Frank Fuller
Forum Replies Created
-
Subject Line: Frank Fuller’s BI Stacking Suspense – Assignment 2 The Silence of the Lambs
What I Learned Doing This Assignment:
1. It’s hard being pithy – little squares constrain how much we can write and I found that I wrote all over the pages. Sometimes, deciding if something was a mystery or intrigue was difficult. They seemed to blend together.
2. Every scene induces questions. Why? Who? Wait a second, what?
3. From the very beginning, we want to know why is Clarice, the agent in training, special? We learn this in ensuing scenes: her analysis, her smarts and ability to handle difficult people. And her sincerity and the simple fact that she’s a woman and will appeal to Lechter.
4. Each scene makes you want to watch the next scene. In particular, there’s anticipation to see the next Clarice/Hannibal scene.
5. The title itself sits in the back of your mind – when will the meaning of the title be revealed?
6. We all hate the self-promoting, slimy Chilton. We expect Hannibal to finish him off. But, it didn’t happen. And at movie’s end, when Clarice is told she has a phone call, we’re thinking it’s the Senator or the President calling (that was done with a cheap trick since Crawford urged her to take the phone call), so there was no sense it could be Lechter. Instead of the President, we get Lechter in a Panama hat. And then we see Chilton. And instead of feeling bad for Chilton, we secretly cheer that he will be eaten. Crazy.
7. Like Basic Instinct, at heart this is a psychological thriller. Will Clarice impress Hannibal enough that he will work with her? Is she smart enough? Sincere and truthful enough?
8. We love the twists: Chilton listening in on Clarice’s phony offer to Hannibal (which was perhaps the only false note of the movie – Hannibal should have smelled that phoniness.) But, then Chilton tries to grab the limelight which takes the story in a totally new direction.
9. Who’s the villain? We have two. BB is the villain being hunted. But Lechter always eclipses him. Lechter is who fascinates us. Lechter is the real embodiment of evil. Lechter and Clarice – two opposite personalities who share one important gift: the ability to profile people.
10. Intrigue or Mystery: What is BB up to – gradually we come to realize he’s sewing a female skin for himself.
11. Who’s the victim? There are several. The Senator’s daughter is the focal point. But, when we see how she acts in the well, she’s crude and unappealing. Perhaps, Clarice is really a potential victim, but she’s strong and resilient. “The world’s more interesting with you in it,” says Lechter. And, a better place, but that’s not how Lechter sees the world.
12. The suspense ramps up at the end when the FBI SWAT team (idiotically) flies off to Chicago, and now it’s going to be Clarice vs. BB, mano a mano.
13. We don’t meet Hannibal Lechter until Scene 5, but we get the buildup to him in the briefings – Can the real Hannibal live up to the buildup? Yes, in spades.
14. How many scenes do the major players participate in:
a. Clarice: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 25, 26, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41
b. Hannibal Lechter: 5, 9, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 41
c. Buffalo Bill: 11, 17, 19, 20, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39
-
Subject Line: Frank Fuller’s BI Stacking Suspense – Assignment 1 Basic Instinct
What I Learned Doing This Assignment:
1. Every scene needs to have some mix of MIS.
2. MIS is best when it reveals character in the process.
3. There’s more M and I in the beginning and more S at the end typically, but it’s still best to have some remaining M and I at the end that allow the final twist (like the ice pick on the floor under the bed).
4. Sometimes an M, I and/or S is introduced in a scene and then answered in the next scene. Cliffhangers fall in this category and make for a good scene break. These are the quick paybacks. The more important story-level MIS don’t get answered until an act or two later.
5. There are lots of plot holes and massively bad policing in BI, but it still works because the characters, the story and the MIS are good. Good police work and asking some obvious questions would have had her in the pokey in Act 1.
6. Both BI and SOTL are psychological thrillers. I find the best thrillers, even if they aren’t psychological thrillers, include psych elements. Figuring out what makes people tick makes for good MIS.
7. Analyzing scene-by-scene is a good way to go. But it’s also critical to look at the story development on a larger scale. The larger scale is what makes or breaks the story – how the plot unfolds, how the revelations are time-released.
8. Sexual tension drips in almost every scene. Not if, but when will Nick and Catherine consummate? Sex sells. You need at least a little, even if only hinted at, to add interest.
9. Addiction, money, drugs, danger and excess also play a role for both N and C: cigarettes, drugs, sex and the ultimate, murder. The scenes roll along with all of this as explicit undercurrent.
10. Key elements that made BI work
a. You don’t see the killer’s face in the opening scene. Catherine (C) is the obvious choice. Then we meet Roxy (R) and think maybe she did it. Or maybe they are a tag team. Later, we meet Dr. Beth (B) and only after a few anomalies do we suspect her. They all have about the same body type and faces are similar. One suspect would have been boring. Two interesting but three made it a three-body problem and most interesting. Four would have been too many
b. C and R: Not sure if Joe Eszterhas meant moviegoers to think that C&R might be acting as a tag team to provide alibis for one another, but I thought that initially. It’s good to create ambiguity (doesn’t have to be explicitly stated) to let people’s minds create their own intrigues. Is C the lover and R the killer. Do we think Nick (N) and Roxy might get together – that also entered my mind.
c. Every psychological thriller should have a therapist in it if the therapy yields a clue or a threat or, better yet, the therapist has some larger role in the story (aka Dr. Beth).
d. I timed the scene lengths. It’s good to mix long and short scenes to provide pacing. Like a great song plays with tempo, volume, rhythm and length.
e. The MIS is in your face in BI. C taunts N at every turn with evidence that she’s guilty: her books, the ice pick, how death follows her, the friends she keeps. How could she not be guilty? It all works if you totally suspend your disbelief which I was happy to do because the backdrop of it all is sexual tension.
f. The story would have been dull, if all roads led to C. At the 1 hour mark, B begins to look suspicious. Could she be the killer?
g. There are always a couple of big scenes, the long scenes, the intense one-on-ones or many-on-one that ramp up MIS. Scene 12, C’s interrogation scene at police headquarters is such a scene. These scenes establish the conflict in stark relief. There’s no beating around the bush: Catherine is in control and has her interrogators off-kilter and pussy-whipped.
h. Location/setting can add to MIS: the Studio 54 type club, the expensive beach house with spectacular views, etc.
i. There are 2 car chases in the movie, adding action to a script in almost an obligatory fashion. Roxy dies after trying to hit-and-run N at the 88 minute mark. She’s no longer a suspect – it’s down to B and C. The next scene is B.
j. Twists are essential:
i. C is bisexual.
ii. Roxy does get jealous – is Nick different than the previous men in C’s life.
iii. C says there was a Lisa Olbermann (Hoberman) that stalked her and copied her look in college: the was at the 1 hour 31 minute mark of the movie. Nick looks into it – turns out it was B
iv. B asks N if C mentioned Lisa Olbermann casually, slipped it in knowing he would follow it up “because that’s what I’d do”. And at the time I watched the scene it did seem to come out of the blue (I even wrote it down on the scene analysis), as if Joe Eszterhas added that twist then because the screenplay had hit the 90 minute mark, with 30 minutes to go in the movie.
v. B vs. C – who can outwit the other. Hazel Dobkins – why is C hanging out with her? The Internal Affairs file doc is missing. The IA man, Nilsen, killed in his car by a 38 revolver. B’s husband dies by a 38 revolver.
vi.
k. The taunting cat and mouse: N tells C he’s going to catch her. C says N can’t handle her.
l. Tidying up: all the unexplained clues get answered in the police station as officers report what they learned upon following up. Beth is framed.
11. How many scenes do the major players participate in?
a. Catherine: 1, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33, 37, 42
b. Roxie: 3, 27, 30, 31
c. Beth: 5, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 25, 32, 35, 39
d. Nick: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
e. Clues implicating C: 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16, 17, 29
f. Twists:
Nick: 41/42 scenes
Catherine: 16/42 scenes
Beth: 10/42 scenes
Roxie: 4/42 scenes
12. Working it out: it took Joe Eszterhas 13 days to write the screenplay but he’d mulled it over for a decade. It’s clear he was working out a lot of problems along the way and fitting the pieces together into a story that held together (ignoring certain obvious omissions like DNA analysis).
a. Writing one scene is easy. But, plotting a coherent whole is difficult. The necessary characters; the pacing; the introduction of clues and twists; the scene progressions are the tricky parts – that requires writing and rewriting. Eszterhas no doubt wrote an outline before he wrote the screenplay in 13 days. And the 13 days may be apocryphal.
b. What were the problems that Eszterhas had to deal with along the way
i. He probably starts with C is a writer who writes about her murders as an alibi. Now, he needs other characters to throw N off the scent
ii. He needs to narrow down the potential guilty parties to two. Roxy becomes expendable.
iii. He needs a backstory for Beth that makes her look guilty but he can’t let on with that possibility until later in the book – the first hint of it is in Scene 15 and then she looks like show knows a lot more at the 1 hour mark of the movie.
-
Subject Line: Frank Fuller’s World and Characters!
What I Learned Doing This Assignment: Coming up with a compelling logline is hard. This process forces a lot of hard thinking about the key characters as well as the overall plot itself and how to make it work.
My Thriller Logline: The privileged but estranged son of the Secretary of Defense is assigned to a secret DARPA project and soon finds himself imperiled by an international conspiracy with enormous geopolitical consequences.
Type of Thriller: Political Techno-Thriller
1. Remind us of your CONCEPT and the Big M.I.S. of your story
a. Big Mystery: Why was Charlie Ott’s twin brother beheaded, what was he doing in the Middle East and why has Charlie been targeted? Is he the wrong man?
b. Big Intrigue: Which character is the main villain, the puppet master, and what is their plan. Is there more than one villain?
c. Big Suspense: Can Charlie Ott figure out in less than one week who’s targeted him and why and prevent a metastasizing international conspiracy that threatens millions.
2. The Intriguing World: DARPA and DARPA’s intricate compartmentalized web of businesses working in the ancestry, personal genetics and Personalized Medicine industries.
3. Top 2 or 3 Characters and the Role they play
a. HERO: Charlie Ott, twin son of the Secretary of Defense
i. Mystery: Why was Charlie’s twin brother beheaded just one month earlier, what was he doing in the Middle East and how does that play into Charlie’s predicament? And does his DARPA project play a role?
ii. Intrigue: His father nicknamed his twin sons War and Peace. Charlie is Peace. But, the more desperate situations get, the more we learn about Charlie’s inner warrior and skills.
iii. Suspense: He keeps digging deeper which puts him in increasing danger.
b. VILLAIN (OR RED HERRING?): Dr. TJ Lipson, Nobel Prize winner and founder and Chairman of ancestry and personalized medicine giant Lipson Genetics
i. Mystery: An orphan with unknown parents, Lipson keeps his own personal background private, ironic for a man whose life work deals with finding our roots and who we are. But, who is TJ Lipson?
ii. Intrigue: He is famous, not only for being a Nobel Prize winner and billionaire, but also for his flamboyant showmanship and being a man of immense contradictions. He wants to save the world, but how does he want to save it?
iii. Suspense: He seems to take an unusual interest in Charlie who is participating in a lifetime study of gene expression at Lipson Genetics.
c. VILLAIN (OR RED HERRING?): Colonel William Stryker, Director of DARPA
i. Mystery: Stryker is a ruthless man who gets things done and actively looks to hire freewheeling zealots. How far is this career military man willing to go to achieve results?
ii. Intrigue: He’s called Ott’s Monster, someone who will consider any and all ideas, no matter how heinous.
iii. Suspense: Is he directing a secret black program on his own and to what end?
d. VILLAIN (OR RED HERRING?): SECDEF James Eliot Ott
i. Mystery: If Colonel William Stryker is Ott’s Monster, what does that make James Eliot Ott?
ii. Intrigue: A “For God, For Country and For Yale” man with a face and moral ethic carved out of granite, has Ott lost his compass with the beheading of his first son?
iii. Suspense: Will Charlie Ott have to face off with his father?
e. VILLAIN (OR RED HERRING?): Israeli Prime Minister Davide Cohen
i. Mystery: Does Davide Cohen have control of his intelligence services?
ii. Intrigue: Known for bold surprise decisions, where does he stand with an upcoming peace initiative?
iii. Suspense: What has Davide Cohen been doing that the U.S. will not?
f. COOL SUPPORTING CHARACTER FOR CHARLIE OR TJ LIPSON: Dr. Tiki Ranamuta, TJ Lipson’s boy genius and Charlie Ott’s friend from college days
i. Mystery: His people were discovered by Charlie Ott’s Australian boss on an island in the South Pacific and modernized in one generation by separating children from parents. How is it that his father disappeared thirty years ago but his DNA shows up in a secret repository in the Lipson Genetics DNA vault?
ii. Intrigue: An orphan, like TJ Lipson, he knows more about Lipson’s plans and secrets than anyone else. Lipson treats him like a son. Where do his allegiances lie?
iii. Suspense: Charlie, despite being friends with Tik, is not sure he can trust Tik with his suspicions.
-
Subject Line: Frank Fuller’s Big M.I.S
What I Learned Doing This Assignment: I learned it takes a lot of time to boil down a logline into a succinct and intriguing premise. I also learned that it’s hard to get at the central M.I.S. elements but success at that really does help focus the story. (And I learned it’s hard to distinguish between what is a central mystery and a central intrigue.)
My Thriller Logline: The privileged but estranged son of the Secretary of Defense is assigned to a DARPA project just weeks after his twin brother’s streamed beheading in the Middle East and soon finds himself imperiled by a hideous conspiracy and a new weapon with massive geopolitical consequences.
The Conventions of My Story
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Charlie Ott, VP of business development at a Cambridge/Washington defense contractor and estranged son of the Secretary of Defense, gets assigned to a DARPA project. Soon thereafter, for no apparent reason, he finds himself gaslighted and targeted. Charlie must use his wits and a rusty, incomplete skill set learned a decade earlier from a short stint with the CIA to survive and prevent an unknown actor from carrying out a deadly conspiracy with massive geopolitical consequences.
Dangerous Villain: There is a villain and a villain behind the villain. Hi-level rogue Mossad members plan to take out the President of the United States with a new, undetectable weapon. Or is the target their own Prime Minister? Or the President of Iran? All are in play due to peace overtures. And who has supplied the weapon? Who is the villain behind the villain, and is there an even bigger plot playing out? Who is the ultimate puppet master?
High Stakes: Charlie’s a marked man. The leaders of three countries could be assassinated. And, as he begins to slowly realize, there is an even more fiendish plot at play that could affect millions.
Life and Death Situations: Charlie’s in escalating danger almost from the start.
This Story is Thrilling Because: The stakes are as high as they get: the Hero’s on the run; the President could be assassinated; there’s a hint that something even bigger is at stake.
Big Mystery: Why was Charlie’s twin brother beheaded, what was he doing in the Middle East and how does that play into Charlie’s predicament?
Big Intrigue: Who is the villain and what is the villain’s plan?
Big Suspense: Will Charlie Ott, his new girlfriend and his best friend survive and is his father somehow involved?
-
Thriller I Watched: Enemy of the State (1998)
What I Learned Doing This Assignment Is: To pay attention to how the beginning scene(s) set up the story and get you into the action immediately. In medias res. This is a thriller where the villain is known to the audience from the outset, but not to the hero. The assignment also gets you to think about the sequence of life and death scenes that provide the motive plot force for the movie. Good people (the congressman, the taper, the person the taper informed about the video, Rachel – Dean’s ex-girlfriend) have to die along the way to make the villain a true villain. There were also the plot twist mechanics to prevent a straight line plot development: the son takes the video out of Dean’s shopping bag but we don’t know this until later, although we suspect it, Brill (Gabriel Byrne) tries to gain Dean’s confidence and get him to talk and then is exposed as a fake; the real Brill (gene Hackman), a man of mystery doesn’t appear until later in the story which adds suspense; Brill and Dean use NSA techniques to turn the tables (this required a character – Brill – who has those skills; the video of the congressman’s murder is destroyed by fire; Dean’s quick thinking puts the NSA and the mob on a collision course at the restaurant over incriminating videos at the violent end of the story. And, it’s also OK to inject some humor into a thriller – it is entertainment after all. Finally, and very important, a great thriller needs a great theme – in this case the evils and perils weighed against the benefits of a surveillance society.
Thriller Conventions
1 Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Robert Dean, Washington law firm attorney, must rely on his wits to survive after a man on the run drops an encrypted video of a congressman’s murder into Dean’s shopping bag.
2 Dangerous Villain: Thomas Reynolds, an NSA executive who wants a Patriot-act type bill passed in Congress, uses every eavesdropping technology available to hunt down Dean and the video.
3 High Stakes: It’s life or death for Dean. It’s prison for Reynolds if the video goes public. And the loss of privacy is at stake for Americans.
4 Life and Death Situations: The mob don threatens Dean’s life after Dean offers to trade a videotape that shows the don breaking parole for the don agreeing to let the union have a fair election. Earlier that day, a powerful Congressman who opposes passage of the Patriot-act-like surveillance bill is murdered by Thomas Reynolds, an NSA executive. Later that day it turns out that a remote wildlife video-camera recorded the Congressman’s murder. Reynolds learns of this when one of his men who is at the crime scene observes the taper retrieving the tape from the camera. An NSA team tracks down the taper to his apartment but he runs. NSA surveillance technology shows, minutes before the taper’s death, he’s running through a lingerie shop and places something in Dean’s shopping bag. Dean is there to buy something for his wife’s birthday. Dean is unaware of the tape – it won’t be until much later that he’ll learn that his son took the device out of the shopping bag. Suddenly, his life is upended for no apparent reason: he’s publicly smeared in the press, loses his job, his wife kicks him out, his credit cards are frozen, his house is ransacked. He now goes on the run, with no idea why he’s targeted. He thinks the mob don might be behind it. Dean meets with his ex-girlfriend who gave him the mob tape and who acts as a go-between for Dean and an ex-intelligence communications expert named Brill who does high-tech snooping for Dean’s legal cases. Dean thinks she might be targeted and goes to her apartment to warn her where he finds her body – her death has been staged to frame him. Brill hunts down Dean, but he’s NSA posing as Brill to have Dean confide the whereabouts of the video. They have a harrowing car chase. Dean might have confided but he honestly doesn’t know. He smells a rat and escapes the fake Brill. Rachel, Dean’s ex-girlfriend, had told Dean about a dead-drop she used to communicate with the real Brill. Dean uses it to meet the real Brill who blames Dean for Rachel’s death. NSA has tracked Dean to the building he’s in. Brill wands Dean for listening devices in the building elevator, removes several and tells Dean he’s being tracked by professionals, probably NSA, and says he’s out. But Brill doesn’t get all the devices. An NSA helicopter closes in on Dean and Brill on the rooftop as NSA agents search the building. Dean rids himself of the remaining tracking devices and escapes the building. Dean sneaks home to see his wife, but in the shed, not the main house to avoid detection: she’s wearing the lingerie he bought her for her birthday – something dawns on him – maybe their son had found what the taper had put in the shopping bag. He gets the device back from his son – he doesn’t know what to do with it. He contacts Brill via the dead drop. Brill decrypts it and they see the video of the Congressman’s murder. They decide to go on offense. They lock out Reynolds credit cards, etc. They poke the bear. Brill calls Reynolds an offers a deal. He’s wearing a wire and Dean is remote recording the conversation, hopefully a confession. But, the conversation lasts too long, Dean is located and both are taken hostage. Dean tells them that the person who has the video is at a restaurant – they drive to the restaurant – it’s the don’s restaurant. NSA agents go in with guns showing. The don’s people have their guns drawn. It’s a Mexican standoff. Then, someone fires and it’s bedlam. In the aftermath, Dean is fully exonerated.
5 The Movie is Thrilling Because: It grabs you right from the start with the Congressman’s murder and then segues to Dean negotiating with the mob over an incriminating video of the don. Both situations place Dean in danger and, with regard to the Congressman’s murder, Dean is totally unaware of the danger that poses to him. How these two very different predicaments will ultimately intertwine we don’t know, but both involve a video. The tension ratchets up and Dean’s predicament gets worse and worse as the story unfolds at breakneck speed.
What is the Big Mystery, Intrigue and Suspense of this Story?
1 Mystery: We know the big mystery (why Reynolds and the NSA are targeting Dean but he is unaware. The other mystery is how the NSA danger and the mob danger will intersect. And Brill is a mystery man – he doesn’t appear until midway through the film. How will he help Dean or not? What happened to the video?
2 Intrigue: We don’t know if Dean still has feelings for Rachel, his ex-girlfriend. But we know the main intrigue – we know that Reynolds is doing everything in his power to get the video and eliminate anyone who knows about it.
3 Suspense: The main suspense is how will Dean survive and bring down Reynolds? And how will he bring down the mobsters before getting killed? Will Dean and his wife reconcile?
Anything Else that Made this Movie a Great Thriller?
As entertainment, it was fantastic. The Will Smith comedic touch also made it entertaining. It’s a thriller but it’s not a totally taut thriller. The cast was strong: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight.
-
1. Name: Frank Fuller
2. How many scripts you’ve written: 1
3. What you hope to get out of the class: Ideas for developing a thrilling story map.
4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you? That’s in Act II.
-
Frank Fuller: “I agree to the terms of this release form.”
GROUP RELEASE FORM FOR “THRILLER 20” CLASS
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:1. That everyone’s work here is copyrighted and they are the sole
owner of that work. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this
group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that
idea.2. That this program is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun and I will not share,
disclose, present, or deliver the information, design, and writing of this
program to anyone for any reason without written permission from Hal Croasmun.3. That I will keep the other writers’ ideas and writing confidential
(including Hal’s materials) 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.4. 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.5. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for
any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted
work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from
marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents,
managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment
industry organizations or people.This completes the Group Release Form for Thriller 20.