for the better.

Title: Missing in Costa Rica

Genre: Drama

Logline: Based on a true story, a newlywed immigrant, suicidal struggling writer, Victoria, desperately retraces her sister’s steps in Costa Rica, while navigating the challenges of keeping her family together, confronting her own demons, and discovering her own strength.

Protagonist Character: Victoria

• Logline: Victoria, a suicidal and struggling writer, grapples with her inner demons as she searches for her missing sister in Costa Rica, ultimately discovering the power of hope and resilience.

• Unique: Victoria’s battle with her own mental health adds a layer of complexity to her character as she navigates the challenges of her new life, her family’s tragedy, and her own personal struggle.

Hidden agendas: Protecting Her Mental Health, Finding Closure, and Protecting Her Family’s Reputation.

Secrets: Regrets About Her Sister and Financial Burden.

Unspoken Wound: Beneath Victoria’s surface, there exists an unspoken wound, a deeply personal trauma from her past that she’s kept hidden. As she confronts her own emotional struggles while searching for her sister, Victoria’s unspoken wound becomes a central theme of her personal growth.

Secret Identity: Victoria’s relentless pursuit of her sister’s whereabouts eventually leads her to the revelation of her sister’s secret identity.

[Tully Archer]

Kavish and Lacy are the couple in my horror/comedy where their relationship is repaired because they moved into a haunted house.

HIDDEN AGENDAS

Kavish: Plotting to get married, via “proving his worth” in these ways that are not what she actually needs.

Lacy: Plotting to break up, or see if they should break up, or get him to be real with her for one second.

COMPETITION

Kavish: Winds up competing with the ghost for Lacy’s interest and attention.

Lacy: With her family, for silly oneupsmanship and pettiness.

CONSPIRACY

Not sure, for either of them.

SECRET

Kavish: Everything he really wants, how scared he is.

Lacy: Everything she really wants, how sad she is.

DECEPTION

Kavish: Lies by omission on a lot of stuff (has to protect his heart, you know)

Lacy: Lies by whatever the reverse of exaggeration would be called, about how bad things are for her.

UNSPOKEN WOUND

Kavish: My daddy was mean to me and I could never make him happy.

Lacy: My family broke me down and now I have no strength.

SECRET IDENTITY

Kavish: The glue? Maybe?

Lacy: The comic relief? I think?