[David Becker]

Jacqueline Escolme it would be fun to do this exercise with you, given your background, if you are ready. I am a couple of days behind myself! See my personal message on the introductions forum. My email is david@beckerkemp.com. Reach out if you have the time.

[David Becker]

David’s character profiles

What I learned from this assignment is that my characters need more work.

1. Create Character Profiles for each of your lead characters by filling in the blanks for these eight questions.

A. Name: Jake Bellamy

B. Role in the Story: Protagonist and male romantic lead

C. Core Traits: kind/caring; athletic; perfectionist; emotionally unavailable/distant

D. Motivation: Want/Need: To be free of guilt; wants to see the mother of the two girls he killed so he can apologise to her

E. Flaw/Wound: His guilt and regret

F. Secret/Hidden Agenda: He doesn’t disclose who he is to her and keeps it hidden

G. Internal Dilemma: Does he tell the truth and risk losing the only woman he has ever loved

H. What makes this character perfect for their role in this story? He is a male protagonist in a dramatic love story, which is unusual, but he is endearing because he has accepted his mistakes, taken his punishment (both through a long prison and term and cancer) and now seeks make things right. We want him to succeed.

2. Answer the questions to improve the Character Profiles.

A: Are there any parts of the profile that you could improve? We need to ensure that the stakes for Jake remain high. The trip to Painted Hills must be life and death for him.

B: Can this character fulfill their role in the story more effectively? He must be a facilitator to bring Jess back to life. In doing so, they both find redemption and love for the first time in their lives.

1. Create Character Profiles for each of your lead characters by filling in the blanks for these eight questions.

A. Name: Jessica Brandochia

B. Role in the Story: Female lead

C. Core Traits: fiery; loving; guarded; fragile

D. Motivation: Want/Need: to be free from grief;

E. Flaw/Wound: The death of her two young girls;

F. Secret/Hidden Agenda: She also feels guilty as the girls weren’t wearing seat belts

G. Internal Dilemma: Her dilemma only arrives at the end of Act 3 when she learns the identity of the man she loves.

H. What makes this character perfect for their role in this story? We feel her pain; we feel compassion for her; we pull for her as she lifts herself up from her pain and attempts to move on.

2. Answer the questions to improve the Character Profiles.

A: Are there any parts of the profile that you could improve? She must still be consumed by grief to a large degree when she meets Jake. This is important for her transformation

B: Can this character fulfill their role in the story more effectively? They both bring about the healing of the other.

1. Create Character Profiles for each of your lead characters by filling in the blanks for these eight questions.

A. Name: TJ (Tatanu Jatsu, meaning “he who speaks with horses”)

B. Role in the Story: Ranch manager and friend of Jess

C. Core Traits: wise; observant; disciplinarian; old fashioned

D. Motivation: Want/Need: his son to take responsibility; be a leader

E. Flaw/Wound: he feels the expectations of his ancestors

F. Secret/Hidden Agenda: he knows his son is guilty of theft

G. Internal Dilemma: He knows who Jake is but doesn’t disclose this to Jess

H. What makes this character perfect for their role in this story? He acts as narrator; he connects us to the land, the Painted Hills and their significance. He is a wise old owl.

2. Answer the questions to improve the Character Profiles.

A: Are there any parts of the profile that you could improve? We need to flesh out his flaws more; the negative traits and they must play a role in the story.</div><div>

B: Can this character fulfill their role in the story more effectively? His presence must be felt in the background throughout the story.

1. Create Character Profiles for each of your lead characters by filling in the blanks for these eight questions.

A. Name: Sheriff Brandy Hotches

B. Role in the Story: Sheriff of Prineville

C. Core Traits: needy; dogged; distrusting; supportive

D. Motivation: Want/Need: he is keen on Jess and always has been

E. Flaw/Wound: Insecure, he wants to be praised and seen as the main man about town

F. Secret/Hidden Agenda: driven by a personal agenda, he arrests Jake to get him out of the picture even though he has little evidence

G. Internal Dilemma: He knows he has little to go on, but he can’t stand Jake

H. What makes this character perfect for their role in this story? He is an antagonist for Jake and discloses his identity to Jess

2. Answer the questions to improve the Character Profiles.

A: Are there any parts of the profile that you could improve? He must be pesky and dogged, but nice enough so that Jess can see his good side as she hooked up with him but then realised it was a mistake</div>

B: Can this character fulfill their role in the story more effectively? To be considered

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Becker.

[David Becker]

David Becker’s Genre Conventions

What I learned from this assignment is that I have a Drama which has essential romantic elements at its core. But it is primarily a Drama. Hence my characters and their needs, desires and traits must drive the story and people must care about the characters.

Title: The Road to Painted Hills

Genre: Drama

Concept: When an ex-con seeking redemption (Jake) unexpectedly falls in love with the mother of the two twins he killed in tragic drunk-driving accident 20 years before (Jess), he must decide whether or not to tell her the truth.

Main Conflict: Jake must come clean to finally move on from his painful past, but his grave secret threatens to destroy the only love they have ever known.

Drama Conventions:

Genre Purpose: To explore stories with emotional and interpersonal high steaks for their characters.

PURPOSE: To explore stories with emotional and interpersonal high stakes for their characters. It is a character-driven journey that emotionally resonates with real-life situations.

CHARACTER-DRIVEN JOURNEY: We always need to care about the characters in a Drama, and their internal journey drives the film’s events and progression.

HIGH STAKES COME FROM WITHIN: Whether the story’s events are relatively mundane or intense, the struggles, obstacles, and stakes comes from within the characters more than from external pressures.

EMOTIONALLY RESONATES: Drama audiences want to feel and be moved by the characters’ emotions and how they experience the events.

CHALLENGING, EMOTIONALLY-CHARGED SITUATIONS: Characters get challenged to their core by the emotional situations and struggles that they run into.

REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS: Drama stories are grounded in reality.

Act 1:

Opening – Jake Bellamy returns home from a building site to find that his fiancé has left him and taken their dog and their possessions. He opens a bottle of whiskey but eventually pours it down the sink.

Inciting Incident – At a nearby clinic, Jake learns that he finally free of the cancer which has plagued him the last few years. He resigns from his building job and decides to travel back to his home-town of Prineville, nestled beneath the Painted Hills of Oregon to seek redemption from the mother (Jess) of the twin girls he killed in a drink-driving accident twenty years before.

Turning Point – Jake meets Jess but, before he can tell her, her restaurant burns down. Jess asks him to help rebuild it.

Act 2:

New plan – Feeling bad about the fire, Jake agrees to work on the rebuild

Plan in action – Jakes begins work and gets to know Jess

Midpoint Turning Point – Jake tries to tell her; she makes a move on him; they kiss passionately

Act 3:

Rethink everything – Jake is caught in a dilemma as to whether or not to disclose his secret

New plan – he puts off telling Jess as they fall deeper in love

Turning Point – Huge failure / Major shift – Sheriff accuses Jake of theft; he takes a finger-print from Jake and discloses to Jess who Jake actually is.

Act 4:

Dilemma – Jess goes on a bender; trashes the new build; what does she do?

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict – Jake visits her; Jess has fallen off the wagon; they fight; she drives; Jake goes after her; she crashes and ends up in the hospital. Jake is arrested as the Sheriff finds the stolen goods; Jake is released on bail

Resolution – Jake visits Jess in hospital; Jess forgives him; Jake takes a medical; Jake attends trial and pleads not guilty; Jake takes Jess home and nurses her; Jake works on the re-build; TJ’s son confesses to the crime and the charges are dropped against Jake; Jake tells Jess the cancer has returned; Jake finishes the build; they enjoy their final days together as Jake weakens; in the last scene we see Jess at Jake’s graveside in the Painted Hills

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Becker.

[David Becker]

David Becker’s 4 Act Structure

What I learned from this assignment is that I can always improve the structure points.

Title: The Road to Painted Hills

<b style=”background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Genre: Drama

Concept: When an ex-con seeking redemption (Jake) unexpectedly falls in love with the mother of the two twins he killed in tragic drunk-driving accident 20 years before (Jess), he must decide whether or not to tell her the truth.

Main Conflict: Jake must come clean to finally move on from his painful past, but his grave secret threatens to destroy the only love they have ever known.

Act 1:

Opening – Ex-con Jake Bellamy returns home from a building site to find that his fiancé has left him and taken their dog.

Inciting Incident – Jake learns that he finally free of the cancer which has plagued him the last few years. He resigns from his building job and decides to travel back to his home-town of Prineville, nestled beneath the Painted Hills of Oregon to seek redemption from the mother (Jess) of the twin girls he killed in a drink driving accident twenty years before.

Turning Point – Jake meets Jess but, before he can tell her, her restaurant burns down. Jess asks him to help rebuild it.

Act 2:

New plan – Feeling bad about the fire, Jake agrees to work on the rebuild

Plan in action – Jakes begins work and gets to know Jess

Midpoint Turning Point – Jake tries to tell her; she makes a move on him; they kiss.

Act 3:

Rethink everything – Jake is caught in a dilemma as to whether or not to disclose his secret</div><div>

New plan – he puts off telling Jess as they fall deeper in love

Turning Point – Huge failure / Major shift – Sheriff accuses Jake of theft; he takes a finger-print from Jake and discloses to Jess who Jake actually is.

Act 4:

Dilemma – Jess goes on a bender; trashes the new build; what does she do?

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict – Jake visits her; Jess has fallen off the wagon; they fight; she gets in her car; Jake goes after her; she crashes and ends up in the hospital. Jake is arrested as the Sheriff finds the stolen goods; Jake is released on bail.

Resolution – Jake visits Jess in hospital; they make up; Jake takes a medical; Jake attends trial and pleads not guilty; Jake takes Jess home and nurses her; Jake works on the build; TJ’s son confesses to the crime and the charges are dropped against Jake; Jake tells Jess the cancer has returned; Jake finishes the build; they enjoy their final days together as Jake weakens; in the last scene we see Jess at Jake’s graveside in the Painted Hills

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Becker.

[David Becker]

Subject: David Becker’s Pitch for “The Road to Painted Hills”

What I learned from this exercise is that I must get going – it doesn’t have to be perfect!

A. Genre: Drama (Romance)

B. Title: The Road to Painted Hills

C. High Concept: When an ex-con seeking redemption (Jake) unexpectedly finds love with the mother of the two twins he killed in a tragic drunk-driving accident 20 years before (Jess), he must decide whether or not to tell her the truth.

D. Main Conflict: Jake must come clean to finally move on from his painful past, but his grave secret threatens to destroy the only love they have ever known.

E. Transformational Journey: A man and a woman, both haunted by their traumatic past, must overcome unceasing hate and bitterness to find the one thing that has eluded them – love.

F. Opposition: The secret which lurks beneath their burgeoning devotion; the cancer it caused Jake and his ever-present mortality; the town’s Chief of Police who is hell bent on exposing the new stranger and claiming Jess for his own; Jake’s arrest for a crime he didn’t commit and the threat of Jess’ re-emerging addiction to alcohol.

[David Becker]

Hi, I’m David Becker and I recently moved to the English countryside with my family, which I love.

I have written 4 scripts thus far, the most recent (post MSC15) has been optioned and looks likely to be produced, which is exciting.

I’m looking forward to sharpening up my skills with this course as I’m busy writing my next feature over the summer.

I have plenty of quirks! I once ran across the Sahara Desert, competed in the World Memory Championships and Mind Sports Olympiad, and did a 10-day silent retreat. But nothing floats my boat more than writing!

[David Becker]

Hi Jenifer, I am ready for a second exchange if you have time. Please email me on david@beckerkemp.com if you are up for it. Look forward to it!

[David Becker]

Hi Jacqueline, good to make your acquaintance. Strange, I also reside between the UK and Cape Town, my home time. Good luck with the re-write!