Dorothea Bonneau
Forum Replies Created
-
Greetings, Dorothea Bonneau here.
I’ve written five screenplays (two optioned) and 22 stage plays.
I’d love to create a series based on my novel, Once in a Blood Moon inspired by the African Slaves who helped my ancestor, a ten-year-old indentured servant, to escape from the slave quaters.
I’ve had the great fortune to be the mother of seven sons.
-
Circle of Characters
What I learned: Where my characters fit in Season One of Once in a Blood Moon.
Connected: Kate, Serena Joy, Nick, Moira, Ofglen, daughter
Environment Circle: Waterford household, escapees, government officials, fellow handmaids
Main Characters for Season One: Once in a Blood Moon: Alexandra Degambia, Protagonist, a brilliant, spirited 16 year old who despises having her destiny controlled.
A. Lulu, Alexandra’s best friend from birth and now her serving maid.
B. Josephine, Alexandra’s mother, determined to follow protocol and ascend the social ladder.
C. Amatai: Alexandra’s father, wealthy, free, determined to preserve his Gamibian heritage.
D. Callie: Alexandra’s cousin, spoiled, but with a good heart, confused by what’s happening in her increasingly racist world.
E. Mr. Ball, Callie’s step-father, a racist hell-bent on dethroning Alexandra’s family.
F. Mamou, Alexandra’s grandmother on her father’s side, her soul mate who also possesses second site.
Connected Circle: Jimi, Tante Isabelle, Uncle Paul, Jillian, Grand Mere, The Sheriff, Mr. Masters, Overseer, Oeyi, Cabai, Sampson, Miranda, Mr. Hodges.
Environmental Circle: Law enforcers, Maroon Villagers, Villagers, Big House residents, Mrs. Masters and Sally Ann
-
Bonneau
Three Circles of Characters
What I learned: It’s valuable to determine who the character are and what niche they fill before starting to craft the plot.
Connected: Kate, Serena Joy, Nick, Moira, Ofglen, daughter
Environment Circle: Waterford household, escapees, government officials, fellow handmaids
Main Characters for Season One: Once in a Blood Moon: Alexandra Degambia, Protagonist, a brilliant, spirited 16 year old who despises having her destiny controlled.
A. Lulu, Alexandra’s best friend from birth and now her serving maid.
B. Josephine, Alexandra’s mother, determined to follow protocol and ascend the social ladder.
C. Amatai: Alexandra’s father, wealthy, free, determined to preserve his Gamibian heritage.
D. Callie: Alexandra’s cousin, spoiled, but with a good heart, confused by what’s happening in her increasingly racist world.
E. Mr. Ball, Callie’s step-father, a racist hell-bent on dethroning Alexandra’s family.
F. Mamou, Alexandra’s grandmother on her father’s side, her soul mate who also possesses second site.
Connected Circle: Jimi, Tante Isabelle, Uncle Paul, Jillian, Grand Mere, The Sheriff, Mr. Masters, Overseer, Oeyi, Cabai, Sampson, Miranda, Mr. Hodges.
Environmental Circle: Law enforcers, Maroon Villagers, Villagers, Big House residents, Mrs. Masters and Sally Ann
-
I agree to the terms required for this class
-
Screenwriting U
Lesson Two
Dorothea Bonneau: Screenplay outline.
What I learned. My logline did not accurately reflect my protagonist’s goal. When I revised it, the other pieces fell into place.
Purpose. Outliine.
(I have a shorter version, but this fully expresses the story I want to tell.)
Logline: The daughter of a wealthy African American plantation owner is torn between her social climbing mother’s desire for her to marry a prominent free-man-of-color and her father’s hope she will perpetuate the African traditions of her Diola ancestors. She longs to discover and to fulfill her own life- purpose and to feel self-worth.
OPENING
EXT: HEAVEN HILL PLANTATION MANSION: 1807. Sixteen-year-old ALEXANDRA DEGAMBIA improvises a passionate piece on her violin on the balcony that adjoins her lush sleeping quarters.
IN HER BEDROOM (which we see through the open French door) LULU, Alexandra’s sixteen-year-old serving maid, holds an exquisite ballgown up to her as she views herself in a full-length mirror. Ten-year-old JIMI enters. She quickly puts the ballgown away. He whispers something to her. She helps him hide behind Alexandra’s canopy bed.
HEAD OF HOUSE, MIRANDA, meets the DANCE TEACHER’S carriage. When the Dance Teacher has gone inside, Miranda motions for Alexandra to stop playing and hurry to the ballroom
INT: SLEEPING QUARTERS. JIMI pops up and scares Alexandra. Then he gives her a good luck piece he carved to help her succeed in her minuet lesson. He tells her their father has invited him to come to village and learn about planting. Alexandra confides she wishes she had been born a boy and could go with Jimi instead of learning to dance the minuet in preparation for her coming-out celebration.
Alexandra is punished by her mother and the dance teacher when she fails to learn the minuet.
EXT. STABLE: Humiliated and angry, Alexandra takes her violin and runs to the stable where she weeps and plays her violin for her horse, CABAI. Her mother forces Alexandra into her carriage.
INCITING INCIDENT:
INT. CARRIAGE: Alexandra’s mother tells her that she is going to sell Lulu and buy someone who can teach Alexandra manners. Lulu, born a slave, and Alexandra were born two days apart and suckled by the same wet nurse. They played together as equals until they were ten, when Alexandra’s mother insisted they assume their proper roles as slave and young mistress of the plantation.
Alexandra sneaks out of the house at night and goes to her Spirit Shrine in the Sacred Garden to beg Emitai, Creator of All Things, to help her find a way to save Lulu. Her AUNT MAMOU, a seer, finds her in the Sacred Garden and tells her that if she wants to save Lulu, she must treat her like a slave, as her mother insists. Then, her mother will give her Lulu at her coming out celebration and Alexandra can free her friend.
FIRST TURNING POINT:
Alexandra’s mother dies of consumption and her father is murdered by racists eager to seize Heaven Hill. Alexandra and Jimi are heirs to the estate. They try to run away so they won’t be murdered by the racists.
Jimi is caught.
Alexandra hides and watches as Jimi is forced into a barn which is set on fire. The slaves try to make the racists believe Alexandra was also burned to death in the barn, but they are suspicious. Alexandra starts to try to help Jimi when a Maroon (a run-away-slave who lives in a secret Maroon Camp) grabs her from behind and takes her to the Maroon village where she will be safe.
The Maroons arrange for Alexandra to be a French tutor for a child in plantation in another county, too far away from the racists to be discovered.
MIDPOINT:
While waiting for the carriage sent by the plantation owner for whom she has been hired to tutor, Alexandra is captured and sold into slavery. She is placed in a slave cabin where she meets JOHN FOWLER, a ten-year-old indentured servant who is despised by the overseer. John Fowler reminds her of her brother, Jimi. Alexandra befriends John Fowler.
SECOND TURNING POINT:
Alexandra vows to risk her life to help John Fowler escape certain death in slave quarters. She seeks redemption for the death of her brother which she failed to prevent.
CRISIS:
On the day Alexandra plans to help John Fowler to escape, he is placed in the stocks, where guards have been posted. He will be tar and feathered the next day, which will most certainly kill him.
CLIMAX:
After Alexandra and Jimi narrowly escape, Alexandra is able to connect John Fowler with people who will help him to travel 100 miles back to North Carolina where is family is located.
Denouement:
Alexandra turns down an opportunity to go to France and pursue her violin career. She chooses to go to Charleston and teach African American children, free and slave, how to read, how to write, how to make music, and how to preserve and find pride in their African heritage.
-
Partner needed. Historical fiction: Logline: The daughter of a wealthy African American planter flees for her life when her mother dies and her father is murdered by racists eager to seize the plantation that now belongs to her . Inspired by a true story.
-
Dorothea Bonneau, here. I’ve written five feature screenplays, two have been optioned. I’ve also written, published and produced stage plays. My historical fiction novel, Once in a Blood Moon, has received several awards, including making it to semi-finals in a novels for screenplay contest. My goal in this class is to hone Once in a Blood Moon into a viable screenplay.
What’s unique about me? I embrace many religious traditions some of which I have integrated into a morning practice which includes spiritual perspectives from India, the Cherokee, and Christianity.
-
Dorothea log line and one page
What I learned: Crafting the log line for you story is like finding its soul, it’s reason for being.
Title: Once in a Blood Moon
Genre: Historical Fiction
Log Line: <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: rgb(77, 92, 109);”>1807<i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: rgb(77, 92, 109);”>: The African American heiress of a prosperous plantation flees for her life when her mother dies and her father is murdered by racists eager to seize her estate.
One Page: Based on Once in a Blood Moon, the novel by the same title,<i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: rgb(77, 92, 109);”> this screenplay, is inspired by the true story of the author’s ancestor.
Heaven Hill plantation, upriver from Georgetown, South Carolina, 1807: Sixteen-year-old Alexandra de Gambia, spoiled daughter of a wealthy African-American planter and a social climbing mother, balances on the tightrope between girlhood and the complicated adult world where one misstep can forever ruin a young woman’s prospects. Her dream is to find her own niche and become to an accomplished musician. She will have a chance to impress her first public audience when she plays her violin in the Christmas Concert to be held in her white cousin’s famous recital parlor located on the grounds of Pinnacles Plantation.
Alexandra’s world of privilege devolves into a nightmare when her father is murdered and her mother dies. Alexandra and her brother Jimi are the only heirs to the vast estate of Heaven’s Hill. If they come to an unfortunate end, the plantation will become the property of power-hungry men eager to seize the plantation for their own.
Fearing for her own life, Alexandra hides and watches as her brother is captured and locked in a blacksmith’s shop. She’s about to help her brother when the shop is set on fire. She passes out as her little brother burns to death.
Alexandra escapes from Heaven’s Hill only to be caught by slave catchers who sell her to Rose of Sharon Plantation. The kindly, but impotent, planter who purchased her suffers a stroke and becomes incapacitated. Alexandra struggles to find a niche under the watchful eye of his mentally deranged wife.
While living in the slave quarters, Alexandra befriends John Fowler, a ten-year-old, white indentured servant who is being worked to death by the overseer of the plantation. Alexandra risks her life to help John Fowler escape; he reminds her of the brother she couldn’t save.
After Alexandra takes John to people who will help him to travel the 100 miles to his home in North Carolina, she’s given the opportunity to go to France to study music. Instead, she decides to teach African American children about the courage of their ancestors who brought knowledge of how to grow rice to South Carolina which provided the wealth that helped to create the United States of America. She also teaches them how to play the violin.
-
Rico, I am intrigued by the ways this story might invite the audience to reflect on America’s values. I’m also interested to know how living in America helps the protagonist to see the benefits of living in his own country.
As you develop the story, I’m eager to find out what the protagonist learns about his own values and what obstacles he has to overcome to achieve his goals.
-
Bernice, first of all, I love your title and story idea, which is at the same time universal because young people in all societies come to a crossroads where they must make a choice that will influence the course of their lives. And, it is also specific to the paradigm shift in China where the old way of conducting life is to honor tradition and family, and the new way of life is to make individual choices to express individuality. I, for one, love to learn about cultures with which I have little familiarity.
Your logline is intriguing, it seems to me that the heart of the girl’s dilemma is what choice to make. The way I interpret it as written, is that she is pressured by family and society, but isn’t the choice still up to her?
Your story is full of intriguing action. The only thing I was confused about was the roles the friend and the boyfriend played in the girl’s life.
-
Rico,
I’m having trouble navigating on this site. Could you send your logline and synopsis to dorotheabonneau@gmail.com?
-
Rico,
Could you please send me your logline and synopsis? I can’t find my way back to Assignment one.
Dorothea Bonneau
-
Bernice,
What an intriguing storyline. The protagonist faces a dilmena that’s universal for people who are coming of age: making a choice that will affect her future. I can’t seem to find my way back to your synopsis. Could you send it to me, please? dorotheabonneau@gmail.com
-
I would be delighted to collaborate in a three-way. It does seem like our themes have something in common.
-
Rico. I like what you say about your need to tell your story…about longing for home. I would be interestested in teaming up with you. Let me know if this also works for you.
Dorothea Bonneau
-
Do you still need a partner? Your logline intrigues me.
My rewrite is based on my novel, Once in a Blood Moon. Logline: When her mother dies and her father is murdered by racists eager to seize his estate, the heiress, daughter of the wealthy African American Plantation owner flees for her life.