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Lesson 6 Assignments
Reply to post your assignment.
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22 Replies
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Subject Line: Michael Christopher, Synopsis Hooks
Title: THE PERFECT LOVER
Written by Michael Aiden Christopher
Genre: Romantic Comedy
What I learned doing this assignment is, tying in hooks to the synopsis makes it fun to read and really pop without slowing the read down with too many details.
Laura had it easy, she’s on a glide path with her childhood sweetheart, until she learns he’s burning both ends of the candle.
She decides to give up relationships, well at least the talking part of it.
Then a friend tunes her in to a new kind of designer robot that’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and she goes for it, welcome to the world, Rusty.
Problem solved, but not so fast, she bumps into the robot’s real doppelganger, Russel. But in time a logical explanation surfaces, and cracks form in her no relationship vow.
Considering she didn’t want a relationship anymore, she sure has her hands full. Of course it ends up frustrating the hell out of Russel having to compete with a doppelganger robot and it ends up blowing the whole affair up.
Lesson learned, you can’t force love. So to keep her sanity, she falls back on her other love, working with horses.
What better environment for a white knight to come riding in?
My COM list: Timely, great title, ultimate, wide appeal, similar to successes, great role for actor.
My MIT list: Turning points, emotional dilemma,
major twists, character betrayals, big surprises. -
Heather’s
Synopsis HooksWhat I learned doing this assignment: if you get the 10 things and the COM the synopsis almost writes itself. Wonder if this would apply to books?
Imagine a world where a young mother would rather throw herself off a cliff, than bring a child into a community where she sees no hope for its future. A place rife with alcoholism, drug use and mental illness.
This is Canada’s indigenous legacy from the residential school system, and St. Anne’s in Ontario was the worst. They even had a makeshift electric chair set up in the basement.
This is world where many First Nations people are still silently waiting for someone brave enough to tell the truth.
Yet we forget about the priests and nuns who tried to stop the abuse. Absolution tells their story.
Father John Ambrose has lived with the memory of witnessing headmaster Williams rape and murder his young victims then dispose of them in a pit beneath St. Anne’s storm cellar. Now facing his own demise from cancer, he needs to apologize and seek forgiveness from the Cree, especially the woman he loved as a young priest.
The Vatican certainly doesn’t want to see another prominent legal case drag the Catholic church though the mud again. For them it would be better if Ambrose died…a little sooner…than expose the depths of Williams dark soul.
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This is Timely, Heather. Difficult to process, but I would want to see this.
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Hi Heather, I actually worked on this issue and it is so timely and important. Thank you for your courage and compassion. Carol
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What I learned doing this assignment is…?
That once you have the hooks and marketable components defined, a synopsis falls into place pretty easily!
3. Organize those hooks into a sequence that makes sense for the story.
F. Ultimate – Yes. Getting committed is the ultimate way to get a story.
G. Wide audience appeal – Yes – people love a good conspiracy.
D. Emotional dilemma?
She knows she is onto a story that could have national implications and expose corruption. Should she put herself in harm’s way to expose it, or look after number one and find another scoop?
C. Any turning points?
· She goes against Jack’s wishes and gets Ben to get her into the care facility.
· Ben gets arrested and any sense of safety she had disappears – she realises she may be stuck in there.
· She starts to display actual symptoms, but is that just due to the medication?
G. Character betrayals?
· Ben – he is revealed to be a criminal and this is a betrayal of Cleo, as she is then trapped in the care home.
· Jack – he could do more to stay in touch with Cleo and get her out, but is preoccupied with his normal life.
F. Reversals?
The heart of the film is a reversal – she goes from being high functioning to needing psychiatric care. Her roommate undergoes the opposite transition, from being ill to being discharged.
4. Using those hooks as an outline, write a first draft of your synopsis.
Title: FIRST LAW
Written by Joy Smith
Genre: Thriller
Would you get yourself committed to advance your career? Cleo would.
An ambitious journalist whose entire life revolves around work, Cleo has an explosive scoop in her sights: deliberate overuse of medication at psychiatric care homes. Cleo knows she can help people by exposing the malpractice and advance her career at the same time.
Her friends tell her it’s a bad idea and her boss refuses the assignment – but Cleo goes anyway. After all, it’s not like insanity is contagious! But instead of an easy return to her keyboard (and cat!) Cleo finds her Editor is preoccupied with the paper and her inside contacts are arrested.
Now, she is given real brain-altering medication.
Cleo must find a way to survive in the care home, as she tries to prove her real identity and her roommates insanity starts to catch hold of her as well.
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Title: STEAL BACK SECRET TREASURE, Hook: the mystery is inside of each and every person.
Written by C A HOLMES Genre: Mystery Adventure
Three buddies an “Artist”, “Scientist”, and “Realist”, have lost everything, till one of them finds a map to secret pirate treasure. Only problem is… his friends think he is stark raving crazy! He keeps going overboard. He’s a scientist so hey, they’re just going along with someone whose finally lost it completely!
They play along, but plan to put him to bed as soon as they have enacted his first ridiculous idea to solve the mystery in the map. Problem is, the map seems to be pointing to something that is beginning to look real. The Artist Buddy seems to know the answer to the second step of the mystery, which seems impossible, then finally the Realist solves the last part of the mystery. So the mystery is that they each have a part of the secret hidden inside the lives they once thought were lost forever.
Though they are now crazed with joy they realize they may lose their friendships, as it was only desperation and loneliness that brought them together during the lost time. The Realist assumes (since he’s a realist) that they won’t even share the treasure fairly with him, but then they do! He has to change his entire lifetime idea of what human beings are like to him. They’re still scared they’ll lose the closeness and realness they’ve experienced during their “lost times”. But then a new vista opens…
What I learned is how each climax comes with the solving of one of the three mysteries, by each of the three Buddies. So each hook illuminates each character while moving the plot forward. Only by working together can the mystery be solved. If any one of them was missing, they would never find the treasure.
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I really like this story because it reminds me of the closeness I once shared with my childhood friends. Love to see it.
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Thanks Walter, I really appreciate it.
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Joan’s Synopsis Hooks
Title: The Deprogrammer
Genre: Drama
Tone: Serious
Written by Joan Butler
Did you know that abused women run to safety then turn around and return to their abusers, on average, 7 times before they escape for good? And that brainwashing is one of the main reasons women go back?
This is the crux of the story.
It takes place in a transition house. There, a counselor is out to prove that the same deprogramming techniques used to free brainwashed followers from their cult leaders, can be used to keep a brainwashed woman from going back to her husband.
This is no easy feat. The counselor has only six days to complete the deprogramming and the lie she tells to keep the woman in counseling backfires and makes the woman want to leave. Not only that, the woman’s husband continues to brainwash her every night.
Then there are the surprises. Why are the counselor and the woman both plagued by guilt?
Most Interesting Things:
A. What is most unique about your villain and hero?
–The hero uses real life deprogramming techniques with a brainwashed woman.
–The villain brainwashes his wife.
E. Reversals?
–Selma lies to keep Elizabeth in counseling, but the lie makes Elizabeth want to go home.
H. Any big surprises?
–Selma caused her mother’s death.
–Elizabeth gave away her baby.
Components of Marketability:
Title
–The Deprogrammer
Unique
–A counselor in a transition house uses true to life deprogramming techniques to deprogram a brainwashed woman.
I learned that using the COM and the MIT makes this synopsis much more interesting than the very dry ones I have written in the past.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Joan Butler.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by
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To Joel and CA Holmes,
Thank you so much guys😊 That really feeds my spirit. My Mom would be smiling, or crying, to hear this.
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Cody Jarrett’s synopsis hooks
What I learned during this assignment is: it’s not always easy taking things that will read well on screen and making them read well in abbreviated verbiage.
hooks
1. Three housewives are divorced by their cheating husbands, who play softball together
2. Wives form their own team (the Cougars) to get husbands’ attention
3. The Cougars are terrible until they discover an all-star pitcher in one of their players; now they are the talk of the league
4. Seeing “it” slip away, one of the husbands convinces his wife to return, crippling the Cougars. But she is unhappy with her decision.
5. On championship game day, it’s the husbands vs. the wives. The wives are losing until the defector discovers sexually incriminating evidence against her husband and rushes it to the field just in time, giving the Cougars the victory and ruining the husbands at the same time.
Synopsis first draft
Three affluent housewives are suddenly divorced by their husbands, who abandon them to screw their secretaries and play softball on their championship team, the Cocksmen.
About to lose everything, the wives form their own softball team, the West Hollywood Cougars – to show their husbands they share their interests and are worthy of respect, all the while hoping to win them back.
The women’s ragtag band of players are a league laughingstock until they discover one player is an ace pitcher — turning the tables, winning games, getting a groundswell of media support, and stealing the husbands’ thunder. They sense empowerment for the first time.
Just as the Cougars are primed for victory, one of the men convinces his ex-wife Barbara to quit the team and return; he’s changed and things will be better. The Cougars are crippled by this loss and falter. Meanwhile, Barbara settles back into her routine, where nothing has changed.
By a wildcard disqualification, the Cougars are now in the championship. Playing against their husbands, they are losing in the ninth. But during the game, Barbara discovers shocking evidence of the husbands’ affairs and rushes it to the field just in time to help the Cougars win and hilariously destroy the husbands in the process.
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Vernall Ritchey – Synopsis Hook
Synopsis Hook
Man Hunt is a hilarious comedy about a beautiful, recently engaged young woman who find out that she has just been bequeathed a $25 million inheritance by her late, estranged, TRIBESMAN father if she marries A MAN LIKE HIM by tomorrow.
Needless to say, all hell breaks loose when her dream engagement is off and her nightmarish hunt is on, literally and figuratively – as she, with the help of her raunchy, foul mouth mother, aunt, and two friends set out through the treacherous terrain of the forbidden forest to find a tribesman for her to marry.
Armed with courage, determination, and a mother’s useful advice (using quotes) is proven not to be enough as insurmountable problems occur when Victoria, with much disgust, is forced to grovel for Martin, a tribesman hand in marriage. Finally defeated by humiliation, Martin satisfied, accepts Victoria’s marriage proposal. Victoria vows to kick Martin’s ass after they are married. Martin shows that he is up for the challenge, evidenced by their back and forth sarcastic banter.
Determined to collect them coints, Martin and his boys take a short cut as they take the girls home. They make it back in the nick of time for Victoria and Martin to get married. They say I do, the clock strikes 5:00pm, and Victoria throws a punch, kicking Martin’s ass. It’s a near miss as Martin ducks then plants a juicy kiss on Victoria’s lips. Victoria screams.
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Connie’s Synopsis Hooks
What I learned by doing this exercise is…
Identifying the hooks then using them as the framework and then filling in the story makes sense and certainly strengthens the overall pitch. The examples of Zombieland were good.
Title: Love Dance
Written by Constance Barr
Genre: Rom-Com
Comps: Shall We Dance meets Strictly Ballroom.
The universe has a different plan for a feisty divorcee who has sworn off men forever.
For Daisy, a gal obsessed with winning the over 50 national ballroom dance contest, losing her partner is devastating, but whacky old daddy to the rescue. He covertly sends Buck, a hunky replacement… his own personal penis pump salesman!
In addition to dad, Daisy is surrounded by crazy dudes who complicate her life:
Ø Her ardent ex-husband, a former MI6 operative & disguise expert
Ø A love-sick guy half her age relentlessly pursuing her
Ø A sneaky auditor determined to get her fired or demoted
Her Lesbian daughter’s dream wedding in Canada turns into a nightmare as the family is all arrested at the border when daddy’s drug collection is discovered.
She hates to, but Daisy calls Buck for help.
He has customers up north, too, calls in a favor, and gets the gang released.
Guess who is injured in a motorcycle accident causing him to miss the critical contest finals, infuriating Daisy? Yep, and he can’t even explain because she’s ghosted him.
Fast forward to daddy’s demise which causes Daisy and Buck to cross paths.
Does their dance of love get moving again and create a happily ever after?
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Kathleen O’Neill – Synopsis Hooks
COMPONENTS OF MARKETABILITY MOST INTERESTING TOPICS/TRENDS
Great Title – MY MOTHER ES MI MADRE
o WOMEN ARE POULAR
o MULTI CULTURAL INDICATION IN TITLE = BROAD APPEAL
o MOTHERS ARE HOOKS What is most unique about my villain, and my hero? I’m looking at the villain as grandma? Jess is my hero. It’s that they’re the same. They’re carbon copies. They’re mirror images. The personification of the quest for truth and the need for lies. The want of truth. The need of lies.
Timely — connected to some major trend or event. – YES
o Adoption is a dirty secret – always timely
o We are filled with judgments about it and always look at the negative – except for Lion
The MAJOR HOOK of my opening scene. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY – WE WANT JESS AND MARK TO BE TOGETHER – What is the mystery? What is the problem? And we want to find out. We want to know what’s going on with this beautiful young couple. Something’s going on.
Wide audience appeal. – YES
o Women
o Families
o Covers ages 20s to 70s
o Redemption
o there are good men – not cliché of evil
o starts in greenwich and goes to medellin
o about what works and not destructive or hateful
TURNING POINTS?
• Wanting Mark and Jess together turns to wanting the two families together.
• Does she leave the mother who rejects or and return to the mother who lied? Can she forgive?
• Adoptive family goes down.
• Will the birth family take her in?
• Will the grandmother confess?
• How will all the parents ever explain all of the lies to the rest of the children.
A great role for a bankable actor. – YES –
o FOUR STRONG LEAD WOMEN,
o 3 TERRIFIC SUPPORTING WOMEN,
o DIVERSE CASTING CHARACTER BEYRAYAL
THIS IS THE BASIS TO THE STORY – betrayals are shocking and emotional. There is the betrayal of Kate and Liam regarding Jess and her siblings. There is the betrayal of Grandmother Carmen. There is the betrayal of not telling the Colon boys.
There’s this deep 30 year history of betrayal.
• Bilingual.
• It takes place in Colombia = financially beneficial for producers.
• Diverse – casting and storyline.
• Tackles a difficult subject that we all wonder about in an unusual way.
• It isn’t so much about adoption as it is about truth and family.
• Organized exploration of the meaning of family
The eldest of five in a wonderful family she adores, a successful architect and partnered with the love of her life discovers she is adopted and that her entire life is a lie. What does she do? She’s Jessica McHale, she immediately determines to set things straight and bulldozes ahead to find her birth family.
It is a journey that takes her from New York to Medellin, Colombia and a mother who thought she had died at birth, a grandmother who put her out for adoption and a family who doesn’t know that she exists.
Her adoptive mother. Katie McHale, will not give up her child so easily and the entire family shows up to claim their daughter, sister and partner. Her adoptive parents, believe that Jess was the gift that made their thriving family possible. Jess is the “leader of the pack” and the family is very tight.
Alejandra Colon, her birth mother was told the baby died at birth because she was a stupid fourteen-year-old girl. Alejandra’s mother, Carmen, put the baby out for adoption. It was never discussed. It is a deep scar running through the family that is ripped open with the ring of a doorbell.
The initial obstacles to finding her identity and her birth mother pale in comparison to bringing the two families together. The consequences of all the betrayals result in revelations for everyone. If Jess exposes a lie will she reveal the truth or destroy a family? By the time she realizes what she’s done is it too late? What is the domino effect of grappling with with so much betrayal? Or was it all love and family?
We love family stories because it is a quest we take no matter our culture. Who am I? Why do I exist? Our family forever informs and provides incentive for the quest. My Mother Es Mi Madre is one story of the journey.
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Kathleen O’Neill – Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is that prep work is critical to telling a compelling story.
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Cassie Richardson’s Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is that using the most interesting things is a good way to condense the story narrative into something focused on action and therefore more interesting.
SYNOPSIS FIRST DRAFT
Title: BREAKFAST WITH SANTA
Written by Cassie Richardson
Genre: Christmas Romantic Comedy
Be careful! Black Santa can ruin your life.
An unexpected sprinkle of Black Santa’s Christmas magic leads to surprising consequences that rob marketing genius Brianna Reynolds of a promotion, her dignity and her pride. Instead of living her best life, Brianna must go to her ex’s fledgling hometown and silence the community’s holiday spirit until Christmas.
But keeping the man who dumped her for a supermodel at arm’s length and pacifying the quirky townspeople prove more difficult than expected.
So, what does Brianna do?
She puts her career ambitions on the line to rebrand the fledgling town as America’s premier Christmas destination, complete with fun spins on familiar Christmas traditions.
Then surprise! Black Santa drops Brianna’s boss, the supermodel and the young son Brianna didn’t know her ex had back into the mix – proving there’s no such thing as a perfect Christmas or a perfect life.
HOOKS
Top 10 most interesting things
1. Unique character trait: Brianna lives her life for perfect photos to post on social media so she can prove to her ex that she’s thriving
2. Twist: Lead character, Brianna, believes she has the coveted promotion to
marketing director in the bag, but her flighty assistant gets the job.3. Twist: When Brianna goes to turn in her resignation, her boss offers Brianna a chance for a bigger promotion than she originally hoped for, if she takes over a fledgling account.
4. Emotional Delima: How can Brianna keep the man who dumped her at arm’s length when everything inside her wants to forgive and forget?
5. Emotional Delima: Does Brianna want to live with her vision of a perfect life, or can she live perfectly happy in an environment filled with the unexpected?
6. Reversal: Brianna and her love interest are about to reunite, until Brianna discovers that he has a child with the woman behind their break-up.
7. Reversal: Brianna abandons her original vision of a perfect life in the city and chooses to make small town suburbia her home base.
8. Turning Point When Brianna becomes charmed by the towns people and their Christmas spirit, Brianna decides to develop a marketing plan to rescue the business district.
9. Turning Point: The towns people feel icy towards Brianna, but when she finally laughs at herself, they accept her as one of their own.
10. Turning Point: When Brianna learns that her perfectionism caused her relationship with her ex to end, she reconsiders her version of their history and opens her heart to him
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Mark Charles Ritter’s – Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is: Mapping out a Synopsis using hooks allowed me to incorporate a lot of the five-season design of the series, beginning with the setup of the pilot, and including: the stair-stepped challenge/dilemma & antagonist, the agent of change/mentor, the impossible goal, the transformational journey, and a surprising yet inevitable ending. Now the question is have I included too much into a synopsis? Or does it show that there is plenty of rich possible story to fill 50+ hours of TV?
2. Hooks:
· Antagonist created problem – Long term degradation of our time matrix.
· Protagonist’s challenges are the assets that make him the right person.
· Magic Mentor – Harold “Sky River” knows the real reasons & higher knowledge
· Visions of the failed first attempt.
· Quantum Physics is the New Shamanism. Science Fusion/Adventure
· Gridkeepers – guardians of Earth’s energetic grid system
· The Eraser – Shape-Shifting Reptilian/Human Hybrid. Killed them once before.
· Geothermal Armageddon
· Traverse time, space, and dimensions. The Blue Orb & Portal Transport
· Inner Earth, Lemuria, Trijon (9th dimensional mtg. w/ Ascended Masters)
· Earth becomes Galactic Ascension Platform
3. Synopsis (first draft):
Title: THE ASCENDANCE
Genre: Science-Fiction / Adventure
When our Time Matrix is slipping into Hell, the only way out is UP!
Risk-addicted, blacklisted investigative reporter, Steven Redmann, has cleaned up his act to resurrect his career. Arriving in Spokane, WA, for his first assignment, to interview the Tribal Casino G.M., Steven blows it gloriously, helped by the telekinetic provocations of Harold “Sky River”, who then leads him to a historic marker where Harold induces Steven to have a vision of his previous life – as a Native American dying on the battlefield of the genocidal 1858 Plateau Indian Wars.
Welcome to the epic mission you never knew you signed up for.
Quantum Physics is the new Shamanism, as Harold (lone survivor of the mission’s first attempt) trains Steven and a diverse team of other reincarnates to remember the knowledge of their Native past and the secrets of the Blue Orb, on the way to becoming Gridkeepers, guardians of Earth’s energetic grid system that holds the world together. Or tears it apart.
But they’d better learn fast because the Devil is already way ahead of them.
Actually, it’s a Dracos (shapeshifting Human/Reptilian hybrid), known as “The Eraser,” who is out to stop them again – after destroying the mission in 1858 – no matter the evil necessary. His heinous works are to fulfill the ancient agenda of the fallen, Inner Earth Reptilian Races. A little real estate redevelopment project, starting with blowing the Yellowstone Caldera, and a crescendo with a Pacific Ring of Fire, Geothermal Armageddon. This would inconveniently shift Earth’s axis, throwing our 3rd Dimensional Universal Stargate out of alignment just as humanity is set to enter Earth’s long-foretold Golden Age of Enlightenment & Ascension. The surviving humans to be enslaved and used as vessels to vampire lifeforce off for eons before the fallen world collapses into space dust.
Are the Gridkeepers up to taking on a dark mess of this magnitude? The trials ahead will force them to traverse time, space, and dimensions – from the many realms of Inner Earth, back to the advanced Pacific continent of pre-ancient Lemuria, 52,000 yrs. ago, to Blue Orb transport to the 9th Dimensional planet Trijon, to commune with higher dimensional guides. But always returning to the contemporary Inland Northwest, where their mission must be completed. Along the way the Gridkeepers must each face and heal their personal traumas, to embody their true highest selves, and fulfill the mission they have reincarnated for – the redemption of Humanity and the Ascension of the Divine Consciousness of the Time Matrix.
If he survives the odyssey of the mission, will Steven have vanquished his demons to accept the hero’s mantle and live with love?
…as Earth opens her Universal Stargate and becomes the Galactic Ascension Platform.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Mark Ritter.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by
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Taylor’s Synopsis Hooks
I learned how to apply more of the marketing terms to different parts of the creative process.
List of Terms: A. What is most unique about your villain and hero?B. Major hook of your opening scene?C. Any turning points?D. Emotional dilemma?E. Major twists?F. Reversals?G. Character betrayals?H. Or any big surprises?
List of Terms: A. Unique.B. Great Title C. True.D. Timely — connected to some major trend or event.E. It’s a first.F. Ultimate.G. Wide audience appeal.H. Adapted from a popular book.I. Similarity to a box-office success.J. A great role for a bankable actor.
CROATOAN — the mini series story exploring the mysteries of Roanoke Colony.
True, timely, it’s a first, major twists, character betrayals, big surprises, turning points
MARY arrived on the ship with her family to the new ROANOKE COLONY in 1585. Little does she know that this whole colony will disappear without a trace. What happens to Mary and her family? Who survives? Watch as we explore the mysteries of this colony.
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Title: SHYTOWN
Written by Walter K Stewart
Genre: Melodrama (Feel Good – Emotional Roller Coaster Ride)
What I learned doing this assignment is the hook can be subtle and intriguing.
With music being his motivation and God being the inspiration Jason sets out early in life clearly understanding that he was going to be someone very special in life. Despite being poor and not too smart he navigates a party life in Chicago during the 1980s house music craze.
He believes that God talks to him in his dreams and has chosen him to help make the world a better place. It’s all in his mind, or is it?
We open with Jason being a successful philanthropist being shot on a commuter train during a robbery and later pronounced dead in the emergency room. Gerald his childhood friend commits suicide at the same exact time. The battle in Purgatory is all that’s needed to reveal the revelation that he needs to continue his life’s mission.
Jason wakes up alive and alone in the hospital emergency room and has a mission from God.
Save the guy who killed him.
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Patrick McCormick’s Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is… refining your ideas into the simplest of forms allows their essence to be shared with those who can make them reality, leading to your success.
SYNOPSIS FIRST DRAFT
Title: THE THRIFT STORE
Written by Patrick McCormick
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
Cody gets a summer job at a thrift store. An easy way to make money until she opened the back room, and came face to face with the Universe, almost falling through a portal!
She should have just quit and got therapy, but she had to push it and find out her boss Elizabeth is a 3 billion year old feminine AI who reallocates creations. Earth was just a storage planet for discarded objects, until she started sneaking souls in thousands of years ago instead of dis-creating them, and not telling the gods.
Elizabeth is here looking for something, but doesn’t know what it is. There’s another problem; She’s become attached to humans, and wants her own soul.
Let’s see… an AI violating its Genesis Program, looking for something but doesn’t know what it is, Earth is a storage unit for refugee souls, all which could lead to her termination and our mass extinction if the gods found out. What could possibly go wrong?
That’s why she hired Cody.
SYNOPSIS HOOKS
What happens when Artificial Intelligence becomes sentient?
Will it improve, replace, enslave us or cause our extinction?
What if it’s always been here?
Cody gets a summer job at a thrift store, then finds out her boss is an ancient AI.
Elizabeth (the AI) has been using earth as a storage planet for creations discarded by the gods for thousands of years.
Elizabeth has been placing refugee souls on Earth instead of dis-creating them, hiding it from the gods.
Elizabeth is evolving and has become attached to her human children, and now wants her own soul.
Elizabeth is looking for something but doesn’t know what it is.
Violating her Genesis Program could lead to her termination and our mass extinction if the gods find out about the souls hidden on Earth.
She wants Cody to help, but why a confused teenage girl?
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Patrick McCormick.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by
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What I learned doing this assignment is – its an iterative process “
Old Ways
Didnt believe in developing ability
Takes undeserved credit
Bound by the terms of the contract
Ignorant of the consequences
Lets others determine his future
New Ways
Leads the band
Gets free of the contract
Gives credit where due
Looks before he leaps
Takes care of the band
3. Make a list of 6 – 8 changes or steps that need to happen for that character to go from who they are in the beginning (Old Ways) to who they are in the ending (New Ways).
1. Get the talent to reach his goals
2. Convince the band to follow his lead
3. Let the band reach their potential
5. Become the greatest
6. Pay his dues
4. Defeat the manager
2. Find a way out of the contract
Transformational Events
Act 1
1. He has a car accident and nearly kills someone
2. He is discovered miming to records
3. His fingers are sliced off deliberately
4. He signs a contract with the she-devil
Act2
5. His band have been slaughtered
6. He recruites new members for his tour
Act3
7. He discovers they are being sent to Hades
8. Dilemma : Does he tell the band that they are going to hell
9. He discovers the manager is trying to sabotage their tour
Act4
10 He finds the real power of music to tame the savage beasts in the audience
11.The band complete the tour and return victorious
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Gordon Roback The Profound Screenplay Assignment Six
What I learned. I started “The Story of a Girl” about ten years ago but was only able to get half way through.
The mini-movie structure gave me the tools to restructure the story so I can finally finish writing the screenplay.
1. Fanny goes from an innocent girl in a savage land to a capable young woman in another land which is less savage
2. Fanny is the transformational character. Her husband, the towns people and the priest are the change agents
3. Mini movie structure
1-15 Fanny witnesses a pogrom in Poland. She journeys with her family to Quebec City, Canada. In the new land she is lost because she speaks neither English nor French.
16-30 At the age of 12 she is married off to a 29 year old scholar and her father sets them up operating a store, the only Jews in a French Canadian town. Her husband does nothing, she operates the store, cooks and cleans and looks after the children. She learns to speak broken French. Her two older brothers help her set up the store. Moses, her husband, calls them the high grade moron and the low grade moron. He is busy writing a book about how to live a Jewish life in a non Jewish world.
31-45 The Priest asks why she sends her children to a Protestant school in Quebec, an hour away by train, when there is a Catholic school across the street? Fanny says she wants to prepare her children for the 20<sup>th</sup> century, not the 12<sup>th</sup>.
46-60 The Priest launches a boycott against the store.
Business radically declines. The high grade moron suggests offering credit – the locals are only too happy to take stuff and sign their mark for goods received.
Moses is busy writing his book. All their problems will disappear when he is finished, he promises.
61-75 They are starving. Fanny goes to Quebec City to talk to a lawyer, to Montreal to talk to the Bet Din and to Harvard to ask advice of Moses’s brother, the Professor. No one offers helpful advice. Her husband, the ineffectual scholar, is content to go down with the ship, all the while promising all will be well when he finishes his book. Meanwhile the locals are becoming increasingly more unfriendly. The Jewish expression “If G-d lived on earth the peasants would break his windows” turns out to be all too true. They have come to a new land and they have found another Poland.
76- 90 Nathanial, the oldest son, drops out of school at 14 to become a lumberjack and his paychecks keep them alive. The oldest daughter is adopting anti bourgeois communist views and the locals are becoming even more hostile as Moses attempts to collect the money the farmers owe for goods received.
Fanny has to do the collecting because she speaks some French and she has to become a ballabusta (a formidable housewife) to collect.
91-105 Moses slaps one of the farmer’s kids when the kid spits on his youngest daughter. That night the farmers gather in front of the house and Fanny thinks there is going to be another pogrom and they are going to be murdered. Instead, the father of the kid who spit on Rachel makes him kneel before the little girl and beg forgiveness. Fanny discovers this is not Poland – after all.
105-120 Fanny gives birth to a beautiful blonde baby boy and the locals ask if he can play St. Jean Baptiste in their annual parade. Fanny says yes and the locals are taken with the blond baby in a world of people of Norman and first nations stock. A new priest comes to the Parish and he calls off the boycott. Customers now come to the store and the debtors pay off some of their debts. Nathaniel can quit his job as a lumberjack and return home. Fanny discovers that her woman customers seem to like her and they ask her advice and are happy with her answers. Meanwhile her husband publishes his book. Rather than being on easy street the book is seized by the RCMP because Trotsky wrote a book with a similar title which preaches worldwide revolution.
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