Lesson 8

[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl’s Profound Ending

What I learned while doing this exercise: I had an aha moment during this assignment. Veda is so strong in so many ways, but she doesn’t always speak her peace. I have let the audience know why or how she came to that. I also remembered the power of working from the end backwards to set up a believable ending.

What is your Profound Truth and how will it be delivered powerfully in your ending?

Profound Truth: The people you think you hate are in your life to teach you something about yourself or help you complete a mission. Also, as long as you are unvoiced, you are oppressed.

How do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change?

Veda and Phoebe must band together to assist Coeur-Leigh in the biggest battle of her life.

What are the setup/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it deep meaning?

“The talk” that Phoebe and Coeur-Leigh have during the storm. Advice that Phoebe gives to Veda that helps her find her voice. How and why Veda loses confidence in her voice. Vona’s explanation for why she started being a photographer. Veda’s decision to specialize as a death doula.

How are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making it surprising when it happens?

The women are getting closer to one another – developing a bond – even when they’re fighting. The possibility of Coeur-Leigh’s death is surprising, but even more surprising is Phoebe being there when Veda learns about it.

What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?

Coeur-Leigh and Phoebe walking into Veda’s office hand-in-hand to talk to Veda and closing the door to the audience.

[Madeleine Vessel]

Madeleine’s Profound Ending

What I learned doing this assignment:

With every assignment, I am zeroing in on what I really want my story to say. In this assignment, I found out that I want to impress on my viewers the true evil of murder, which not only takes the life of a human being, shattering their dreams, taking away their future, and silencing their voice, but which also leaves behind a trail of broken hearts, rippling throughout society.

It’s society’s duty to bring a murderer to justice.

My Profound Truth: Murder demands justice.

Owen’s son, Kenny overcomes his fear of his father and identifies him as Sally’s murderer.

Justice is meted out a few minutes later when Tony kills Owen to keep him from killing Anna-Maude.

Delinda, Owen’s daughter is left desolate and unable to come to terms with her father’s crime and sudden death.

Here’s how my lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change.

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Change:

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>The Change Agent: Owen Cross

The murderer, Owen Cross, comes to a violent end after going from being proud to being afraid to being angry to being shot dead in the act of taking Anna-Maude hostage.

Transformable Character: Anna-Maude

After the murder of her uncle and an attempt on her life by a person or persons unknown, Anna-Maude reluctantly accepts the help of an estranged childhood friend, Tony Oxley, in tracking down the killer. She ends being indebted to Tony Oxley for saving her life and bringing her uncle’s murder to justice, six feet under.

Transformable Character: Tony Oxley

After being seriously wounded in Afghanistan, Tony, an Army sniper, returns to where he grew up to mend physically and mentally, hoping never to pick up a gun again as long as he lives. He ends up having to use Sheriff Sergeant Mike William’s gun to kill Owen Cross before he kills Anna-Maude. Not every killing is murder.

Payoffs:

Answers to: Who killed Jack? What happened to Sally? Who killed Eloy? Where are Jack’s Chinese artifacts? Can Anna-Maude and Tony put their differences behind them and work together?

Surprising: Owen Cross is the last person anyone would think of as a murderer, so it’s an incredible surprise to everyone when Kenny accuses him of killing Sally.

Owen does not give up quietly. He dies by Tony’s hand after he takes Anna-Maude hostage in order to get away.

Parting Image/Line:

Owen avoids the Sheriff Deputy’s attempt to arrest him and takes Anna-Maude hostage to ensure his escape.

Tony, who has sworn off guns, appears beside the Sheriff Sergeant and asks for his gun. The Sheriff Sergeant is afraid to shoot at Owen for fear of killing Anna-Maude.

Tony: Either you give it to me, or I’m going to take it.”

The Sheriff Sergeant gives the gun to Tony.

Tony waits for the shot and takes it. BOOM! Owen is dead. Anna-Maude is free and alive.

The whole county is safe from the serial killer, who has been on the loose, hiding in plain sight, for 40 years.

Tony did the right thing