-
Lesson 6 Assignments
Reply to post your assignments.
-
7 Replies
-
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 doing the below:
Protagonist, Tina: A single mother desperate to find love and a father figure to her two kids dates the wrong men. She sings in her church choir and moves everyone with her captivating songs, but her lifestyle goes against the lyrics of the songs. She has a painful past to overcome and become a stronger person in the process.
Antagonist, Barry: He’s a sociopath on a mission to date women with kids so he can prey upon their daughters. He’s a charming man who loves kids and can relate to them.
Tina:
Role in the story – protagonist
Age range / description – early 30s, sexy and attractive, talented
Core Traits – brash, desperate, open heart, giving
Want – Love from others
Need – Love from within
Wound – abused by a man as a child
Likability – she’s a witty person with a great sense of humor
Relatability – She’s a single mother taking care of two kids
Empathy – She was neglected as a child
Barry:
Role in the story – antagonist
Age range / description – early 30s, kind and fun, athletic build
Core Traits – secretive, manipulative, cunning
Want – To be adored by girls
Need – To get help for his fetish for little girls
Wound – Abused by a woman in his youth
Likability – Has a respectable position, he’s caring and fun loving
Relatability – He grew up as an only child
Empathy – His mother neglected him as a child, and he spent a lot of time alone with a female adult predator that was his babysitter
-
Paul’s Character Profile: Part 1.
4. Vision of success from this program: I want to write scripts that become movies that change people’s lives.
5. What I learned from this assignment is that, as I thought about my characters, I discovered new twists in my story. Also, the Triangle character came out of thinking about this assignment.
2. Protagonist.
A. The High Concept: A Mexican woman launches a war, against the drugs war, and threatens job security in the DEA.
B. This character’s journey: From a hard-working, single mum whose only concern is to escape poverty to a high-profile campaigner to end the most expensive war now being fought – the drugs war.
C. The Actor Attractors for this character:
1. Cause an actor to be known for the role? She’s a woman from a humble background who becomes a threat to big government and to the drug war.
2. One of most interesting characters? She’s on a personal mission and will brook no opposition.
3. Most interesting actions: Kidnapping a US senator.
4. Introduction? She goes toe-to-toe with Mexican soldiers and DEA agents during the destruction of a fentanyl lab.
5. Emotional range: From loving and vulnerable to cold-blooded and vengeful.
6. Sub-text: She doesn’t want to be a fighter, she just wants someone to love.
7. Most interesting relationship: With her ex-lover, the DEA agent who is now the US senator she has kidnapped.
Antagonist.
A. The High Concept: A Mexican woman launches a war, against the drugs war, and threatens job security in the DEA.
B. This character’s journey: Goes from being a cynical politician, using the drug war to advance his career to someone who realizes the death and misery that war has caused and does a 180 degree change.
C. The Actor Attractors for this character:
1. Cause an actor to be known for the role?
2. One of most interesting characters? He’s a mixture of things. A Mexican almost totally converted into a gringo; from poor background but now in the political elite; a man facing challenges to policies he’d always taken for granted.
3. Most interesting actions: Speaking on TV to defend his drug-taking son; making a public statement against the drug war that he had always championed.
4. Introduction? On live TV defending his son after the death, in his house, of the young Mexican girl from drugs.
5. Emotional range: From cold and cynical to warm and empathetic.
6. Sub-text: He has an inferiority complex due to his poor, Latino past.
7. Most interesting relationship: With Lilia, the Protagonist, his ex-girlfriend and now his kidnapper.
Triangle character.
A. The High Concept: A Mexican woman launches a war, against the drugs war, and threatens job security in the DEA.
B. This character’s journey: From tranquil retirement to high-speed re-engagement with the violent world of the drugs cartel, his former employer.
C. The Actor Attractors for this character:
1. Cause an actor to be known for the role? She’s a woman from a humble background who becomes a threat to big government and to the drug war.
2. One of most interesting characters? On the surface he is an old man, but we discover he has lost little of his physical force and none of his smarts.
3. Most interesting actions: Engineering the kidnapping of the US senator.
4. Introduction:
5. Emotional range: Placid, content retiree to fired-up and violent operator.
6. Sub-text: He used to be part of the cartel.
7. Most interesting relationship: With his daughter, the Protagonist, but also with former friends in the drug cartel.
3. A. Lilia.
1. Role in the story: Protagonist.
2. Age range and description: Early 40s. Good looking.
3. Core traits: Anxious; determined; a fighter.
4. Motivation: Want/Need: Avenge the death of her daughter.
5. Wound: Rejection by her lover, the DEA agent.
6. Likability: She devotes herself to her daughter; she’s a hard-worker and doesn’t give up; she is fighting against the odds, with determination and grit.
Relatability: She is a type of Joan of Arc, fighting powerful forces and we know many people like her who have been hurt by people in power and try to fight back.
Empathy: We feel for her struggling to escape poverty; we feel for her loss at the death of her only child; we want her to get revenge for the killing of her daughter; we see her fighting against evil powers, and we support her struggle.
3. B. Luis Sandoval.
1. Role in the story: Antagonist. US Senator.
2. Age range and description: Mid-50s.
3. Core traits: Arrogant; the end justifies the means
4. Motivation: Want/Need: Move up in the world of US politics.
5. Wound: Inferiority complex; legacy of his poor origins in Mexico.
6. Likability: We gradually discover he was forced to leave Lilia, but still has feelings for her; he is ready to change his opinions about the drug war as he encounters the reality of it; at the end, he is ready to sacrifice power and money for the truth.
Relatability: We all know people who had to make hard choices in life; he lied to protect his son.
Empathy: We feel for him as he goes through the painful discovery of the harm the drug war is causing.
3.C. Tino Hernandez.
1. Role in the story: Protagonist’s father.
2. Age range and description: Late 60s. Aged but still strong.
3. Core traits: Devoted to Lilia, his daughter.
4. Motivation: Want/Need: Defend his family from all enemies, however powerful.
5. Wound: Lost several friends in the drug war.
6. Likability: He is a loving father.
Relatability: He wants to protect the people he loves.
Empathy: He emerges from retirement to provide decisive support to his daughter’s struggle for justice.
END
-
KZ’s Character Profiles, Part 1
Vision: To write quotable, memorable screenplays (like the ones I’m so fond of) and see them made into successful movies.
What I learned doing this assignment: the steps to building a three-dimensional character.
WENDY
A. The high concept:
Rival cutthroat negotiators get stuck in NirvanaB. Wendy’s Journey
From cutthroat negotiator to one who looks for the Win-Win solution
C. Actor Attractors
• Wendy has a compelling arc. Her range-of-change allows her to learn how to be a strong person without being brutal.
• She’s not aware of her failings – to the extent that she treats every interaction as though it were a high-stakes negotiation and drives people away.
1. Role in story: Protagonist
2. Age range and description: Early 30s, attractive with sharp edges: blunt haircut, conservative dress suits.
3. Core traits: Imperious, manipulative, lonely, humorous
4. Motivation: To win. Want/Need: To love and be loved.
5. Wound: Her college boyfriend slept with her roommate, and she vowed never to trust anyone again.
6: Likability: Wendy negotiates on behalf of a kid who’s being mistreated
Relatability: She’s succeeding in a world of men, but she still gets dissed (a competitor asks her to get the coffee, which he knows will get under her skin)
Empathy: Wendy is alone and tends to scare off men because of her superior intellect and ability to win every argument. We see her express loneliness, and then her therapist says something judgmental and she pins him down in an argument, proving exactly why she has trouble with men.
DARWIN
A. The high concept:
Rival cutthroat negotiators get stuck in NirvanaB. Darwin’s Journey
From cutthroat negotiator to one who looks for the Win-Win solution
C. Actor Attractors
• Darwin has a compelling subtext. He seems to be nice, but he uses flattery to gain an advantage in negotiation.
• His mother gets the better of him
1. Role in story: Antagonist
2. Age range and description: Early 30s, he looks like an Indian prince
3. Core traits: Smooth, manipulative, lonely, insecure
4. Motivation: To win. Want/Need: To love and be loved.
5. Wound: His older brother was always the perfect one in his mother’s eyes
6: Likability: Darwin is a good looking guy, who’s constantly being hit on by others, but he’s not vain, he just uses his looks like an asset
Relatability: Darwin has trouble with his mother, who wants to control his life
Empathy: He compliments Wendy and she steps on him (we realize later that he uses flattery to get what he wants)
MYRA
A. The high concept:
Rival cutthroat negotiators get stuck in NirvanaB. Myra’s Journey
From superficially serene yogi to true serenity
C. Actor Attractors
• Myra’s subtext is that she thinks herself enlightened, but can’t see her blind spots
• Everything that Myra does is positively motivated
1. Role in story: Triangle character
2. Age range and description: 40s, frumpy, serene, big bosom, wears muumuus.
3. Core traits: Nurturing, kind, impatient, smiles constantly
4. Motivation: To gain enlightenment. Want/Need: To share her insights/ to be respected
5. Wound: She had an anger problem and turned to meditation to gain control
6: Likability: Myra genuinely cares about others
Relatability: She tries to find serenity in a world that is definitely not serene
Empathy: Myra lives alone with her cat and her good intentions are often rejected.
-
Madeleine’s Character Profiles Part 1
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, is that it is more difficult for me to figure out the antagonist than the triangle character. I have to dig deeper to have a good antagonist.
1. Alex
1. Role in the Story: Protagonist – A growth economy professor experiences the first signs of andropause and tries to defy them by taking on a new professional challenge which puts in jeopardy his family life. By the end he integrates the new life stage and lives a more fulfilling life.
2. Age range and Description: in his 50’s, sleek bulldozer alpha male, arrogant look, tinted glasses, thinks he looks best in a suit, only smiles with closed mouth and very short hair to hide the bolding.
3. Core Traits: Professor of growth economy: dominant, controlling, rational, and economical
4. Want: To become the new dean
Need: To embrace the circle of life
5. Wound: His father was born on the same day and died on his 50. Birthday party.
6. Likeability: Completely cracks when there is something small and vulnerable.
Relatability: He has to deal with obnoxious students who misbehave miserably and provoke him.
Empathy: He tries everything to get his old life back.
7. Paradox: a professor of growth economy who is afraid of the natural course of life and therefore also the end of it.
2. Corrie
1. Role in the Story: Antagonist – the wife of Alex. She is going through a midlife crisis and would like to finally live her life after she spent most of her life taking her of her family. By the end, she finds a new way how to live her life and a new way with her relationship with Alex.
2. Age range and Description: in her 40s, always a bit over the top. Extravagant and loud, has to be elaborated.
3. Core Traits: manipulative, charming, optimistic, and fearless
4. Want: To leave her family behind to start a new life.
Need: to find a new way of how the family works.
5. Wound: She comes from a poor background and fears to experience poverty again, if Alex would not be around anymore to secure the income.
6. Likeability: She makes parties and takes care of her family.
Relatability: Unhappy with her actual life.
Empathy: She feels that she always has to cut back her personal interests because she has to take care of the family and her husband still peruse his career without caring about her professional interests.
7. Paradox: Extravagant to cover up an inner emptiness.
3. Eva
1. Role in the Story: Triangle – the teenager daughter of Alex and Corrie who tries to keep her parents together. Although, she is the youngest in the family, she is the only one who grasps the circle concept of life. Her role is to lead her family back to paradise (garden) and have them get in touch with the true life.
2. Age range and Description: Teenager, she is very smart for her age, but can also go quickly from extreme to another like be very intuitive and lovely to obnoxious. She loves to experiment with topics that are connected to the circle of life (menstruation blood). She has something angle-like, which is also her structural role as “traveling angel”.3. Core Traits: Teenager: creative, obnoxious, complex, and sensitive.
4. Want: She wants her parents to stay together.
Need: She does not have a need, because she is still a child and does not have a moral or psychological flaw, which has to be changed.
5. Wound: She is a bit like from another sphere but and like Cassandra suffers from the fact that her family does not get or understand her.
6. Likeability: She knows people well and offers them the perfect gift.
Relatability: She is caught between her parents and does not know which side to be on.
Empathy: She is terrified when she hears her parents fighting and fears that they divorce.
7. Paradox: She is the youngest but knows the most about life.
-
Raquel’s Character Profiles, Part 1
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 the more developed the character is with conflicts between needs and wants, the more compelling and elevating to the screenplay.
Protagonist: Miri
Age Range: early 20’s
Description: talented violinist blond hair/blue eyes, thin
Main Characteristics:
talented and loves playing music
arc of self-involved to caring deeply for others
arc before war of affairs but not getting too attached to falling deeply in love
develops fighting skills attains bravery
Motivation:
Want/Need
Want: to smuggle weapons and aid the uprising
Need: to love Avi and save Jacob
Likability- We meet Miri right before the war. She is talented and fun-loving.
Relatability- Finding herself in a world of brutality she becomes very caring to others, especially the children she is tasked with teaching music to.
Empathy- She falls in romantic love for the first time in the ghetto and we know this relationship will likely be doomed.
Antagonist: Heinrich (Nazi Officer)
Age Range: late thirties
Description: tall/muscular/light brown hair/always has a gun in his belt
Characteristics:
deems himself an intellectual music lover
follows orders seemingly without remorse except for abuse of alcohol
sees himself as part of a superior race
dominates Miri but develops feelings for her
Motivation Want/Need
Want: to be a successful commander/enforcer
Need: to allow his humanity to surface
Wound: Loss of his heroic father in WWI when he was a child.
Likability/Relatability/Empathy: not meant for this character
Triangle: Avi
Age Range late teens/early twenties
Description tall/thin wears glasses/ changes from hasidic appearance to short hair/no beard
Core Traits
loves music- sings hasidic melodies
is immersed in Jewish/Kabbalistic philosophy
is caring and able to fall in love
believes in justice taking over evil
Motivation: Want/Need
Wants to help the uprising and maintain his religious beliefs
Need: Falls in love with Miri
Wound: His whole “world” and “people” (hasidic community is destroyed)
Likeability: kind, thoughtful, encouraging
Relatability: is willing to fight evil
Empathy: in love
i
-
Brandyn Cross’ Character Profiles Part 1
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 getting to know my principal characters intimately enough to define their actions and dialogue.
Alex
High Concept: Alex is a struggling children’s book author who develops the ability to communicate with dead children following a disabling accident.
The Character’s Journey: On the surface, we experience the character’s transformation from self-absorbed to selfless. Additionally, his ability to communicate with ghosts is very unique. Below the surface, neither the character nor the viewer is aware that he, in fact, died in the accident, and his transformation is a necessary evolution to prepare him for entrance to heaven.
The Actor Attractors for the Character: He is a struggling writer who has let the frustration over his flailing career overtake every other aspect of his life. After a disabling accident, he develops psychic abilities that allow him to connect the ghosts of dead children with their surviving families. Over time, he becomes selfless as he engages himself if service to these family, rather than being obsessed with his own problems.
Role in the Story: Protagonist. A children’s book author whose career has stagnated. He is obsesses with reviving his career and is entirely self-centric.
Age Range and Description: 40s. He has suffered a debilitating accident, leaving him disabled and bitter.
Core Traits: Bitter. Career-obsessed. Doesn’t recall specific details of his life prior to his accident.
Motivation: Want/Need: Want: To revive his career. Need: To come to terms with the traumas in his life.
Wound: His son died, which his mind has blocked.
Likeability / Relatability / Empathy:
Likability: Alex isn’t an antagonist in the sense of hurting others. Rather, he has a self-loathing that keeps him from helping himself, or accepting help from others such as Sandy. We can see he is a good person at heart, but is simply struggling against his own failings. Against his desire to distance himself from others, we can see that he really wants to help the ghost children.
Relatability: He is dedicated to his dream, and his work, which gets in the way of his other relationships, such as with his family. Slowly, he reassesses his priorities, and rediscovers the importance of family.
Empathy: He begins to bond with Sandy, which brings him out of his shell, and eases him into a more selfless perspective, where he starts putting the welfare of the ghost children and their families over his own insecurities and ambitions.
Sandy
High Concept: Sandy is the ghost of a young dead boy, who helps connect Alex to the ghosts of other dead children.
The Character’s Journey: He feels a resentment toward Alex for both his own death, and for Alex having committed suicide. Yet, until he is assigned to prepare Alex for entry into heaven, he hadn’t fully realized that. So, it’s no accident that God assigned Sandy to work with Alex, because it’s also intended to help Sandy come to terms with his feelings toward his father.
The Actor Attractors for the Character: He is a ghost. Additionally, he is a child character who is something of a mentor to an adult, giving him a position of authority over the adult.
Role in the Story: Triangle. He is a child ghost who is assigned with preparing Alex to enter heaven. To do so, he must orchestrate Alex’s transformation from self-centered to selfless, but can’t reveal to Alex any of the truths Sandy knows about him. Rather, Alex must come to these realizations himself.
Age Range and Description: 10. A child ghost. Naturally angelic, with a nature that would melt anyone’s heart.
Core Traits: Kind. Selfless. Resentful of Alex’s failure to recognize him.
Motivation: Want/Need: To prepare Alex to enter heaven. Need: For Alex to recognize him and love him as a father to a son.
Wound: Feels rejected by his father because of his inability to remember him.
Likeability / Relatability / Empathy:
Likability: He has a sense of duty. Even though Alex doesn’t yet know who Sandy is, Sandy is devoted to him, because he knows Alex is actually his father.
Relatability: He is trying to help his dad. He is trying to bring his family together.
Empathy: He genuinely wants to help the other ghost children. You can see his love for his dad, and how crushed he is when Alex rejects his attempts to help him.
-
Mhmd’s Character Profiles Part 1
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..
– Filling the blanks of Character Profiles generates a lot of new actions inside the story.
……….
Character Name: 84
Role: Protagonist
High Concept: Shocking revolutionary actions escalate inside a labor colony of conjoined twins cut out of the will, underhandedly driven – with sudden and unexpected patterns- by a conjoined twin who has an impossible mutation.
This character’s journey: From loneliness outcast worker lurks within the colony, to a leader of the impregnable revolution within the colony.
The Actor Attractors for this character:
– The most intelligent and resourceful character, who has a massive transformational journey and advancement in a very dangerous world, becomes the unparalleled leader of a revolution.
– Every action, reaction, and decision includes an open possibility of alternative odds ready for processing and applicating.
– Unique body language. He has a constant sense of responsibility. Although he is the most dangerous character, he thinks of others.
Age range and Description: Nearly 20. Normal body with conjoined heads.
Core Traits: sneaky, shrewd.
Motivation; Want/Need:
– Want: to abort 3’s plans.
– Need: to survive.
Wound: His missing twin has been incorporated into an animal outside the colony, and he is afraid to meet him.
Likability, Relatability, Empathy:
Likability: He saves his colleagues from fatal mistakes, despite the danger of being exposed.
Relatability: Performs its work tasks avoiding being detected by observers.
Empathy: exposed to a fateful threat from 3’s followers.
………
Character Name: 3
Role: Antagonist
High Concept: Shocking revolutionary actions escalate inside a labor colony of conjoined twins cut out of the will, underhandedly driven – with sudden and unexpected patterns- by a conjoined twin who has an impossible mutation.
This character’s journey: From someone who has a massive plan that can contain everything, to someone who is himself part of 84’s scheme.
The Actor Attractors for this character:
– He is the first of his kind, the head of a fearsome criminal cult, with a scheme to take over the entire world; All this within a colony in which no one is supposed to have a will or a decision of any kind.
– Hiding and moving everything behind the scenes.
Age range and Description: 40s. slightly overgrown. His clothes hide any indication of the shape of the adhesion and the organs attached to it.
Core Traits: immoral, cunning schemer, manipulative.
Motivation; Want/Need:
– Want: to lead a rebellion out of the colony.
– Need: to achieve just revenge.
Wound: carrying his dead twin in his body.
Likability, Relatability, Empathy:
Likability: His care for the followers of his sect.
Relatability: in front of a situation that is about to win or lose.
Empathy: Shocked by 84’s situation and sad about what he will have to do with him.
………….
Character Name: Spider
Role: Triangle character
High Concept: Shocking revolutionary actions escalate inside a labor colony of conjoined twins cut out of the will, underhandedly driven – with sudden and unexpected patterns- by a conjoined twin who has an impossible mutation.
This character’s journey: From an undercover agent haunted by the pain of old failure, whose mission is to abort the revolution, to a person reconciled with his loss, and a supporter of the revolution to protect the world from a greater danger.
The Actor Attractors for this character:
– Shaun Archer from Face Off, multiplied by 10.
– His high skills in adaptation and functioning despite his new physical condition, and his constant willingness to do anything for the sake of his mission.
Age range and Description: Mid 30s. A human surgically modified in the form of a venomous spider, a ruthless killer.
Core Traits: Sneaky, Undercover.
Motivation; Want/Need:
– Want: carry out his mission to discover and abort the scheme.
– Need: to prove his worth and make up for the previous loss.
Wound: There is a professional loss, then a huge emotional loss, and he is now on a mission whose real purpose is to try to prove his worth and regain his status.
Likability, Relatability, Empathy:
Likability: Despite his tremendous ability to kill, he does not want to take 84’s life.
Relatability: He has to reconcile his secret primary mission with the cover missions with which he hides.
Empathy: The unspoken wound, emotional and physical.
Log in to reply.