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Post day 4 Assignment Here
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Claudia’s Necessary Questions
What I learned from this assignment: while I’ve worked with these before, I’ve never had them put out in this specific way… except for theme, I always worked to actively identify a theme. I liked this!
a. Concept: After a cynical agnostic FBI agent, who is assigned to investigate a popular televangelist for embezzlement, uncovers a plot by his own agency and a top politician to take down the man and his ministry, he enlists the minister’s help to expose the truth.
b. Dramatic Question: Will Daniel learn the truth and will Jake be redeemed or found guilty?
c. Main conflict: Daniel wants the truth but is being shown evidence of Jake’s guilt, despite his gut saying otherwise. Jake, the ministry, the assistant, the FBI and the Gov’t all put things in his way of learning the truth.
d. Dilemma: Expose the truth and redeem a man’s reputation as well as the faith of million’s of people, or go along with the crowd and keep his job and the safety of his family.
e. Theme: The truth is worth risking everything
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Rob Bertrand’s Necessary Questions
What I learned: Today I learned the 4 Necessary Questions that give your story drama and create a sense of wholeness.
Concept: Two teenage sisters become convinced that their house is haunted, only to discover an obsessed teenage boy living in their walls, pretending to be their dead mother.
Dramatic Question: Can a grieving dysfunctional family overcome their differences and defeat the evil haunting their home?
Main Conflict: After being rejected, Danny Laplante breaks into Annie’s home and begins living in her walls, while pretending to be the spirit of her late mother, to torment the family.
Dilemma: The Andrew sisters are scared for their lives, but their father thinks they’re acting up for attention.
Theme: Childhood is over the moment you realize that monsters are real.
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Elizabeth’s Necessary Qestions
What I learned: I’m putting a sign above my desk with this lesson’s assignment and will never start another project without first clarifying these 4 things…
Dramatic Question: Ed (and everyone around him) have so much love, work and joy/play to share with the world, are they going to figure out how or—continue to spin?
Main Conflict: humans
—and their pride-against humiliation/fear/pain/anger/sadness/habits/confusion—
versus the psychological defenses that protect us from these, but keep us from growing.
Dilemma of the Main Characters:
Ed: knows full well he’s avoided working through his absentee dad’s death—to avoid feeling angry and sad, but heck, it’s so much work! Unless you can make it a little fun…
Grace: has truly found the love she needs, but can’t shake the fear that it isn’t real/is going to “leave.” Fear/pain—but doing so is the only way to keep what she has.
Mike: His ADHD-driven (bad) habits are keeping him from the efficacy he needs, both for himself and others. But oh, it’s a lot of work to change them!
Mark: running from the sadness of being given up for adoption (and adopted by parents who couldn’t love him because they were genetically so different) he’s avoided all relationships—but what he needs is to feel the sadness and be understood/accepted for who he is, which he can only do in relationship.
Adam/Eve: society’s habits of gender identity/expected behavior confuse her and make it hard for her to be who she is, but her core tells her she must. Also, she’s a kid who needs/wants adults to help her, but also has to stand up for herself to get what she needs.
Christopher: Habits and fear keep him depressed (but ‘safe’) and from emancipating, which, obviously he needs.
Linda: Thinks everything is a competition: only you OR me get to “have what I need.” But it’s in giving that we receive… Humility and trust
Kristian: developmentally regressed in the chaos in the home. Needs to communicate his distress in a way his parents hear, not with the habits that annoy people.
Pat: Needs to communicate in a way that doesn’t push people away. But hell, that pisses her off. (habits/anger/humility-being vulnerable/trust)
Mary (98 bed-bound nun): well-worn default is helping others, but needs to ask for help getting back out because she can no longer do it alone. Habit—ha ha.
Wade and Judy’s habits have kept them from remembering/relishing the playfulness/joy of how much they love each other—and from sharing this with young folk who desperately want to know how to make a long-term relationship work. So they need to recapture for everyone.
Walt has lots to teach the younger folk, but society’s habits preclude access.
Lauren: hangs out with old people out of fear she’ll be rejected by the young people she also needs.
Theme: No matter your age, the world (and you) need your work, love—and play.
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Richard McMahon’s Necessary Questions
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is… focus. Focus on the story early on to make the first draft as strong as possible. Everything needs to work together to make a stronger story.
Concept: Trapped in a castle, seven life-long friends must fight to the death so that the last one standing can receive a pardon from a foreign Lord and his army.
Dramatic Question: Will lifelong friends/family members murder each other for their own survival?
Main conflict: Seven friends/family members must fight until one is left so they can receive a pardon.
Dilemma: Do they follow tradition and culture and let the ‘leader’ of the group survive?
Theme: Betrayal
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[PS80] Emmanuel’s Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment is the four questions force you to dig deep to find the main essence of your concept. This was tough but I see it is necessary because I didn’t have the main conflict fully developed and my story would have fallen flat after the first act.
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[PS80] DAY 4 BOB SMITH’s NECESSARY QUESTIONS
“What I’ve learned doing this assignment…? The importance of reducing to one sentence the primary areas of a story to one sentence.
1. List your answer for each of these areas for your story.
a. CONCEPT:
Working Title: “Moths Around a Flame:’ The Making of ‘The Blue Angel.’” Amid the ‘decadence’ of Weimar Berlin, prominent film director Josef von Sternberg’s grooming of Marlene Dietrich for stardom becomes an affair that parallels the story of the erotic thriller they are filming (“The Blue Angel”) in which a professor’s infatuation with a cabaret showgirl leads to his ruin, plus, the lives of the actors have trajectories that seem to be life imitating art in their resulting feuds, choices, and fates.
b. DRAMATIC QUESTION:
Will the making of “The Blue Angel” make or break the actors and film maker?
c. MAIN CONFLICT:
Can Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings work together to make a great film in spite of their angry feud in which the director (Josef von Sternberg) is the referee?
d. DILEMMA:
The film must be successfully completed but to do so, the star-to-be (Dietrich)and
the star (Jannings) must get over their rivalry and support each other in a win/win
for themselves.
5. THEME:
Choices and judgements have a far-reaching impact.
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Quincy (Quinn)’s Necessary Questions
What I’ve learned doing this assignment…
Questions:
- Concept: The twin a woman absorbed in utero takes over her body while she sleeps in order to hunt for a body of her own.
- Dramatic Question: How will Cassie stop Helen from taking over her body and killing.
- Main Conflict: Helen commits more and more atrocious murders using Cassie’s body, but nobody believes Cassie
- Dilemma: Cassie begins to understand Helen’s plight – she just wants a real life of her own. But, she’s killing to try to make it happen.
- Theme: What is a life worth?
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Pablo Soriano’s Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment: The real definition of a dilemma and having your main character lose something of great importance to gain something else. I’ll have to do this for all my future protagonists. Seems obvious enough, but I didn’t realize it until we did these last couple of assignments.
Concept: A Mexican family attempting to sneak across the border think they have a guardian angel when a drone begins to drop off food and supplies, only to find out that they are being televised on the dark web as Americans place bets on their success and are simply trying to give them the advantage for their own gain.
Dramatic Question: Can Irma take her two sons safely across the Chihuahua Desert to the US for the opportunity of a better life?
Main Conflict: With the use of drones, a group of alt-right extremists create a gambling game show on the dark web where they live-stream illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border and ultimately inform the border patrol of the migrants’ location — Irma and her sons are the show’s newest “contestants.”
Dilemma: As one of the drones begins to provide food and water, Irma must decide whether to trust this mysterious Samaritan or take down the drones and risk getting caught in order to help her sons make it to the US safely.
Theme: The chance at the “American Dream” may not be worth the gamble.
Or
The American Dream is an ideal we take for granted.
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What I learned is that I will twist my trilogy by morphing a background antagonist into the major character who drives the screenplay story into a streak of horror, something that will necessitate my humanizing the real-life model Curtis who raped and murdered my neighbor and burned down the condo (don’t worry because he is Sing Sing) but my characters never confesses so he lives to become an 85 year old woman based on a woman I know as well as homeless men who have stalked me in soup lines. To put it simply, I must not create a cardboard serial killer but a real person who is repulsive for reasons and genes.
a. Concept: Adopted abused child becomes a funeral director then a hospitality food and drink guy, secretly a serial killer/rapist/arsonist turfed into a homeless boat lover, evolving by necessity into a hit man who is gender affirmed into a female chef who sacrifices her life to poison the CEO of STEMGARCHS to give drugs to people to cure neurodegenerative diseases.
b. Dramatic Question: What will Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty do next to assuage his troubled psyche and return to the soothing waters before his miserable life began?
c. Main conflict: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty is the APD villain protagonist or antagonist against the world he tries to control and failing that, prefers them dead for his pleasure and function except for his beloved adopted son, firefighter Joe, whom he “accidentally” kills in a fire.
d. Dilemma: There will be dilemmas all characters face throughout but the crisis/climax dilemma will be whether Betty eats the poisoned food with the CEO and dies or whether she lets others die who may eventually kill her because she didn’t give them the drugs they need.
e. Theme: The theme is transformation, whether it is Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty’s identity changes, Jake’s maturation, Ibrahim’s descent into a kind of genocide, Litonya’s physical changes with pregnancy and love, and the changes that rocks undergo in the rock cycle because this screenplay is the streak of blood slashing through three literary novels to make them more marketable. -
P80 Amy’s Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment is that having strong answers to these questions will ensure that your concept and therefore your screenplay will be strong.
Concept: A nationally known newscaster whose DNA was altered by time travel must battle her husband’s ex-girlfriend to retake her family and convince them she’s who she says she is.
Dramatic question: Will Andrea be able to convince her family that she’s who she says she is and get them back?
Main conflict: Andrea is trying to get her family back, but Meagan is determined to keep that from happening.
Dilemma: Andrea doesn’t look like herself, so she either has to convince them that she’s who she says she is and get them to accept her the way she is now, or move on without them.
Theme: It’s what’s inside of a person that counts.
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Budinscak Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment:
o Having the answers to 4 questions sets everything else in motion for your story.
o It’s made a previously tough process enjoyable and much easier to approach.
o Always nice to have a framework in place to keep me on track when writing.
Assignment:
Concept:
In 1986, two preteen cousins learn about family and life during a trip with their uncle, a conniving chef who has to deliver a package from upstate NY to Burbank, CA, by 2:00 PM Monday or the family’s restaurant will be burned to the ground.
Dramatic Question:
Will the uncle deliver the package in Burbank on time?
Main Conflict:
The main conflict is between the uncle and the two nephews. The uncle’s impact on the boys’ lives by opening their eyes with new experiences, and the boys impact on their uncle’s ability to successfully make the trip to Burbank on time.
Dilemma:
Will the uncle ditch the kids and have the fun he planned on having or will he actually be responsible adult the kids think he is and watch over them the rest of the trip?
Theme:
Family is more than just relatives. You can always count on family.
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>[Proseries80] Day4 : Gollob’s Necessary questions</font>
What I learned: this process is helping me gain a better understanding of my story…
1. Concept: someone is killing contestants in a national beauty pageant, leaving the “ugly duckling” to win by default.</font>
2. Dramatic question: Who is doing this and WHY?
3. Main conflict: is between the “ugly duckling” and her mother, complicit in her sexual abuse as a child by her stepfather, the dictator.
4. Dilemma: given the opportunity, does she expose her parents for what they are, at the cost of self-humiliation? the trade-off is that their exposure (as rapist and his facilitator) could precipitate her own liberation as well as her country’s
5. Theme: Abusers of power must not be allowed to get away with it… the story is also incidentally a metaphor for the rigging of the electoral process in a small South American country in turmoil
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by David gollob. Reason: taking out extraneous copy imported from WORD
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This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by
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Jim Peacock’s Necessary Questions
Concept: A painfully shy computer nerd accidentally hacks into the money laundering front of an Iranian militia, and must find a way to stop the General’s evil plan he discovers there for dominating the world, all while trying to win the love of his female doppelgänger.
Dramatic Question: Will Skinny defeat the General and rescue his girlfriend.
Main Conflict: The General awakens sleeper cells in the US military loyal to Iran. Skinny must defeat this powerful, dedicated idealist before the US is destroyed.
Main Character’s Dilemma: Skinny must decide between the woman he loves and the country he loves.
Theme: There’s someone for everyone, and love conquers all.
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Armand’s Necessary Questions
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is…
The dramatic question is very important for the audience. It engages them early on. The main conflict is very important for the sustainability of the second and third acts. Dilemmas can elevate the quality of a screenplay. Theme is the message being delivered by the writer.
1. List your answer for each of these areas for your story.
a. Concept: A ghost haunting the house where he was murdered is accidentally brought back to life by the teen girl who lives there, just as the killer who was never caught returns for a new spree. Now is up to the revived ghost to protect the living and find out why he died.
b. Dramatic Question: Can the revived ghost defeat and unmask his own killer?
c. Main conflict: Can the revived ghost protect the teen girl from being killed?
d. Dilemma: Should the revived ghost take his second chance at life and run from the killer, leaving the others to suffer the same fate? OR does he stay and risk dying again, not knowing what will happen to him in the afterlife.
e. Theme: You can’t run away from your past.
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Erin’s Necessary Questions
What I learned doing today’s assignment is: I am very clear on the dramatic question and main conflict but the dilemma is more difficult and will likely evolve, and same with the theme.
Concept: An uptight cop travels back in time to convince a fun-loving version of himself – who also travelled back in time – to return to his mission and prevent WW3
Dramatic Question: Will our hero be able to carry out his mission and prevent a devastating nuclear world war in the future?
Main Conflict: The hero (a cop who’s traveled back in time) has to team up with another version of himself (who also traveled back in time) to carry out the mission, but this other version is more interested in relaxing and having fun than in saving the world
Dilemma: To stick to his tried-and-true way of doing things that have made him a very effective cop but have also strained his marriage terribly, or try new ways of doing things but risk failing at the most important task he’s ever had [this will probably change as the story develops]
Theme: It’s never too late to change
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Day 4
What I learned doing this assignment is that I am keeping things simple and I need to name my characters.
a. Concept: one moment doesn’t define our entire life
b. Dramatic Question: will our main character find love again
c. Main conflict: feeling like she belong nowhere
d. Dilemma: impossible choice
e. Theme: one can never go home again
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PS8 Subject: Michelle Damis Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment is that it is really easy to start overthinking and overanalyzing. You need to remember that you can always change your mind and continue to flesh things out, that changing your mind isn’t the end of the world, you don’t have to start over. And that it is OK to throw out ideas and thoughts as you begin the process and continue to let them take shape.
a. Concept: Parents desperate to be empty-nesters unknowingly trade their soul-sucking 20-something daughter for a blood-sucking tenant.
b. Dramatic Question: How will the family survive living with a Vampire?
c. Main conflict: The daughter and her parents relationship/and the Vampire becoming connected to a family and not wanting to kill humans anymore
d. Dilemma: When the elder vampires attack what will Ted the Vampire decide to do? Fight them and save the family or sacrifice himself? What will the family do? Choose to be turned or sacrifice to save the others?
e. Theme: Family is worth fighting for.
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PS 80 Wilke’s NECESSARY QUESTIONS
“What I’ve learned doing this assignment is that being fearless while writing is key. Do not think too much about is this the right choice, is this actually what I want to say, is this theme…just go with the flow. It’s liberating really.”
a. Concept:
When a struggling artist becomes a surrogate mother and finds out she’s carrying the baby for child traffickers of a pedophile network, she must run for her life before the baby is due.
b. Dramatic Question:
Will she be able to save herself and her unborn child?
c. What is the main conflict of the story?
To save her unborn child from the claws of this pedophile network.
d. What is the dilemma of the main character?
Will she overcome her fear and fight to free the other girls or will she only take care of herself and her baby?
e. What is the theme of the story?
When people are blinded by money and fame they are unable to see the truth.
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PS80 – Janeen’s Necessary Questions
What I learned doing this assignment is that these four items are, indeed, very different and exploring all four will make a much richer movie.
Concept: A wealthy fashionista learns mind control techniques and uses them to empower women at a shelter to take action against their abusers. As her ability to empower the abused grows stronger, the actions taken against the abusers turn deadly.
Dramatic Question: If you use mind control methods to help people without their knowledge are you a criminal if the result is murder?
Main Conflict: As abuse escalates in a household, who will survive? The husband or the wife?
Dilemma: Does the fashionista continue to use mind control techniques to empower the abused and save lives or is she empowering the abused women to become as abusive as their husbands?
Theme: Mind control techniques are an amped up version of “thoughts and prayers”.
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[PS80] Jennifer’s Necessary Questions
WHAT I’VE LEARNED:
Even with a satirical slant, this story still needs a powerful underlying message and structure, which starts with the basic conflict and dramatic question. I’m seeing that even if it takes a while to refine this idea to the point I’m happy with it, it’s important to work with some speed initially to make progress. I’m seeing how my own perfectionism has held me back in the past.
a) CONCEPT:
A high school overachiever will do literally anything on her quest to beat her rival and win a prestigious award guaranteed to get her into her dream college — even commit murder.
b) DRAMATIC QUESTION:
How far will Jessica go to win the scholarship (and at life), and will she win?
c) MAIN CONFLICT:
Jessica, the overachiever vs. her academic rival from another school, Ethan, who is a fellow overachiever type and is also up for the scholarship. Both want to win the scholarship, and both are willing to work hard to make it happen, but the rivalry with Ethan will push Jessica harder to force the win, while Ethan will provide a moral core as he tries to keep their competitiveness on a normal level and not the extremes he grudgingly begins to think Jessica is willing to go to.
d) DILEMMA:
Win and lose all her friends and loved ones for life, or lose and destroy her chances of success but keep her loved ones close
e) THEME:
Does winning at all costs actually pay off?
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Suya Lee’s Necessary Questions
Outlining & Your Character Structure Day
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
I like Hal’s way of getting the writers understanding their story. It’s not just plug in the main story ideas onto a screenwriting template. We have to understand it before we write it. This is key. To get to the heart of your story. The Necessary Questions makes you unpack the reasoning behind your story.
Concept:
When a group of old timers at a veteran’s retirement home win the mega lottery, they buy an old cruise ship to sail around the world with their extended families, but pirates attack their ship in South-East Asia and the veterans must face the last battle of their lives to save their families.
Dramatic Question:
Can the old-time veterans stop the Pirates and save their families?
Main conflict:
Pirates take control of the cruise ship, kidnap grandchildren and demand all of the Veteran’s mega lottery winnings.
Dilemma:Veterans can’t fight back, and find out the Pirates will blow up the ship anyway.
Theme:Sacrifice everything for the love of their
families. -
PS 80 – Jodi’s Necessary Questions – Day 4
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is that by answering the questions of Concept, Dramatic questioning, Main Conflict and Dilemma’s that the story could create helps to flesh out your story better and can help you create a stronger spine for your story and characters.
1. List your answer for each of these areas for your story.
CONCEPT: TIMELY: Texas creates bounty hunters and vigilantism against any woman who chooses to have an abortion, along with the nightmare this creates for anyone trying to help a pregnant woman it also creates a nightmare for the Governor as he learns his Daughter has been raped and was impregnated. The Governor begins to learn firsthand how this law tragically impacts his family’s lives, his future leadership position and thousands of pregnant women he has failed.
DRAMATIC QUESTION: Can Susan win the Governorship and overturn the TX law SB8? Will her family disown her?
MAIN CONFLICT: Is between Susan and the Governor. Susan the lead investigator of a hit and run has to deal with deep budget cuts which have been redirected to state programs for new Mothers and their state dictated newborns below the poverty line. The deepening deficit of Texas with newly created orphanages and institutions with an already overburdened budget brings Susan to the conclusion that the only way she can help women is to regain their constitutional rights that were stripped away with the new ban on abortion, SB 8 by running for the Governorship.
DILEMMA: Having a very conservative pro-life family Susan sees first hand the devastation the new law causes but runs the risk on being disowned by her family by choosing to challenge the Governor for his position, specifically for the purpose of getting back the rights of women to have control over their own bodies; their constitutional right.
THEME: You are free to have your civil rights and what you hold dear and important, and I as a woman, I am free to have mine.
I realize that this is probably more a statement that I haven’t culled into a theme yet, I’ll keep working on making it more succinct:
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PS 80 – Jodi’s Necessary Questions – Day 4
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is that by answering the questions of Concept, Dramatic questioning, Main Conflict and Dilemma’s that the story could create helps to flesh out your story better and can help you create a stronger spine for your story and characters.
1. List your answer for each of these areas for your story.
CONCEPT: TIMELY: Texas creates bounty hunters and vigilantism against any woman who chooses to have an abortion, along with the nightmare this creates for anyone trying to help a pregnant woman it also creates a nightmare for the Governor as he learns his Daughter has been raped and was impregnated. The Governor begins to learn firsthand how this law tragically impacts his family’s lives, his future leadership position and thousands of pregnant women he has failed.
DRAMATIC QUESTION’s: Can Susan win the Governorship and overturn the TX law SB8? Will her family disown her?
MAIN CONFLICT: Is between Susan and the Governor. Susan the lead investigator of a hit and run has to deal with deep budget cuts which have been redirected to state programs for new Mothers and their state dictated newborns below the poverty line. The deepening deficit of Texas with newly created orphanages and institutions with an already overburdened budget brings Susan to the conclusion that the only way she can help women is to regain their constitutional rights that were stripped away with the new ban on abortion, SB 8 by running for the Governorship.
DILEMMA: Having a very conservative pro-life family Susan sees first hand the devastation the new law causes but runs the risk on being disowned by her family by choosing to challenge the Governor for his position, specifically for the purpose of getting back the rights of women to have control over their own bodies; their constitutional right.
THEME: You are free to have your civil rights and what you hold dear and important, and I as a woman, I am free to have mine.
I realize that this is probably more a statement that I haven’t culled into a theme yet, I’ll keep working on making it more succinct:
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