Lesson 8

[Jack Young]

What I learned doing this assignment is that creating empathy and/or distress for our characters is integral to getting viewers to binge watch our show.

Jack Young’s Adding Empathy/Distress

Act 1:

Michael has a good life with wife and son although he eats aspirin like candy. His wife is worried about his severe headaches. Has mysterious phone call with his buddy and keeps wife from hearing it, but it sounds like a big money making opportunity. On his way to work, we get glimpses of riots (No-birth). At work an old woman is upset about her house being repossessed and commits suicide in front of Michael. She, too, has eerie, cryptic message for Michael. Secretary at work is upset with Michael about affair he’s having with her. During chaos of suicide and secretary being upset, he gets call from buddy that deal went bad. Michael leaves for lunch while on phone with friend. He finds out that the FBI has shown up at his buddy’s work with warrant for insider trading.

Empathy/Distress:

 Michael’s Affair: It becomes obvious that his secretary is distressed over an affair that she’s having (or had) with Michael as Michael tries to pretend it never happened.

 Michael’s Friend: Michael’s best friend is distressed on the phone because some business dealing that he got Michael in to are going bad in real time.

 More Distress Added: I’m looking at amping up distress and empathy from the audience with adding a client (on older woman) who Michael is the foreclosing agent on. She’s so distressed that she pulls a gun from her purse and shoots herself right in his office.

Act II:

Michael stops at bar to get a drink and his head together. He sees cop cars go by. AT bar, news talks about ongoing no-birth crisis. Old guy makes jokes about test using monkeys to create babies that are half-human and half monkey. Michael goes to a table and eats aspirin like candy. Girlfriend stops in and they have fight. She tells him that the FBI came by work to arrest him. I told them you were probably at your old hangout. As she finishes, the FBI pulls up. Michael tries to run out the back and runs into the FBI. His headache rages to the point where he collapses. Michael is in hospital. His wife is on the edge of the bed going over how Michael lost all of their funds, had an affair, broke the law, etc. Doctor takes Michael out of room to tell her that Michael has terminal brain cancer. Michael watches a show on TV with the Professor explaining his theory of what caused the no-birth. He tries to change the channel but he’s on every channel. He realizes that one of his eyes is blind. Diane helps Michael to car as debris blows down street. A paper wraps around her leg. The obituary shows Michael’s death in 3 days. Michael says he needs to find Professor. At professor’s house, they meet astral team and he tells Michael about the stream. Diane doesn’t believe it.

Empathy/Distress:

 Michael’s Affair 1: So to really distress the situation at the bar where Michael has retreated to after the office ordeal, I have his secretary show up to continue persecuting him for ending the affair, and to drop the news that she informed the FBI where they could find him.

 Michael’s Affair 2: To further distress the situation, I have the FBI call his wife and have her come to the bar. She gets to see her husband get carted off to the hospital as well as the opportunity to meet his girlfriend, who she knows about because she’s smelled her perfume on his laundry 5 times in the last year. I create further distress by having her confront the girlfriend with this fact and then slap her.

 Michael’s Headaches: Diane is distressed not only by the fact that Michael has been found to have terminal brain cancer, but she gets an supernatural warning from a newspaper obituary page drifting in the wind that wraps around her leg that Michael dies in three days.

Act III:

Michael and Diane stay at professor’s house. Michael and Diane are told that he must die to enter stream (First time he hears that he must die). Diane is against it and leaves with Michael in car (Son is asleep in car). Michael wants to be forgiven (She resists here) and realizes NOW that without someone going into stream, their son won’t be able to have a family. Michael tells Diane to stop and talks to her about their family going on through their son. They go back and agree. Thomas preps for the journey. Michael has a vision where he sees his dead brother and follows him from the house. In the pouring rain, he sees the ancient one (sorcerer) appear through the portal. The ancient sorcerer looks directly at Michael. Suddenly, the portal turns into headlights of a truck. Someone grabs him and pulls him to safety. It’s his wife. Michael and Diane return to the Professor’s house. Michael goes into the stream. Wife forgets to forgive him.

Empathy/Distress:

 We feel empathy for Michael as he pleads for Diane to forgive him for hurting her since he is destined to die shortly. She resists but not for the reasons he believes. She resists because she’s guilty of the same, having had an affair with his deceased brother years before.

 She adds to the distress by forgetting to forgive him before he dies.

 We feel empathy for Michael as he never got her to forgive him for his deeds.

Act IV:

Michael revisits the highlights of his life as his soul leaves his body and he enters the Astral plane. The Astral team, guided by the Professor, ensures that Michael enters the Stream and is on his way to the other side. Their son freaks out after seeing father die in the pod. When Diane’s parents arrive they call police. Using the son’s help, the police find Michael’s body and seize it.

Empathy/Distress:

 We feel empathy for the young son who witnesses them killing his father to send him into the stream.

 We feel distressed and empathy for the parents when they discover Michael is dead and their grandson witnessed it.

 We feel empathy for the police as they have to interrogate the young boy because Diane won’t cooperate.

Act V:

The professor escapes and manages to get Diane out of jail. They steal Michael’s body back with Thomas’s help. Michael arrives in the Ocean of Souls (Heaven). Michael is plucked from the Ocean of Souls and is given a new “Skin”.

Empathy/Distress:

 We empathize with the Professor and Thomas as they make efforts to keep possession of Michael’s dead body in hopes of him returning at some point.

 We empathize with Michael as a machine plucks him from Heaven.

 We’re distressed and empathize with Michael as he finds himself on an alien planet, no longer human but a soul encapsulated in an artificial skin.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by  Jack Young.

[Madeleine Vessel]

Madeleine Vessel’s Adding Empathy/Distress!

What I learned doing this assignment is I can create more empathy and distress in the viewer/reader by incorporating the seven big picture ways into as many emotional situations as possible: and then making the situations worse.

OUTLINE VERSION 5, incorporating more empathy and distress

Opening

Ivan Aivazovsky on a Russian Navy Ship of the Line watching a rescue at sea.

Act 1

Essence: Opens with (S) cleaning an Ivan Aivazovsky painting that belongs to Falisa, her father’s fiancée. (S) is an art history professor and painter, who cleans paintings on the side.

Surface: Ivan is a passenger on a Russian Ship of The Line (1846), who witnesses a dramatic rescue of passengers from a sinking sailing ship.

Layer beneath: The painting Sophie is cleaning depicts the rescue at sea seen by Ivan.

How revealed: Underneath dirt and cracked varnish, the painting is signed by Ivan Aivazovsky, the official painter of the Imperial Russian Navy and the greatest seascape painter of all time.

Main Mystery: Was the painting S is cleaning painted by Ivan Aivazovsky?

Sub-Mysteries:

· Who is Ivan Aivazovsky?

· Who is Pasha?

· How did he come to have four Old Russian Masters?

· What other secrets did Pasha die with?

Main Open Loop: Will the Ivan Aivazovsky painting be safe in Sophie’s faculty office?

Sub-Open Loops

· What is Zhora’s relationship with Falisa?

· Why does Sophie trust no one?

· Who is Olivia Carr?

· What’s Sophie’s role in the Russian Art Exhibition?

Act 2

Essence: Sophie’s scholarship is the basis for the Russian Art Exhibition. Private donors around the world, such as Vitaly Burundukov and Logan Johnson, are making the exhibition possible.

Intrigue: At a lunch meeting with Olivia, when Sophie learns that Russian dignitaries from the consulate have been invited to the Russian Art Exhibition reception makes Sophie recoil.

Extreme Consequences: Sophie will have to be gracious to Russian dignitaries who are likely also FSB and who might recognize her as her mother’s daughter. She and her mother, Yalena, look so similar.

Surface: Sophie is the scholar behind the Russian Art Exhibition.

Layer Beneath: Sophie doesn’t want her major achievements and photograph published?

How Revealed: To satisfy Olivia, Sophie says, “Less is more.”

How Revealed: When we learn that Sophie and Zhora are in the U. S. Witness Protection Program.

Main Mystery: Who are Aleksei and Kazimir, the Russian shooters?

Sub-Mysteries:

· How did the shooters gain access to Falisa’s house?

· Why did they enter armed?

· What was the shooters motive for shooting Zhora and Falisa?

· Is Iosif Emin the calling the shots in the art thefts?

Main Open Loop: How did the Russian shooters know about Falisa’s paintings?

Sub-Open Loops:

· How did the shooters know there should be four paintings when there are only three?

· How far will they go to get their hands on the fourth painting?

Midpoint: Zhora and Falisa are shot in front of Falisa’s house.

Act 3

Essence: The art thieves need all four paintings. They believe Zhora has the fourth in his possession.

Intrigue: Iosef tells Aleksei and Kazimir to break into Zhora’s apartment and find the painting without any confronting or killing anyone else.

Surface: On the surface, Iosef is calling the shots.

Layer Beneath: Vitaly Burundukov is really the top dog.

Intrigue: Zhora tells San Francisco Police Department Detective Sergeant Dave Sharp he thinks the shooters are enemies from his past.

Secret: Zhora has been hiding the fact that he’s not just a Russian language translator, but he is also working as an FBI informant.

Betrayal: Zhora’s working with the FBI without her knowing is a betrayal. Sophie can’t help wonder what else he’s been up to that might have exposed them to FSB.

Undeserved misfortune: Sophie doesn’t deserve the pain Zhora’s lie is causing her.

Zhora hurts Sophie whom he loves. It’s important to Zhora to work against the Russians no matter the consequences.

(S) meets (B) in (Z’s) hospital room. She learns that Bill is an FBI Agent and that (Z) is his informant. It shocks (S) to realize that (Z) hasn’t been living by the rules of witness protection.

Surface: Professor Sophie Wolf is a modest academic, whose scholarship informs the Russian Art Exhibit entitled, Russian Master Paintings, 1870-1925, and whose credits are minimal.

Layer beneath: Sophie does not advertise her credentials because she is trying to avoid being identified by Russia’s FSB.

How revealed: Sophie’s U. S. Witness Protection Status is revealed when she visits Zhora in the hospital and meets FBI Agent Bill Hillman, who tells her Zhora thinks the shooters were enemies from his past.

Turning Point: (S Turning Point 1) Sophie learns that (Z) believes the shooters were FSB. The ramifications of this are too terrible for (S) to contemplate. Either, they will be on the run from FSB, or they will be forced to reenter witness protection under new names and occupations.

Crucible: Sophie’s and Zhora’s crucible is the U. S. Witness Protection Program.

(B) promises to take care of (Z) and (S).

Main Mystery: Who are the Russian Shooters? Are they FSB? Are they art thieves? Or are they both?

Sub-Mysteries

· If the shooters are FSB, how did they find out Zhora’s and Sophie’s true identities?

· If the shooters are FSB, will Zhora and Sophie have to assume new identities and start over their lives again?

Main Open Loop: If the shooters are FSB, will Zhora and Sophie have to assume new identities and start over their lives again?

Sub-Open Loops:

· Will the shooters try to kill Zhora in the hospital?

· Will the shooters try to kill Sophie?

· Are the Russian shooters enemies from Zhora’s FSB past?

· If the shooters are FSB, will they stage another attack on Zhora and Sophie?

· Will Zhora and Sophie need to start over in the U. S. Witness Protection Program?

Act 4

Essence: The art thieves enter Zhora’s and Sophie’s apartment to find the missing painting.

Intrigue: Russian thieves break into Zhora’s and Sophie’s apartment and turn off the burglar alarm.

Intrigue: They search the house but do not find the painting. Sophie comes home while the thieves still are in the apartment.

Intrigue: Sophie enters front door of her apartment and finds the burglar alarm off.

(S Midpoint) (S) returns home to find the alarm off. There’s an intruder in the house. She calls (B), but he doesn’t pick up. She investigates on her own and comes face-to-face with one of the intruders, who get away down the back stairs.

Exposed: Sophie coming face-to-face with one of the intruders exposes her to him and him to her. It must be terrifying for both of them. Maybe, Aleksei can become a more fleshed out person, one who suffers for Sophie and with her.

Betrayal: Bill, who has promised to protect Sophie, doesn’t answer his phone when she calls him for help.

Intrigue: Sophie collides with one of the intruders. Before she flees, his face is burned into her memory.

Turning Point: Sophie falls down the stairs and lands on Bill, who is arriving at the apartment.

Emotional Dilemma: Will Sophie trust Bill who is late showing up?

(S and B Turning Point) (B) and (S) find nothing in her apartment that would draw FSB. They do find that the intruders seem very interested in (S’s) paintings. This prompts (S) to think the Russians might be art thieves, not Russians.

(B) finds nothing that would draw FSB, but he does notice that the Russian intruders seemed very interested in (S’s) paintings.

Intrigue: Sophie and Bill search her apartment for what the Russians were after.

Intrigue: The only things they seemed interested in are Sophie’s paintings.

Intrigue: Sophie remembers she’s been cleaning one of Falisa’s paintings, likely an Old Russian Master.

Intrigue: Sophie tells Bill she thinks the Russians were art thieves, not FSB operatives.

Main Mystery: Will the Russians kill Sophie?

Sub-mysteries:

· Will the Russians find the missing fourth painting?

· Will Sophie run into the thieves?

· Will the thieves kill Sophie?

· Will Bill arrive in time to save Sophie?

· Why didn’t the intruder shoot Sophie?

· What were the intruders looking for?

· Why were the intruders interested in Sophie’s paintings?

· Were the intruders FSB or something else entirely?

Main Open Loop: The Russians don’t find the painting in Zhora’s and Sophie’s apartment. Will they keep looking for it?

Sub-Open Loops:

· Where will the Russians look next for the missing fourth painting?

· Will the Russian intruders return to Sophie’s and Zhora’s apartment?

· Is it safe for Sophie to stay in her apartment?

· Will the intruders return?

· Can Bill really be trusted to keep Sophie safe?

· Will the intruders turn out to be FSB or art thieves?

Act 5

Essence: (B) and (S) form an alliance to find out the real reason the Russians shot (Z) and Falisa. They determine the shooters were art thieves, not FSB. Bill takes Sophie with him to Falisa’s house to verify whether or not her Old Russian Masters have been stolen.

(S) reveals that she has been cleaning one of Falisa’s paintings in her faculty office and that the painting may well be an Old Russian Master. I could be that the Russians were after that painting.

Surface: Vitaly Burundukov is a wealthy Russian businessman and donor to Sophie’s Russian Art Exhibit.

Layer beneath: Vitaly Burundukov is the art thief bent on obtaining Falisa’s paintings.

How revealed: At the end of season 1, Sophie catches Vitaly trying to sell stolen Old Russian Masters worth millions.

(S and B midpoint) (S) and (B) find all Falisa’s paintings gone. The Russians are determined art thieves, not FSB.

Now, the pressure is on (B) to identify the Russians, so (S) and (Z) will not attract public attention and, by extension, FSB attention.

Surface: Zhora and Falisa are shot by Russians. Zhora thinks they are enemies from his FSB past.

Layer beneath: The Russians are really art thieves at Falisa’s house to steal her Old Russian Master.

How revealed: At night, Sophie and Bill sneak behind the crime scene tape at Falisa’s house and verify that her Old Russian Masters are gone.

Intrigue: Sophie and Bill sneak into Falisa’s cordoned off house and find her paintings missing.

Turning Point: All Falisa’s paintings are gone. The Russian shooters are art thieves, not FSB operatives.

Main Mystery: Are the Russians FSB, or are they art thieves.

Sub-Mysteries:

· How do the art thieves know where Zhora lives?

· How much does the art thief know about Sophie?

· Who’s pulling the art thieves’ strings?

Main Open Loop: Who is behind the theft of Falisa’s paintings?

Sub-Open Loops

· What will the art thief do with Falisa’s paintings?

· Will he come after Sophie to find the missing painting?

[Eric Humble]

Eric Humble’s Adding Empathy/Distress!

What I learned doing this assignment is: how empathy and distress elevate scenes to the point of the audience really getting deeply connected to these characters. I’ve always had a hard time with empathy and especially distress in my scripts, not out of a desire to be nice to the characters, but more so because I never knew where the line was for pushing the characters. This exercise gave me a greater command of how and why to have bad things happen to the characters, and how to create that sense of deep empathy, or deep distress.

1. Look through your outline and see if any of these as a bigger frame for your story, or if you already have it in the story, can you emphasize or expand it:

A. Crucible

The gala –

It’s not a gala, it’s a quarterly stockholder’s meeting. He’s expected to make an announcement about his research… and is being pressured into fudging the data to announce that it works.

B. Betrayal

Jude has to betray Catherine in order to meet with Dres

Catherine needs him, is scared and confused by her dissociative incident and he promises they’ll get to the bottom of it… then accesses the medical records and deletes it.

Raise the stakes: His healthcare coverage disappears with this job. He has to tow the line or she doesn’t get care.

Catherine has a dissociative episode during his speech.

C. Forced Decision

Kill the sniper – the only way to save Dres.

Injects him

Strangles him

Takes a bullet and a hammer and “shoots” him

Hits him with something – a rock, a bat, a cinder block

Knocks him off the building

More painful: Hits him only to discover he’s a hemophiliac. Tries to save him while he bleeds out, but as soon as he gets the coagulant medicine from the guy’s bag, he sees the guy is planning to kill him, then return to killing Dres. Dumps the pills out. Watches him die.

D. Hurt those they love

Keeps Catherine’s cancer diagnosis from her

To keep her from being targeted

To keep her from dropping out of her big career making case

To save his own reputation

Forced by the company to back up his claim

Puts more of his values at risk: he has no secrets from Catherine – this will be his first

E. Emotional Dilemma

Take the job with Marks and betray his values or stay where he is but never get the tech sufficient to manufacture the cure

Should Dres kill Jude once she gets what she wants from him?

F. Exposed

Marks is called before the Leader and his failure is listed in detail. The penance room awaits… unless he can sufficiently explain himself.

G. Must Make Decision with Future Consequences

Jude decides to infiltrate the cabal by working for Marks’s company

2. Looking at your scenes, are there places you can create situations to cause more Empathy/Distress?

Step 1: Check each scene to see if you can build any of these forms of Empathy/Distress into them.

Undeserved misfortune

Catherine has already had an embarrassing episode and is worried…

…she has another just as Jude discovers what is causing this. She’s fragile, so he doesn’t tell her the diagnosis… then decides to cure it himself.

External character conflicts

He does something to incapacitate the sniper… then discovers he’s in a life-and-death situation.

Plot intruding on life

Plans that failed

CEO sees through Dres, is about to call security—when he is shot.

Witnessing the pain of others

Dres and Jude watch people getting killed around them. Jude tries to save someone, but he’s shot and in pain… and Jude can’t get to him.

Extreme consequences

Major loss

Brings their wound present

He’s brought before his board and ordered to lie about the results at the shareholders meeting. He’s reminded of the group that tormented his brother to suicide.

[George Petersen]

George Petersen – Adding Empathy/Distress!

What I learned doing this assignment is how difficult it is to put your characters in true distress.

Crucible

Kate in a situation with Ferrandini, her feelings in conflict with her job. She feels herself caring for a man she must betray.

Pinkerton is in a situation with the KGC. He needs them to trust him so he can betray them.

Betrayal

Kate betrays Ferrandini when she doesn’t show up for the initiation into the Wives’ Club of the KGC.

Pinkerton betrays Ferrandini when he befriends him only for the secrets he can get out of him.

Forced Decision

Pinkerton gives in to Kate’s going deep on the target, Ferrandini. The result: Kate is forced to burn Ferrandini.

Lincoln is forced to travel secretly and in disguise when confronted with corroborating evidence of the plot to kill him.

Hurt those they love

Kate hurts Pinkerton when she goes deep undercover on Ferrandini after Pinkerton has expressly forbidden it.

Emotional Dilemma

Kate is in a conflicting emotional relationship with Ferrandini.

Pinkerton struggles with his paternal and professional relationship with Kate.

Ferrandini struggles with what to do after he realizes Kate has betrayed him.

Exposed

When Kate disappears, Ferrandini realizes she’s a spy.

When a drunken Rhett feels threatened by Kate, he exposes Ferrandini as the plot leader.

Must Make Decision with Future Consequences

Kate ignores Pinkerton’s warnings and goes deep undercover on Ferrandini and suffers personal pain and hurt.

When presented with corroborating evidence, Lincoln makes the choice to embrace ridicule instead of projecting a image of no fear.

Act 1:

Though Pinkerton hires Kate, he won’t assign her to anything too dangerous. She’s a woman after all.

INTRIGUING WORLD: Pinkerton assigns Kate to a case that isn’t going anywhere. Kate goes undercover on her first case, a train robbery, and recovers the stolen money.

SECRET IDENTITY: The newspapers cover the story about her use of a secret identity to befriend the robber’s wife. She’s famous now as the first woman detective.

SECRET: Kate won’t reveal to Pinkerton the details of the case, how a woman managed to do what experienced male detectives couldn’t do, unless he assigns her to the Baltimore team. Pinkerton refuses. He won’t be blackmailed.

Act 1 TURNING POINT- Newspaper reporters want to know more about Kate. Pinkerton changes his mind at the last minute, assigns Kate to the team leaving for Baltimore.

MYSTERY: The team’s objective is to investigate a rumor that Southern sympathizers are planning to burn the rail bridges around the city in order to prevent Yankee troops from passing through on their way to Washington.

UNDESERVED SUFFERING: But being a spy is more dangerous than being a detective, so she must understand that she will be kept in the background. Because she is a woman, she will not be allowed to go deep undercover.

Act 2 :

INTRIGUING WORLD: Kate enters Mobtown, the powder keg world of Baltimore as Miss Kate, Southern socialite.

CONSPIRACY: Angelina takes Kate under her wing, explains to her who’s who in the Confederate world.

HIDDEN AGENDA: Angelina boasts to Kate that her husband is part of a secret society devoted to the expansion of slavery and that there is a plan brewing that will shorten the war to a couple weeks, a month at most.

When a drunken Rhett feels threatened by Kate, he exposes Ferrandini as the plot leader.

Act 2 TURNING POINT – Confronting a drunk Rhett of the Black Snakes gang, Kate discovers that Ferrandini is the ringleader of the assassination plot and that the assassination plot is real.

Act 3:

DECEPTION: The public spat between Kate and Pinkerton in the hotel lobby succeeds in getting Ferrandini to protect Kate.

CONSPIRACY: Kate’s decision to go on a date with Ferrandini pushes Pinkerton to the limit.

Pinkerton struggles with his paternal and professional relationship with Kate.

Act 3 TURNING POINT – HIDDEN AGENDA: Pursuing Ferrandini as the target, Kate learns about the KGC and its efforts to recruit and organize the gangs of the city for the assassination plot.

Kate hurts Pinkerton when she goes deep undercover on Ferrandini after Pinkerton has expressly forbidden it.

Kate in a situation with Ferrandini, her feelings in conflict with her job. She feels herself caring for a man she must betray.

Act 4:

Pinkerton and Ferrandini become best friends.

ACCUSATION: The pig’s blood tub incident

Pinkerton is in a situation with the KGC. He needs them to trust him so he can betray them.

Act 4 TURNING POINT – DECEPTION: Pinkerton, disguised as Hutchinson, gets initiated into the KGC. Infiltration of the KGC is successful.

Act 5:

Act 5 TURNING POINT – DECEPTION: Ferrandini plants eight red ballots instead of one in the drawing to choose who will have the privilege of assassinating the President.

WOUND: Lincoln gives an extemporaneous address before the Presidential train leaves Springfield.