[Elliott Williams]

<div>Subject: Elliott Williams Amazing Opening Scene
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“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” This takes more work than I can give it right now. But I did this exercise earlier when we started rewriting.

</div><div>AFTER</div><div>

TEASER
The SILHOUETTE of a man watches through the glass from an observation room.
THREE SOLDIERS escorted by two doctors and an armed military guard, are led to three tables and strapped in, lethal injection style.
The doctors inject medication into the IV drips.
One Doctor leans over, whispers in the ear of one of the soldiers.
DOCTOR
Thank you for your service.
INTERCOM VOICE (O.S.)
Clear the chamber.
The strapped in soldiers seem clammy, frightened. They breathe heavily. Anticipating.
The Doctors and guards leave.
A countdown begins. 5..4..3..2..
A valve flips and pumps medication into the soldiers. Their bodies go still.
INTERCOM VOICE
Vitals?
DOCTOR
No change.
Abruptly, the three bodies spring to life in a convulsing rhythm – violent and uncontrolled.
INTERCOM VOICE
What is happening?
DOCTOR
I don’t know.
Two of the bodies begin to change to…
WHITE, CRACKED, and PARCHED skin, like a dried river. Flakes of white flesh float off the skin and disappear: burning embers that vanish like fireflies.
The men’s bodies enlarge and distort. Their eyes redden, bulging without distinction between pupil and iris and their gums go slick black. It’s a gruesome sight.
The two men, completely turned to hulking white creatures devoid of humanity, break free of their restraints while the third, who’s yet to change, continues to convulse.
INTERCOM VOICE
The antidote!
The Doctors rush in, it’s too late. The Doctors are savagely mauled.
INTERCOM VOICE
Kill them.
The Guards rush in while the creatures feast and unload their clips. The creatures walk through the bullets, gnash their flesh and break bones.
Suddenly both creatures freeze. Their eyes roll up in their heads as their bodies appear to be in petit mal seizure.
The Silouetted Man from earlier, 30’s handsome, in a lab coat, is also frozen, with his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.
The Creatures, sedate, trudge out of the room as the third soldier remains, still in seizure.

“THE SEEN”

SUPER: FIFTEEN YEARS LATER.
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
The ROAR of a vacuum pushing back and forth in a middle class modest living room. ABIGAIL DENCH, 48, a handsome woman, but the years of being the rock of the family have taken their toll.
The vacuum noise isn’t a vacuum. It’s a malfunctioning pump for a CPAP Abigail is trying to fix. CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. The pump sound turns off. In the distance, barely audible, a scratching sound.
ABIGAIL
Brent!
No response. Abigail starts back to work, using her needle nose pliers,…scratch, scratch, thunk.
Abigail, slowly, quietly rises from the table and pulls a handgun hidden behind the sofa.
She listens at the door to the basement. Nothing.
Abigail opens the door, turns on the light and steps inside.
ABIGAIL
Brent!
BASEMENT STAIRWELL
The light only extends the length of the stairwell. The rest is in shadow.
Abigail goes down, with the gun at the ready.
She stops midway, scared as hell, her eyes adjusting.
Gradually, Abigail makes out a silhouette in the darkness, like an animal, it tremors. HOLY SHIT!
ABIGAIL
I see you, you little shit.
The shape shifts and distorts seemingly reconfiguring to something human. Abigail reflexively falls back in disbelief.
The shape lurches toward the stairs.
ABIGAIL
Stop! Stop!
Abigail fumbles with the gun as the shadow is almost on her.
Out of the darkness, a disheveled, dirty, young woman, 20’s, collapses at the base of the steps.
INT. BATHROOM – LATER
The Young Woman, TRACE DENCH, pretty with an edge, in the tub starts awake, gasping for air, up to her neck in ice.
ABIGAIL
There you are.
Trace gasps as she’s trying to catch her breath.
ABIGAIL
This what happens when you wrestle the world.
Trace attempts to escape the freezing tub, but..
ABIGAIL
Hold. Hold. Just a few more seconds. Gotta get that temperature down.
Trace relents. A tinge of blue in her skin as her lip quivers.

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[Elliott Williams]

Subject: Elliott Williams Amazing 3rd Act

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

I was only able to make small changes. I think I will find more once I work on the screenplay.

SET UPS

ACT 1

There is a secret being hidden in her broken home.

Her father is behaving very oddly.

Mom is murdered by Dad

There are symbols on pieces of paper that match magnets hidden in the basement of the house

The CIA, not the local police, takes Dad

April gets a clue to a closed military base where her father may be.

ACT II

April is told there isn’t anyone on the base with her father’s name.

April tries to get clues from a local dried up town.

She’s led to a retired security guard who tells her her father’s real name.

April tries to find information about her father and she finds that her father published papers on some odd behavioral research her father performed.

She follows an employee from the base, Kerry, to a strip club and convinces him to help her get inside the base, but she can’t find her father. Instead she finds old records that lead her to a survivor of the testing, Ayoki Koji. Kerry gets fired by his boss, Officer Gaskins.

Kerry and April find Ayoki but they are captured by Officer Gaskins. Kerry betrayed April.

April is now imprisoned on the base and questioned by Officer Gaskins. He says they want to hold her for observation since they believe her dad has a virus.

In her cell, she sees from Ayoki’s POV, the door to her cell open. He comes in, accuses her of leading the military back to him and tries to kill her. She convinces him that she is just trying to find her father.

Ayoki helps her find her father, but they find Kerry. He’s in bad shape as he’s been tortured. They are going to leave him, but Kerry tells them that he knows where her father is.

They find her father and he is part human and changing into something else. He confesses his wrongs, asks for forgiveness, before they escape and he changes into a beast.

ACT III

Dr. Gant has escaped his cell as a beast and starts killing soldiers while April et al scramble to escape, avoid capture and keep from ending up on the dinner menu. She is broken and lost.

24 (E7) INT. Military Base –Office – Day

They discover Field Officer Gaskins, noose around his neck, in preparation to hang himself. He reveals that there were beasts created years before that still exist, they have awoken and Dr. Gant was supposed to control them, but now they are doomed. Ayoki, a clairvoyant, offers to try to help. Gaskins has a plan.

25. (E8) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

Gaskins tells all remaining soldiers to lead the Gant Creature to the basement. He and the team get tranquilizer darts on steroids. Kerry doesn’t think they will work. Gaskins explains that they are a nerve toxin that can kill humans. Bullets don’t work but maybe poison will.

They go to a secret chamber in the bowels of the building and find three big magnetic chambers with symbols engraved on them, same as the ones on the magnets from the house. The creature that’s awake can sense Ayoki’s presence which is making Ayoki start to lose control.

Kerry tries to guide Ayoki. He’s studied some of Gant’s research, but he’s shaky.

The second creature awakes with a bellow. They have limited time has Ayoki fights to control his mind.

26. (E10) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

The Gant Creature breaks in, they try to disable it with the tranquilizer darts, it only slows him down a bit. Ayoki tries to use his senses to control the creature, but it only accelerates his change and excites both the creatures in the boxes. The excitement draws The Gant Creature to the boxes to help the Creatures escape. The team scrambles to leave as they witness the second case crack.

27 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

April et. al. get out of the basement before the creatures break out. They hustle to escape, but Ayoki is lagging. April tries to help him hurry and keep going. Kerry tells him there may be a way to save him. Ayoki doesn’t want it. He’s too far gone and there’s too far to travel. He will try to slow the creatures down, while he can.

28 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

April is unravelling with grief. Kerry snatches her to her senses. She is their last hope. Dr. Gant mentioned deep emotional links in psychoconnectivity. If she can tap into that, she may be able to control the creatures.

29 (E10) INT. Military Base – Lobby – Day

They make it to the lobby of the building, but they can’t escape as the doors are blocked with stacked bodies. The creatures show up, but now there are four. The team gets picked off one by one as April tries to find a way out, finally, out of fear, she finds the ability to control the creatures and uses it to make them destroy each other.

30 (E8) INT. Home – Basement – Night

April is at home in the basement. She is finishing arranging magnets in a circle on the floor. She places one of the tranquilizer darts on the ground, takes some meds, takes off her bloody clothes, lies down in the middle. A third of her body is flaking white ash and her eyes are crimson red. She takes pill after pill and breathes. We see her eyes roll up in her head and she passes out.

Outside of her house a convoy of military vehicles rides up on the lawn and soldiers surround the house.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject: Elliott Williams Most Memorable Line

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

There are a lot of specific ways to tackle a script to improve the overall quality. I hear what you have been saying, but it’s a lot of work.

SCENE BEFORE

INT. JACKSON HOUSEHOLD – KITCHEN – NIGHT
Trace enters the kitchen. Dishes clank as Anna flips them under the running faucet. She looks small and worn, not as energetic as earlier. The facade is gone.
Trace takes this in before she makes her presence known.
TRACE
You just refuse to use the dishwasher.
ANNA
Not with two good hands. It’s therapeutic.
Trace unconsciously pinches off some grapes on the counter as she turns to study her mother.
TRACE
How are you?
ANNA
Fine.
TRACE
Why did you stay…all those years?
ANNA
Trace…
TRACE
I’m just…while I was away, I just wondered why…did you put up with it?
ANNA
You were a child.
TRACE
And you weren’t.
ANNA
Trace.
TRACE
All the moving? “Looking for work?” It just never…what happened?
ANNA
I love him. I’d follow him anywhere.
TRACE
I love him too. So, if he’s dieing, I’ll never forgive you if you kept that from me.
ANNA
Please. Let him speak for himself.
Trace relents once she sees the torment in her mother’s eyes.

THE LINE I’M REWRITING:

Anna’s last line “Please. Let him speak for himself”

MEANING

I want her to shut April down and let her know that she can’t control everything that happens or she doesn’t know enough to understand anything.

SCENE AFTER

INT. JACKSON HOUSEHOLD – KITCHEN – NIGHT
April enters the kitchen. Dishes clank as Anna flips them under the running faucet. She looks small and worn, not as energetic as earlier. The facade is gone.
April takes this in then…

April
You just refuse to use the dishwasher.

ANNA
Not with two good hands. It’s therapeutic.

April unconsciously pinches off some grapes on the counter as she studies her mother.

APRIL
How are you?

ANNA
Fine.

APRIL
Why did you stay…all those years?

ANNA
April…

APRIL
I’m just…while I was away, I just wondered why…did you put up with it?

ANNA
You were a child.

TRACE
And you weren’t.

ANNA
April…

APRIL
All the moving?, “Looking for work?”, mood swings, it just never…

ANNA
I love him. I’d follow him anywhere.

APRIL
I love him too. So, if he’s dying, I’ll never forgive you if you kept that from me.

ANNA
You may have found wisdom, but didn’t get wise. You’re writing a check your ass can’t cash.

April, at a loss for words, relents, sees the torment in her mother’s eyes.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject title: Elliott Williams loves separating character dialogue!

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

A completely new way to look at character dialogue especially since it is rooted in a short character profile.

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CHARACTER PROFILE

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1) Character Name:

April

Role: Graduate Student/Daughter

Core Character Traits:

– Headstrong

– Take Charge

– Cunning

– Needing her father’s love

Character Subtext Logline:

April is a distrusting daughter who needs to know why her parents try to control her.

Flaw: Her Anger and frustration blinds her.

Want/Need: Independence from parents and drugs/The love and acceptance of her parents

Mission/Agenda: To uncover the secret her father is hiding

Character Arc (if any): Goes from untrusting and self-centred to caring for others.

World View: No one does anything for nothing

BEFORE:

INT. MOTEL – FRONT DESK – DAY
Trace rents a room at a motel room.
CLERK
That will be sixty, twenty-five.

Trace digs in her pocket, pulls out a credit card with Abigail Dent embossed on it.
She looks away as the Clerk rings up the transaction. She takes in the dusty maps and old photos. She spies an old photo of the military complex.

TRACE
You know anything about that one?
CLERK
Excuse me?
Trace points at the photo.
CLERK
Not really. Just work here. Three dollars for the tour guides.

Trace studies it a little more. The clerk puts the bill and an actual key with a tag on the counter.

TRACE
How long have you worked here?

CLERK
Long time I s’pose.

Trace pulls out the card of the Special Agent.

TRACE
I know this is a long shot, but have you heard of this guy?

The Clerk doesn’t even look at the card.

CLERK
Missing persons is at the Sheriff’s a mile down the road.

AFTER:

INT. MOTEL – FRONT DESK – DAY
Trace rents a room at a motel room.
CLERK
That will be sixty, twenty-five.

Trace digs in her pocket, pulls out a credit card with Abigail Dent embossed on it.
She looks away as the Clerk rings up the transaction. She takes in the dusty maps and old photos. She spies an old photo of the military complex.

TRACE
Know anything about that one?

CLERK
Excuse me?

Trace points at the photo.

CLERK
Not really. Just work here. Three dollars for the tour guides.

Trace studies it a little more. The clerk puts the bill and an actual key with a tag on the counter.

TRACE
Yeah, someone as young as you wouldn’t know, but you look so…wise?

CLERK
I s’pose.

Trace pulls out the card of the Special Agent.

TRACE
I bet you see a lot working here. Have you seen this guy?

The Clerk doesn’t even look at the card.

CLERK
Missing persons is at the Sheriff’s a mile down the road.

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• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject: Elliott Williams, Dramatic Scene Transitions

“What I learned from doing this assignment is…?”
The six transitions that we can use to transition, but you must be economical with all except one.

ASSIGNMENT

BEFORE

APRIL
turns, realizes that she’s spinning her wheels. She stops for a moment… sees something shining from the curio behind Jake’s desk.
A gold clock atop the dusty shelf. Trace sees the etched words reading… “for twenty years of government service”… then the words “National Discovery & Research Command… Fort Belvoir”…
She picks up the retirement gift and realizes…
EXT. FORT BELVOIR MILITARY BASE – ESTABLISHING
Airy. Sunny. A massive collection of drab looking government buildings overtake this installation forty miles south of Washington, DC.
EXT. GATE ENTRANCE – DAY
April is waiting in her car at the guard’s booth.
A soldier comes to her car.
GATE SOLDIER
Ma’am. There’s no Brent Dent inside.
She shows him a picture.

AFTER

April turns, realizes that she’s spinning her wheels. She stops for a moment… sees something shining from the curio behind Jake’s desk.
A gold clock atop the dusty shelf. April sees the etched words reading… “for twenty years of government service”… then the words “National Discovery & Research Command… Fort Belvoir”…
She picks up the retirement gift and realizes…

EXT. FT. BELVOIR – GATE ENTRANCE – DAY
April is waiting in her car at the guard’s booth.
A soldier comes to her car.
GATE SOLDIER
Ma’am. There’s no Brent Dent inside.
She shows him a picture.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject: Elliott Williams Elevated Scene Structures

“What I learned from doing this assignment is…?”

I now have structures for approaching scene rewrites. Frankly, I am not sure of my proficiency with all of them, but I’m taking a stab at it.

INT. COFFEE SHOP – DAY
April beelines to the counter and straddles a stool. The WAITRESS, 50, drops a napkin in front of her.

WAITRESS
What you need, honey?

APRIL
Coffee.

The waitress taps the countertop and spins on her heel as if she already knew, pours a cup and places it in front of her.

APRIL
Hey, Ma’am.

WAITRESS
Ma’am is my momma
(tapping her name tag)
my name is Beatrice, honey.
What’s your trouble?

APRIL

Beatrice, I’m trying to find my father and I’m trying to find a guy?

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Aren’t we all.

April doesn’t catch the joke. Beatrice rolls her eyes at the missed connection while April is digging for the card.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
(Muttering)
A dollop a sugar makes the world go round.

April shows her the card. Beatrice looks at it and gives April a look like “seriously?”.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
This is a small town, so we tend to not need reminders.

APRIL
So you don’t know who that is?

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
You’re a quick one.

APRIL
Thank you.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Alright, honey.

The waitress grabs two plates from the pick up window and places them in front of two grateful customers.
She looks back over to April and sees her hover over her coffee, defeated.
Beatrice looks as if she may regret this, but she strides over.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Let me see that again.

April gives her the card.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
He’s probably from that defunct base.

April
Yes. How can I get to him?

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Go to Lucky’s gas station. They may be able to help you there.

TRACE
Thank you.

2. List the components of the scene and what you are trying to accomplish.

a) April is searching for her father.

b) April is desperate

3. Imagine the scene being played out through each of the 11 scene

structures listed above and write out the three best ones, like I did in

the example above.

a) Twist

b) Misinterpretation

c) Surprise

4. Make your choice of the new scene structure and rewrite the scene. TWIST

INT. COFFEE SHOP – DAY
April beelines to the counter and straddles a stool. The WAITRESS, 50, drops a napkin in front of her.

WAITRESS
What you need, honey?

APRIL
Coffee.

WAITRESS

Hold on honey. I can’t hear you. Mumble any quieter and I might go deaf.

APRIL

Coffee!

The waitress taps the countertop and spins on her heel, pours a cup and places it in front of her.

APRIL
Hey, Ma’am.

WAITRESS
I have customers. Is there anything else you want to order, city slicker?

APRIL

Not right now.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Sounds about right.

APRIL

Is there a problem? Do I know you?

WAITRESS

No. But I know your kind.

April is taken aback.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Make sure you pay the bill before you leave.

April is speechless. The waitress walks off, grabs two plates from the pick up window and places them in front of two grateful customers.

She starts talking to them.

She looks back over to April and sees her hover over her coffee, defeated. The Waitress rolls her eyes, regretful. She walks back to April.

WAITRESS

Hey, sugar. I’m sorry about that. It’s been a rough day. Let me get you an extra cup to make it up to you.

APRIL

Actually, can you look at this? I’m trying to find my father.

April shows her the card.

APRIL
So you don’t know who that is?

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
You’re a quick one.

APRIL
Thank you.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Alright, honey.

April shows her the card. Beatrice looks at it and shakes her head.

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
He’s probably from that defunct base.

April
Yes. How can I get to him?

WAITRESS/BEATRICE
Go to Lucky’s gas station. They may be able to help you there.

TRACE
Thank you.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject line: Elliott Williams Meaningful Action

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” there are scenes that are really flat that you thought were great because of dialogue and sharing of information and not anything more.

This scene is trying to communicate a connection between Kerry and April and his interest in her father’s research.

INT. FORT BELVOIR MILITARY BASE – RESEARCH COMMAND – DAY

April waits in an empty lobby with no sign of anyone. She takes in the white wall with it’s humongous SHIELD showing the research command Crest then looks up to see four video cameras angled directly on her.

April takes a step towards the front door, glances at her watch. No sign of anyone.

April looks up – the cameras are still on her. They moved – odd.

BZZZZ – the sound of a door latch unlocking startles April. She looks up, sees a twenty-something year old guy with a mop full of hair entering into the lobby. Not sure exactly who she was expecting.

TWENTYSOMETHING GUY

You must be April Jackson?

APRIL

I am.

(beat)

And you?

TWENTYSOMETHING GUY

Kerry James. Just call me Kerry.

April glances back towards the cameras.

TWENTYSOMETHING GUY/KERRY

You ready?

APRIL

Ah huh.

KERRY

Come with me.

And we’re moving with the two down a

NARROW CORRIDOR

April has a few questions.

APRIL

The cameras– they followed me.

KERRY

Motion censored. They follow everybody.

APRIL

Oh.

A beat.

APRIL

You look pretty young to be a scientist.

KERRY

Research Assistant. Just got out of college. And that isn’t even as glamorous as it sounds. More like office manager to gopher to waterboy.

April laughs. The first smile we’ve seen on her face in a long time.

KERRY

Glad I could make you smile. Looks good on you.

The two stop at a suite of offices at the end of a T-shaped hallway. April sees a placard with Teeg’s name on the front indicating that they’re at his workstation.

KERRY

I’ll let Dr. Spears know you’re here.

APRIL

Thank you.

Kerry is about to walk away then remembers something.

KERRY

Sorry about your mother and your dad.

April’s taken aback. Surprised that he knows. Kerry sees her expression.

KERRY

I– I followed your father’s work for years. That was one of the reasons I chose to work here. This is the place to learn.

APRIL

Really?

KERRY

He’s like a rock star around here.

APRIL

For what?

KERRY

Neurochemical research.

JAMESON (O.S.)

Kerry, there you go exaggerating again.

And the two turn to see DR. JAMESON SPEARS, mid 40’s, gruff, with eyes discerning as ever… not missing a thing.

He’s the lead research scientist and heir apparent to Jake’s previous research projects.

JAMESON

Kerry, thank you.

KERRY

Yessir.

Kerry takes off with April and Jameson still standing in the…

HALLWAY –

REWRITE

EXT. Strip Club – Night

April watches Kerry hop out of his car and bound into a Western themed strip club.

INT. Strip Club – Night

April scans the room for Kerry, he’s at a small table attended to by a waitress in daisy dukes, a cowboy hat and a midriff knotted cowboy shirt.

April takes a deep breath, undoes the top buttons of her shirt, revealing surprisingly nice cleavage and she strides to his table.

April

Anyone sitting here?

Kerry looks around, surprised, albeit it seems pleasantly.

Kerry

No.

She sits. Kerry does his best to be cool, like this happens all the time.

April

You here alone?

Kerry

Yes. Yes.

April

Blowing off steam?

Kerry

I hope so.

April

I like blowing off steam too. Keeps everything working properly.

Kerry is getting excited. Can’t believe this.

April

What brings you here?

Kerry is a little confused by the question. He looks around at the view. April giggles.

April

I mean to this town? You kinda stand out.

Kerry

Work.

April

I bet it’s interesting.

Kerry

Yeah. I would say.

April

I bet it’s important.

Kerry

It’s Ok.

April

I know it’s a big deal, now.

Kerry

Well, I do research. It’s hard to explain.

April

Perfect. I like hard.

Kerry receives the inuendo. Gulps.

Kerry

I work on a secret project for the government. It’s for telekinetic biological and psychosomatic responses. Clairvoyance and the like.

Kerry pulls out the photo of her father.

April

Do you know who that is?

Kerry

Wait, what is this?

April

I’m his daughter.

Kerry

Dammit! I should have known it was too good to be true.

Kerry gets up.

April

Wait! I need your help. He’s on the base.

Kerry stops.

Kerry

He’s alive?

April

Yes and he’s supposed to be on the base, but no one will let me see him.

Kerry

If I help you, what do I get out of it?

April

What do you want?

Kerry

I want to pick his brain.

April

You get me in, you get to pick.

[Elliott Williams]

What did I learn? This can be challenging to improve even when you know the beat needs to be improved.

ACT I

1. (E10) INT. Observation Room – 1980 – Day

Doctors administer what looks like a lethal injection to three military prisoners, but they turn into hideous creatures and murder the armed guards before the main doctor stops them with mind control.

2. (E9) INT. Front Door – Home – Present day – Day

Abigail, hears an eerie intermittent scratching in her basement. With trepidation, she opens the basement door to a shape hiding in the darkness. It turns out it’s her disoriented and disheveled daughter. April explains she is there to surprise them, but she was overcome by something.

3. (E8) INT. Home – Bathroom – Day

The young woman is in a tub of ice to bring the fever down. Abigail asks April, her daughter, if she’s still taking her meds. When April doesn’t answer, Abigail admits she gave her a small intravenous dose. April is pissed. She just needs rest and no stress. Abigail wonders is she going back to graduate school. April won’t answer.

4 (E8) INT. Home – Dining room – Day

Brent, April’s father, comes to dinner, consumed with scribbling symbols on dirty pieces of cardboard, trying to solve a puzzle. He’s gaunt and unaware until Abigail gets his attention. Later, Brent says they can’t have April in the house because April’s off her meds and came back home. He demands she leaves in the morning.

5 (E7) INT. Home – April’s Bedroom – Day

Abigail explains that Brent hasn’t been himself lately. She’s had to give him more medication than the doctors will allow. April is shocked to find out he’s on meds too.

6. (E10) INT. Home – Kitchen – Day

Brent, possessed, attacks Abigail and she tries to stab him but he doesn’t die. Brent kills her with ease, once he gets ahold of her. He chases April back to her room where she locks herself in, only to hear him bellowing outside banging for her to come out.

7. (E9) INT. Home – Outside- Day

Plain Clothes Officers take Brent away in an armored truck after they ask if there was anything he told her that was odd or unusual.

8. (E10) INT. Home – Basement – Day

April tries to find anything odd or unusual and turns up a cache of hundreds of magnets with symbols scratched into them. She starts having a seizure.

9. (E10) INT. Police – Station – Day

April goes to the police station to ask Brent about the symbols and they tell her he’s not there. He’s with the CIA at an old military outpost.

ACT II

10. (E7) EXT. Military Outpost – Day

The Guard won’t let April on base. They don’t have anyone with the name Brent and they don’t have a jail of any sort.

11. (E7) EXT. Military Town – Day

April searches for anyone who knows anything in a local dried up town. She finds someone who used to be a guard. He tells her there was an accident many years ago that shut the base down for some time and the man in the picture died years ago. His name is not Brent. It was Dr. Gant.

12. INT. Hotel – Day

April does searches on line to find anything she can about the base or an accident. Nothing.

13. (E7) INT. Bar – Day

April follows Kerry, who left the base in the evening and went to a bar. She shows a picture of her father and Kerry tells her that looks like Austin Gant. He died many years ago, but that is the reason he’s here, to continue his work. April reveals she’s his daughter, he may be inside and she will help him get to his research if he helps her get to her Dad. Kerry agrees.

14. (E7) INT. Military Base – File Room – Day

Kerry helps April get into a secure sector of files. April searches the old files, has a very odd vision, which Kerry has to snap her out of. She’d been in there for over an hour. April, reveals she knows that someone from the file is still alive. She has to see them. Kerry and April are surrounded in the file room. Kerry is fired.

15. (E7) EXT. Midwest Town – Slum – Day

Ayoki Koji, a strung out drug addict, will only talk if they buy him a meal. He is severely damaged from all of the drug use over the years. April asks him about Dr. Austin Gant. He starts to sober up. He tries to leave, but April grabs him, he freezes, a patch of his skin starts to turn white and flake into the air. He tells her she has the sight and will join him in hell. He flees, but as soon as they chase him outside, military vehicles descend on them and round them up.

16. INT. TRANSPORT – DAY

April accuses Kerry of betraying her. He apologizes. He has to get to Dr. Gant’s work. It’s his life’s work.

17. INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

The officer who spoke with her at her house, Field Officer Gaskins, questions April for information, but she wants to know where her father and her friends are. It’s a standoff. Gaskins tells April her father may have had some kind of virus that she may be infected with. She is free to go after observation.

18. (E8) INT. Military Base – Holding Cell – Day

In the cell, April’s hand starts to itch. She checks her palm and a small patch of skin is turning flaky white. She’s freaking out trying to rub the skin off when she falls into a hallucination, she sees Ayoki he’s walking through the building until her door opens, it’s Ayoki.

19. INT. Military Base Holding Cell – day

Ayoki tries to kill April for finding him. She finally gets him to see that she has to save her father.

20 (E7) INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

Ayoki leads the search for Dr. Gant. He reveals he escaped the facility before and went underground.

21 (E8) INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

Kerry has been tortured and can barely walk. He’s going to slow them down, Ayoki is freaking out and wants to leave him. Kerry reveals he knows where Dr. Gant is.

22 (E10) INT. Military Base – Medical Room – Day

Dr. Gant is strapped down to a medical table, flaky all over, somewhat bigger and his face is terrifying. Red swollen eyes, teeth gone from black slick gums. April is destroyed but she wants to get her father out. He won’t let her. Her father can’t see but senses Ayoki is there. He apologizes for experimenting on the soldiers and causing all of this. He’s also sorry for what he’s done to his daughter. He gave her the sight and the longer they all are together the faster they will change. Gant becomes a raging beast.

Act III

23 (E9) INT. Military Base – Hallways – Day

They barely escape, The Gant monster breaks out, has gone on a rampage killing soldiers. Ayoki is able to guide them away from the creature with his senses, but he’s becoming less and less able to fight off the change. April is freaking out and Kerry is limping badly. They won’t get out unless they hide and regroup.

24 (E7) INT. Military Base –Office – Day

They discover Field Officer Gaskins, noose around his neck, in preparation to hang himself. He reveals that there were beasts that were created before that still exist, have awoken and Dr. Gant was supposed to control them, but now they are doomed. Ayoki, a clairvoyant, offers to try.

25. (E8) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

Gaskins tells all remaining soldiers to lead the Gant Creature to the basement. He and the team get tranquilizer darts on steroids, go to a secret chamber in the bowels of the building and find three big magnetic chambers with symbols engraved on them. The creature that’s awake can sense Ayoki’s presence which is making Ayoki start to lose control.

Kerry tries to guide Ayoki. He’s studied some of Gant’s research, but he’s shaky.

The second creature awakes with a bellow. They have limited time has Ayoki fights to control his mind.

26. (E10) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

The Gant Creature breaks in, they try to disable it with the tranquilizer darts, it only slows him down a bit. Ayoki tries to use his senses to control the creature, but it only accelerates his change and excites both the creatures in the boxes. The excitement draws The Gant Creature to the boxes to help the Creatures escape. The team scrambles to leave as they witness the second case crack.

27 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

They escape before the creatures break out, but Ayoki volunteers to try to hold them back as he’s almost completely changed.

28 INT. Miliary Base – Hallway – Day

While they try to escape, Kerry explains the research her dad did. She is their last chance. She needs to find an emotional link.

29 (E10) INT. Military Base – Lobby – Day

They make it to the lobby of the building, but they can’t escape as the doors are blocked with stacked bodies. The creatures show up, but now there are four. The team gets picked off one by one until April, finally, out of fear, finds the ability to control the creatures and uses it to make them destroy each other.

30 (E8) INT. Home – Basement – Night

April is at home in the basement. She is finishing arranging magnets in a circle on the floor. She takes some meds, takes off her bloody clothes, lies down in the middle. A third of her body is flaking white ash and her eyes are bulging red. She takes pill after pill and breathes. The Ash starts to recede as we see her eyes lose redness, roll up in her head and she passes out.

Beats to improve

Beat 12. INT. Hotel – Day

April does searches on line to find anything she can about the base or an accident. Nothing.

April can’t find anything in newer libraries because they mostly use digital technology. She goes to an old outdated library that still has microfiche. She searches old newspaper and magazine articles.

Beat 17 INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

April is strapped down to a medical table. The officer who spoke with her at her house, Field Officer Gaskins, questions her for information, but she wants to know where her father and Ayoki are. It’s a standoff. Gaskins tells April her father may have had some kind of virus that she may be infected with. She is free to go after observation.

Beat 27 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

They escape before the creatures break out, but Ayoki volunteers to try to hold them back as he’s almost completely changed.

They get out of the basement before the creatures break out. They hustle to escape, but Ayoki is lagging. April tries to convince him to hurry and keep going. Kerry tells him there may be a way to save him. Ayoki doesn’t want it. He’s too far gone and there’s too far to travel. He will try to slow the creatures down, while he can.

28 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

While they try to escape, Kerry explains the research her dad did. She is their last chance. She needs to find an emotional link.

April is unravelling with grief. Kerry snatches her to her senses. She is their last hope. Dr. Gant mentioned deep emotional links in psychoconnectivity. If she can tap into that, she may be able to control the creatures.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject Line: Elliott Williams Scene Ratings

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” – I have a lot of entertaining scenes, which makes the weak scenes stand out in a bad way.

E4 is the low and E10 is the highest

ACT I

1. (E10) INT. Observation Room – 1980 – Day

Doctors administer what looks like a lethal injection to three military prisoners, but they turn into hideous creatures and murder the armed guards before the main doctor stops them with mind control.

2. (E9) INT. Front Door – Home – Present day – Day

Abigail, hears an eerie intermittent scratching at her front door. With trepidation, she opens the door to a muddied, disoriented and disheveled young woman in the middle of what seems to be a seizure, before she collapses.

3. (E8) INT. Home – Bathroom – Day

The young woman is in a tub of ice to bring the fever down. Abigail asks April, her daughter, if she’s still taking her meds. When April doesn’t answer, Abigail admits she gave her a small intravenous dose. April is pissed. She just needs rest and no stress. Abigail wonders is she going back to graduate school. April won’t answer.

4 (E8) INT. Home – Dining room – Day

Brent, April’s father, gets into an argument at dinner with April because she’s off her meds and came back home. He demands she leaves in the morning.

5 (E7) INT. Home – April’s Bedroom – Day

Abigail explains that Brent hasn’t been himself lately. She’s had to give him more medication than the doctors will allow. April is shocked to find out he’s on meds too.

6. (E10) INT. Home – Kitchen – Day

Brent, possessed, kills Abigail with ease and chases April back to her room where she locks herself in, only to hear him bellowing outside banging for her to come out.

7. (E9) INT. Home – Outside- Day

Plain Clothes Officers take Brent away in an armored truck after they ask if there was anything he told her that was odd or unusual.

8. (E10) INT. Home – Basement – Day

April tries to find anything odd or unusual and turns up a cache of hundreds of magnets with symbols scratched into them. She starts having a seizure.

9. (E10) INT. Police – Station – Day

April goes to the police station to ask Brent about the symbols and they tell her he’s not there. He’s with the CIA at an old military outpost.

ACT II

10. (E7) EXT. Military Outpost – Day

The Guard won’t let April on base. They don’t have anyone with the name Brent and they don’t have a jail of any sort.

11. (E7) EXT. Military Town – Day

April searches for anyone who knows anything in a local dried up town. She finds someone who used to be a guard. He tells her there was an accident many years ago that shut the base down for some time and the man in the picture died years ago. His name is not Brent. It was Dr. Gant.

12. (E4) INT. Hotel – Day

April does searches on line to find anything she can about the base or an accident. Nothing.

13. (E7) INT. Bar – Day

April follows Kerry, who left the base in the evening and went to a bar. She shows a picture of her father and Kerry tells her that looks like Austin Gant. He died many years ago, but that is the reason he’s here, to continue his work. April reveals she’s his daughter, he may be inside and she will help him get to his research if he helps her get to her Dad. Kerry agrees.

14. (E7) INT. Military Base – File Room – Day

Kerry helps April get into a secure sector of files. April searches the old files, has a very odd vision, which Kerry has to snap her out of. She’d been in there for over an hour. April, reveals she knows that someone from the file is still alive. She has to see them. Kerry and April are surrounded in the file room. Kerry is fired.

15. (E7) EXT. Midwest Town – Slum – Day

Ayoki Koji, a strung out drug addict, will only talk if they buy him a meal. He is severely damaged from all of the drug use over the years. April asks him about Dr. Austin Gant. He starts to sober up. He tries to leave, but April grabs him, he freezes, a patch of his skin starts to turn white and flake into the air. He tells her she has the sight and will join him in hell. He flees, but as soon as they chase him outside, military vehicles descend on them and round them up.

16. (E5) INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

The officer who spoke with her at her house, Field Officer Gaskins, questions April for information, but she wants to know where her father and her friends are. It’s a standoff. Gaskins tells April her father may have had some kind of virus that she may be infected with. She is free to go after observation.

17. (E8) INT. Military Base – Holding Cell – Day

In the cell, April’s hand starts to itch. She checks her palm and a small patch of skin is turning flaky white. She’s freaking out trying to rub the skin off when she falls into a hallucination, she sees Ayoki he’s walking through the building until her door opens, it’s Ayoki.

18 (E7) INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

Ayoki leads the search for Kerry and Dr. Gant. He reveals he was a part of a secret program and escaped the facility before.

19 (E8) INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

Kerry has been tortured and can barely walk. He’s going to slow them down, Ayoki is freaking out and wants to leave him. Kerry reveals he knows where Dr. Gant is.

20 (E10) INT. Military Base – Medical Room – Day

Dr. Gant is strapped down to a medical table, flaky all over, somewhat bigger and his face is terrifying. Red swollen eyes, teeth gone from black slick gums. April is destroyed but she wants to get her father out. He won’t let her. Her father can’t see but senses Ayoki is there. He apologizes for experimenting on the soldiers and causing all of this. He’s also sorry for what he’s done to his daughter. He gave her the sight and the longer they all are together the faster they will change. Gant becomes a raging beast.

Act III

21 (E9) INT. Military Base – Hallways – Day

They barely escape, The Gant monster breaks out, has gone on a rampage killing soldiers. Ayoki is able to guide them away from the creature with his senses, but he’s becoming less and less able to fight off the change. April is freaking out and Kerry is limping badly. They won’t get out unless they hide and regroup.

22 (E7) INT. Military Base –Office – Day

They discover Field Officer Gaskins, noose around his neck, in preparation to hang himself. He reveals that there were beasts that were created before that still exist, have awoken and Dr. Gant was supposed to control them, but now they are doomed. Ayoki, a clairvoyant, offers to try.

23. (E8) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

Gaskins tells all remaining soldiers to lead the Gant Creature to the basement. He and the team get tranquilizer darts on steroids, go to a secret chamber in the bowels of the building and find three big magnetic chambers with symbols engraved on them. The creature that’s awake can sense Ayoki’s presence which is making Ayoki start to lose control. The second creature awakes with a bellow. They have limited time has Ayoki fights to control his mind.

24. (E10) INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

The Gant Creature breaks in, they try to disable it with the tranquilizer darts, it only slows him down a bit. Ayoki tries to use his senses to control the creature, but it only accelerates his change and excites both the creatures in the boxes. The excitement draws The Gant Creature to the boxes to help the Creatures escape. The team scrambles to leave as they witness the second case crack.

25 (E6) INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

They escape before the creatures break out, but Ayoki volunteers to try to hold them back as he’s almost completely changed.

26 (E5) INT. Miliary Base – Hallway – Day

While they try to escape, Kerry explains the research her dad did. She is their last chance. She needs to find an emotional link.

27 (E10) INT. Military Base – Lobby – Day

They make it to the lobby of the building, but they can’t escape as the doors are blocked with stacked bodies. The creatures show up, but now there are four. The team gets picked off one by one until April, finally, out of fear, finds the ability to control the creatures and uses it to make them destroy each other.

28 (E8) INT. Home – Basement – Night

April is at home in the basement. She is finishing arranging magnets in a circle on the floor. She takes some meds, takes off her bloody clothes, lies down in the middle. A third of her body is flaking white ash and her eyes are bulging red. She takes pill after pill and breathes. The Ash starts to recede as we see her eyes lose redness, roll up in her head and she passes out.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject line: Elliott Williams Character Intros: April/ Brent

“What I learned doing this assignment is…” – Even if you think you have a cool character intro, there are always other options.

Beats For April’s Current Introduction

1) April is having a standing seizure at the front door of her home, covered in muck and filth.

2) April wakes up in a tub of ice. She’s shocked and pissed that her mother obviously medicated her while she was unconscious.

Different introduction

1) Abigail hears noises in the house. She thinks it’s Brent, but she doesn’t hear a response. Abigail goes back to what she’s doing, but she hears the sound again, goes to the basement, and sees a dark figure, odd hunched shape, it’s moving through papers In an odd way. Abigail screams. The figure lurches erect, rushes to Abigail.

2) April apologizes to Abigail for scaring her. April asks what she’s doing there. Why isn’t she at school? April was trying to surprise them, but she got distracted by something. Abigail seems to disbelieve her, April stops the questioning by making the conversation about them never trusting her. Abigail drops the subject.

INT. HOME – LIVING ROOM – DAY

ABIGAIL is vacuuming the floor, the living room looks as if a hoarder lives there, magazines and articles stacked randomly, but it’s still neat. She seems to hear something, stops and turns off the vacuum. Nothing. She continues again. The noise is louder. She stops again.

INT. HOME – BASEMENT – DAY

Abigail turns on the basement light, but only a dim light comes on at the top of the stairs. She calls out.

Abigail

Brent!

She hears a scratching noise. She goes down the stairs to the edge of the darkness. She strains to listen while she searches the dark. Her eyes land on a shape in the dark.

Abigail

Brent! Are you ok?

The figure lurches to a stand and lunges toward Abigail, she screams.

A young woman, April, (23), dirty, disheveled, something off in her eyes, as she looms over a shaking and cowering Abigail.

April

Mom, are you ok? It’s me.

Abigail

What are you doing here? Why didn’t you say anything?

April

I wanted to surprise you and Dad. I got distracted.

Abigail looks on her crack head looking daughter in shivering disbelief.

April

Would it kill you to trust me for a change?

Beats For Brent’s Current Introduction

1) Brent comes to dinner extremely gaunt. He seems happy to see April, at first. Abigail and April seem nervous to engage. Then, later, Brent tells April she has to leave in the morning.

Different introduction

1) Brent comes to dinner, consumed with scribbling symbols on dirty cardboard scraps. He doesn’t even notice April’s look of horror at his gaunt appearance. He’s trying to solve a puzzle. When April says hello, he can’t hear her, at first, but her mother gives her a pitiful look and looks away. The mother knocks on the table and Brent snaps out of his obsession. He switches his demeanor instantly, almost as if he’s another person. April is shocked. Brent says “Let’s eat.”

2) At the end of dinner, Brent’s personality shifts again. He calmly and coldly tells April she will be leaving in the morning. He can’t have her in the house. April and Abigail are totally thrown by this. His word is final. And as if a switch flips, he leaves going back into his scribblings.

[Elliott Williams]

Elliott Williams

What I learned – This is a clear way to see if a character actually has an arc. Although this can be helpful it can be time consuming if you get caught up in the details.

APRIL

BEGINNING: April tries to establish her independence from her parents.

MIDDLE: April tries to uncover why the CIA took her father away.

END: April has to find out how to keep from ending up like her father.

CHARACTER ARC DETAILS

ACT I

1) April comes home in disarray

2) April is angry that her mother put her back on her meds

3) April tells her parents she’s not taking meds anymore as she’s taking back her life.

4) April steals from her parents and then attempts to stop her father’s attack on her mother.

5) April tells the authorities she doesn’t know anything about why her father did what he did.

6) April tries to find anything about her dad that she doesn’t know. She finds a cache of marked magnets.

7) April goes to the police station to get answers, but she finds out the CIA took him away.

ACT II

1) April tries to get into a military outpost to find her dad but she’s denied.

2) April finds an old man who used to be a guard who tells her there was an accident at the outpost years ago. He tells her she’s using the wrong name for the guy in the picture she’s using.

3) April follows a guy, Kerry, who stands out, into a bar and seduces him, then asks for help.

4) April uncovers information about her father’s research under his new name and finds articles.

5) Kerry helps April get access to old files. She has visions that allow her to see someone who was a part of an old experiment. They have to find him.

6) They find Ayoki Koji, an addict. She feeds him and tries to get information, but he won’t talk. They get captured by the military.

7) April asks Field Officer Gaskins where her father, Ayoki and Kerry are, to no avail?

8) April has a vision as Ayoki and he enters her cell accusing her of trapping him for the military. She convinces him that she didn’t do it.

9) She follows Ayoki through the building as they find Kerry.

10) She follows Kerry as he leads them to her father.

11) April tries to free her father as he’s strapped down on a table, in bad shape, changing into some kind of beast. He tells her not to release him and apologizes for what he’s done to her. She is clairvoyant and in danger the longer she stays in the building. She has to get out before he changes into a beast and she does too.

ACT III

1) April escapes with Ayoki and Kerry. They try to get out of the building while avoiding soldiers who are trying to take down her father as a monster.

2) They hide in an unlocked room and discover Gaskins trying to hang himself out of despair. They save him and come up with a plan.

3) April, with the team, find magnetic coffins in the basement with a creature banging around inside.

4) April notices that Ayoki is changing and becoming weaker.

5) April escapes the room when her father cracks the magnetic case to free the other beast.

6) April runs to the entrance again, as her team gets decimated by the creatures.

7) April controls the creatures with her mind and makes them destroy each other.

8) April hitch hikes

9) April goes to the basement of her home and uses the magnets and her medication to reverse the changing of her skin.

Character Broad Strokes

1) April comes home and witnesses her dad, Brent, murder her mom.

2) April tries to get answers as to why, but she has to find him first. She finds out he has a secret past running classified tests for the military and his real name is Dr. Gant.

3) April finds Kerry who helps her break into a military outpost where he may be held, which leads to her finding an old test subject of his, Ayoki Koji.

4) April, Kerry and Ayoki meet, but are captured by Field Officer Gaskins.

5) They try to escape and break out Dr. Gant, but he won’t leave and confesses that his old tests have impacted April, she’s a clairvoyant. He transforms into a deadly beast, so they have to leave him.

6) They find Field Agent Gaskins who has a plan for stopping the Dr. Gant beast, but there are more beasts that need to be stopped.

7) The plan fails, Ayoki becomes one of the beasts when April can’t really use her abilities and they barely escape.

8) April finds out they are trapped, all of the beasts are free and everyone gets killed off except April, because she stops the beasts when she realizes she has the clairvoyant power to control the beasts.

CHANGES:

Beat 1 – This beat needs to be broken into two beats. The first is she confronts her parents about putting her on medication for all her years without exploring alternatives. And beat 2 can be that she witnessed her Dad murder her mom.

BRENT

BEGINNING: Brent rejects April and tells her to leave his house against his wife’s objections.

MIDDLE: Brent is abducted by the CIA after he kills his wife.

END: Brent confesses that he was trying to protect April from his past before he transforms into a beast.

Character Broad Strokes:

1) Brent rejects his daughter April and tells her she needs to leave in the morning.

2) Brent is possessed and murders his wife.

3) Brent is captured by the military and, when April finds him, he confesses that he ran secret tests on soldiers and some of those tests have affected April.

4) He transforms into a beast that rampages and kills many people.

CHANGES: Beat 3 needs to be split into Brent is arrested/captured. Beat 4 Brent confesses before he transforms.

ABIGAIL

BEGINNING: She tries to patch up the problems between Brent and April.

MIDDLE: Abigail justifies Brents actions to April.

END: Abigail tries to fight off Brent before he kills her.

Character Broad Strokes

1) Abigail medicates April to stop her seizure.

2) Abigail attempts to keep peace between April and Brent

3) She attempts to fight off Brent as he tries to kill her, to no avail.

CHANGES: Beat 3 – Maybe Abigail tries to kill Brent because she can finally express her contempt for Brent/Abigail’s problem.

KERRY

BEGINNING: Looking for love/validation in a bar.

MIDDLE: Helps April find her father in exchange for research he can use.

END: He helps April discover her power

Character Broad Strokes

1) Kerry is flattered that April is trying to pick him up until he realizes she is trying to use him. But he goes along with it once he realizes she may help him get access to her father’s research.

2) Kerry gets fired.

3) Kerry helps April find Ayoki Koji because he may be able to help.

4) Kerry gets captured by the military with Ayoki and April and he’s tortured.

5) Kerry helps them find Dr. Gant.

6) Kerry is dead weight from here on until he gets killed.

CHANGES: New Beats –

Kerry helping April was a ruse that lead to them getting captured. So Beat 4 is split and beat 5 becomes Kerry confessing that he had to betray April to get directly to Gant.

Beat 6 becomes 7 and he’s studied Dr. Gant’s work, he can help April learn to use her abilities to redeem himself.

AYOKI

BEGINNING: He makes April buy him food for information, then refuses to give any.

MIDDLE: He threatens to kill April if she helped the military find him.

END: Koji sacrifices himself to save the group and hopefully the world.

Character Broad Strokes

1) Ayoki refuses to give April information about the secret program he was involved in. He wants nothing to do with society

2) He gets captured by the military with April and Kerry

3) Ayoki escapes his room to kill April for leading the military to him.

4) Ayoki helps to free everyone else, but learns from Dr. Gant that the longer he is with other clairvoyants involved with the program, including the beasts, he will transform into a beast as well.

5) Ayoki tries to escape with April and Kerry, but they find out from Gaskins that there are more creatures and the only person who could contain them was a strong clairvoyant like Dr. Gant. Ayoki volunteers to try.

6) Ayoki tries to stop the beasts, but he isn’t strong enough. His efforts only expedite his change.

7) Ayoki sacrifices himself to slow down the beasts while everyone else escapes.

CHANGES – None at this time.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

Subject: Elliott Williams’ Character Profiles – Need to work on two more.

What I learned:

I don’t have to write a long bio about personal and daily details to have a character framework to build on.

Logline:

A mentally troubled young college dropout comes home only to witness her father violently murder her mother, but when the CIA takes him away, she goes on a journey to uncover a shocking dark secret about his past…and hers.

1) Character Name:

April

Role: Graduate Student/Daughter

Core Character Traits:

– Headstrong

– Take Charge

– Cunning

– Needing her father’s love

Character Subtext Logline:

April is a distrusting daughter who needs to know why her parents try to control her.

Flaw: Her Anger and frustration blinds her.

Want/Need: Independence from parents and drugs/The love and acceptance of her parents

Mission/Agenda: To uncover the secret her father is hiding

Character Arc (if any): Goes from untrusting and self-centred to caring for others.

World View: No one does anything for nothing

Life Metaphor/Identity

Secret:

She hates her mother for marrying her father.

Something they don’t want to admit about themselves:

She’s scared of being like her father.

What makes this character unique?

She is a powerful clairvoyant, but doesn’t know it.

CHANGE:

Logline: April is a distrusting daughter who wants to make her parents pay for trying to control her.

How does it improve the story?

It may make her more vicious and unpredictable in the beginning. Behavior like a junky will help set up a red herring for her problems.

2) Character Name:

Brent/Dr Gant

Role:

Father

Core Character Traits:

– Extremely Smart

– Deep love

– Carries Regret

– Anger

Character Subtext Logline:

Brent is an untrusting father who puts practicality ahead of all things.

Flaw:

He’s too controlling. He won’t show any softness or weakness.

Want/Need:

To fix the problem he started/to keep his daughter protected and give her a normal life.

Mission/Agenda:

He has to keep his darkness from the family.

Character Arc (if any):

He goes from being a hard ass to crumbling to pieces.

World View:

Life Metaphor/Identity:

Secret:

He created the military program that went wrong.

Something they don’t want to admit about themselves:

He is not a patriot. He just wanted to leave a mark on society.

What makes this character unique?

He is a powerful clairvoyant that can control beasts.

CHANGE:

Character Trait: He’s mentally faltering.

How does it improve the story?

It makes the character more sympathetic and it shows something that is more visual than being smart.

3) Character Name:

Abigail

Role:

Mother

Core Character Traits:

– Nurturing

– Rule Breaking

– Practical

– Medical Aptitude

Character Subtext Logline:

A helpful person who tries to heal fissures to the point that the problems overtake her.

Flaw:

She gives too much.

Want/Need:

To bring about peace/ To find a sense of self preservation.

Mission/Agenda:

To keep harmony in the family while helping to do what’s necessary to bury the secrets.

Character Arc (if any):

She goes from accommodating everyone to fighting tooth and nail to survive.

World View:

Nothing is greater than family

Life Metaphor/Identity:

Strong female.

Secret:

She does not like what April and Brent do.

Something they don’t want to admit about themselves:

She regrets having married Brent and taken on his problems.

What makes this character unique?

Her ability to weather the storm of tribulation.

CHANGE:

Logline:

A helpful mother who accommodates until she is forced to push back with everything she has.

How does it improve the story?

It makes the fight longer and shows a level of fight to April that she didn’t know was in her mother and possibly within her. It also shows April that her fight will need to be greater.

4) Character Name: Kerry

Role:

Research Assistant

Core Character Traits:

– Insecure

– Risk Taking

– A status climber

– Curious

Character Subtext Logline:

An ambitious young scientist who is looking to explore uncharted scientific territory for acclaim.

Flaw:

He blindly goes after what he wants. Doesn’t ask enough questions, in those scenarios. He doesn’t make the best choice to achieve his goal

Want/Need:

To be recognized/ To gain a more grounded version of self-worth.

Mission/Agenda:

To get as much of Dr. Gant’s research as possible.

Character Arc (if any):

He goes from being blindly ambitious, selfish and needy to protecting April

World View:

Everything can be used to get ahead

Life Metaphor/Identity:

I am what I am

Secret:

He doesn’t have much aptitude for science.

Something they don’t want to admit about themselves:

He is only doing this to prove his detractors wrong.

What makes this character unique?

Survival instincts

CHANGE:

Core character trait: He is quick to betray to get ahead.

This change could help to make Kerry more unpredictable.

5) Character Name: Ayoki Koji

Role:

Tortured Soldier

Core Character Traits:

– Untrusting

– Will to live

– Patriotic

– Self-centered

Character Subtext Logline:

A soldier tries to escape his past only to be pulled into a deadly situation he may not survive

Flaw:

He constantly needs to be medicated.

Want/Need:

To be disconnected and high/ To find his own footing.

Mission/Agenda:

To be left alone and hide from society.

Character Arc (if any):

He goes from wanting to live in isolation to doing something to save his country.

World View:

Nothing and no one can be trusted

Life Metaphor/Identity:

People will use you

Secret:

He loves pain.

Something they don’t want to admit about themselves:

He was the worst clairvoyant.

What makes this character unique?

He is a clairvoyant who loves his country.

Survival instincts

CHANGE:

Not sure

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

I Learned it’s much easier to beat out and improve a story by breaking everything out. I am not sure how the story will actually turn out in the acts, which is my weakness, but I felt much more confident about identifying problems in the outline and beat process.

Log line:

A mentally troubled young college dropout comes home only to witness her father violently murder her mother, but when the CIA takes him away, she goes on a journey to uncover a shocking dark secret about his past…and hers.

ACT I

1. INT. Observation Room – 1980 – Day

Doctors administer what looks like a lethal injection to three military prisoners, but they turn into hideous creatures and murder the armed guards before the main doctor stops them with mind control.

2. INT. Front Door – Home – Present day – Day

Abigail, hears an eerie intermittent scratching at her front door. With trepidation, she opens the door to a muddied, disoriented and disheveled young woman in the middle of what seems to be a seizure, before she collapses.

3. INT. Home – Bathroom – Day

The young woman is in a tub of ice to bring the fever down. Abigail asks April, her daughter, if she’s still taking her meds. When April doesn’t answer, Abigail admits she gave her a small intravenous dose. April is pissed. She just needs rest and no stress. Abigail wonders is she going back to graduate school. April won’t answer.

4 INT. Home – Dining room – Day

Brent, April’s father, gets into an argument at dinner with April because she’s off her meds and came back home. He demands she leaves in the morning.

5 INT. Home – April’s Bedroom – Day

Abigail explains that Brent hasn’t been himself lately. She’s had to give him more medication than the doctors will allow. April is shocked to find out he’s on meds too.

6. INT. Home – Kitchen – Day

Brent, possessed, kills Abigail with ease and chases April back to her room where she locks herself in, only to hear him bellowing outside banging for her to come out.

7. INT. Home – Outside- Day

Plain Clothes Officers take Brent away in an armored truck after they ask if there was anything he told her that was odd or unusual.

8. INT. Home – Basement – Day

April tries to find anything odd or unusual and turns up a cache of hundreds of magnets with symbols scratched into them. She starts having a seizure.

9. INT. Police – Station – Day

April goes to the police station to ask Brent about the symbols and they tell her he’s not there. He’s with the CIA at an old military outpost.

ACT II

10. EXT. Military Outpost – Day

The Guard won’t let April on base. They don’t have anyone with the name Brent and they don’t have a jail of any sort.

11. EXT. Military Town – Day

April searches for anyone who knows anything in a local dried up town. She finds someone who used to be a guard. He tells her there was an accident many years ago that shut the base down for some time and the man in the picture died years ago. His name is not Brent. It was Dr. Gant.

12. INT. Hotel – Day

April does searches on line to find anything she can about the base or an accident. Nothing.

13. INT. Bar – Day

April follows Kerry, who left the base in the evening and went to a bar. She shows a picture of her father and Kerry tells her that looks like Austin Gant. He died many years ago, but that is the reason he’s here, to continue his work. April reveals she’s his daughter, he may be inside and she will help him get to his research if he helps her get to her Dad. Kerry agrees.

14. INT. Military Base – File Room – Day

Kerry helps April get into a secure sector of files. April searches the old files, has a very odd vision, which Kerry has to snap her out of. She’d been in there for over an hour. April, reveals she knows that someone from the file is still alive. She has to see them. Kerry and April are surrounded in the file room. Kerry is fired.

15. EXT. Midwest Town – Slum – Day

Ayoki Koji, a strung out drug addict, will only talk if they buy him a meal. He is severely damaged from all of the drug use over the years. April asks him about Dr. Austin Gant. He starts to sober up. He tries to leave, but April grabs him, he freezes, a patch of his skin starts to turn white and flake into the air. He tells her she has the sight and will join him in hell. He flees, but as soon as they chase him outside, military vehicles descend on them and round them up.

16. INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

The officer who spoke with her at her house, Field Officer Gaskins, questions April for information, but she wants to know where her father and her friends are. It’s a standoff. Gaskins tells April her father may have had some kind of virus that she may be infected with. She is free to go after observation.

17. INT. Military Base – Holding Cell – Day

In the cell, April’s hand starts to itch. She checks her palm and a small patch of skin is turning flaky white. She’s freaking out trying to rub the skin off when she falls into a hallucination, she sees Ayoki he’s walking through the building until her door opens, it’s Ayoki.

18 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

Ayoki leads the search for Kerry and Dr. Gant. He reveals he was a part of a secret program and escaped the facility before.

19 INT. Military Base – Torture Room – Day

Kerry has been tortured and can barely walk. He’s going to slow them down, Ayoki is nervous and wants to leave him. Kerry reveals he knows where Dr. Gant is.

20 INT. Military Base – Medical Room – Day

Dr. Gant is strapped down to a medical table, flaky all over, somewhat bigger and his face is terrifying. Red swollen eyes, teeth gone from black slick gums. April is destroyed but she wants to get her father out. He won’t let her. Her father can’t see but senses Ayoki is there. He apologizes for experimenting on the soldiers and causing all of this. He’s also sorry for what he’s done to his daughter. He gave her the sight and the longer they all are together the faster they will change. Gant becomes a raging beast.

Act III

21 INT. Military Base – Hallways – Day

They barely escape The Gant monster has gone on a rampage killing soldiers. Ayoki is able to guide them away from the creature with his senses, but he’s becoming less and less able to fight off the change. April is freaking out and Kerry is limping badly. They won’t get out unless they hide and regroup.

22 INT. _WHERE – Day

They discover Field Officer Gaskins standing on a stool, a rope around his neck, whimpering in the office. He reveals that there were beasts created before that still exist. They survived bullets and entombment without oxygen for decades. They’ve awoken and Dr. Gant was the last hope to control them. The team tries to talk him down. Ayoki offers to try to control the beasts. He has the sight. Gaskins sees a plan.

23. INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

Gaskins tells all remaining soldiers to lead the Gant Creature to the basement. He and the team get tranquilizer darts on steroids, go to a secret chamber in the bowels of the building and find three big magnetic chambers with symbols engraved on them. The creature that’s awake can sense Ayoki’s presence which is making Ayoki start to lose control. The second creature awakes with a bellow. They have limited time has Ayoki fights to control his mind.

24. INT. Military Base – Basement – Day

The Gant Creature breaks in, they try to disable it with the tranquilizer darts, it only slows him down a bit. Ayoki tries to use his senses to control the creature, but it only accelerates his change and excites both the creatures in the boxes. The excitement draws The Gant Creature to the boxes to help the Creatures escape. The team scrambles to leave as they witness the second case crack.

25 INT. Military Base – Hallway – Day

They escape before the creatures break out, but Ayoki volunteers to try to hold them back as he’s almost completely changed.

26 INT. Military Base – Lobby – Day

They make it to the lobby of the building, but they can’t escape as the doors are blocked with stacked bodies. The creatures show up, but now there are four. The team gets picked off one by one until April, finally, out of fear, finds the ability to control the creatures and uses it to make them destroy each other.

<div>27 INT. Home – Basement – Night </div><div>

April is at home in the basement. She is finishing arranging magnets in a circle on the floor. She takes some meds, takes off her bloody clothes, lies down in the middle. A third of her body is flaking white ash and her eyes are bulging red. She takes pill after pill and breathes. The Ash starts to recede as we see her eyes lose redness, roll up in her head and she passes out.

</div>

Beats Separated Out and improved:

22 INT. _WHERE – Day

They discover Field Officer Gaskins sitting in an office. He reveals that there were beasts that were created before still exist, have awoken and Dr. Gant was supposed to control them, but now they are doomed. Ayoki offers to try.

27 EXT Road – Night

April hitch hikes into a nearby town, gets out at a bathroom to clean herself up. In the mirror she reveals she is has flaky skin.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

What I learned from this module is the keep coming up with ideas and don’t get stuck on perfection. Keeping the creativity going is very freeing.

Log line:

A mentally troubled young college dropout comes home only to witness her father violently murder her mother, but when the CIA takes him away, she goes on a journey to uncover a shocking dark secret about his past.

Synopsis:

1. Opening

1980

Three men in generic clothing, all dressed the same, are escorted into a room by doctors, who are escorted by armed soldiers. A doctor thanks the men for their service as they’re strapped to beds and tubes inserted in their veins, lethal injection style. The main doctor gives the order to begin after the men are locked inside. The men writhe and shake and start, in concert, to mumble then yell out nonsensical words, then other languages ,THEN…two of the men turn into hideous malformed white beasts. Soldiers rush inside to shoot them dead, but the soldiers are easily destroyed by the beasts and consumed. The beasts suddenly are entranced, looking at the main doctor, whose eyes are now rolled up in his head. The third man is still on his bed, normal, strapped, writhing. The beasts hold still in some sort of stupor with flakes of white skin slowly rising up to the ceiling and disappearing like burning embers.

Present day

Abigail 60’s, hears an eerie scratching at her front door. With trepidation, she opens the door to a muddied, disoriented and dishevelled young woman in the middle of what seems to be a fit. The woman collapses.

The young woman startles awake. She is on a bed. Abigail wipes her face. Abigail asks April, her daughter, if she’s still taking her meds. April doesn’t want talk about that. Abigail admits she gave her a small dose that should tide her for a bit. April is pissed, but is thankful her mom tried to help. She just needs rest and no stress. Abigail, not trying to pry, wonders is she going back to graduate school. April gives her nothing.

April, Abigail and the father, Brent, have dinner and seem to be getting along. Suddenly, Brent wants to know why she came back. She agreed to stay away. April is pissed as she feels like she’s been cast off instead of getting any help from them. Brent asks if she’s taking her meds. If so, that’s all she needs. Brent tells her to leave in the morning. April and Abigail are shocked.

In April’s bedroom, Abigail tries to explain that Brent hasn’t been himself. It’s all she can do to take care of him and get prescriptions without a doctor’s care. April is shocked to hear that he’s on meds too and she is risking her nurse’ license.

2. Inciting Incident

That night, April startles awake to shrieking. April finds Brent, seemingly possessed, murdering her mother in the kitchen with disturbing ease before he turns on her. April sprints back to her room and locks herself in. Her father bangs on her door, speaks in other languages and makes beastly grunts as he settles in to wait for her to come out.

The next day, her father is remorseful, a shadow of himself and April is without answers. A plainclothes officer asks if she remembers anything her father may have told her. They take him away in an unmarked armored truck.

April tries to find anything in the house that would explain what happened. She turns up a cache of hundreds of empty bottles in the basement. She also finds a ton of magnets with symbols scratched into them. She starts having a seizure.

3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about.

April goes to the police and finds out her father was not taken to jail. He’s probably with the CIA so she should let this go. April asks why would the CIA want him, but they have no idea. She asks where they would take him. They have no idea on that either, but would guess the old military outpost.

April goes there but is turned away. No one in the area knows about the base or what they do. She finally finds someone who was a guard at the base. He mentions there was a program that was shut down some years ago. And they all were retired with full benefits. The base hasn’t been active for decades. April shows him a picture of her father and tells him his name. The guard is shocked and mumbles another name, Austin Gant. The name she gave him is not the right name and he doesn’t want to talk any further.

4. First turning point at end of Act 1

April approaches a research assistant, Kerry, who seems out of place in this town. She asks if he’s ever heard of a scientist, using the new name. He admits he’s a big fan of his work. He wants to continue his work in dimensional impacts in biomolecular structures. Right now, he’s just a data analyst there. She tells him she’s a grad student, physics. She believes the scientist may be in the inside, right now. She’s his daughter and wants to find some of his research. If she can get his help, she will give him access to what she finds.

Kerry helps April get access to a file room where April’s senses start going crazy. She’s overwhelmed and can barely walk, but is drawn to a folder with a name, Ayoki Koji. She touches the folder and starts having visions. She starts hearing voices as she sees destroyed landmarks, death, and then she’s transported into a world of unspeakable horror and demons.

Kerry comes in the file room and wakes her up. She tells him there is someone who was a part of the program that may be alive. April’s visions lead them to him.

Ayoki Koji, a strung out drug addict who will only talk if they buy him a meal. He is severely damaged from all of the drug use over the years. April asks him about Dr. Austin Gant. He starts to sober up. He tells her to let it go and tries to leave. She grabs him and tries to stop him. When she touches him he freezes with a distorted smile as his skin starts to turn white and flake in patches. He tells her she has the sight and will join him in hell. He escapes, but as soon as they chase him outside, the military vehicles descend on them and round them up.

5. Mid-Point

The officer who spoke with her at her house, Field Officer Gaskins talks with April: she’s in a former torture room, he’s on the other side of the glass. He asks her what she’s trying to do. She asks where her father is and she uses his real name. That’s a problem. He skilfully doesn’t answer. He tells her that her father is clearly a sick man. She saw that and they need to find out how sick he really is. She doesn’t buy it. She asks where is Ayoki and Kerry. He says that they will take care of their own. He tells her that they will get her anything she needs, but they have to hold her as they believe Ayoki has an infection that could be contagious they need to observe her.

In the cell, April’s hand starts to itch. She checks her palm and a patch of skin is turning flaky white.

She starts to hallucinate, she sees Ayoki he’s walking through the building, but it flicks between hell and the building. She hears her door opening. Its Ayoki. She asks him how he got to her. He tells her he’s escaped before. He was a part of three soldiers who volunteered for special duty. They were clairvoyants who were a part of a Remote Viewing program called SIGHT SEER to see enemy targets beyond the lines. But they were given special medications and they saw something else. They saw beyond the earthly dimension and there’s no coming back. Anyone it touches is permanently scarred.

Ayoki and April find Kerry. He’s been tortured and can barely walk.

Ayoki helps find Dr. Gant. He’s in poor shape. He’s strapped down, flaky all over, somewhat bigger and his face is terrifying. Red swollen eyes, teeth gone from black slick gums.

April is destroyed but she wants to get her father out. Her father can’t see but senses Ayoki is there. He weeps and apologizes for what he did to him and the other soldiers. He ran the program. Since he’s also a clairvoyant, he thought that he could help the country. But it’s too late for him and Ayoki now. They need drugs to block their minds and/or magnets to block the magnetic field and short circuit contact from the other side, but there’s nothing that can stop it now. He won’t leave with them, he’s changing too fast. So they have to get out as soon as possible. The alarms go off in the building. Her father starts to change rapidly: he gets much bigger like the creatures from the beginning.

6. Second turning point at end of Act 2

April, Kerry and Ayoki escape the room as quickly as they can with their lives while trying to avoid being captured by the soldiers. Dr. Gant breaks out of the restraints and bursts out of the room. He goes on a rampage of mayhem. The lights flash on and off. The Gant monster has turned out the power. Ayoki is able to guide them away from the creature with his senses, but he’s slowly become less and less able to fight off the change.

They get pinned down in an office as they barely avoid some soldiers.

They discover Field Officer Gaskins sitting in the office, seemingly accepting defeat. He explains that one of the creatures has awoken and it’s only a matter of time before it breaks out. The two creatures have been stored in large magnetic casings for years. They were hoping Dr. Gant could put them back to sleep, once again. They had no idea that bringing them all together would make things worse. The other creature has awoken, Dr. Gant has changed and from the looks of things it’s only a matter of time before Ayoki and his horde escape and wreak havoc on the world.

They tell him to stop complaining and help them get to the creatures. They ask if they have drugs. Then they can drug the two contained creatures.

7. Crisis

Gaskins and the team meet a couple soldiers who have tranquilizer darts on steroids. They go to a secret chamber in the bowels of the building. Three big magnetic chambers with symbols engraved rest there. One has a door open. Ayoki mentions, I guess that was for me. The Deputy shows a handheld digital device. He tells the soldiers still alive to lead the creature to the basement. The soldiers are shooting and running and shooting and running. On the digital read out, the soldiers are disappearing. One by one.

April sees her arm is now scaly, it’s growing and she weeps. Ayoki tries to steady her. She’s hated her dad all this time, but he was trying to protect her. If she could only help him now.

A couple soldiers make it in. The Gant creature busts in. He is much bigger and feral.

8. Climax

They open fire on the creature while one of the soldiers shoot a tranquilizer. That slows it, but it comes forward. They shoot another tranquilizer and he slows more. He stops. The creature suddenly leaps to the ceiling, climbs over them and drops in front of the magnetic chambers.

It seems that he’s protecting them, but suddenly the creatures inside become wild and bang the walls desperately and a crack appears in one of the cases. The Gant creature stands to bang the case from the other side and he’s shot with one more tranquilizer. He stumbles but bursts through the case from the outside.

Everyone scrambles to leave. The second case cracks.

While they’re running through the hallways Ayoki looks like there’s not much to go. His hair is falling out and his skin is cracking. He slows to a stop. He says he will try to stop them.

April says no. But Kerry says he doesn’t want him Ayoki with them if he changes. No one argues with that. Ayoki doesn’t want to live anymore and he can still do some good for his country.

They leave him to make a break for the doors and warn everyone.

Ayoki goes back, blocks the doors and charges the creatures.

They make it to the front doors but all of the doors are blocked with bodies.

The soldiers start clearing bodies, but it’s going to take too long. They try to find another way out, but it’s too late. The creatures are there: 4 of them. They start killing the soldiers, the Deputy and then Kerry.

April with fear. Accepting her fate, she stands and suddenly her eyes roll back in her head. She is now controlling them. She makes them kill each other. It hurts her too. To the point where she can barely walk by the time it’s over.

9. Resolution

April hitch hikes. They ask if she is alright. She is bloody from head to toe. She says she is fine. She gets out of the area, wearing shades. She asks to be dropped at the drug store in town.

She orders a large quantity of prescriptions to the shock of the pharmacist. She asks to use the bathroom.

Once she’s in there, she takes off her jacket and looks in the mirror. Her shoulders and arms are white and scaly. She takes off the shades and her eyes are red and bulging.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by  Elliott Williams.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by  Elliott Williams.

[Elliott Williams]

1. Name? Elliott Williams

2. How many scripts you’ve written? I’ve written 3 features, 3 TV Pilots and two short films

3. What you hope to get out of the class?

Coming up with a consistent process for rewrites to deliver on my concepts. Feeling more confident doing rewrites without a writing partner.

4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you?

I’m a nice guy that likes to meet people and laugh. I am a producer as well, who seems to be good with notes, but I have a little anxiety when I write.

I like to write horror, drama and sci-fi, but I generally like everything.

[Elliott Williams]

Elliott Williams

I agree to the terms of this 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.

[Elliott Williams]

Elliott’s Logline and One page

What I’ve learned: I don’t know that story as well as I thought I did.

Log line:

A young college dropout comes home only to witness her father violently murder her mother, but when the CIA takes him away, she goes on a journey to uncover a shocking dark secret.

Synopsis:

April comes home from college because she refuses to take any more of the pills she’s been attached to over the years. However, that has sent shockwaves through her life and she can’t deal anymore. She has bizarre visions that are disturbing to say the least and she thinks she is on the verge of going crazy. Going home, although not ideal, is a place where she can reduce stress.

That night her father, Brent, seems possessed and murders her mother with disturbing ease.

The next day, her father is remorseful, a shadow of himself and April is without answers, but CIA agents come and take him away in an armored truck.

April goes to the base where he’s being held and discovers that he’s was a part of a secret program and her father had been in hiding under an alias this whole time. After getting help from a soldier, Kerry, on the inside, she finds out there is someone who was a part of the program that may be alive. April’s visions lead them to him.

They find Ayoki Koji, a strung out drug addict, but he helps them get back onto the base and reveal a secret area that has been locked away for decades. They find her father, but he won’t leave with them, he’s changing into something else. It turns out he and Ayoki are about to become something subhuman because they were a part of a military experiment to hyperdrive clairvoyants to reveal targets. Instead they were able to see beyond the human realm.

April and Kerry try to help them, but they change comes to quickly and they have to try to escape with their lives while trying to avoid being captured or buried by the people who are trying to cover up the program.

They barely escape with their lives, but the ordeal is not over. In the throes of trying to escape the beasts her father and ayoki became, April discovers her visions were actually her clairvoyance. She had to go to the realm beyond to defeat them and now she only has a limited amount of time for them to figure out how she can be helped.

[Elliott Williams]

Hello Mary:

We are supposed to connect in the profiles, I suppose. email me at elliott.producer@gmail.com