[Ben Tannous]

Ben has completed the BW Framework!

What I learned doing this process is … that an instant reference 2-3 page document with clear and concise references to the building blocks of the show keeps the show on track. Using clear and concise references give you enough images about your show to move it forward.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Creating Irony!

What I learned doing this assignment is … irony is about two opposites existing as one thing, irony creates a profound experience for the audience, and irony adds layers of meaning and intrigue to the story.

Jack is at the height of his career as a journalist, but if he wants to be even better and push himself even further to really distance himself from the pack, he has to risk it all and give it all up to investigate a story.

Gina is a true patriot who believes disclosing state secrets is the genuine patriotic thing to do, when she was told to keep those secrets by her government because keeping the secrets is the patriotic thing to do.

Waker believes that stopping Gina from disclosing state secrets is not the solution; instead the solution is to let her disclose them and then discredit and destroy her as mentally unstable.

Waker believes that releasing a portion of the truth enclosed in a fog of mystery and lies is the best way to keep the truth a secret.

Margaret has to fire Jack from the newspaper and distance herself professionally from him, but he is still the love of her life.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Plot and Character Layers

What I learned doing this assignment is … that the shows which gives us intriguing plot and character layers are the shows that people watch obsessively, and so we must present our shows as more than just “surface only” experiences. This can be done by identifying the source or surface material, asking questions to discover possible layers in the plot and character, and then organizing the layers beneath the surface.

Plot Surface: A Journalist is challenged to investigate the abduction of a government scientist.

Layer 1: Major Scheme Revealed – it’s not just one scientist that’s been abducted but several have disappeared over decades in what looks like the work of a serial killer; Layer 2: Hidden Agenda – the journalist didn’t come across this story by accident. It was planted on him so that he would investigate the abductions and reveal what’s going on; Layer 3: Mystery – the scientists were working on a secret government program that involves experimental aircraft;Layer 4: Conspiracy – those aircraft are not just stealth bombers, they’re man-made replicas of recovered alien spacecraft going back to Roswell.

Character Surface: Harold Waker is a government official looking for a scientist who has disappeared.

Layer 1: Hidden Character History – Harold worked on the same program as the scientists;Layer 2: Secret Identity – Harold is not just one of their colleagues, he is an ex-CIA agent and now black ops security officer; Layer 3: Hidden Agenda – he isn’t trying to find the scientist to help her, but instead erase her existence; Layer 4: Secret – he’s also tasked with ruining journalist Jack Friedman.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Show Mysteries

What I learned doing this assignment is … that mysteries invite obsession, and for a great pilot you need two mysteries: 1. A shocking event that instantly hooks the audience into the episode; and 2. An over-time mystery that creates longer-term even more intrigue.

1. Shocking Event Mystery:

A. Shocking Event: Jack’s first source/informant is abducted and disappears.

B. Secret: why was the scientist abducted and by who?

C. Investigation: where is Aida?

Who: Aida, the source is a scientist.

What was she doing? Working on special access programs funded through the defence black budgets.

When did she work there? Until she was abducted.

Where? At S4 in Area 51.

Why: Because through a series of phone taps and monitoring, Aida’s employers discovered she was about to speak to Jack.

How: driving one night, bright lights appear from the sky, Aida is abducted, leaving no evidence, and her car running for police to find.

Part Withheld: she was working on a highly classified unidentified aerial phenomena program that has been hidden from the public by an unknown organisation.

2. Create the Over Time Mystery:

A. Cover up: Aliens abducting government officials.

B. Secret: those government officials have been working on secret technology programs called special access programs run by private companies that are owned by just a few people and into which trillions of dollars have disappeared.

C. Reveals:

Who: the organisation behind these special access programs is called MJ12.

What: it was created by President Truman but since acquired even greater power than the President of the United States.

When: MJ12 was created in 1947 but by the time President Eisenhower left office, it had acquired so much power through the military industrial machine that even he was scared of them.

Where: In the United States and particularly using the CIA to maintain security on air force bases like Area 51.

Why: because of the Roswell incident in 1947.

How: by Presidential / executive order which MJ12 then used to increase its secrecy by taking these special access projects away from the Presidential purview and funnelling trillions of American tax dollars into their programs through black budgets in the defence budget.

Part Withheld: they have technology that is light years beyond what we have made on Earth.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Big Picture Open Loops

What I learned doing this assignment is … big picture open loops ask questions abut the future of something important and keep the audience coming back for answers.

Top 5-8 Big Picture Open Loops that could be in your pilot:

1. Will Jack discover a conspiracy to hide alien technology from the public?

2. Will Jack discover who is behind the conspiracy?

3. Will Jack discover who abducted these scientists?

4. Will Jack’s reputation be ruined / survive?

5. Will the love affair between Jack and Margaret (his boss) survive Jack’s investigation into this story?

6. Will government agent Harold get to Jack and erase Gina before the story is out?

7. Will any of Gina’s colleagues corroborate her story?

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Show Empathy/Distress

What I learned doing this assignment is … that the shows you get deeply involved in have characters you feet deep empathy for and/or you were distressed about, and that’s what keeps the audience glued to the story and returning to it.

JACK

A. Undeserved misfortune – the new story Jack is sucked into ultimately involves a derided subject that will destroy his career and reputation.

B. External Character conflicts – Intentional: Jack and Harold are enemies, one fighting to expose the truth and the other fighting to keep it. Unintentional: Jack’s credibility, and therefore, his entire life will be scrutinized causing pain to loved ones like his boss Margaret with whom he is having an illicit affair.

C. Plot intruding on life – Jack must battle: bureaucracy and possibly conspiracy to access information from the government; government agents attempting to stifle and stop his investigation and story; attention seekers and conspiracy theorists and government disinformation agents to sort them from those who have real and actual knowledge; to sort actual knowledge from speculation, myth, exaggeration, embellishment; the ridicule from his peers and colleagues and the public.

D. Moral dilemmas – throw “under the bus” his confidential informers, confidential sources, and loved ones in pursuit of this story.

E. Forced decisions they’d never make – forced to genuinely put his career and reputation on the line for the first time.

GINA

A. Undeserved misfortune – Gina has to go into hiding because she got scared by what she saw in the government program and how they handled her.

B. External Character conflicts – Intentional: Gina must hide from government agent Harold Waker who is out to erase her existence; Unintentional: Gina’s actions have made ex-colleague and physicist working on the government project, Tom Bennett’s life intense, stressful and scrutinized.

C. Plot intruding on life – Gina wants to expose the truth, and Harold wants not only to stop but erase her.

D. Moral dilemmas – she took an oath / signed a confidentiality agreement about the programs she worked on and now must decide what and how much she reveals especially in relation to ex-colleagues, which may put them in the firing line.

E. Forced decisions they’d never make – hide, go on the run, then publicly out herself.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Show Relationship Map

What I learned doing this assignment is … that relationships cause drama and intrigue, for them to work in an ongoing series they need multiple layers, and to be binge worthy they must be distinct and unique.

Jack with Gina:

Surface: Journalist / Source

Common Ground: Expose the truth

Conflict: Not trusting each other – he doesn’t trust her with his career / she with her life

History: Recently introduced by one of Jack’s informants

Subtext: They want to trust each other but need the other to prove it

Relationship Arc: From distrusting each other to trusting each other

Jack with Margaret:

Surface: Employee / Boss

Common Ground: Dedication to journalism

Conflict: Dedication to the story / Dedication to the newspaper

History: Worked together for fifteen years

Subtext: Having an affair for fifteen years while she is married to someone else

Relationship Arc: From an intimate and secret affair to breaking up although still in-love

Jack with Harold:

Surface: Citizen / Government Official

Common Ground: Good of the nation

Conflict: Jack exposing a government conspiracy / Harold hiding that conspiracy

History: Harold knows of Jack because of his public profile, but Jack doesn’t yet know Harold exists

Subtext: Jack must expose the conspiracy before Harold ruins him

Relationship Arc: From not knowing each other to despising each other

Gina with Harold:

Surface: Whistleblower / Henchman – Criminal-Traitor / Pursuer-Authority

Common Ground: Good of the nation

Conflict: Escape him / Erase her

History: Worked together on highly classified government project

Subtext: He doesn’t just want to arrest her but to erase her existence

Relationship Arc: From security detail and protected to hunter and hunted

Gina and Tom:

Surface: Colleagues

Common Ground: Physicists

Conflict: Wants his cooperation / Doesn’t want to know her

History: Worked together on highly classified government project

Subtext: She thinks he’s a coward / He thinks she’s a fool

Relationship Arc: From trusted colleagues to estranged

Harold with The Director

Surface: Employee / Boss

Common Ground: Both trying to keep a highly classified government project secret and a public “myth”

Conflict: Get caught doing this job and you’re on your own

History: Worked in a national security organization together

Subtext: Their work is ultimately for a classified committee called The Watch Committee

Relationship Arc: From engaging in a “routine” exercise to sliding down the slippery slope

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by  Ben Tannous.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Character Emotions

What I learned doing this assignment is … that discovering what is inside a character, like natural and polarising internal conflicts, that causes them to express emotion and causes consistent emotional issues, makes the characters even more engaging for the audience.

For each of your main characters, brainstorm an Emotional Profile, filling in the following:

JACK PROFILE:

A. Situational: Hope: find/uncover the truth & break the biggest story in human history / Fear: arrested, disgraced & discredited B. Motivation: Want: acceptance / Need: self-acceptanceC. Mask: Base Negative Emotion: fraud/liar / Public Mask: expert/credible/truthfulD. Weaknesses: doesn’t know when to stop / doesn’t respect moral or legal boundaries / E. Triggers: being disrespected as an outsiderF. Coping Mechanism: fight back in the extreme: uses a digger for the job of a shovel

GINA PROFILE:

A. Situational: Hope: expose the government conspiracy / Fear: killedB. Motivation: Want: inform the public / Need: redemption for part in conspiracyC. Mask: Base Negative Emotion: scared / Public Mask: courageous D. Weaknesses: powerless cog E. Triggers: being lied to F. Coping Mechanism: shut down/shy away

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Intriguing Character Layers

What I learned doing this assignment is … that characters are more interesting when their traits lay in morally grey areas rather than being simply good or bad. By having hidden agendas, competition, being part of conspiracies, possessing secrets, involved in deception, harbour wounds, and having secret identities they become more layered and the audience begins to ask questions about them which propel the audience to continue watching until they get the answers or more questions are asked.

For your Inner Circle characters, fill in any of the Intrigue items that apply.

Character Name: Jack Friedman; <div>

Role: Investigative journalist looking into the disappearance of government employees;

Hidden agendas: Uncover a government conspiracy about UFOs; show his rivals and doubters that he’s not crazy for pursuing this but that he is the only one who could do it;

Competition: contemporary and peer journalists who want Jack’s fame and notoriety, personified in rival journalist Sarah Stafford at the same newspaper who has sought to take Jack’s place for years;

Conspiracies: Assisting a government fugitive to escape the law; uncover a government conspiracy about UFOs;

Secrets: an affair with his editor and boss Margaret Le Mer; informers within government and other organisations; he knows where Gina is; that his investigation has something to do with UFOs;

Deception: needs to deceive the government about his involvement in the story at all; needs to deceive the government into thinking he’s not investigating them; needs to deceive the editor and newspaper owner that the story isn’t about UFOs and aliens;

Wound: Always felt he was an outsider who had to prove himself;

Secret: Despite the accolades, he didn’t come through the Ivy League system and/or prestige media system like his contemporaries and rivals, and so he feels like a fraud.

Character Name: Gina Lang;

Role: abductee, whistle blower, physicist;

Hidden agendas: she worked on alien aircraft at a secret location for the government;

Competition: alien conspiracy theorists who want to be more renowned than her, taking critical attention away from the facts, and who are muddying the waters for those who are telling the truth;

Conspiracies: she was involved in a government conspiracy to conceal their possession of alien technology; and she is now involved in a conspiracy to make it all public;

Secrets: discovered how the alien aircraft worked;

Deception: she didn’t just blow the whistle to protect herself, she wanted to blow the whistle on the secret government operation;

Wound: doubted her entire life;

Secret Identity: Patriot despite being the whistle blower.

</div>

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by  Ben Tannous. Reason: Update answers

[Ben Tannous]

Ben’s Engaging Main Characters

Assignment 2

What I learned doing this assignment is … by establishing a main character’s role in the story, finding their unique purpose and/or expertise to make them active and move the story forward, discovering a secret they have that generates questions about them, giving them moral boundaries to navigate, keeping them unpredictable to keep the audience guessing, and finally making them someone the audience can empathise with makes these characters infinitely more identifiable and attractive to audiences.

The journey of your show

Start – a highly respected and credible investigative journalist, who does not believe in aliens; Finish – a deeply disrespected and discredited investigative journalist, who does believe in aliens.

Who are the main characters that will sell your show?

Jack Freidman and Gina Lang.

Answer these questions for each of those characters

Jack Friedman:

A. Role in the show Investigative journalist B. Unique Purpose / ExpertiseInvestigating the abduction and disappearance of government employeesC. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?They haven’t been abducted by aliens but by a government department bent on keeping their UFO program secretD. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?Jack does whatever it takes to get to the truthE. Unpredictable: What will they do next?Jack is all sophistication on the surface but underneath he’s a brawler and a chameleon F. Empathetic: Why do we care?He’s gone from the pinnacle of the journalistic world to the laughing stock

Gina Lang:

A. Role in the showShe was abducted B. Unique Purpose / ExpertiseShe wants to blow the whistle on who abducted her and whyC. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?She’s not an “alien abductee” seeking attention, she’s a physicist D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?She is in breach of a confidentiality agreement and an oath to keep the program secretE. Unpredictable: What will they do next?She’s in fear of her life, so terrified that she’s not sure if she sees threats or not. F. Empathetic: Why do we care?She’s been abducted and pursued and is in fear of her life.

[Ben Tannous]

Assignment 1

The Walking Dead – Three Circles of Characters

A. Main Characters Circle: Rick Grimes, Lori Grimes, Shane Walsh

B. Connected Circle: Carl Grimes, Glenn Rhee, Merle Dixon

C. Environment Circle: Andrea Harrison, Dale Horvath, T-Dog

Assignment 2

What I learned doing this assignment was how to prioritise characters in the context of the main character and the story.

Create the three circles of characters for your show

A. Main Characters Circle: Jack Friedman; Margaret La Mer; Gina Lang; Harold Waker.

B. Connected Circle: Elizabeth Jacobsen (newspaper owner); Sarah Stafford (Jack’s contemporary and rival); Rosalind Arbour (politician out for Jack); Tony Griffey (alien conspiracy theorist).

C. Environment Circle: Dean Porter (Jack’s assistant); Forrest Danvers (alleged alien abductee).

Give us a one sentence description of each of the Main Characters.

Jack Friedman – highly respected, highly credible, multi-award-winning investigative journalist, his trademark is his reputation as highly credible and his ability to get to the truth.

Margaret La Mer – editor and Jack’s boss at the newspaper has the unenviable task of balancing Jack’s insatiable curiosity with the newspaper’s interests.

Gina Lang – an abductee who got away and blows the whistle, she’s gone underground in fear of her life.

Harold Waker – Government Agent on Black Budget Projects, he is a bloodhound on the trail of Gina Lang.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by  Ben Tannous. Reason: Add Assignment 2

[Ben Tannous]

The Walking Dead 5 Star Model

The Walking Dead – Days Gone By

Big Picture Hook

Sheriff Rick Grimes wakes in his hospital bed to a world overrun by a zombie apocalypse.

Amazing and Intriguing Character

Sheriff Rick Grimes is an honest, straight shooter, and law enforcement officer, who has woken up in a world full of moral ambiguity, lawlessness and chaos.

Empathy / Distress

Rick suffers from a gun shot wound, has only a hospital gown, and wakes up in a scary and dangerous world to find his family is also missing.

Layers / Open Loops

Will Rick survive? Will Rick find his family? Will Rick’s family survive? Will Rick figure out what’s going on? Will Rick find safety?

Inviting Obsession

What caused the zombie apocalypse? Can they find a cure? Where are the authorities? What is happening beyond Rick’s home town?

What I learned doing this assignment is …

… that binge worthy TV shows have Big Picture Hooks that capture the audience’s interest and attention, Amazing and Intriguing Characters that engage the audience, who must feel Empathy and Distress for those characters, that there must be Layers and Open Loops of questions that keep the audience engaged and wandering, and that the show Invites Obsession by creating mysteries about the characters, events and future of the story.

[Ben Tannous]

Hi,

My name is Ben.

I’ve written 7 features and 3 TV show pilots.

I hope to dramatically improve my writing.

I live in Australia, which may be unique in this class(?).

Looking forward to the class and working with you all.

[Ben Tannous]

Ben Tannous

I agree to the terms of this release form.

[Ben Tannous]

Hi David,

Thank you for setting that out. I completely agree with all of what you said.

It would be great to do some sort of information exchange. I do think this might actually make our stories all the better.

Look forward to it.

Ben

[Ben Tannous]

Hi David,

Nice to meet you.

Thanks for raising that we’re both doing UFO alien abduction stories.

Our stories seem to have the obvious similarities – genre tropes and information in the public domain – but they also<font face=”inherit”> appear to be coming at it from different angles – police vs journalist investigation – and from your title “Hybrids”, am I correct that it’s perhaps referring to alien-human-hybrids(?) and a cover-up or invasion(?) versus a journalistic investigation into a cover-up about the existence of </font>aliens<font face=”inherit”> and our possession of their technology, which is the angle I’m pursuing. </font>

Are you happy just to keep moving forward on that basis?

I’m happy to discuss further or go through Hal?

Kind regards,

Ben