[Christine Dadourian]

Christine Dadourian- Intriguing Character Layers #4

What I learned during this assignment:

Each scene in this fast- paced show engages with layers of character intrigue. Some scenes engage multiple layers of character intrigue at once. For example, a character may be deceiving another while being deceived. Reveals can later move the story forward.

ASSIGNMENT 1:

SCANDAL: First three episodes

Character intrigue: Olivia

Hidden Agendas: Covert plans to spy (Hidden from some characters and not others).

Why did Olivia hire Quinn? This may be a hidden agenda. Mellie has a hidden agenda with Olivia and Fitz. Whoever sent the audio tape recording of Amanda and Fitz must have a hidden agenda. Blackmail? Who sent it?

Competition: Olivia and the DA compete over access to clients involved, information, etc.

Olivia also competes with Cyrus. In her internal world Olivia experiences sexual competition with Amanda for Fitz (and possibly for the baby). She can’t sleep at night.

Conspiracy: Olivia and Fitz conspire to secretly meet after the party (not knowing that Mellie set it up, or that Cyrus would prevent it). Olivia makes a covert plan with Cyrus, Amanda and Fitz.

Olivia and Jane conspire to have Jane’s son confess and decide to have him arrested.

Secrets: Olivia and Fitz have been lovers. Other secrets about her exist but are yet to be revealed. She hides vulnerable feelings.

Deception: Helen deceives Olivia. Helen was not assaulted. Olivia is deceived by a client who withholds information that he had assaulted someone before. Olivia deceives herself about Jane’s enabling. Olivia deceives herself that Helen can be made whole through money. Olivia participates in deceiving the judge as to why her client is not yet in court.

Wound: Olivia perceives other characters’ wounds: Helen lost her closest friend to suicide after assault and injustice. Olivia is betrayed by her lover. Olivia identifies with Amanda who is also wounded by betrayal.

Secret Identity: What will be revealed about Olivia?

ASSIGNMENT 2

FORESHADOW

Chris’ Characters

Character Intrigue: Maggie

Hidden agendas: To escape from her traumatic family legacy. To be valued by her parents today. To solve the mystery of her altered state (Is it lethal? Is it happening to others?)

Competition: With herself. Avoidant of competition. For her father’s recognition of her over his PTSD preoccupations. Historically with Jack.

Conspiracies: With Sam to learn more about “the poison” and symptom meanings. With Jack

to discover more about her ancestor’s paintings.

Secrets: She has nightmares. She has vivid, energizing dreams. Wants to simplify and empty her mind. (Quirk: hangs out at waterfalls)

Deception: Deceiving self in that she seeks expertise in history to avoid her own history.

Wound: Overwhelm. Nearly drowned as a child. Friend died high school/fall. Taught about genocide. Vulnerable to social anxiety.

Secret identity: Truth seeker

Character Intrigue: Sam

Role: Director lab in the Physics Department

Hidden Agenda: Connect with Maggie. Solve health problems. Mind expansion.

Competition: Academically competitive. Competitive with Jack.

Conspiracies: Created a team doing further research on a covert government project from ten years earlier related to consciousness.

Secrets: Left medical school after two years and questions his decision.

Deception: Deceiving the university about the agenda of his team.

Wound: Family history German. Family survivor guilt. Should they have done more?

Secret Identity: History maker (positive). Nobel Prize winner.

Character Intrigue: Jack

Role: Colleague in Art History. Museum Exhibitions Officer, NYC. Art appraiser and curator.

Hidden Agendas: To enter elite circles in the art world. Black market dealings.

Competition: Professionally, with Maggie’s mother. He represents the new generation.

Competitive with Sam for Maggie. Competition with Maggie. Also competes with other international art appraisers and racketeers.

Conspiracies: Conspires to connect to black market art in Armenia and elsewhere.

Secrets: Hidden past with Maggie. Still loves Maggie. Adopted. What happened to his parents?

Deception: Deceives himself re: choices and ongoing deception of others.

Wound: Unrequited love with Maggie, unknown family of origin (DNA?)

Secret Identity: Black market art trader.

[Christine Dadourian]

Christine Dadourian- Depth of Emotion #5

What I learned during this assignment is that “filling in these blanks” defines the characters one already knows even more vividly. The characters become both more objectified and three dimensional.

ASSIGNMENT 1, Episode 4

SCANDAL

Olivia Profile

• A. Hope: To protect and champion others (Family for dictator and hoping Amanda is not pregnant)/ Fear: Won’t be able handle the truth and consequences

• B. Want: To do what is right (righteous). Support free will/ Need: Achieve for her clients

• C. Base Negative Emotion: Pride and guilt / Public Mask: Confident and skilled gladiator

• D. Weaknesses: Steamrolls, vulnerable feelings

• Triggers: Betrayal, injustice, unacceptable feelings, being lied to

• Coping Mechanism: Trusting her gut, action oriented, receptive to others

Fitz Profile

• A. Hope: To be of value, original, to have a ‘destiny of democracy’ personally/ Fear: inadequacy

• B. Want: Significance, Olivia / Need: To both be effective and have others be effective around him

• C. Base Negative Emotion: Feelings of inadequacy/ Public Mask: Leader of the Free World

• D. Weaknesses: Exploitive, feelings of helplessness, people pleaser, Olivia

• E. Triggers: Shame. Lack of freedom.

• F. Coping Mechanism: Responding to challenges, leadership, denial (gone, it isn’t real, fix it), connecting with others to problem solve. Connect with Olivia.

ASSIGNMENT 2

FORESHADOW

Chris’s Characters:

MAGGIE PROFILE

• A. Hope: Live in peace / Fear: Won’t survive.

• B. Want: Independence /Need: Security. Solving for truth.

• C. Base Negative Emotion: Sadness and Terror/ Public mask: Capable, connected, and perceptive.

• D. Weaknesses: Fear of falling. Social anxiety.

• E. Triggers: Unexpected noise (easy startle response) and fears heights. Challenging her freedom.

• F. Coping Mechanism: Go to sleep. Let whoever dreams the dream help her to think.

Get back to everyday reality by teaching. Some obsessive traits.

JACK PROFILE

• A. Hope: Material success and status/ Fear: Unlovable

• B. Want: Power / Need: Validation, legitimacy

• C. Base Negative Emotion: Shame / Public Mask: Confident contemporary leader in the art world. Capable in navigating the world.

• D. Weaknesses: Fear of intimacy.

• E. Triggers: Thought of jail, feeling dependent

• F. Coping Mechanisms: Food and drink, denial, movies, not to need anyone, strategizes.

SAM PROFILE

• A. Hope: Maggie’s love. Scientific recognition. /Fears: Inadequacy. Creating harm.

• B. Want: Do no harm /Need: Physical proof. Certainty.

• C. Base Negative Emotion: Guilt and Self Doubt/ Public Mask: Easy-going capable leader.

• D. Weaknesses: Can be impulsive or hypervigilant

• E. Triggers: Others being threatened, violations of free-will, oppression

• F. Coping Mechanism: Buries himself in his work, audiophile- 1960’s- 70’s rock. Disconnects.

[Christine Dadourian]

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Engaging Main Characters

• What I learned doing this assignment: Developing a character’s inner and external world will connect a writer to story vignettes. Audiences respond to complex experiences of the main characters. Thus, BW shows will deliver these experiences to the viewer.

ASSIGNMENT 1:

SCANDAL: Season 1, Episode 3

A. Role: Olivia Pope: Politically powerful ‘fixer’ who navigates crises that threaten the public image of our nation. She is a lawyer, former communications director at the White House, and now heads her own consulting company.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: She strategizes based on her intuitive sense of truth and redemption

C. Intrigue: She is the former lover of the President. Deep feelings towards him continue.

D. Moral Issue: She invades others’ privacy if it meets her agenda. She has difficulty saying “no” if she perceives love or need (e.g. Theme with Jane; Fitz) though she could be enabling or colluding in “buy-out” with dark future consequences. Is she willing to destroy adversary who has redemptive intent (e.g. Helen’s agenda)?

E. Unpredictable: Olivia is willing to represent someone that threatens her purpose of protecting the nation and threatens damage to Fitz and his family.

F. Empathetic: Challenged to discern and respond to yet another case (now in episode 3) with a sexual theme evoking her inner conflict regarding her own loving and sexual behaviors. Also, faced with ‘in the moment’ intense feelings of desire/love/protection that call on her to decide actions that can have high stakes. (e.g. Meet secretly with Fitz? Dispel guilt in friends without transformation/redemption?)

ASSIGNMENT 2:

FORESHADOW

Journey: Innocent on a mission in a strange world.

A recently tenured Art Historian is called to decipher various aspects of a painting with strange marking recently appropriated by the university (Baroque to Enlightenment era). She is exposed to material unknown to science. Her investigation threatens her life and others involved. Resolving the mysteries involved offers gains to enlightenment. She must ‘find her way back and forward’ at the same time.

Main Characters in Pilot

Maggie, Sam, Jack

Maggie:

A. Role: Recently tenured art professor in a university setting. Reluctant hero. She’s a solver. Called to discern and interpret an unusual finding in the art world.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Art History: Skills in applying historical data, symbology, and dream interpretation. Purpose: Solve the riddle. Challenge fears. Anchors her actions in intuition. She must make sense out of findings.

C. Intrigue: With each step she discerns more secrets making herself a target for awakening forces wishing to be unknown.

D. Moral Issue: Should she lie about the painting? Is she killing people by keeping secrets? Withholding truth.

E. Unpredictable: Getting involved now threatens her own life and others. She is now desperate to make high stake decisions

F. Empathetic: Wish to ‘do no harm’ but living does not permit this. Social anxiety. PTSD. It is challenging to find one’s inner compass. Love and loyalty to family.

Sam:

A. Role: Director, Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics. He began medical training for 2 years and transferred. Maggie’s colleague.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Researcher in the world of particle physics who reveals the application of that research to different patrons. Purpose: Team member working to solve the secrets evolving from the “poison”.

C. Intrigue: Desires Maggie.

D. Moral Issue: Doesn’t consider the future implications of the research.

E. Unpredictable: Unexpected results of research create pressure forcing him to react.

F. Empathetic: He’s a “puppy dog” who is awkward with his feelings.

Jack:

A. Role: Museum Exhibitions Officer at the Met, NYC. He’s a former colleague of Maggie.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Jack is charismatic and skillful with acquisitions, marketing, and networking. Purpose: survive

C. Intrigue: Disguised romantic interest along with competitive feelings. Deep feelings toward Maggie continue. Connected with criminal private collectors. He may sabotage or protect the team.

D. Moral Issue: Highly ambitious. Can dark past be redeemed?

E. Unpredictable: He survives by discounting rules or creating his own.

F. Empathetic: Wish to support his parents in his youth entangled him in dangerous world.

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[Christine Dadourian]

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THREE CIRCLES OF CHARACTERS

What I learned from this assignment:

All characters are part of the main characters’ journey. Differentiating characters’ groupings keeps the focus on the actual journey of the BW show. Consider character worlds when populating your show.

ASSIGNMENT 1:

SCANDAL, Episode 2

A. Main Characters’ Circle: Olivia (hero), Quinn (innocent on a mission in a strange world), Harrison, President Fitzgerald, Cyrus, Amanda, Sharon, Patrick Keating

B. Connected Circle: Mellie, Stephen, Huck, Abby, David, Gideon, Stacey (Keating’s wife), VP Chief of Staff (Billy)

C. Environment Circle: Sharon’s girls (Stacey/, Ginger Bell, Inez Parks and children), Johns, Security Guards (Morris), journalists, police officers, politicians

Ms. Hanley, Judge (Sharon’s), Process Server, hospital staff

ASSIGNMENT 2:

FORESHADOWING

A. Main Characters’ Circle: Maggie, Sam, Katharine Agnes, Joseph, Jack, Hassan

B. Connected Circle: Joseph (Maggie’s dad; Two friends to Maggie, Claire, Haig (Maggie’s twin brother), Curator (Arthur), Anthony (Maggie’s younger brother), Department Heads: CHESS/physics (Robert), Art History (Ananda), Teammates Maggie creates or joins

C. Environment Circle: Hadron Collider staff/researchers; Art history department faculty/students; Katharine’s colleagues and patient; Museum visitors, students on campus, clergy, people on beach

Maggie: recently tenured professor in Art History (Baroque Art), gaining comfort in authority, bright, penetrating, warm soul summoning strength while PTSD is resurfacing,

Sam: Tenured Physics professor, former lover who abandoned her when she was challenged in the past (“Couldn’t deal with it”? Different cultures?)

Katharine Agnes: Maggie’s mom (possibly welsh/irish) gained celebrity as an art history consultant and research psychoanalyst, now becoming more reclusive. Recently more challenge in relationship to her daughter.

Joseph: Maggie’s dad (Armenian), finance consultant in ‘futures”, PTSD genocide

Jack: Highly competitive, former colleague to Maggie; highjacked one of her projects and moved on to consult in NYC,

Hassan: Mentor, worked with Katharine in the past, somewhat mysterious but supportive

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[Christine Dadourian]

SCANDAL Five Star Model

What I learned during this assignment:

• This BW show grabs attention and doesn’t let go: one over-arching challenge and other challenging moments one after another with high stakes understood by the audience

• With fast paced dialogue and “camera shutter shots” between scenes

• Engaging one-liners anchor the themes:

“I can’t stay”; “My gut tells me everything I need to do”

“You lie and bets are off”; “Never cry”; “Gladiators in a suit”;

“Leap. If it doesn’t work out it’s not on you”; “Get some normal”

Five Star Points:

1) What is the big hook of this show?

• Secret world of handling (protecting/defending) crises that threaten public image of our nation

• Powerful female lead with a team (smart, empathic)

• Examining Values

2) What makes these characters intriguing?

• Relatable and in challenging situations

• Seeking purpose; Facing fears; Harnessing tenacity

3) What situation causes us to feel both empathy and distress for character?

• Most empathy and distress for Olivia: Being lied to and betrayed; she is vulnerable to tears

• Most empathy and distress for Quinn: Her identity, capability and ethics are being challenged

4) What questions are created by this first episode that can only be answered by watching the entire season?

• Will Olivia damage the President, his family, his public image; will he destroy her

• Will Quinn gain in capability and belongingness

• Will the engaged couple’s relationship work out

5) How does the pilot create the need to see every single episode?

• Evoking obsession in audience with cliff-hangars and excitement experienced throughout the show.

• Unanswered questions we care about in the plot

• The audience may care about the exploration of values

[Christine Dadourian]

Chris

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Learn the strategies to create a BW marketable show.

Trained in science. Interest in the arts.

[Christine Dadourian]

GROUP RELEASE FORM: Christine Dadourian

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.