Birgit Myaard
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Birgit Myaard Delivers Irony
What I learned doing this assignment is building in opposites can create irony that will allow the audience to gain new insights. For example, a character can win by losing, or do the right thing for the wrong reason, or do something amazing but then see the credit being given to someone else. All of these situations highlight the new insight.
Once again, my project is too much in its infant stages to get to this point yet, but I can envision a scene like when Harvard lost because even though they got touchdowns, they did not get a goal on their tries, which made them see the need for reform of the scoring rules.
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Subject line: Birgit Myaard Delivers Insights Through Conflict
What I learned doing this assignment is: In addition to using dialogue or action to deliver insight, one can use conflict. This conflict can be anything from an argument between characters to a dilemma, a plan gone awry, a misunderstanding, being falsely accused, etc.
Again, because my project is a limited series and not a feature and is in its beginning stages, I have way too much information to wrangle to do this assignment yet. But I do foresee some interesting conflicts between characters, especially Walter Camp and the Harvard captain.
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ASSIGNMENT 1
Birgit Myaard’s Seabiscuit Analysis
What I learned doing this assignment is one way to present the New Ways is in delivering Profound Moments in action, rather than the usual way through dialogue.
There were a number of profound moments in this film that actually made me cry: Red’s parents giving him up so he can have a second chance at life. Howard’s son dying so, in an ironic way, his father can end up with a second chance at life (not that he needed one, but the situation led to that.) Pumpkin about to be put down, but Tom rescuing her and giving her a second chance at life. Howard giving Tom a second chance at life. Howard and Tom giving Red another second chance at life after his first second chance fizzles. Howard, Tom, and Red giving Seabiscuit a chance to become a champion and then another chance after the injury. Most of these scenes involved little-to-no dialogue and were purely action-oriented.
Assignment 2 will not appear here… the project is still too much in its infancy and too great in scope to do that yet.
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Subject line: Birgit Myaard’s Living Metaphors
What I learned doing this assignment is there are amazing ways to challenge the old ways that are subtle and can work to help your audience experience the change without them even realizing it.
I also learned my project is way too big, and is still too much in its infancy, to focus on this assignment with respect to it. I just have too much information to distill before I can do this kind of “finessing.” I should have signed up for this course later in my process (and used it on a feature script before trying it on a limited series).
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What I learned doing this assignment is there are subliminal ways you can get your audience to shift from Old Ways to New Ways: Question Challenges to an Old Way and Counterexample Challenges to an Old Way. The latter can be through Dialogue, Experience, or Character. The following five Old Ways appear across a number of different episodes of the series.
Old Way 1: 15 or 20 players on the field from each team
Experience Counterexample: Camp sees the 1873 Eton v. Yale football match, which has 11 players on the field per team and realizes the game is livelier and the ball more visible to the spectators. Harvard keeps pushing for 15 players, but over time it becomes clear 11 is a better number and they yield to Camp/Yale.
Old Way 2: Hopkins School students play baseball for free, but only the wealthy kids can play away games in other towns
Counterexample Challenge: Camp, on hearing that the baseball team is scheduled for an out-of-town game, touches his pocket, making Jennings aware he’s concerned about money. Jennings offers to pay, but Camp says no. Jennings asks how Camp will be able to get to the game. Camp consults with the Yale baseball captain and implements a subscription and ticket model so the team can pay for umpires and travel to away games.
Old Way 3: control over the ball inside the rugby scrum
Experience Counterexample Challenge combined with Question Challenge: Camp asks Baker if he noticed how Harvard deliberately moved the ball backwards, rather than forwards in the scrum as they heaved their bodies forward, which was counterintuitive to wanting to move the ball forward on the field. Baker, who hadn’t thought strategy was possible in football, agrees to try out the technique at the next practice. It works, so Yale starts using the technique in games.
Old Way 4: the rugby scrum
Question Challenge: Camp asks why have the scrum. He suggests the line of scrimmage would give spectators a chance to see the ball, would give teams a chance to implement strategy instead of letting brute force and luck determine where the ball goes.
Old Way 5: the team with the ball controls it until it is intercepted by the opposite team
Question Challenge: Camp asks why not implement a system where the team in possession of the ball must advance it a certain distance in a certain number of tries, otherwise the other team gains possession. This leads to the grid lines being chalked on the field.
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Day 9 Assignment 2
What I learned doing this assignment is my project is HUGE! I’m going to need a long time to map out these ways for the series as a whole and figure out which ones will appear in each (or all) of the episodes. The following is a start.
Old Ways/Challenges for Camp
Old Way: Always wanting to win in any competition (sports or life)
Challenge: Two of the greatest disappointments of his playing career sprang from his perfect performance of it…
1) In the1878 Harvard game in Boston, Yale stopped a Harvard advance almost on Yale’s goal line. Camp and another player, Watson, carried the ball, in alternating rushes, to the center of the field. There, Camp broke free, evading the entire Harvard team except one man, who bore down on him. Thirty-five yards from the touch line, Camp checked himself and drop-kicked the ball, which shot over his tackler’s head. While the ball spun through the air, the whistle blew to end the game. The ball flew over the goal posts less than a second too late.
2) In 1879, also against Harvard, just before the end of the first half, Camp undertook a forty-five-yard kick. The ball sailed above the Harvard players, who tried to intercept it, and slid over the posts. But Bland Ballard of Princeton, the referee for the game, saw a Yale player holding his opponent. He called back the ball. Had Camp’s goal been allowed, it would have won the game, which was the only game tied by Harvard while Camp was in a Yale uniform.
Old Way: Being a successful athlete means being popular
Challenge: Alice’s intellectual bent forces Camp to think of more than just athletics in order to impress her.
Old Way: If it’s not in the rule book it’s okay to do it, even if it isn’t morally right.
Challenge: In episode one, Camp pitches a mean curve ball, which is a new way of pitching at the time and certainly not common. When challenged about it, Camp retorts that there’s nothing against it in either of the rule books of the day. In a later episode, Harvard president Charles Eliot denounces the competitive and deceptive aspects of athletics in general (criticizing baseball’s curve ball, for example, because it deceives the batter) and abhors the “unwholesome desire for victory by whatever means.”
Old Ways/Challenges for Football
Old Way: The soccer-style way Yale played with twenty players out on the field from each team
Challenge 1: The 1873 game against Eton with only eleven players a side on the field shows Camp how much livelier the game can be for both players and spectators.
Challenge 2: The 1875 rugby-style game introduced to Yale by Harvard shows Camp how much more fun the game is with the odd rugby ball and the introduction of above-the-waist tackling.
Old Way: Harvard’s insistence on teams of fifteen on the field rather than the twenty of other college teams or the eleven favored by Yale.
Challenge: Yale refuses to join the Intercollegiate Football Association unless the others agree to field eleven.
Old Way: The rugby scrum
Challenge: Camp suggests there is little opportunity to use tactics in a scrum and suggests the line of scrimmage will open up the game. This leads to a new line up on the field, which leads to new position names, such as quarterback.
There are lots more, but I will need more than the time allotted for this assignment.
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Day 9, Assignment 1
12 Angry Men Old Ways/Challenges
What I learned doing this assignment is that characters can present their “old way” prejudices, bad habits, negative viewpoints, etc. and a simple word, turn of phrase, or action by another character or characters can challenge it. I used snippets of dialogue below to show some of the characters’ old ways and other snippets or descriptions of action to show how the challenge was made to change that old way to the new way. I added an additional “old way” to the list.
Assumption of guilt all are “guilty” of this except Juror 8 (Henry Fonda’s character) “open and shut case” “do you believe he’s not guilty” “nobody proved otherwise”
Challenge “nobody needs to prove otherwise; the burden of proof is on the prosecution”
Just want this over “let’s get started” “let’s vote and, who knows, maybe we can get out of here” “what’s the difference how long it takes?”
Challenge “the ball game isn’t until late” “give it an hour”
Not caring “we don’t owe him a thing”
Challenge “how would you feel?”
Prejudice “serves ‘em right” “they’re born liars” “they don’t know what the truth is” “that’s the way they are by nature. Liars”
Challenge “you think you’re born with a monopoly on the truth?” “If you don’t believe his story, why do you believe hers? She’s one of ‘them’ too, isn’t she?” other jurors turning their backs “listen…” “I have and don’t open your mouth again” “prejudice always obscures the truth”
Not looking beneath the surface “these people are dangerous. Wild.”
Challenge “he’s been beaten every day since he was little” “you’re a sadist.. you don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?”
Assuming the evidence is not questionable All the jurors start out, except Fonda’s character, believing all the evidence
Challenge “everybody sounded so positive, I started feeling the defense counsel was letting things get by” showing the same kind of knife “a lot of details that never came out”
Assuming the witnesses were accurate “she said she saw the killing through the windows of the el”
Challenge “the old man couldn’t have heard the boy when the train was going by” “witnesses can make mistakes” “she saw the boy raise his hand and stab his father in a downward movement through the passing el windows” eyeglasses and the marks on the woman’s nose “do you wear eyeglasses in bed?” “she had to be able to see a person sixty feet away” “I have a reasonable doubt, now”
Assuming the Defense Attorney did his job “real drive” “expert job”
Challenge “possible for a lawyer to be stupid” “I’d want my lawyer to tear the prosecution’s witnesses to shreds” “supposing they’re wrong?” “people make mistakes” “this isn’t an exact science” “no it isn’t” “look, lawyers aren’t infallible, you know”
Assuming the case is completely logical All of them feel this at the beginning except Fonda
Challenge “if he really had killed his father, why would he go home three hours later?” “when did the panic start?”
Assuming they are smart enough to understand their role as a juror “I’ll change my vote ‘cause I’m sick of the yackety yack” “I’m entitled to my opinion”
Challenge “maybe you don’t understand the meaning of reasonable doubt”
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Birgit Myaard’s Profound Ending
What I learned doing this assignment is there are five keys to delivering a profound ending to your audience (Profound Truth; Lead Character endings; Setups that become powerful payoffs; Surprising, yet inevitable drama; Final image that sticks with us) and the final scene will be one of three things: 1) A direct statement of the Profound Truth; 2) A subtext image/line that has been set up earlier that means the Profound Truth; or 3) A question left with the audience that point to the Profound Truth.
What is your Profound Truth and how
will it be delivered powerfully in your ending?It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, it only matters how you play the game, whether that game is football or life.
How
do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come
to an end in a way that represents the completed change?Walter Camp “loses” his pre-eminent position on the rules committee and is forced, finally, by the new rules committee to embrace the adoption of the forward pass, thereby ushering in the modern era of American Football and, ironically, opening up the game.
What
are the setups/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it
deep meaning?Throughout the series, Camp wants to win. If it is not specifically written in the rule book, then in his mind it is okay. In episode two, Camp thinks he has killed an opponent he tackled, who ends up concussed and bleeding on the frozen ground. In that same game, Camp makes a forward pass that is only legal because of a coin toss, since passing had not been addressed at all in the agreed-upon rules for that game. In a later episode, Camp quits medical school because he “can’t stand the sight of blood.” Blood and the forward pass seem to be inextricably, negatively linked in Camp’s mind and he tries to make football more open as a result.
How
are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making
it surprising when it happens?We will see throughout the series that Camp always wants to win, but he loses his bid to keep football a kicking and running game when his rules committee is maneuvered out of existence. Despite his resistance to the forward pass, after it is adopted by the new rules committee, Yale wins, under Camp’s tutelage, against Harvard.
What is the Parting Image/Line that
leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?Camp’s funeral? The lines from the poem he often quoted, by William Makepeace Thackaray: Who misses or who wins the prize— Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman.
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Birgit’s Connection with Audience
What I learned doing this assignment is I have been using all four of the ways of connecting with the audience already, but these techniques have been emphasized in my mind.
1. Tell us which characters you are going to INTENTIONALLY create a connection with the audience.
Walter Camp is my main character and the change agent (although in a couple of episodes, he is the transformational character). Other characters, who do not appear throughout the series, but for whom I will create a connection with the audience when they do appear are Alice Camp and Harvard’s Charles W. Eliot and Bill Reid, although I won’t do that today, but on my own time, after the course.
2. With each character, tell us how you’ll use each of the four ways of connecting with the audience in the first 30 minutes of the movie. A. Relatability B. Intrigue C. Empathy D. Likability
A. Relatability – In early episodes, as a teen, Walter
Camp is scrawny and dreams of playing football for Yale. Most boys have similar
dreams at that age and men remember those feelings. When he tries to talk to
Alice Graham Sumner (his future wife), she wants nothing to do with him because
he’s brought a football to an open house. Many teens flub their first
introduction to a romantic interest or worry about doing so.B. Intrigue – The opening scene of the first episode
lets the audience know Camp’s peers called him “The Father of American
Football.” Then we see him as a teen and wonder how this scrawny kid ends up
with that sobriquet.C. Empathy – In the first episode, his cousin teases
him about being too scrawny and how he needs to be exceptional to get into
Yale.D. Likability – He has friends who clearly like him,
even paying for his hot chocolate when he cannot afford it. -
Birgit Myaard’s Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is: I had never heard of the Mini Movie Method. What really struck me is how I see each episode of my limited series fulfilling each of the MMM steps for my main character with a miniature Mini Movie structure happening within each episode, either for him as a change agent or, in an episode toward the end, as a transformational character. I’m going to have to wrap all the research I’ve done on Walter Camp and the development of American Football into the MMM template and the Profound model. This is going to take much longer than 48 hours, but the following is a bare-bones start (except for episode 1) with future work on my own over the next week(s) to delve down in each episode for the MMM elements as well as the Profound elements:
Transformational Logline for “Gentlemen of the Gridiron” (the series):
From his introduction to the fledgling game as a teen until his death, Walter Chauncey Camp, dubbed the “Father of American Football” by his peers, faces opposition to his vision for the game’s future and, on occasion, must fight for its existence.
Mini Movie 1 Status Quo and Call to Adventure – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.
Episode 1 – “Blue Bloods” Transformational Logline:
A scrawny, teenaged Camp must improve himself academically and physically to fulfill his dream of playing football for Yale.
Emotional Gradient: Desired Change
Young Walter Camp attends the 1873 “International Foot Ball Match,” a soccer-style game between eleven members of the “Yale Twenty” and eleven Eton alumni, with his close friends, Curtiss and Jennings. Camp is amazed to hear Viscount Tarbat, one of the Etonians playing the rough game is a “Blue Blood,” Watching only twenty-two players on the field instead of forty impresses Camp, who realizes fewer players makes the game more exciting, open, and lively for both players and spectators. When Camp declares a desire to make the Yale team, his cousin Charlie, a member of the “Yale Twenty,” tells him he is too scrawny to play a man’s game and needs to be exceptional to gain admittance to Yale. Tarbat overhears and counsels Camp to ignore his cousin’s ungentlemanly words. He urges Camp to work toward his dream of playing football. Camp comes up with his Daily Dozen exercises to strengthen his body (for which he will gain additional fame in adulthood) and practices kicking and running, as well as other athletic pursuits. Charlie keeps up his “tough love” tactics, compelling Camp to work even harder physically, as well as academically. Unlike his wealthier Hopkins friends, Camp doesn’t have much money, so when the Hopkins Nine receives a challenge from an out-of-town school, he convinces his teammates to implement the Yale Nine’s system of funding out-of-town baseball games with subscriptions and ticket sales (set up for a later episode). Camp sees the first rugby-style game played between Yale and Harvard and is struck by the new game’s strategic possibilities. His kicking skills and insight into the game attract the attention of Baker, the Yale Eleven captain, who asks an elated Camp to join Yale’s scrub team. He acquits himself well in his first scrub game and elicits approval from Charlie. Camp garners admission to Yale. At football tryouts, Camp is horrified to learn he has not made the Freshman Eleven, but thrilled a moment later to learn he has made Yale’s Varsity Eleven. Camp enters Yale, where he is never without his football, which he wants to feel is a part of him. He has classes in socio-economics with Professor Sumner, a Social Darwinist who hammers home the idea that competition is a law of nature. At Sumner’s weekly open house, Camp is smitten by Sumner’s sister, Alice, but she has no time for a “big man on campus” who dares to bring his football to his professor’s home. Sumner suggests Camp curry favor with Alice through intellectual, rather than athletic, pursuits. Charles Eliot, the football-despising president of Harvard reluctantly attends “The Game” with author Edward Everett Hale. When Teddy Roosevelt, a Harvard freshman, collides with Eliot and Hale, Camp saves Hale from a tumble and strikes up a friendship with the future US president. At “The Game” brawny Harvard captain Nate Curtis questions why Baker would let a slight player like Camp play. Baker responds that Camp can take care of himself. During the game, Nate, thinking Camp has the ball, tackles him. They wrestle and Camp pins him, earning him a place on Yale’s wrestling team. Eliot decries the violence of the game and the boorish spectators. Yale wins the game because the agreed-upon rules only count field goals, not touchdowns. Harvard, which had numerous touchdowns, but no field goals, vows to change that rule at the upcoming Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) meeting, but Baker agrees with Camp that kicking is more challenging and deserves to be rewarded and suggests Camp join him and JB Atwater at the upcoming IFA meeting, setting up for episode two’s Harvard-Yale conflict.
Mini Movie 2 Locked into Conflict – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.
Episode 2 – “Opening Up the Game” Transformational Logline:
When he tries to implement changes to the game, Camp faces push-back, especially from Harvard.
Emotional Gradient: Desired Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 3 Hero Tries to Solve Problem – But Fails – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
Episode 3 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 4 Hero Forms a New Plan – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.
Episode 4 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 5 Hero Retreats and the Antagonism Prevails – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.
Episode 5 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 6 Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.
Episode 6 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 7 Crisis and Climax – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!
Episode 7 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When…
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
Mini Movie 8 New Status Quo – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.
Episode 8 – “…” Transformational Logline:
When Harvard and Yale meet after it’s legalization, Camp’s behind the scenes work with his team, pays off in a win with Yale’s successful use of the forward pass, opening up the era of the modern game. Camp continues to influence rule changes until his death while attending a rules committee meeting.
Emotional Gradient: xxx Change
Synopsis of episode.
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Birgit Myaard’s Three Gradients
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What I learned doing this assignment is I have come to the realization that writing a limited series means I will have to have gradients within each episode as well as throughout the series and this sounds daunting and confusing. Wondering if each of these gradients must be completed per episode, or if a couple can be in one episode and the rest in later episodes. I obviously need more than 48 hours to think about this aspect of writing the episode Gentlemen of the Gridiron Episode 2: Opening Up the Game.1. What is the Emotional Gradient you’ll use? Desired Change
2. For each emotion of that gradient, tell us the following:
A. Emotion: Excitement
B. Action: Walter Camp gets invited to the meeting of the Intercollegiate Football Association Rules Committee, but is told he needs to sit the meeting out since each school can have only two representatives. He craves to be able to influence the game, but is only a freshman and Eugene Baker, the team captain, decides to take senior J.B. Atwater into the meeting with him. Camp listens in on the meeting and learns later from Baker that the other teams refused to play eleven men on the field. Yale will continue to be invited to the Rules Committee meetings, but will not be an official IFA member. Camp is excited that Yale will continue to play by concessionary rules for their games.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Wanting to influence the game / Lack of experienceA. Emotion: Doubt
B. Action: Camp plays his second Yale football game. This time it’s against Princeton, and it is brutal. Camp’s clothes get torn to shreds in the scrum, forcing his team to circle him and walk him off the field in a state of undress. Late in the next game, against Columbia, he tackles a player who falls and hits his head on the frozen ground, knocking him out and drawing blood. Camp thinks he has killed him and tells Baker he doubts he can play anymore. He is horrified that the player could have died and even more adamant that the game must be opened up. Camp is chosen during his junior year to be the Yale Eleven captain. He’s thrilled to be able to go to the IFA Rules Committee meeting, but they still don’t listen to him and he doubts they ever will.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Playing a rough game in which players routinely get injured / Doesn’t like the sight of bloodA. Emotion: Hope
B. Action: Camp has what he once admitted was his best memory ever: having the team convince him to stay on as captain when he threatens to resign after one of the players breaks curfew and Camp insists the rule breaker must leave the team.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Needs to assert leadership but not alienate others / plays by the rules to a faultA. Emotion: Discouragement
B. Action: Camp attends the Rules Committee, but they once again do not agree to field eleven a side.
C. Challenge / Weakness: ?A. Emotion: Courage
B. Action: ?
C. Challenge / Weakness: ?A. Emotion: Triumph
B. Action: The Rules Committee members solicit Camp’s suggested changes and agree to them.
C. Challenge / Weakness: ? -
Birgit Myaard’s Day 4B Analysis of Dead Poets Society
1. What is the change this movie is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie? Being willing to “seize the day” and defy tradition to live life to its fullest.
2. Lead characters:
Who is the Change Agent (the one causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the change? Keating
Who is the Transformable Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right character to deliver this profound journey? The boys. Each has a transformation that is personal to/fitting for each one.
What is the Oppression? Welton School and its strict traditions, especially the headmaster and his traditional/old-school teaching methods.
3. How are we lured into the profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?
Opening scenes of first day of school, teachers with stuffy classroom manner, and then the fresh way Keating introduces his subject. Who wouldn’t want to tear up their boring poetry book introduction?4. Looking at the character(s) who are changed the most, what is the profound journey? From “old ways” to “new way of being.”
Identify their old way: Following the “rules” of the school, not thinking for oneself, tradition
Identify their new way at the conclusion: Look at things in a different way, find your own voice, think for yourself5. What is the gradient the change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing? Each lesson Keating taught gave the boys more confidence to seize the day/moment in each one’s particular way.
6. How is the “old way” challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change? Traditional teaching vs teaching how to think for oneself, daring to speak up/stand up
7. What are the most profound moments of the movie? The walking in the courtyard scene. Standing on the desks. Todd “creating” a poem in front of the class.
8. What are the most profound lines of the movie?
Keating: Carpe Diem – Seize the day! Make your lives extraordinary.Dalton: “Exercising the option not to walk.’
9. How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?
10. What is the Profound Truth of this movie? Carpe Diem – Seize the day! Make your lives extraordinary.
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Birgit Myaard’s Lead Characters.
What I learned doing this assignment is that the game of football can be a “transformable character.” I had not thought of an institution being a “character” in a film. I also learned that Walter Camp might be not only the Change Agent, but, because of his odd antagonism toward the forward pass, could also be the Betraying Character at the end. Only when forced, did he accept the forward pass as an element of the game, but in typical fashion “perfected” its use so Yale used it most successfully in the season following its adoption.
1. Tell us your transformational journey logline.
From his introduction to the fledgling game as a teen until his death, Walter Chauncey Camp, dubbed the “Father of American Football” by his peers, faced opposition to his vision for the game’s future and, on occasion, had to fight for its existence.
2. Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.
Walter Camp “The Father of American Football” is the Change Agent for my limited series.
It was Camp’s vision for eleven players a side, the scrimmage line, downs, line markings, the safety, and numerous other rule changes that transformed rugby football into the uniquely American game we know today.
After seeing an 1873 soccer-style football game between Yale and Eton alumni, in which both teams fielded only eleven, instead of 20 players per side, Camp became hooked on the idea that fewer players on the field made for a more open and livelier game. When rugby football was introduced to Yale, he saw the same benefits to having fewer players and, after analysis saw other potential changes designed to fulfill the desire for open, lively game play.
3. Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.
The game of football. Camp’s vision changes it throughout the series.
Members of the Intercollegiate Football Association.
Later in the series, the Harvard and Columbia University presidents, who wish to ban the game.
4. Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.
The violence/injuries/deaths in the game that cause public sentiment to stack up against the game and call for it to be banned.
5. Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.
Walter Camp (see comments in “what I learned.”)
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Birgit Myaard’s Transformational Journey
What I learned during this assignment is a slightly different way of writing a logline; focusing on the journey the transformable character takes to go from the old ways of acting/thinking/believing to the new ways.
GENTLEMEN OF THE GRIDIRON miniseries logline:
From his introduction to the fledgling game as a teen until his death, Walter Chauncey Camp, dubbed the “Father of American Football” by his peers, faced opposition to his vision for the game’s future and, on occasion, had to fight for its existence.
Logline for episode 1:
A scrawny, teenaged Camp must improve himself academically and physically to fulfill his dream of playing football for Yale.
Logline for episode 2:
While at Yale, Camp must learn the persuasive skills he will use throughout his lifetime to convince the Intercollegiate Football Association to adopt his suggested changes to the rugby-style rules of football in order to open up the game and make it livelier.
Old Ways for miniseries: Concerned with winning (both in sports and in getting
his ideas for football advanced), antagonistic to those who disagree with him
(especially the Harvard reps on the IFA rules committee), wanting to be a BMOC
and doing everything he can to realize the goals of being in the “right” clubs
at Yale, adamantly opposed to the forward pass.New Ways: Less concerned with winning and more concerned with being a
gentleman, actually becoming friends with Harvard alumni, realizing he cannot
keep the BMOC college life in the real world, learning to accept that others
have good ideas about football rules and being able, finally, to accept the forward
pass. -
What I learned doing this assignment is:
I hadn’t thought about how Walter Camp’s life and the story of how he influenced the development of American Football (I’m writing a miniseries bio pic–on episode 2 now–entitled “Gentlemen of the Gridiron” on the “Father of American Football”) might have an impact on people today.
Birgit’s First Three Decisions:
1. What is your profound truth?
“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game–whether the game is football or life.”
2. What is the change your movie will cause with an audience?
It doesn’t matter if you are a “star football player,” a “big man on campus,” or a “captain of industry” as long as you live your life playing by the rules, act like a “gentleman” or “lady,” and act like an all-around good sport.
3. What is your Entertainment Vehicle that you will tell this story through?
The embellished as-it-happened conflict.
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I missed a few questions because I got caught up in the movie, but here is my GROUNDHOG DAY ANALYSIS:
What is the CHANGE this movie
is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?* Phil Connors changes from an
egotist who wants to sleep with Rita (and any willing woman). Her humility
and kindness to the people around her makes him realize he is actually in
love with her. He humbles himself and learns to be genuinely kind, which
ultimately breaks the spell.Lead characters:
Who is the Change Agent (the
one causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause
the change?* Rita. She will not date, let alone fall in love with, the
selfish Phil.Who is the Transformable
Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right
character to deliver this profound journey?* Phil Connors
What is the Oppression?
* The
clock resetting to Groundhog Day every dayHow are we lured into the
profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?* We all know egotistical people
like Phil* We all wish we could relive
certain days of our lives, although most would want it to be a “perfect”
dayLooking at the character(s) who
are changed the most, what is the profound journey? From “old ways” to
“new way of being.”Identify their old way: Self-centered, not “giving” of himself to others
Identify their new way at the
conclusion: Unselfish and kindly giving of himself to othersWhat is the gradient the
change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they
were changing?* He starts by “using” everyone
to get his way* As the novelty of getting his
way wears off, but waking again and again to 2 February, he grows discouraged* The discouragement leads to
despair and suicide attempts* At this point, he realizes he
is actually in love with Rita and not just wanting to sleep with her, when they do their “science experiment”
he tells her it is safe to fall asleep and promises not to touch her* He realizes he needs to act unselfishly
How is the “old way”
challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to
shift their perspective…and make the change?
What are the most profound
moments of the movie?* All the suicide attempts of a
man who has not learned the importance of appreciating today* Realizing Rita is the kindest
person he’s ever met* Letting others show Rita what
a kind man he has become instead of force-feeding the ideaWhat are the most profound
lines of the movie?* Some day somebody’s going to see
me interviewing a groundhog and thinking I don’t have a future.* What if there is no tomorrow?
There wasn’t one today.* It’s gonna be cold. And it’s
gonna be grey. And it’s gonna last the rest of your life.* If I could, I’d love you for
the rest of my lifeHow does the ending payoff the
setups of this movie?*Phil finally learns to live unselfishly and, as a result, appreciate what he has today is a happy future
What is the Profound Truth of
this movie?* Learn to appreciate and make
the most of today because you don’t know what the future brings.
Your present will be better if
you appreciate the people around you and try to be a blessing to them. -
I learned what is profound for me might not be profound for someone else. That, plus the fact that producers say the majority of scripts they read have little to no depth and that the films we are about to watch will, fingers crossed, open my eyes about how to add that desired depth to my screenplays.
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Birgit Syran Myaard
I agree to the terms of this release form.
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Hello, I’m Birgit (a Norwegian name pronouced BEERgit, with a hard “g”). I am a woman, so my preferred pronoun is “she.” I have written a number of scripts in various genres. A recent one, an adaptation of a Biblical #MeToo-related story, garnered the $10,000 Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays at the Movieguide Awards a few years ago. Currently, I’m trying my hand at a biographic miniseries about a famous American sports figure. Something unique about me is I have lived over half my life (turning 56 at the end of this month) overseas on four continents. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my writing, which is why I enrolled in this course. Looking forward to meeting the rest of the class.
Birgit