Day 4 Assignment

[Larry Ridlen]

Larry Ridlen’s 10 Most Interesting Things

What I learned doing this assignment is…

Book reports or summaries don’t grab the producers.

BEFUDDLED PATH

<div>
A.
Unique Hero: A drug mule learns how to change reality.</div><div>

B.
Major hook of your opening scene: A plane just about to land disappears
then reappears a moment later in a different position, amid a voiceover
explaining The Many Worlds Theory.

C.
Turning Points: When picking up drugs in Jamaica Jim meets Herbie, a Rastafarian
who trains him.

In
the Nexus, a place apart from all realities, Jim meets alternate versions
of people he knows, and they train him.

As
Jim and Kim get closer, he discovers that Nick, a relative of the mob
boss, had raped her.

Kim
gets kidnapped!

D.
Emotional dilemma: To prevent more suffering Jim must kill the Nick. But
can he live with that?

E.
Reveal: Jim blames himself for Billy getting molested by their uncle.

F.
Reversals: Just when it seems Jim is about to pay off the debt in full an
FBI sting lands Billy in jail. The mob boss bails him out… for a price.

G.
Character betrayals: While he always seemed in Jim’s corner, the mob boss
has been pulling strings to keep Jim under his control!

H.
Surprise: Jim works for the FBI to take down the mob!

</div>

OTHER INTERESTING THINGS IN BEFUDDLED PATH

<div>
Nick
has powers of his own!</div><div>

Cool
fight scene where Jim uses his reality-bending powers against Nick.

</div><div>

Herbie
and Jim team up to rescue Kim.

An
alternate version of Herbie is the pilot of the plane flying Jim to
Jamaica.

The plane crashes with Jim and Alternate Herbie on it
which resets into another reality.

</div>

[William Leiren]

Title: RIPPLE ROAD

1. A. Villain/Hero – The hero, Gower, while a calm, well-spoken, insecure poetry professor at first glance, is actually a festering bomb waiting to go off; The villain, James, is a mirror-image doppelgänger of Gower’s- more confident, more cocky & charismatic, and definitely more psychotic

B. Opening Scene – A brief moment from later in the script, Gower is driving like a madman to rescue his wife Annika from the murderous doppelgänger, and is involved in a high-speed chase with highway patrol, who end up crashing their patrol cars, as Gower escapes into the night desert

C. Turning Points – The birth of the doppelgänger, bursting out of the still lake; the later realization that others see the hot rod that the doppelgänger has stolen, and still later, when others see the doppelgänger himself and we realize the villain is not simply “imagined” by the hero, he truly exists in the real world

D. Emotional Dilemma – As James the evil twin starts taking over the hero’s life, Gower has to “either” man up to the level of the doppelgänger to defeat him, “or” Gower will be murdered, with James usurping away our hero’s life

E. Twists – When Gower finally catches up to his kidnapped wife, she reveals to him that this is all in Gower’s imagination, that Gower is not married to this beautiful woman, but is trapped somewhere in an unknown “room” manifesting this reality as well as his own evil twin

F. Reversal – Gower rejects her “mind game” theory and realizes she was not kidnapped, but came willingly with the doppelgänger

G. Betrayal – Gower then also realizes she has left Gower for James, seeing him as the superior man

H. Big Surprises – After learning of this huge betrayal, James then murders Gower, drowning him in a lake; but a little while later, as James & Annika are harmed by angry bikers who had followed them, Gower is reborn in the lake, taking on all the murderous qualities of his doppelgänger

2. Other interesting things to a Producer: A. This is road race film, very much like such drive-in films from the 1970s (Vanishing Point; Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry; Two-Lane Blacktop; Eat My Dust) as well as the more modern holders of that torch (the Fast & Furious series)

B. In the end, we reveal Gower has actually died in a hospital room, and Annika was actually his nurse; but the doppelgängers live on, transferring to Annika, as she releases her own evil twin at film’s end; an endless series of sequels.

3. I think the previous things above qualify as the 10 Most interesting things.

4. What I learned doing this assignment is… that my script actually has a lot of very interesting elements going for it, that a Producer could work with.

[Joan Dougherty]

Joan’s 10 Most Interesting Things

What I learned in doing this assignment is to be more descriptive than analytical.

My list:

Major hook in opening scene: a glimpse of a child running for his life through the woods without any clue as to why

Character betrayal starts early when Tiago rejects a childhood friendship to punish Sofia, now returned after a long absence, to protect himself.

Turning point: Tiago, the local jail keeper, arrests Sofia, a storyteller, to keep her from telling their shared story. That’s not the reason he gives for the arrest however.

Emotional dilemma: Tiago reacts badly to the community pressure to let Sofia go.

Reversal: Once inside, Sofia uses her wits as a storyteller to force his return to the past.

Big surprises and major twists:

Tiago comes back to the jail after doing rounds to hear children’s voices in the cell area only to discover there are no children there.

Sofia slowly transforms the cells into the woods that Tiago has refused to enter. Vines snake across the floor and around the cell bars, choking the space.

The running boy from the beginning makes an appearance in the wooded cell, then out the door of the jail. Tiago follows the running child through the village and into the woods but comes away empty handed.

Tiago returns to the jail and finds an empty cell where Sofia should be.

Tiago returns to the woods, to the place where a murder occurred, and comes face to face with the past and the means to overcome his trauma as a child. By telling his story, he gains entrance into a storied world.