Lesson 5

[penny WINGERT]

Penny Wingert. TO HAVE A GRAdient you have to have an idea , some plan to move it and a little encouragement along the way. There will always be setbacks but to succeed you must ease you ego and keep plodding

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[Cherryl Cooley]

There were definitely some pauses where I had to rewind or pause to take notes. I think what drives this film is not only these poignant moments where you can see character transformation, but also the dialogue! I was engaged because the language was natural, intense, full of passion and layered emotions. I was hanging on to see who was going to deliver the next punch with words. It’s also why I ultimately took so many notes. As a viewer, I was in the fight.

Notes from REMEMBER THE TITANS

PROFOUND MOMENTS:

• Opening and closing scene at the
• Coach Boone’s first encounter with Coach Yoast.
• The Battle of Gettysburg scene with the team running to a cemetery and Coach Boone reminds the team that they can take lessons from the lives of people in the graveyard, and that the Titans were stronger than the gods in Greek mythology.
• Every scene when singing was used to build a bond or tell the story.
• Louie Lastik at dinner showing he’s gotten to know Rev and Blue. He knows their facts … even before Coach Boone asked all the players to do this.
• The “dozens” scene where the players are talking trash about each other’s mothers.
• Coach Boone throwing up before the first game, after he was told he’d lose his job if he lost the game.
• Yoast moving Petey to defense.
• The Titans first seasonal win.
• Gerry refusing to get in the car with his girlfriend and “friends” after the Titans first win.
• Ronnie, Rev and Blue’s encounter in the eatery that turned them away because of race.
• Gerry believing he could go to Julius’ neighborhood to play basketball and bring Julius back to his house for dinner. Gerry’s mom: “I don’t want to get to know him.”
• Any moments Sheryl is running down plays to anybody and not playing with dolls.
• The harassers who threw something through Coach Boone’s window while his family and Sheryl are present and called him “Coach Coon.”
• The team’s “We Are the Titans” warm-up march.
• The lie Coach Boone tells Ronnie Bass when he needs him to stand in for Rev. after Rev. gets hurt.
• Ronnie Bass giving the game ball to Rev.
• Gerry’s decision to remove Ray from the team.
• Julius being stopped by an officer, and fearing harrassment, gets a compliment on how the team played the game.
• Coach Yoast warning the referee to call the game fair or he would go to the media. And forsaking his Hall of Fame recognition.
• Petey leaving the game, and later asking to come back and play … and the coach telling him he’d have to wait to play the following year. And then being put back in the game when he was needed.
• Coach Boone’s neighbors — the same ones who dreaded him moving into the neighborhood — cheering for him as he returns home to the winning game just before the championship game.
• Louie Lastik telling Coach Boone that he’s going to college. (He said in the beginning he was white trash and couldn’t go to college.
• Jean Bertier’s entrance into the stadium during the championship game, and Gerry’s face seeing her on the screen.
• Emma Hoyt shaking Julius’ hand and honoring her promise to Gerry to be in the stadium during the game.

PROFOUND LINES:

• “High school football is a way of life.”
• “I come to win.”
• “I’m not an answer to your prayers. I’m not a savior or Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, or the Easter bunny. I’m a football coach, that’s all. Just a football coach.”
• “This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fightin’ the same fight we’re still fighting amongst ourselves … today. This green field right here was painted red. Bubbling with the blood of young boys. Smoke … and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls men — ‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart.’ ‘Hatred destroyed my family.’ — You listen and you take a lesson from the dead.”
• “Maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”
• “What are you? Mo-BILE, A-GILE, Hos-TILE. What is pain? French bread! What is fatigue? Army clothes! Will you ever quit? No! We want some mo’! We want some mo’! We want some mo’!”
• “Why do you dress so weird?” (Sharyl) “Look who’s talking.” (Nicky)
• “You’re already winners ’cause you didn’t kill each other at camp.”
• “He didn’t know Petey.” (Blue) “Blue he don’t want to know.” (Petey)
• “Now I might be a mean cuss, but I’m the same cuss with everybody out there on that football field … you ain’t doing these kids a favor by patronizing them. You’re crippling them. You’re crippling them for life.”
• “The world tells us they don’t want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain’t a damn bit of nothing, man.”
• “I don’t scratch my head unless it itches, and I don’t dance unless I hear some music. I will not be intimidated.”
• “My sins? You think my sins had something to do with what happened last night? I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter, I really am, but maybe you got a small taste of what my girls go through.”
• “You’re the colonel. You’re going to command your troops tonight.”
• “I was afraid of you, Julius. I only saw what I was afraid of. And now I know I was only hating my brother.”
• “When this is all over … you and me are going to move out to the same neighborhood together … and we’ll get old, and we’ll get fat. And there ain’t gonna be all this black-white between us. Left side. Strong side.”
• “Coach, I’m hurt. I ain’t dead.”
• “You’ve taught this city how to trust the soul of a man rather than the look of him.”
• “People say it can’t work, black and white, but here, we make it work every day. We have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans.”

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I learned while doing this assignment: There’s so much to decide, explore, open, fit into this story. I will need to do a lot more mapping, but I think I have a decent emotional thread to drive the other work. Didn’t expect to go through some of the emotions myself as the writer here. It made it clear to me what makes sense in this sequence and what is out of sequence.

For the TV Series concept

:::::::DESIRED CHANGE:::::::

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: EXCITEMENT

Action Gradient: Veda is excited to finally be doing the work that she believes is her purpose. She’s a death doula and helps people make peace with transition. She hangs her sign outside her office.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She’s the peacemaker and she doesn’t always believe she has what it takes but has fun pretending.

W: She’s a matriarch in training & filled with uncertainty. She’s also still shocked by her parents and knows enough about them not to be. She doesn’t really quite see herself.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DOUBT

Action Gradient: When her father’s mistress and daughter decide to move into the house, she and her family share, Veda doubts that she has the skills to navigate her new reality. She’s as upset about is as her mother and sister are, but she’s the least outspoken.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She must navigate the sour attitudes that all the women in this house have with each other … and her own fading faith in the integrity of her father.

W: She likes the mistress because her father has shared his connection to the woman with her. But she’ll always be loyal to her mother in this scenario.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: HOPE

Action Gradient: Veda sees her first client as a death doula. She’s proud of the way she moves through this experience with her client. She’s hopeful that she can help a lot of people transition and settle affairs before they die.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She keeps getting “visitations” from her father and learning more and more about his life. These are moments she can’t share with her sister or mother … or anyone.

W: She doesn’t know how to distinguish her father’s truths from her own. Or apply them to her current situation.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DISCOURAGEMENT

Action Gradient: Veda must find ways to support her sister when she finds out that Violet’s last in vitro treatment hasn’t worked. She wrestles with the fairness of women who can’t have children.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: Although Veda and Violet love one another, she doesn’t like the way that Violet tries to make her feel guilty for having a biological child.

W: Veda is never able to stand in her truth with her sister because she thinks it will crush her.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: COURAGE

Veda finds the strength to tell all the women what she thinks about the way they act.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: She knows her sister will consider this a betrayal.

W: She’s willing to compromise her own happiness and peace in order to preserve the bond she has with her sister. She doesn’t want to lose her.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: TRIUMPH

Action Gradient: Veda’s work with her clients has made her a lot more vocal and honest about how she feels with the women around her. She accepts her sister Violet’s big-impact decision. Her visitation with her father has helped her accept the eventual loss of her mother.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: Her relationships will shift as she explores and uses her “new voice.”

W: She will always be tempted to yield to her mother for cultural, habitual, and family hierarchy reasons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the movie concept

:::::::FORCED CHANGE:::::::

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DENIAL

Jupe and Freya accept an engagement gift from their friends: A couple’s escape room package. When they’re locked in, they realize it’s not a normal room. In order to escape, they must confront their deepest traumas, lies, fears, previous relationship lessons, and family dysfunctions. They keep looking for the usual “clues” that are not present.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They cannot get out of the room unless they face all of their issues.

W: Each is afraid to do that level of confrontation at this point in their relationship without feeling vulnerable and compromised.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: ANGER

Both express anger at their friends for giving them this gift without warning them of the special

circumstances.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: Freya is accustomed to being in control and this is the first time she’s not. Jupe has pushed some of his baggage so far down that he doesn’t even realize what’s there to unpack.

W: Freya explodes, amps out, and ultimately melts down before investing in the activities. Jupe has many tricks that prevent him from coming face-to-face with himself.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: BARGAINING

Action Gradient: Both believe there are hidden cameras and begin bargaining with whomever is watching. Both bargain with God. Both find ways to bargain with each other.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: In this experience, they get no tangible response from God, a “watcher,” or each other.

W: Total reliance on each other brings some of their real relationship issues to the surface.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DEPRESSION

Because they are both forced to deal with some of the things they have buried, there is a tension building between them. It makes them silent, hesitant, distrustful, and at times accusatory. They start to wonder if they will “die on this hill.”

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They keep looking for solutions outside of each other and themselves.

W: Each is prone to their usual coping mechanisms, which make them emotionally unavailable.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: ACCEPTANCE

Action Gradient: The breakthrough moment for each of them is when they come clean about their truths, especially those they have been hiding from each other. They learn to accept flaws and shortcomings in each other and own both the possibilities and the limitations of their way forward. Ultimately, they decide IF there is a way forward.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They must come to an agreement in the escape room and then determine how much of it they are willing to share with family and friends.

W: They could always fall right back into old ways and habits, based on what they decide to disclose to other people in their lives.

[Madeleine Vessel]

Madeleine Vessel’s Answers to the Questions for REMEMBER THE TITANS

For me the most profound moments of the movie were the following:

1.

BOONE

(black coach)

Who’s your daddy?

BERTIER

(white player)

You.

2.

The team meets without the coaches before the Groveton game.

Lastik and Rev take turns quoting the prophet Isaiah to the team.

The meeting ends with the team chanting: We are the Titans, the mighty, mighty Titans!

3.

Captain Bob’s Crab House is a white only restaurant until the Titans, led by Sunshine, enter. Captain Bob wants to kick them out, but Sunshine successfully threatens him with civil rights violations. The Titans sit down. Some of the racist patrons get up and walk out, but a whole lot more patrons stay, singing, “Na na na, hey hey, goodbye.”

It’ s a winning moment.

4.

Yoast and Boone on the sidelines of the final game right after the triumph of the Titans –

YOAST

I could’ve handled the football.

(pause; then)

But I never could have done what you did with those boys. You were the right man for the job, Coach.

BOONE

We’ll prep that defense better next time. We won’t get caught with our pants down and around our ankes again.

YOAST

No we won’t – ‘specially not once we get that offense running up to par.

There’s mutual respect going on there.

For me, these are the most profound lines of the movie:

1.

BOONE

You know where we are – where we been playing our little games? This is Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died on this ground fighting the same idiotic fight that we’re still fighting amongst ourselves. This green field was painted red, bubbling with young boys blood; smoke, hot lead burning through’em. Listen to their souls cry out: “I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.” Take a lesson from the dead.

(then)

We must come together on this hallowed ground or we too will be destroyed, just like they were.

2.

YOAST

You want to carry your sinful Pride with you to your grave, that’s your business – but when your sins endanger my little girl, then it becomes mine.

BOONE

My sins!? You think my sins have anything to do with what happened last night!? My only sin is that I’m winning football games in Virginia, wearing the wrong shade of tan!

(cold anger)

I’m sorry your daughter was scared last night… I really am. But she just got a small taste of what my girls’ve been going through every day of their lives.

(pause)

Feels like hell, don’t it – the fear, the anxiety, the constant stomach achin’ pain of it.

(hard smile)

Welcome to my life, Yoast.

3.

RADIO ANNOUNCER (V.O.)

“… the most spectacular display of football I have ever seen. Tonight, the Titans could beat Notre Dame.”

4.

After the Titans qualify for State, on the Boone House porch –

CAROL

What’s the matter, Herman? Can’t you let go? Be happy for one minute of your life?

BOONE

I still feel that cold chill between my shoulders… like I’m being sighted by a sniper’s rifle.

NEIGHBORS

COACH! CONGRATULATIONS! GO TITANS!

[Madeleine Vessel]

Madeleine Vessel’s Three Gradients

What I learned doing this assignment: This process was a real eye-opener. For the first time, I understand what a character’s profound transformation really entails.

I’m so EXCITED!!

1. Emotional Gradient: Forced Change

2. Emotional Gradients:

Denial: At first, Anna-Maude doesn’t believe Jack’s dead. She says, “No, no, no!

Action: Frantically, searching for a pulse and finding none, she calls 911.

Challenge/Weakness: C. She’s experiencing a tragedy, reminiscent of the tragedy of losing her friend, Sally Oxley, who went missing when she was a teenager, and a few days later, witnessing Mrs. Oxley’s drowning. W. Plagued by guilt all these years, suddenly, she feels Jack’s death is somehow all her fault.

Anger: She complains to her best friend, Stella, that she is about to lose her adjunct professorship and now, she’s lost her Uncle Jack, who is such a good guy. She feels like she’s losing everything good in her life.

Action: She throws a pitchfork into the barn wall.

Challenge/Weakness: C. Why would anybody want to kill Jack? He was such a good guy. Sheriff Sergeant Mike Williams suspects Anna-Maude’s neighbor, Pete Candelaria of the murder. She rebukes Mike: “Pete might shoot Roy, Jack’s dog, but he’d never kill Jack. W. Prejudice. She has preconceived opinions about the people who live around her.

Bargaining: Desperate to bring the culprit to justice, she searches for clues.

Action: She discovers that Jack’s Chinese artifacts are missing and deduces they are the reason he was killed, but she can’t find evidence of where Jack purchased them or where they are now. She finds the bullet that killed Jack, but it doesn’t match any known gun.

Challenge/Weakness: C. She discovers that Jack found the Chinese artifacts on Oxley Farm and took them to sell as if they belonged to him. He was a thief, maybe even the one who killed the young man with the face of which she just reconstructed. W. Naivete, foolishness. She’s a fool for believing in Jack’s altruism when he was probably helping her with the farm not out of selflessness, but rather out of willingness to exploit her generosity and kindness for his own gain.

Depression: Mortified, embarrassed, ashamed. This dredges up similar feelings she’s had about herself as a teenager.

Action: she sets out to tell Tony, the owner of the farm where the Chinese artifacts were found, that Jack stole what rightfully belonged to him.

Challenge/Weakness: C. She is challenged to confess Jack’s theft. W. Needs to get rid of her pride.

Acceptance: She decides to believe Tony that what happened in the past was not her fault. She wasn’t responsible for Sally’s disappearance. She wasn’t responsible for Tony’s mother’s drowning. She’s not responsible for Jack’s stealing the artifacts.

Action: She goes to see Tony to tell him everything.

Challenge/Weakness: C. To confess Jack’s theft. W. She still needs to find out who killed Jack and why?