[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl’s Old Ways Challenge Chart

What I learned while doing this exercise: I have already built in some of the old ways and challenges, but this exercise made me want to dig deeper. I’m itching to get more specific about what happens in the challenges to old ways. How will I set that up?

OLD WAY

Bitterness and resentment. Assumption that Phoebe is the enemy.

CHALLENGE

In the same house with her, the Stout women get to see Phoebe is human and much like them. Sharing space guarantees that everyone present will evolve in the minds of others as more human.

OLD WAY

Not saying what you think but acting it out in ways that don’t solve the issue.

CHALLENGE

Tough questions posed by everyone. Moments that call on characters to say what they really think or perish in silence.

OLD WAY

Fear of standing up to parents or people who have influence and authority over you.

CHALLENGE

Veda stands up and stands in for her father. And she learns to speak back to her mother so that her mother won’t always assume she knows her well enough to know her heart and mind. Veda is a matriarch in training without really knowing it.

OLD WAY

The assumption that people are defined only by their choices.

CHALLENGE

The storm, the contractors who come after Phoebe’s shop, and the community’s opinions about the Stouts’ living situation expose the idea that people are far more than the choices they make.

OLD WAY

Living separate lives in two neighboring cities.

CHALLENGE

As long as Vernon Stout’s families are living apart, they each can buy into whatever reality they choose, but living together changes the reality. They are forced to really deal with each other — and either accept or reject truths.

OLD WAY

The Patriarch makes all the decisions, has all the answers, and controls the world of his family.

CHALLENGE

After Vernon Stout’s death, the women are forced to take on all of these roles together.

[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl’s Profound Ending

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl’s Connection with Audience

What I learned while doing this exercise: Even when I think I have developed these characters to death, there is always more to explore. It shouldn’t surprise me: Humans are complex. I also realize, I’ve spent so much time making sure each of these women is distinct. I can also expose a little more about how they are the same.

Characters I will use to INTENTIONALLY create a connection with the audience:

VEDA – Relatability and Empathy. It is hard to stand up to your parents sometimes, even when you’re grown. This is the core of Veda’s transformational journey. She spends so much time helping others in her therapy practice, and she’s never applied any of her own guidance to herself.

PHOEBE – Likeability and Intrigue. She’s the other woman and we want to know more about her. How did she meet and fall in love with Vernon Stout? Why did she “settle” for being a mistress for so long? She’s spunky and knows herself well, and the audience will like that about her. She’s independent, strong-minded, and often right about what she believes.

VONA – Likeability. The baby of the family, literally. She’s the youngest of the Stout sisters, and though she’s grown up away from them, she is a lot like them. She’s a budding photographer and has a gift for seeing “the real picture,” even in the things she’s not photographing. Everyone is shocked that the matriarch Coeur-Leigh has a fondness for her, but it’s hard not to love her. She’s spunky like her mother in some ways, mostly innocent, and curious in ways that make everyone in the house transform.

[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl’s Transformational Structure

What I learned while doing this exercise: Having a structure in place enables you to see all the layers of your story. And gives you openings to shift, if you need to shift. I likely will revisit this many times before I’m settled with it, but leaning into a structure is a great start. One question that arose during this assignment for the TV pilot project: Do I apply the MMM structure for each episode or for the entire season?

1. When her father dies, Veda Brooks is torn between loyalty to her mother and keeping the peace with her late father’s mistress, who moves into the family house she inherited from Veda’s father. Who and what will she choose?

2. Transformational Character: Veda Brooks Change Agent(s): Vona (mistress’ daughter), the spirit of Veda’s father (Vernon Stout), her clients

3. The MMM

MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Veda’s ordinary world is spending time with her family, being a stellar professional in her therapy practice, and holding the family together after her father dies. The inciting incident happens when her late father’s mistress moves into the house with her family.

Turning Point: Call to Adventure.

MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Veda joins her mother and sister in icing out the mistress. They consult attorneys and try to find a loophole in her father’s will. Offer the mistress “consolation prizes” to move out. Try to reason with her. Ultimately, they realize she is within her legal right to stay in the house with them and they’re locked in.

Turning Point: Locked in.

MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – After her first “visitation” from her dead father, Veda decides to host a family dinner for everyone in the house in order to ease the tension. The dinner fails miserably when two people stomp away from the table.

Turning Point: Standard ways fail.

MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Veda tries to keep the peace between her sister Violet and the mistress (Phoebe). Violet doesn’t budge. During her conversations with Phoebe, Veda discovers that Phoebe is “human” and she has a lot in common with her. She likes Phoebe as a person though she doesn’t like the tension of her living in the house.

Turning Point: Plan backfires.

MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Veda realizes her mother knew about Phoebe all along, and she’ll have to let go of her grudge. She wants to blast her mother for not saying anything before now … but can’t. She has an undying, unhealthy fear of opposing her parents. She settles into her work as a death doula and finds some lessons for her own life. She questions whether she’s equipped to negotiate the tensions in her family.

Turning Point: The decision to change.

MM #6 – Pages 75 – 90 – Veda speaks up more and takes a position, which puts her at odds with her mother and sister. She starts to stand in her own voice and find her power in this situation, which means there may be sacrifices.

Turning Point: The ultimate failure.

MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – Veda feels more confident about standing up to people and taking the positions her late father would have taken. Dealing with both a natural disaster and the possibility of losing her mother, she realizes she has to often be the voice of reason and lead the family out of its tension. Violet and her husband Clem announce that they are moving out, and Veda is heartbroken.

Turning Point: Apparent victory.

MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – Phoebe’s livelihood, a local café, is placed in jeopardy when a new local builder who has purchased all the other commercial space around her pressures her to sell. The women must all come together to help Phoebe save the shop.

At the end of this last battle, all the women except Violet are friendly with one another. Veda is at peace with her father’s legacy. Her therapy practice is thriving. But a health crisis is forcing her to face the possibility of losing her mother. (A new transformation journey begins.)

Turning Point: New status quo.

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I learned while doing this assignment: There’s so much to decide, explore, open, fit into this story. I will need to do a lot more mapping, but I think I have a decent emotional thread to drive the other work. Didn’t expect to go through some of the emotions myself as the writer here. It made it clear to me what makes sense in this sequence and what is out of sequence.

For the TV Series concept

:::::::DESIRED CHANGE:::::::

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: EXCITEMENT

Action Gradient: Veda is excited to finally be doing the work that she believes is her purpose. She’s a death doula and helps people make peace with transition. She hangs her sign outside her office.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She’s the peacemaker and she doesn’t always believe she has what it takes but has fun pretending.

W: She’s a matriarch in training & filled with uncertainty. She’s also still shocked by her parents and knows enough about them not to be. She doesn’t really quite see herself.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DOUBT

Action Gradient: When her father’s mistress and daughter decide to move into the house, she and her family share, Veda doubts that she has the skills to navigate her new reality. She’s as upset about is as her mother and sister are, but she’s the least outspoken.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She must navigate the sour attitudes that all the women in this house have with each other … and her own fading faith in the integrity of her father.

W: She likes the mistress because her father has shared his connection to the woman with her. But she’ll always be loyal to her mother in this scenario.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: HOPE

Action Gradient: Veda sees her first client as a death doula. She’s proud of the way she moves through this experience with her client. She’s hopeful that she can help a lot of people transition and settle affairs before they die.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: She keeps getting “visitations” from her father and learning more and more about his life. These are moments she can’t share with her sister or mother … or anyone.

W: She doesn’t know how to distinguish her father’s truths from her own. Or apply them to her current situation.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DISCOURAGEMENT

Action Gradient: Veda must find ways to support her sister when she finds out that Violet’s last in vitro treatment hasn’t worked. She wrestles with the fairness of women who can’t have children.

Challenge / Weakness Gradient

C: Although Veda and Violet love one another, she doesn’t like the way that Violet tries to make her feel guilty for having a biological child.

W: Veda is never able to stand in her truth with her sister because she thinks it will crush her.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: COURAGE

Veda finds the strength to tell all the women what she thinks about the way they act.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: She knows her sister will consider this a betrayal.

W: She’s willing to compromise her own happiness and peace in order to preserve the bond she has with her sister. She doesn’t want to lose her.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: TRIUMPH

Action Gradient: Veda’s work with her clients has made her a lot more vocal and honest about how she feels with the women around her. She accepts her sister Violet’s big-impact decision. Her visitation with her father has helped her accept the eventual loss of her mother.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: Her relationships will shift as she explores and uses her “new voice.”

W: She will always be tempted to yield to her mother for cultural, habitual, and family hierarchy reasons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the movie concept

:::::::FORCED CHANGE:::::::

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DENIAL

Jupe and Freya accept an engagement gift from their friends: A couple’s escape room package. When they’re locked in, they realize it’s not a normal room. In order to escape, they must confront their deepest traumas, lies, fears, previous relationship lessons, and family dysfunctions. They keep looking for the usual “clues” that are not present.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They cannot get out of the room unless they face all of their issues.

W: Each is afraid to do that level of confrontation at this point in their relationship without feeling vulnerable and compromised.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: ANGER

Both express anger at their friends for giving them this gift without warning them of the special

circumstances.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: Freya is accustomed to being in control and this is the first time she’s not. Jupe has pushed some of his baggage so far down that he doesn’t even realize what’s there to unpack.

W: Freya explodes, amps out, and ultimately melts down before investing in the activities. Jupe has many tricks that prevent him from coming face-to-face with himself.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: BARGAINING

Action Gradient: Both believe there are hidden cameras and begin bargaining with whomever is watching. Both bargain with God. Both find ways to bargain with each other.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: In this experience, they get no tangible response from God, a “watcher,” or each other.

W: Total reliance on each other brings some of their real relationship issues to the surface.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: DEPRESSION

Because they are both forced to deal with some of the things they have buried, there is a tension building between them. It makes them silent, hesitant, distrustful, and at times accusatory. They start to wonder if they will “die on this hill.”

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They keep looking for solutions outside of each other and themselves.

W: Each is prone to their usual coping mechanisms, which make them emotionally unavailable.

EMOTIONAL GRADIENT: ACCEPTANCE

Action Gradient: The breakthrough moment for each of them is when they come clean about their truths, especially those they have been hiding from each other. They learn to accept flaws and shortcomings in each other and own both the possibilities and the limitations of their way forward. Ultimately, they decide IF there is a way forward.

Challenge/Weakness Gradient

C: They must come to an agreement in the escape room and then determine how much of it they are willing to share with family and friends.

W: They could always fall right back into old ways and habits, based on what they decide to disclose to other people in their lives.

[Cherryl Cooley]

There were definitely some pauses where I had to rewind or pause to take notes. I think what drives this film is not only these poignant moments where you can see character transformation, but also the dialogue! I was engaged because the language was natural, intense, full of passion and layered emotions. I was hanging on to see who was going to deliver the next punch with words. It’s also why I ultimately took so many notes. As a viewer, I was in the fight.

Notes from REMEMBER THE TITANS

PROFOUND MOMENTS:

• Opening and closing scene at the
• Coach Boone’s first encounter with Coach Yoast.
• The Battle of Gettysburg scene with the team running to a cemetery and Coach Boone reminds the team that they can take lessons from the lives of people in the graveyard, and that the Titans were stronger than the gods in Greek mythology.
• Every scene when singing was used to build a bond or tell the story.
• Louie Lastik at dinner showing he’s gotten to know Rev and Blue. He knows their facts … even before Coach Boone asked all the players to do this.
• The “dozens” scene where the players are talking trash about each other’s mothers.
• Coach Boone throwing up before the first game, after he was told he’d lose his job if he lost the game.
• Yoast moving Petey to defense.
• The Titans first seasonal win.
• Gerry refusing to get in the car with his girlfriend and “friends” after the Titans first win.
• Ronnie, Rev and Blue’s encounter in the eatery that turned them away because of race.
• Gerry believing he could go to Julius’ neighborhood to play basketball and bring Julius back to his house for dinner. Gerry’s mom: “I don’t want to get to know him.”
• Any moments Sheryl is running down plays to anybody and not playing with dolls.
• The harassers who threw something through Coach Boone’s window while his family and Sheryl are present and called him “Coach Coon.”
• The team’s “We Are the Titans” warm-up march.
• The lie Coach Boone tells Ronnie Bass when he needs him to stand in for Rev. after Rev. gets hurt.
• Ronnie Bass giving the game ball to Rev.
• Gerry’s decision to remove Ray from the team.
• Julius being stopped by an officer, and fearing harrassment, gets a compliment on how the team played the game.
• Coach Yoast warning the referee to call the game fair or he would go to the media. And forsaking his Hall of Fame recognition.
• Petey leaving the game, and later asking to come back and play … and the coach telling him he’d have to wait to play the following year. And then being put back in the game when he was needed.
• Coach Boone’s neighbors — the same ones who dreaded him moving into the neighborhood — cheering for him as he returns home to the winning game just before the championship game.
• Louie Lastik telling Coach Boone that he’s going to college. (He said in the beginning he was white trash and couldn’t go to college.
• Jean Bertier’s entrance into the stadium during the championship game, and Gerry’s face seeing her on the screen.
• Emma Hoyt shaking Julius’ hand and honoring her promise to Gerry to be in the stadium during the game.

PROFOUND LINES:

• “High school football is a way of life.”
• “I come to win.”
• “I’m not an answer to your prayers. I’m not a savior or Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, or the Easter bunny. I’m a football coach, that’s all. Just a football coach.”
• “This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fightin’ the same fight we’re still fighting amongst ourselves … today. This green field right here was painted red. Bubbling with the blood of young boys. Smoke … and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls men — ‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart.’ ‘Hatred destroyed my family.’ — You listen and you take a lesson from the dead.”
• “Maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.”
• “What are you? Mo-BILE, A-GILE, Hos-TILE. What is pain? French bread! What is fatigue? Army clothes! Will you ever quit? No! We want some mo’! We want some mo’! We want some mo’!”
• “Why do you dress so weird?” (Sharyl) “Look who’s talking.” (Nicky)
• “You’re already winners ’cause you didn’t kill each other at camp.”
• “He didn’t know Petey.” (Blue) “Blue he don’t want to know.” (Petey)
• “Now I might be a mean cuss, but I’m the same cuss with everybody out there on that football field … you ain’t doing these kids a favor by patronizing them. You’re crippling them. You’re crippling them for life.”
• “The world tells us they don’t want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain’t a damn bit of nothing, man.”
• “I don’t scratch my head unless it itches, and I don’t dance unless I hear some music. I will not be intimidated.”
• “My sins? You think my sins had something to do with what happened last night? I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter, I really am, but maybe you got a small taste of what my girls go through.”
• “You’re the colonel. You’re going to command your troops tonight.”
• “I was afraid of you, Julius. I only saw what I was afraid of. And now I know I was only hating my brother.”
• “When this is all over … you and me are going to move out to the same neighborhood together … and we’ll get old, and we’ll get fat. And there ain’t gonna be all this black-white between us. Left side. Strong side.”
• “Coach, I’m hurt. I ain’t dead.”
• “You’ve taught this city how to trust the soul of a man rather than the look of him.”
• “People say it can’t work, black and white, but here, we make it work every day. We have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans.”

[Cherryl Cooley]

I have not received Lesson 6 and should be receiving lesson 7 today. Plus, I have not heard back from Support about the lessons. @cheryl-croasmun can you please let me know if there’s a glitch in the matrix?

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I [felt] while doing this assignment:

I had definitely forgotten how inspiring and heartbreakingly beautiful this film is. It hit me in some very vulnerable places because I’m a poet. Happy to sit with it again after a long time away from it.

LESSON 4b

Analysis of Dead Poets Society

1. What is the CHANGE this movie is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?

Individual Freedom.

The students move from mindlessly obeying rigid rules that suffocated them as individuals to being free thinkers taking a stand for what they are passionate about and believe in.

2. Lead characters:

[Cherryl Cooley]

ASSIGNMENT 4a

CHERRYL’S LEAD CHARACTERS:

What I learned while doing this assignment:

The more I write about these characters – even before tackling the script – the more complex they become. Characters can fit more than one role (both change agent and betraying character, for example). And it feeds my creativity to consider more possibilities for them than I originally intended or thought possible.

IDEA 1

Tell us your transformational journey logline.

As an upstanding well-known family in a small southern town gets to know their deceased patriarch’s mistress, they learn to respect how he authentically loved two women and live as an extended family.

Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: Their vision, Their past experience that fits that vision.

There are two possible change agents in this story: The oldest persona and the youngest person. The oldest, the matriarch, has not exactly been in the dark about her late husband’s mistress. She knows enough to nurture her daughters away from hatred and bitterness. The youngest person in the play is the patriarch’s daughter with the other woman. She doesn’t know enough to be tainted, loves everybody and gets along well with the matriarch.

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.

Transformable characters: The Stout sisters, the mistress. The eldest sister has a profession that requires her to help others transform, but she can’t seem to transform herself. Others don’t know that her late father also shared some of his secrets with her – but not the secret about the mistress. The mistress also realizes she’s bitter and angry with her dead lover. She feels cheated out of the life she believes he gave to his other family, and she takes pleasure in antagonizing the other women.

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 oppression is the mistress for the Stout women. For the mistress, the oppression is self-worth and perceived power. For them all, a shared oppression is the reality of not knowing the whole truth.

Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.

Ironically, the matriarch is both the change agent and the betraying character. She breaks the family stronghold buy nurturing a bond with her late husband’s child with his mistress. The eldest Stout daughter is also a betraying character. She knows a lot more about her father than she’s telling.

IDEA 2

Tell us your transformational journey logline.

When a couple enters a magical escape room filled with the biggest pains from their pasts, they learn to be vulnerable with each other and love more openly and authentically.

Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role. Also, include: Their vision, Their past experience that fits that vision.

The change agent is the room itself. There are ways in which they also get to be change agents for each other. The room’s purpose/vision is to have people walk in truth and live authentically.

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.

Transformable characters are the individuals who enter the magical escape room.

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 oppression fear … of authentically being with someone or of being utterly and eternally alone.

Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.

Betraying characters: value systems, parents and upbringing, societal norms, old lovers, friends’ opinions, their own interpretation of themselves.

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I learned while doing this assignment:

Story arcs are a blueprint. Of course, you get to add on as you write the story, but understanding where a character starts and where they land – what their journey is – makes the arc compelling. I am learning that story frameworks like this one (Issue-Journey-Transformation) keep the story focused, even when you’re tempted to go off track and dump the whole kitchen sink of ideas into the screenplay.

Write a logline for the transformational journey.

IDEA 1 – After Vernon Stout dies, his family realizes they can only know the part of him he’s kept hidden through his mistress, who moves in with them. (first draft)

As an upstanding well-known family in a small southern town gets to know their deceased patriarch’s mistress, they learn to respect how he authentically loved two women and live as an extended family. (revised with the framework)

IDEA 2 – What happens when you’re locked in an escape room with the biggest hurts you’ve ever felt? Facing them is the only way out. (first draft)

When a couple enters a magical escape room filled with the biggest pains from their pasts, they learn to be vulnerable with each other and love more openly and authentically. (revised with the framework)

Define the Old Ways of life that the characters live out of at the beginning of the story.

IDEA 1 – The women of the Stout family are accustomed to being in charge and making all the decisions. Strong personalities, they define the family experience and steamroll over anyone who doesn’t get on board with them. They do it with grace and dignity, but some of that family experience they control is not honest or fully formed. They live in long-time assumptions and convenient truths.

IDEA 2 – Even people who think they’re ready to love aren’t ready. And they go to great lengths to deny it. They lie, cheat, hurt other people, shut down, run away, wear masks, live false narratives. They are as stable and ready as their deepest hurts and secrets, and not much about them is authentic.

Define the New Way of life the characters take on by the end of the story.

IDEA 1 – The “other woman” that the Stout family women have ostracized, belittled, and written off is a truth carrier. They push aside their stronghold and open themselves up to more layers of truth about Vernon Stout. They have reconciled that the many they loved, the deceased patriarch of the family, was human, honored a complex code of love, and defined the family experience more than they realized. They move from denial to open acceptance that he had another family. Over time, his other family becomes their family, too.

IDEA 2 – People who have lived through the escape room are able to openly name the things that have hurt them without falling about, recognize how the power of those things have kept them stuck, and free themselves to love others without masking themselves. Vulnerability wins.

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I learned while doing this assignment:

It is hard when you have a head full of ideas to distill them down to a single profound truth. But every story has one. I learned how to push aside some of the excitement clutter of the story and get to the “why” of the story. That profound truth is what makes the story matter to people and why they buy into it. It’s what will make them watch the story on a screen more than once and tell other people about it.

I’m not sure I’m done with the distilling, but I’m impressed that I have a starting point to keep thinking about it.

I have two ideas, and I’m posting them both here:

IDEA 1 (TV Series)

What is your profound truth?

• People who are forced to share physical space develop an emotional connection.
• Even the people you hate are human and relatable.
• What you hate in someone else is sometimes what you really admire in them or what you hate in yourself.

What is the change your movie will cause with an audience?

• From hating people who seem to be villains to understanding them as complex humans who have some lovable qualities.
• When you can humanize your enemies, you can understand yourself.
• People who evoke the strongest reactions in you may be mirroring something that lives in you.

What is your Entertainment Vehicle that you will tell this story through?

• PICK A WORLD: A shared house inherited by two women, one is the wife of the deceased, the other his mistress.

IDEA 2 (Movie)

What is your profound truth?

• Unreconciled pain sets up your adult relationships to fail.
• Your capacity to love is governed by your willingness to heal.
• The most authentic and freest way to love is unrestrained.

What is the change your movie will cause with an audience?

• From feeling the need to suppress and protect their deepest feelings to embracing the power, freedom and payoff of vulnerability.

What is your Entertainment Vehicle that you will tell this story through?

• PICK A WORLD: A magical escape room that requires players to deal with the biggest hurt or fear of their lives in order to leave the room.
• METAPHOR: The room is a metaphor for the most common love and relationship blockers.

[Cherryl Cooley]

What I learned while doing this assignment:

As someone who works in narrative strategy, I’m not sure I didn’t know this already, but the assignment was a huge reminder that a story is not fully expressed without a transformation … for the characters and for the audience. For every story I’ve written that didn’t quite land or work, that transformation is the missing element. Also, everything in the film, the character names, the dialogue, the transformation arc, what repeats, what’s left out — it all works together to tell the story. The storyteller has to give attention to it all.

In terms of revisiting the movie itself … wow! There was a lot I missed the first time. I was only looking at it to see what happened. When I started to look for change agents, transformation moments, and profundity, the impact of the film was deeper.

1. What is the CHANGE this movie is about? What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?

Groundhog Day is about choosing to live a meaningful and impactful life over pessimism and cynicism. Happiness is a choice.

2. Lead characters:

Who is the Change Agent (the one
causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the
change?

Rita is the obvious change agent, and she’s the right character to
catalyze change because she has idealistic beliefs about children, animals
and peace and because Phil has a strong connection to her. As the change
agent, Rita has a chance to send another message to the audience: love always
wins. I also think that the townspeople operate as a collective change
agent. They continue to show up as the day is repeated with the same
words, gestures and exchanges, giving Phil the chance to choose a
different response. For example, Ned Ryerson, who irritates Phil, is an
insurance salesperson (stereotypically boring, somewhat shady, a low
achiever who navigates conversations from a template) is trying to sell
Phil “single premium life.” Bing!

Who is the Transformable
Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right
character to deliver this profound journey?

Phil is the
transformable character. He’s the right character to transform because he
is arrogant, condescending, believes he’s a celebrity, a harsh cynic, and
a manipulator. On some levels, he is downright unlovable. Everyone knows
someone like this, and they always want to believe that person is
redeemable.

What is the Oppression?

The oppression
is time, which is out of Phil’s control, and his own “stuck” life, which
has always been in his control.

3. How are we lured into the profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?

First, we are lured into the journey because Phil is somewhat comedic. We’re tuned in because we keep waiting for the punch lines and want to see how far the arrogance can go. Also, the Gobbler’s Knob ritual is one most people either anticipate to allegedly determine the length of winter or ridicule because they just don’t believe in it. Either way, it’s tradition.

In terms of where we meet Phil Connors in his life, people identify with feeling “stuck,” not living the life they want and deserve, being in a daily monotonous rut and not mattering. Every flawed character trait the protagonist has is a cry for help.

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: Identify their new way at the conclusion:

Phil’s “old way” is sarcasm and complaining. He makes a mockery of everything, including the weather. When he doesn’t really want to be in conversation with people, he delivers his responses to them as a static weather report track. It struck me as significant that weather is the one thing people choose to discuss when they are just having idle conversation or don’t really know the people they’re talking to. Phil took this conversation ritual to a new level.

Phil’s “new way” is fueled by kindness and good will toward others, which is inspired by Rita. He does things for people with no expectation of anything in return. He practically “becomes” one of the townspeople he seemed to loathe at the beginning of this story.

5. What is the gradient the change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing?

Phil moves from moving through these transformational steps:

OLD WAYS

–usual pessimism, sarcasm and condescension

–curiosity and questioning what is happening

–resistance (trying to outrun what is happening)

TESTING THE NEW REALITY

–sharing the truth of his experience (with Rita)

–choosing recklessness because he believes there are no consequences

–arrogance and manipulation

DESIRE FOR PERSONAL CHANGE (BUT STILL USING OLD WAYS)

–realizing he had a true desire for Rita and wanted to know her

–using his repeat Groundhog Day experience to manipulate and seduce Rita

RESISTANCE

–withdrawal (“wins” at Jeopardy in the parlor with seniors)

–extreme cynicism (Re: Groundhog Day: “It’s gonna be cold, gray and last you the rest of your life.”)

–anger (tries to kill the alarm clock)

–tries to kill Punxsutawney Phil

–tries to kill himself

ACCEPTANCE

–enrolls Rita in his experience (“I’m a god.” Proves what he knows things he shouldn’t know.)

PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

–honesty and tenderness (commits to Rita’s brand of kindness toward others)

–practices kindness with himself (piano lessons, sculpting)

–starts a campaign to prevent an old man from dying

–delivers a moving weathercast about the beauty of winter as a life cycle (“Couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.”)

–committed to “errands” (helping others)

IMPACT and INFLUENCE

–townspeople and Rita adore Phil as a person because of his talents and kindness

SITUATIONAL TRANSFORMATION / NEW WAYS

–Phil has his “real kiss” with Rita and spends the night with her

–wakes up to a different conversation between the radio announcers

–today is tomorrow and he and Rita decide to stay in Punxsutawney

6. How is the “old way” challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?

The old way is challenged when he has no control over time or the repeat of Groundhog Day. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “…the masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Phil was quietly desperate to live a more fulfilling life in which he believed he mattered.

The experience he had with tomorrow never coming made him challenge his own belief that he didn’t matter, and that all the people around him were delusional to think that anything mattered. From the first green screen (which looked blue) in the opening of the film, where he’s making hand gestures and casting his shadow, he is proposing and responding to the question: Where would you like to be? His Groundhog Day experience challenges the belief that no matter how much you wish or pretend, you have no choice about where you land. Even when time exerts its control, everyone still has choices.

7. What are the most profound moments of the movie?

Some of the language:

• “Watch out for that first step. It’s a doozy.”
• “This is the last time I do Groundhog Day.”
• “How did you sleep?”
• “I’m a celebrity in a crisis.”
• “See-er of see-ers. Prognosticator of prognosticators.”
• “What if there is no tomorrow. There wasn’t one today.”
• “People place too much emphasis on their careers.”
• Rita’s recitation of the Sir Walter Raleigh poem, “Breathes there the man”: “The wretch, concentre’d all in self, / Living, shall forfeit fair renown, / And, doubly dying, shall go down / To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, / Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.”
• Phil’s question to Rita: “What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?”

Also, the ways Phil the man makes a caricature of the weather and the role of weather forecasters. People trust weather forecasters, even when their predictions don’t always hit the mark. The connection to the community is sacred.

And the use of an alarm clock as a “messenger” … Phil couldn’t kill the messenger.

Phil’s first real conversation with Larry the cameraman. (If you want to matter, make other people matter.)

8. What are the most profound lines of the movie?

Answered in Question 7.

9. How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?

Phil creates the life he has always quietly wanted: He can build memories with someone he loves, he feels like he matters, he’s no longer cynical and condescending to people, and he chooses to live in a whole new geography. He has shifted his own narrative and realizes it’s always been in his own hands.

Also, he will never look at winter in the same dreaded way. It’s a cycle, and even he’s living in his last one, he can make something meaningful of it.

10. What is the Profound Truth of this movie?

You are never really stuck, and living the life you want, in which you matter, is a choice.

[Cherryl Cooley]

Hi!

I’m Cherryl (pronounced /churl/ with a hard -ch).

Although I’ve written many stage plays and volumes of poetry, this is my first script which has been in progress, it seems, for years.

I hope to finally finish a respectable script.

I love the color blue, which is also my nickname. I enjoy designing food experiences for people I care about. I work as a content designer and narrative strategist.

[Cherryl Cooley]

Cherryl Cooley

I agree to the terms of this release form.”

GROUP RELEASE FORM

As a member of this group, I agree to the following:

1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.

2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.

I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.

3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.

4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.

5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.

6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.

This completes the Group Release Form for the class.