[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Episode Descriptions

What I learned is that this process also takes me a lot of time if I want to generate good ideas for each episode (weeks in my case). But by taking the time to flesh out the first season episodes in such detail, and with a keen focus on raising the intrigue and major conflicts, the episode ideas really began to take on a vibrant life of their own. It’s fun & rewarding, but exhausting.

Episode 1: Marjorie’s best friend is kidnapped, and Marjorie and her friends set out to find her. Marjorie gets a message from her dream parents that comes true in her waking life.

• Hook/Intrigue: Marjorie dreams about a strange experience, there are guys with guns, an explosion, she’s falling through the sky in a machine, and then wakes up. She’s in a version of the 1960s deep South where African-Americans are in control.
• Main Character Journey: Marjorie knows a lot about technology that no one else knows. And her best friend Gwendolyn is kidnapped.
• Major Challenge/Conflict: Marjorie and the community suddenly feel unsafe after Gwendolyn’s kidnapping. Marjorie faces a shapeshifter and is getting beaten up, when the Old Fisherman shows up to save her. The shapeshifter looks human the whole time except at the end when a bit of its monster form is revealed, before it flees. Can’t understand her dreams, they are like nightmares for her.
• Action/Reaction: Marjorie vows to find and rescue Gwendolyn. Her friends and her step-dad Hank go with her.
• Cliffhanger: Hank runs over Gwendolyn.
• In Episode 1, she trips over the uneven floor to their front door. And Hank promises to fix it, to which Marjorie replies she can fix it. But Hank insists he’ll do it. Nancy says, “Give your dad this one thing.” So then they go to school. Then in Episode 4 Marjorie faces her dream parents and that gives her the confidence to stop tripping over the uneven floor. Hank notices and says, “I guess I don’t have to fix it anymore.” (Multiple hidden meanings here!)

Episode 2: Nancy tells Gwendolyn’s moms that Marjorie was brought back to life by god.

• Hook/Intrigue: Immediately after Hank hits “Gwendolyn,” he wraps up the body and tosses it into his trunk. When he picks it out of the trunk, it’s a bit heavier, but he doesn’t notice. He weighs it down with something and tosses it into the bayou. Nancy wakes at the crack of dawn (just as Hank goes to bed) to get dressed in her finest attire and put on a full face of makeup. She goes to do laundry and notices Hank’s uniform in the washer. She says a quick “thank you” prayer, dusts off her “World’s Best Mom” plaque then, pops a batch of cookies into the oven, and prepares the kitchen table for breakfast. At breakfast, Hank lies about why he washed his uniform. Later she enters Gwendolyn’s home uninvited and shares that she
• Main Character Journey: Marjorie and her friends discover Gwendolyn had a secret boyfriend. So they look for him first, and then by the climax of the episode, they go to the lighthouse and find advanced equipment and they see the emblem of the junta on the machinery. Marjorie remembers seeing that same emblem in her dreams. Marjorie demonstrates that she knows how to use the computer, and it shows that there was a teenage female subject in the machine recently.
• Major Challenge/Conflict: Hank is lying, nervous, and upset because he thinks he killed Gwendolyn. Marjorie and her friends discover Gwendolyn’s secret life with her boyfriend, which makes them question how well they knew their friend.
• Action/Reaction: Marjorie and friends continue to search for Gwendolyn. Clues lead them to the lighthouse. Gwendolyn’s reaction to learning that they think she’s Marjorie who is from a future world, is freaked out at first but then she quickly recovers because of her love of sci-fi. And then she says she is Marjorie because she wants to leave her small town and go to a cool future. The shapeshifters kidnapped the perfect girl.
• Cliffhanger: By the end of the episode, he gets a call from Marcus to head down to the bayou right away.

Episode 3: Reveal that Nancy was Marcus’ prom date before she got pregnant by Hank.

• Hook/Intrigue: Hank is drenched in sweat as he walks up to the law enforcement officers in the bayou in the dead of night. Marcus points to a sheet-covered body. When he removes the sheet, it’s a horribly slimy monster.
• Main Character Journey: Marjorie dabbles with her new technology.
• Major Challenge/Conflict: John Denbey discovers that Gwendolyn is not Marjorie.
• Action/Reaction: At end of episode, Gwendolyn escapes after the shapeshifters realize she is not Marjorie.
• Cliffhanger: Marjorie dreams and sees the faces of her biological parents clearly for the first time.

Episode 4: This is where Marjorie’s dreams make sense.

• Hook/Intrigue: Marjorie finds out about her biological parents just as Nancy is revealing her interpretation of finding Marjorie in the bayou to Gwendolyn’s moms.
• Main Character Journey: Marjorie fully steps into her transformation. She becomes more comfortable with Sin and Nelson. Starts to build less walls around her. More physical touch from Marjorie.
• Major Challenge/Conflict: Marjorie in conflict with Hank and Nancy. Nancy visits Gwendolyn’s moms and reveals that her daughter died and then was delivered from heaven when they first moved to Deslonges (see this in flashback). Marjorie’s other conflict is with whomever is working for John Denbey.
• Action/Reaction: John Denbey’s reaction to Gwendolyn escaping, is to use his money and influence to find and silence her. And to capture Marjorie.
• Cliffhanger: Marjorie follows Nancy to the spaceship that Marjorie arrived in. It’s now a shrine surrounded by flowers. They argue. Nancy suddenly collapses because the cancer’s been getting worse.

Episode 5: Marjorie gets hints that she is from another universe.

• Hook/Intrigue: Marjorie gets Nancy to a doctor and they discover that Nancy has cancer.
• Main Character Journey: The tables have turned on Marjorie and now she is the one being hunted.
• Major Challenge/Conflict: Marjorie is at school, gets called into the principal’s office. Then sees a strange man outside and runs and the man chases after her.

Episode 6: Marjorie learns the truth from Abyon.

Episode 7: Hank and Nancy need Marjorie to stay and help them as Nancy deals with terminal cancer, but she feels conflicted. (Something really important AND believable has happened to make Marjorie want to stay with her adopted parents, even after she discovers they lied to her.)

Episode 8: Sin’s dad is the one that convinces Marjorie to see Hank and Nancy’s actions in a more positive light, thus convincing her to stay with them rather than abandon them.

Episode 9: Marjorie and her friends rescue Gwendolyn, and Marjorie discovers she has a brother in another universe. Marjorie also realizes she can get a cure for Nancy’s cancer in Earth Prime as well as saving her biological parents.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Episode List Rough Draft

What I learned doing this assignment is that it takes me a lot of time to generate good ideas. But once the initial ideas
are there, it gets easier to drill down into each ep and come up with
intriguing hooks.

Episode 1: Marjorie’s best
friend is kidnapped, and Marjorie and her friends set out to find her. Marjorie
gets a message from her dream parents that comes true in her waking life.

Episode 2: Nancy tells
Gwendolyn’s moms that Marjorie died when she was 8 years old and was brought
back to life by God and then dropped from heaven down into the bayou outside
town the day Hank and Nancy first arrived in Deslondes.

Episode 3: Reveal that Nancy was
Marcus’ prom date before she got pregnant by Hank.

Episode 4: This is where Marjorie’s
dreams make sense.

Episode 5: Marjorie gets hints that
she is from another universe.

Episode 6: Marjorie learns the
truth from Abyon.

Episode 7: Hank and Nancy need
Marjorie to stay and help them as Nancy deals with terminal cancer, but she
feels conflicted. (Something really important AND believable has happened to
make Marjorie want to stay with her adopted parents, even after she discovers
they lied to her.)

Episode 8: Sin’s dad is the one
that convinces Marjorie to see Hank and Nancy’s actions in a more positive
light, thus convincing her to stay with them rather than abandon them.

Episode 9: Marjorie and her friends
rescue Gwendolyn, and Marjorie discovers she has a brother in another universe.
Marjorie also realizes she can get a cure for Nancy’s cancer in Earth Prime as
well as saving her biological parents.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Five Seasons

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned is that this can be a time-consuming process, but it’s also not too difficult. At a certain point, I gave up trying to get this assignment right and just started plugging in ideas that popped into my brain. While my five seasons aren’t perfect by any means, they did yield a few exciting possibilities. For example, season 3 could be done in the style of the show “24” where each episode takes place over one hour of story-time. “Westworld” did this with their season 2 where the entire season only spanned about two days. My season 3 would basically take place over a few critical hours or a couple of days where the Hak-Jordan children and their allies must race against the clock to save their parents from execution.

For each season, brainstorm the Building Blocks and write a description:

A. Season 1: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder

• B. High Concept or major hook of the season: a strange orphan fighting to survive in an alternate history version of America where slaves defeated the Confederacy and formed their own nation.
• C. Big Picture Arc/Journey: Marjorie discovers she was adopted and develops a powerful psychic link to her birth parents in her lucid dreams.
• D. Main Conflict: stop the oil-and-gas company from taking her house and defeat the shapeshifting assassin.
• E. Mystery/Open Loops: where is she from? Who and where is her biological brother? Will she end up romantically involved with charismatic Nelson, or with intense Rafael?
• F. Cliffhanger: learns that she has a brother who was exiled to another alternate America.

Description: Marjorie has always felt out of place in her Gulf Coast community. She doesn’t have many friends at school since most of the kids there think she’s weird. One day an older friend of hers goes missing and Marjorie vows to find her or bring to justice those responsible for her disappearance. As she faces peril in her investigation, she receives insights from strange dreams she has where people who are not her parents, but FEEL like they are her parents, give her technical knowledge that helps her solve the case. By the end of the season, she realizes that she was adopted. Even more shocking: she was sent to this world from another Earth! Plus: she has a brother who was separated from her and trapped in a yet another alternate universe!<div>

A. Season 2: In Love and War

• B. High Concept or major hook of the season: Henry, the brother, lives in a version of America where the Native Americans retained sovereignty of their continent and now they’re a space-faring civilization.
• C. Big Picture Arc/Journey: Henry is sent on a military mission to Venus to protect ancient alien ruins from being taken over by the European Coalition, falls in love with an enemy scientist, and learns that the ruins may be a way back to Earth Prime.
• D. Main Conflict: stop his enemies from taking control of alien city, choose between love and duty.
• E. Mystery/Open Loops: will Henry betray his adopted culture in order to return home?
• F. Cliffhanger: Henry has the choice to leave his compatriots behind to journey to Earth Prime.

Description: We meet Henry, the other Hak-Jordan
child who was exiled to an alternate universe. In this one, time runs a little
faster than the others and Henry has grown to be a young man with a distinguished
military career. He is sent to Venus to defend alien ruins against the European
Coalition army that is trying to invade and take control. While exploring the
ruins, Henry is trapped in an alien prison with a scientist from the enemy
side. They fall in love in the process of trying to escape. Henry must choose between
love or duty. By the end of the season, he discovers that the aliens built a
multiverse portal to the other worlds. He can go home to Earth Prime, to his biological
parents, but doing so would mean betraying his compatriots.

A. Season 3: Tick-tick Boom!

• B. High Concept or major hook of the season: a race against time as the Hak-Jordan children race to save their parents from execution.
• C. Big Picture Arc/Journey: The children jailbreak their parents from the fascist regime.
• D. Main Conflict: Hak-Jordan family vs Torquemada and the fascist regime.
• E. Mystery/Open Loops: What will happen to Torquemada and his daughter? What will the regime do with the multiverse portals?
• F. Cliffhanger: The Hak-Jordans are safe for the time being but Torquemada and his daughter have access to the portals and they enter one to track down the family.

Description: Marjorie and Henry are re-united and they realize that Torquemada and his fascist overlords are going to kill their parents and dissect their brains for the portal knowledge. They only have a few hours to save them. Gathering their few allies, the Hak-Jordan children must infiltrate an advanced enemy fortress and evade/kill/trick a small army of technologically-sophisticated robots and soldiers to save their mom and dad.

A. Season 4: Shots Fired

• B. High Concept or major hook of the season: A war across three worlds.
• C. Big Picture Arc/Journey: The Hak-Jordans have to fight Torquemada, and lead their respective people to victory.
• D. Main Conflict: Hak-Jordans vs Torquemada, Torquemada vs his daughter, Fascist overlords vs everyone.
• E. Mystery/Open Loops: Who were the ancient aliens that built the portals? Why are these three worlds connected? Will the evil regime win?
• F. Cliffhanger: A doomsday weapon is launched by the fascist regime and threatens everyone in the other two worlds.

Description: The Hak-Jordans are reunited once more as a family after decades apart. But now is no time to rest. The Fascist Overlords of Earth Prime have seized control of the multiverse portals and are preparing to invade both the F.P.N. and the Tribal Nations. They’ve developed new military technologies that will help them too, including a doomsday weapon that can wipe out sentient life in each of the worlds. The Hak-Jordans have no choice but to risk their lives again. And this time, they must solve the mystery of who built the multiverse portals and why.

A. Season 5: The Descendants

• B. High Concept or major hook of the season: How do you defeat an unstoppable enemy?
• C. Big Picture Arc/Journey: The Hak-Jordans figure out the mystery of the portals and defeat the fascist regime.
• D. Main Conflict: Hak-Jordans vs themselves, the Allies vs the Fascists.
• E. Mystery/Open Loops: How did the predecessors of the Hak-Jordans split the multiverse?
• F. Cliffhanger: None, the series concludes with the Hak-Jordans and their allies having taken heavy losses, but ultimately achieving peace.

Description: War rages across the F.P.N. and the Tribal Nations. The overlords of Earth Prime are ruthless in their quest for domination. The Hak-Jordans have been able to stop the doomsday weapon from being deployed but the war going badly for their side. Only by fully understanding the origin of the portals will they be able to defeat their enemies once and for all and unite the peoples of the F.P.N. and the Tribal Nations. This will require them to face the truth about their ancient past and the crimes they committed in a previous life. Will they be able to face their monstrous past selves that were corrupted by power and greed? Or will they hide their shame and abandon their allies to a future of slavery and oppression?

</div>

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Character Descriptions

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned is that the BW Framework is a really handy tool for retrieving vital bits of character and story data that I couldn’t remember on my own. In answer the character questions, I discovered that it’s relatively easy to come up with a whole new main character, which I did for three new ones.

I was able to condense this information down into a three-paragraph structure composed of the START, MIDDLE, and END sections and create the beginnings of what I hope will be very compelling character descriptions. More drafts will follow.

Rough Draft 1: Marjorie Hak-Jordan

Marjorie was found in the bayou as a little girl with no memory of where she came from. She was adopted by a middle-class family in a Gulf Coast community and raised as their own. By the time she is a senior in high school, she has mostly adjusted seamlessly into this new family.

But at night she has strange dreams about being a part of a family that is not the one she lives with. Meanwhile, her friend Gwendolyn Caprice suddenly disappears one day. Her bloody clothes make the authorities presume she was attacked by an alligator. Marjorie knows something else is responsible and, what’s more, that her friend is still alive.

She must go on her own, with the help of only two of her friends, to save Gwendolyn. And then, on the first night of her investigation, while having one of her strange dreams, these dream-parents address her directly for the first time and reveal to her that she is not who she thinks she is.

Rough Draft 2: The Old Fisherman

The old fisherman is a man who thought he had left a career steeped in violence and blood behind. Tired of the killing, even if it was for a good cause, he now spends his days on a boat catching his next dinner out in the Gulf waters.

All that comes to an end when he runs into Marjorie. See, he was the one who found Marjorie as a young girl, being trafficked by a pedophile. The old fisherman wasn’t so old then and was able to kill the pedophile and take a mute and traumatized Marjorie to a couple he know: Hank and Nancy Grover. They already have a little boy but they are willing to adopt the girl as they are in the process of moving to this new town. Everyone in the town assume that this girl has always been part of their family.

The old fisherman didn’t think Marjorie would ever come find him again. But here she is, asking about the one thing he REALLY hoped she wouldn’t ask about: the strange steel capsule that he uncovered near where he first found Marjorie.

Rough Draft 3: Ennio Torquemada

Ennio’s best friend was Hak Sung – a brilliant physicist and engineer. They were thick as thieves, until Sung betrayed their government by building clandestine teleportation tech and escaping with his family to somewhere outside the jurisdiction of the State. Ennio was forced to destroy the portal tech, causing an explosion that killed the Hak-Jordan children, and put Sung and his wife Barbara Jordan into comas.

Angered that his once best-friend could betray everything they stood for, Ennio begins probing their comatose minds with invasive surgery. His collaborator, Dr. Lorraine Abascal, and he believe they can extract the knowledge of how to build the portal from the parents’ minds. But as the years drag on, their experiment yields little positive results until they hit a breakthrough.

Just as their about to learn the secrets of these fugitives, Ennio’s competitor, Easton Gray and his security goons interrupt the process. The experiment fails and Easton takes custody of Sung and Barbara as they wake from their comas for the first time in 8 years. But Ennio knows something the others don’t: the Hak-Jordan children are alive and Ennio was able to send one of his minions to the world where the daughter Marjorie currently resides. Once his cyborg shapeshifter returns with the girl, he’ll be vindicated and his hated rival Easton will be permanently taken care of.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Frank Kim.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Intriguing Concept and World

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned is that the Concept and World templates are easy formulas that I can use to begin honing in on what makes my show special. It got me thinking about how I can get to the essence of what makes my show intriguing, and be able to express that in a succinct way.

Assignment:

Present your concept and world.

1. Present your Concept.

• An orphan with amnesia discovers she has advanced scientific knowledge…
• …which she must use to fight a corrupt corporation as well as alien attackers…
• …as she uncovers the truth about her extra-dimensional origins…
• …while growing up in an alternate history America where slaves successfully overthrew the Confederacy.

2. Tell us the World of this show.

• Unique Sub-World: an alternate America where African slaves successfully revolted against the Confederacy and established their own nation in the Deep South.
• Previously Unexplored: one hundred years after, what would such a society look like?
• The Unknown: who is taking the land from the people of the Gulf Coast community?
• The Unseen: oil-and-gas corp exploiting the land, an alien interloper kidnapping people.
• Unheard of Dangers: aliens from another dimension, Union saboteurs trying to de-stabilize their democracy.
• Reason to Explore It: race relations between a successful democratic African-American state and the rest of the world; how can one girl transcend space-time to reunite with her family?

[Frank Kim]

Frank Kim is ready for feedback!

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned is that I was able to get a clearer idea of where I needed to fill in more blanks in order to have more interesting conflict in my story. I could also see where I needed to create a new supporting character that would enhance the relationships between two of my main characters. Having a trio instead of a duo helps to create a team that can realistically investigate the central mystery of the pilot and stand a chance at defeating the inhuman antagonist.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Creating Irony, assignment 2: my TV show

What I learned doing this assignment is…

For my own show, I learned that I had naturally built in some irony into the character profiles and the situations. And by committing myself to follow the instructions and brainstorm at least 20 ironies, I was able to conjure up some more character and situational ironies. Some of them weren’t that good but some of them surprised me and made me think they have potential for me to build more interesting story ideas upon.

Assignment 2: Frank’s Show

Look back through your previous assignments and find at least 20 different situations or character components that you could go opposite to create irony.

Select the ones that work well for the show and share the character and situational ironies with us.

1.) Marjorie and Nelson: ideologically opposed yet both want the Free Peoples Nation to be strong and independent of the Union and other international powers.

2.) African-American nation that gained independence from a successful slave revolt yet is now a slave to other nations or corporate interests.

3.) Marjorie loves solving mysteries except the mystery of her own origin.

4.) Marjorie hates her adoptive parents and wants to be with her biological family, but her biological family doesn’t want to be with her and are actively trying to push her away.

5.) Marjorie believes in the power of truth, but must tell a huge lie that adversely affects her community in order to protect someone she cares about.

6.) Marjorie’s parents adopted her out of faith that they can be a good influence on the child, but they are the ones who benefit from Marjorie’s knowledge and insights.

7.) Racists fear that a country run by African-Americans would be a disaster, but the Free Peoples Nation is a better society than theirs.

8.) Marjorie is a genius at physics and engineering but her true love is in journalism, which she is terrible at.

9.) Marjorie is terrified that she is losing her mind, but the source of her terror will set her free.

10.) The Gulf community that Marjorie lives in depends on protecting the local environment for their food needs and to keep their local economies afloat, but they also are trying to woo the oil and gas company because it will bring in lots of money to the community – but at the price of destroying their environment.

11.) The abductor of Gwendolyn Caprice causes her family great anguish and heartbreak, but is himself a devoted family man when it comes to his own family.

12.) Gwendolyn wants to bring about the downfall of the oil and gas company because they are stealing people’s land and property, but she will also steal and lie and coerce in order to win.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Creating Irony, assignment 1: JESSICA JONES

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned from noticing irony in JESSICA JONES is that the series is made much richer and more rewarding to watch because there are these levels of irony which a viewer can appreciate. It also makes the main character more engaging (though not necessarily likeable) because she has so much irony happening in her character profile. For example, Jessica Jones needs to be a hero but she often wants to be self-destructive and selfish. Trish Walker needs to feel like what she does matters, even though she has a radio show that reaches millions.

Assignment 1: IRONY IN JESSICA JONES, s01e09 – “AKA Sin Bin”

Jessica Jones is a private investigator who is good at uncovering people’s secrets and immoral behavior to get the truth to her clients. But she is terrible at getting to the truth of her own past experiences, like being unable to accept that the accident that killed her parents and brother wasn’t her fault. She also engaged in a lot of immoral and unethical behavior herself, like physically attacking people and extorting them to get what she wants.

Luke Cage’s wife was killed and he’s been sleeping with, and falling in love with, her murderer.

Kevin Killgrave uses his mind-control powers to compel women into having sex with him, but doesn’t even understand that he’s committing rape.

Trish Walker is the host of a popular and successful radio show who helps her listeners achieve empowerment, yet she feels completely powerless and ineffectual in helping her friend Jessica.

Will Simpson is a cop and morally-motivated former special ops soldier who was compelled to try and kill Trish Walker and Jessica Jones.

Jerri Hogarth is a high-powered corporate attorney who is cheating on the wife with the hot secretary – a typical storyline that we’ve seen (and maybe even experienced in real life) many times… except Jerri is a woman cheating on her lesbian relationship with another woman.

Jerri is also on opposite sides of the main story’s conflict from Killgrave, yet in this episode they are shown to be identical in their deviousness and willingness to go to any lengths to get what they want. There’s even a moment when Hogarth and Killgrave mirror each other’s body movements and both say, “Finally” when Jessica Jones returns to the facility were Killgrave is being kept prisoner.

The series is about women dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault, harassment, and abusive relationships, and how sometimes they cope by becoming harassers or abusive people themselves.

The series is also about how Jessica Jones is a hero, but often doesn’t act like one.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show Plot and Character Layers

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned from doing this assignment for my TV show is that this structure helps me to brainstorm ways that the story can twist and turn in a way that makes sense and also generates interest. It feels almost like I’m outlining the pilot episode in more detail than previously, while also outlining the first season in very broad terms.

Assignment 2: Frank’s Show

Discover the layers that could exist for your show.

1.) Brainstorm a list of possible PLOT layers.

PLOT LAYERS – Story beneath the story.

• Major scheme revealed: an oil company is stealing land from locals in a Gulf Coast community. A young woman is murdered for discovering this plot.
• Mystery revealed: Marjorie dreams about a family that is not the same family as the one she lives with. In these lucid dreams, she learns science and tech that is advanced beyond what her society is currently capable of.
• Thought the story was one thing, but it is another: the audience at first believes they are watching a murder-mystery/noir set in the 1960s Deep South. But it’s actually a science-fiction saga about a family living across three different universes. In the young Marjorie storyline, she thinks she’s solving a case of corporate greed and murder but she discovers there are “alien” forces at work in her community as well. One of these aliens is influencing an oil company exec.
• Major shift in Meaning: Marjorie isn’t living in 1960s Deep South. She’s actually inhabiting an alternate history version of the Deep South and her family is spread across three different realities. She was sent to this reality in order to avoid a totalitarian regime that wants to dissect her and her brother’s brains.
• Hidden history: Marjorie and her brother were forced into a portal to another universe when they were younger. During transit, the portal was destroyed by government forces and the mishap caused the children to end up in two different universes with amnesia.
• Hidden plan: their true parents are in communication with their children through their dreams. They are training their children to stay one step ahead of their pursuers. An oil company wants to take control of some land along the coast in order to plunder it for its natural resources.
• Major betrayal: Nelson Davis betrays Marjorie twice – first he cheats on her when they are dating in college, and then later he betrays their values by leading an anti-democracy nationalist conspiracy to take power in the Free Peoples Nation.

2.) Brainstorm a list of possible CHARACTER layers.

CHARACTER LAYERS – identity beneath the identity.

• Secret identity: Marjorie is not from this world. An oil company executive is being influenced by an alien force that has entered this world in order to find and capture Marjorie.
• Character intrigue: Hidden Agenda – an oil company is trying to take people’s land. Conspiracy – they are being aided by people high up in the government. Deception – Marjorie hides her dreams from her waking family. Secret – her adoptive parents haven’t revealed the truth to Marjorie about how they found her years ago, alone in the bayou. Wound – Marjorie has always felt alone and out-of-place in this world but she doesn’t know why.
• Hidden relationships and conspiracies: Nelson’s family is involved in the oil company’s schemes in some way. Marjorie befriends an old fisherman with a mysterious past and hidden insights/wisdom.
• Hidden character history: the true nature of Marjorie’s origins and her true family, including her brother who ended up in another universe. The old fisherman was the one who first found Marjorie alone in the bayou, when she was still unconscious. He took her to the people who would eventually adopt Marjorie.

3.) Organize them each into a possible sequence of reveals.

Plot Surface: a young woman is found dead or goes missing in a Gulf Coast community.

• Layer 1: Marjorie Jackson discovers clues that lead her into an investigation. She discovers an oil company is trying to take land from people in order to exploit natural resources.
• Layer 2: Marjorie and her new friends, including Nelson and the fisherman, are able to recover the missing young woman or bring her murderer to justice, thereby implicating the oil company. However, they discover that Nelson’s parents had a role in the criminal conspiracy.
• Layer 3: Marjorie realizes that one of the oil company execs is actually being manipulated by an alien entity. This entity knows about Marjorie is trying to capture her and take her back to Earth Prime.
• Layer 4: Marjorie uses the knowledge she gains from dreaming with her parents to build Salter’s Ducks – devices that use the motion of ocean waves to generate clean electricity for the inhabitants of the Gulf Coast community.

Character Surface: Marjorie Jackson is a bright young girl who seems somewhat out of place in her community. People like her but she doesn’t have any close friends.

• Layer 1: Marjorie dreams at night about a different family that she belongs to. They tell her secrets about the world and about technology that are far advanced beyond anything in her world.
• Layer 2: Marjorie befriends an old fisherman who seems to know there is something more to her than meets the eye. Eventually, he reveals that he found her alone in the bayou, unconscious, a few years ago. He took her to the people who would become her adoptive parents and helped them to adopt her without making anyone else in the community suspicious.
• Layer 3: As an adult, Marjorie and her best friend Nelson become lovers while attending college. But he cheats on her and they breakup. Marjorie has a hard time trusting people after this.
• Layer 4: Marjorie learns the truth about her origin from another universe. She learns her parents are locked up in a maximum security prison for political dissidents on Earth Prime, and her real brother is a soldier facing danger in the Tribal Nations army of a third universe.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Example Show Plot and Character Layers

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned from my example show is how the plot and character layers lead to amazing twists and turns in the story. After watching episode 8 of JESSICA JONES, which ends in a crazy twist that floored me, I realize now that the twist works so well because it is in alignment with how the writers have setup Jessica Jones’ character. In the previous 7 episodes, we’ve seen how Jessica’s self-destructive attitude, her emotional wounds, all the things she’s endured, have caused her to be someone who won’t give up easily. She’s extremely tenacious. So when she ambushes Killgrave during the final dinner scene, it is shocking and surprising, but totally congruent with who she has been established as a main character. This kind of plotting didn’t happen with the writers thinking off the cuff and free writing. They had to build in these layers through deep brainstorming and plotting.

Assignment 1: JESSICA JONES, up to s01e08 – “AKA WWJD?”

Tell us the layers you have discovered in the Example Show.

PLOT LAYERS – JESSICA JONES

• Major scheme revealed: Hogarth has taken genetic samples of Killgrave’s and Hope’s fetus for some ulterior motive that will probably benefit no one except Hogarth. Jessica seems like she might choose to stay with Killgrave and try to turn him into a force for good, but then reveals that she has an entirely different plan to kidnap him and knock him out using fentanyl. Meanwhile, Killgrave had planted a command in the nosy neighbor’s head to bomb Will Simpson should he ever show up again at the house.
• Mystery revealed: Reva had some knowledge that involved her with Jessica and Killgrave for some length of time before she was killed. What’s on that USB drive? Turns out the USB drive holds multiple video files of Killgrave as a ten-year-old boy who is being experimented on (painfully) by his own parents.
• Thought the story was one thing, but it is another: thought the journey would only be about proving Hope’s innocence, but there are other conspiracies and forces at work like how Killgrave was made into a powerful psychic by his parents.
• Major shift in Meaning: Killgrave is unafraid to mind-control an entire police precinct; they’ll remember him after he’s control fades.
• Hidden history: Jessica Jones was orphaned as a young girl. Somewhere along the way, she developed super-strength. Killgrave was experimented on by his parents and those experiments enhanced his latent psychic abilities and gave him mind-control powers.
• Hidden plan: Jessica and her allies are trying to capture Killgrave alive and neutralize his powers. Killgrave, meanwhile, has setup an elaborate trap for Jessica to enact his twisted fantasies of a family with her in her childhood home.
• Major betrayal: Hogarth’s secret sampling of the fetal remains. Jessica’s reveal to Luke Cage that she was the one responsible for killing his wife.

CHARACTER LAYERS – JESSICA JONES and other characters

• Secret identity: Malcolm was really a spy for Killgrave for the first five or so episodes.
• Character Intrigues: Wound – Jessica Jones was orphaned at a young age; Wound – Trish Walker’s mother was psychologically and physically abusive to both her and Jessica; Deception – practiced at various times by nearly all the characters, especially Killgrave; Competition – after trying to be a hero and save Jessica, Will realizes he can’t compete on the level of enhanced humans and urges Trish to stay out of Killgrave’s and Jessica’s ways so that normal humans like her and him don’t get hurt; Dilemma – Jessica realizes that she might be the only person capable of harnessing Killgrave’s powers for good but that would mean she would have to willingly live with him and sacrifice her freedom.
• Hidden relationships and conspiracies: Hogarth has been having an affair with her secretary and this has now initiated acrimonious divorce proceedings with Hogarth’s wife.
• Hidden Character history: Jessica Jones had a “normal” life in suburbia until her parents and brother were killed in a car accident that Jessica blames herself for causing. Kevin Killgrave was experimented on as a child, by his own parents who were neuroscientists in England. His mind-control powers are a result of these very painful experiments that were conducted on him by his parents.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Big Picture Open Loops, assignment 2:

What I learned doing this assignment is…

From doing this assignment for my own show, I learned that the questions for each of the list items (Goal, Consequences, Solving Problems, Relationships, & Danger/Survival/Risk) are extremely helpful in getting my brain to start thinking about future-oriented issues that would cause a viewer to want to keep watching to find out what happens next in the story. While I’m not happy that Marjorie is not the one to innovate the new renewable energy tech on her own, playing with the idea that she is receiving this knowledge through her parents via lucid dreaming does open up other interesting ways of telling this story. While Marjorie may not end up becoming a cheerleader for women in STEM like I want her to be, maybe she’ll show resourcefulness in other ways. For example, she might become good at math and science even if she doesn’t actually invent a new technology like the Salter’s Duck. Perhaps this initial experience of bringing a new technology that helps people to her community will inspire her to do something else that is equally or more amazing in terms of a STEM-based accomplishment. Regardless, the experience of thinking about and creating Big Picture Open Loops is really helpful in building the foundations for a really intriguing and emotionally satisfying story.

2.) Tell us your top 5 – 8 Big Picture Open Loops that could be in your pilot.

My top picks are:

1. Marjorie and her best friend have a big fight and then the friend goes missing. The local Watch is unable to find her. A massive search ensues but there is no luck. Marjorie, driven by guilt over starting a petty squabble with her friend the day before she went missing, vows to find her.
2. Marjorie is having more and more lucid dreams about a family that is not her own.
3. Marjorie discovers that she was adopted. She can’t remember what her life was like before the age of 8.
4. Marjorie and her friend Nelson Davis grow close during their adventure in finding the missing girl. But they each have strong personalities that sometimes clash. Will they end up together or won’t they?
5. Marjorie’s Gulf Coast community doesn’t have access to a reliable power grid. Sometimes their refrigerators go out and people get sick from eating spoiled food. Marjorie believes she can help them by scavenging electrical materials from the abandoned lighthouse and building generators.
6. Marjorie wins 1^st place in her school’s science fair for her Salter’s Duck wave generators. But this brings some unwelcome attention from the government/military who want to know how she came up with the idea.
7. What is the meaning of the phantasmagoric visions that plague Marjorie when she’s awake? Like seeing a starfield underwater?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Big Picture Open Loops, assignment 1:

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned is for my Example Show is that
the big picture loop of how will Jessica Jones capture Killgrave without
killing him creates an ongoing dilemma for her that keeps the story moving
through 7 episodes (and will continue to do so for all 13 episodes presumably).
In Ep7, Jessica Jones concocts a plan to turn herself in to the NYPD as a
murdered. She brings the head of her slain neighbor Ruben in a plastic bag and
dumps it onto the homicide detective’s desk. Locked up in the interrogation
room, she dismisses Jerri Hogarth as her attorney, saying she’ll defend herself
after confessing to the murder. It seems inevitable that she will go to jail.
But then Killgrave shows up at the precinct house and mind-controls everyone
into pointing guns at each other, before professing his love for Jessica Jones.
She could kill him in that moment using her super-strength, and thereby save everyone
in that room from shooting each other. But if she were to do that, Hope would never
have a chance to prove her innocence. So instead Jessica Jones must acquiesce
to Killgrave’s will and agree to meet him later at her childhood home to
continue the sick psychological mind-game that he’s playing with her. This
saves the lives of everyone in the room but further dwindles Jessica’s chances
of ever capturing Killgrave and getting him to confess to being the true
mastermind behind the murder of Hope’s parents. This, of course, compels us to
continue watching the series to find out how Jessica will ever be able to
contain Killgrave and free Hope.

Assignment 1:

Think about your Example Show. Make a list of the Big Picture open loops that were established early in the season.

Watch the next episode and see how those open loops are being used to create the need to see future episodes.

Big Picture Open Loops in JESSICA JONES, up to s01e07 – “AKA Top Shelf Perverts”:

• How will Jessica Jones prove Hope’s innocence? Jessica’s new plan involves getting herself arrested for a violent murder (which she didn’t commit) and getting locked up in Supermax prison where she’ll lay a trap for Killgrave. Meanwhile, her friend Trish has concocted her own plan to track Killgrave’s bodyguards as a way to figure out where Killgrave is. William decides to help her.
• Will Jessica Jones ever confess to Luke Cage that she was the one who killed his wife? Especially after they’ve started sleeping together and falling in love? After Luke finds out the truth in e06, he tells Jessica Jones that she “is a piece of shit”. This sends her on a bender that culminates with her nearly killing Wendy in an effort to get her to sign the divorce papers on behalf of Jerri Hogarth. This only makes the situation worse with Wendy blackmailing Jerri into surrendering 75% of her assets in the divorce.
• What is Killgrave’s master plan? In this episode, we see Killgrave has broken into Jessica’s apartment and is going through her stuff. He’s interrupted when Ruben, her neighbor, knocks on the door. Killgrave opens the door and asks Ruben why he’s trying to give her homemade banana bread. Ruben says it’s because he loves her. Killgrave then makes Ruben slit his own throat in Jessica’s bed. Later, he uses Jessica’s guilt to further coerce her into joining him at her childhood home.
• How can Jessica Jones capture a powerful telepath alive without endangering her own mind… especially when she’s already traumatized from having been mind-controlled by him for a year? After discovering Ruben’s body in her bed, Jessica hatches a plan to get herself arrested for his murder and sent to Supermax prison. She believes Killgrave can’t resist coming after her in the prison and she intends for him to be trapped there when he does. Unfortunately, this plan is spoiled by Killgrave’s appearance at the police station and him holding all the police officers and bystanders hostage using his mind-control abilities.
• Will the survivors of Killgrave’s mind control ever be able to heal from their trauma? Also, what are the interesting and unique steps they take to deal with the trauma? Someone like Malcolm has become Jessica Jones’ ally. His newfound mental clarity gives him the motivation to risk his own life to help her bring Killgrave down.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show Mysteries, assignment 2:

What I learned doing this assignment is…

What I learned in developing these two mystery types for my own show is that it’s pretty difficult. I feel like I’m just throwing proverbial pasta to the proverbial wall to see what sticks. I haven’t really nailed down an exciting Shocking Event Mystery nor an Over-Time Mystery. But I think just continuing to be open to writing stuff that doesn’t work or seems stupid is the key to eventually hitting upon the right idea… or three.

1. Create your Shocking Event Mystery tell us the WWWWWH, along with the part withheld.

• Shocking Event: two African-American girls are riding on a ferry when a group of racists make disparaging remarks about them. One of the girls talks back and is physically attacked by the racists. Or, two AA girls on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. One of them witnesses a strange vision that takes place either on the boat or out at sea. Or, Marjorie invents the Salter’s Duck – a device that converts the wave motion of ocean waves into electrical energy with 90% efficiency. With this innovation, she is able to win a science contest and transform life in her Gulf Coast community.
• Secret: she didn’t invent this technology all on her own, she learned it from a shared lucid dream she had with her birth parents. Or, she knows the source of the strange visions but can’t tell anyone because she’s afraid they’ll lock her up or she’ll become a pariah. She’s desperately trying to fit in.
• Investigation: she is the only one willing to get to the bottom of the mystery. She doesn’t want to, and is afraid, but she’s the protagonist because she feels compelled to follow this mystery through to the end.
• WWWWW and How:
• WHO: 13-year-old Marjorie, her best friend, a 13-year-old Nelson Davis, and a multiverse-hopping visitor from Earth Prime – possibly an agent sent by Torquemada to retrieve her.
• WHAT: there is an agent who wants to take her back to Earth Prime and he’s equipped with advanced technology to find her. Maybe there is a team of these agents working together. They go undercover and blend in with the society in an attempt to find her. How are they tracking her?
• WHEN: this happens over the course of a couple of weeks during the summer break between Marjorie’s 8^th grade and beginning her freshman year of high school.
• WHERE: most of the action takes place in her Gulf Coast town in Louisiana (or Mississippi or Alabama). Of particular focus, is an old lighthouse near their town where strange things are afoot.
• WHY: maybe there are other creatures (alien not in an extraterrestrial sense, but in a multiversal sense) that can appear in a world like Marjorie’s and cause damage, suffering, or chaos. So Marjorie would be the only one in her group who recognizes what the stakes are and is willing to do something about it in order to protect those she loves.
• HOW: these creatures or agents can hook up probes to human captives and share memories or dreams, thereby gaining intel on their new surroundings and the people in them.
• Part Withheld: Marjorie basically has this ability with her parents, and doesn’t need the physical connection via the medical tech. She is quantum-entangled with her parents and her brother, who is in a different universe.

2. Create the Over Time Mystery and tell us the WWWWWH, along with the part withheld.

• Cover-up: ancient alien ruins discovered underground in Venus. Another set of ruins discovered underground in the Free Peoples Nation.
• Secret: who are the ancient aliens that built the portals between universes?
• Reveals: Henry Nightfall leads a mission to defend the underground ruins on Venus and figures out that there’s a working portal back to Earth Prime. Marjorie discovers one in the ancient prehistoric underground caves in the Free Peoples Nation. Why are these three universes linked by these portals?
• WWWWW and How:
• WHO: Henry, Sanji, Aspen-Leaf, Montgomery Cavill, and other soldiers from both sides of the conflict.
• WHAT: there is a battle to determine who will control the alien ruins and who will unlock the secrets within.
• WHEN: takes place over the course of several months.
• WHERE: on the coral-ship to Venus, then on Venus itself – specifically underground on one of the landmasses where an ancient alien metropolis resides.
• WHY: the Tribal Nations want to protect their self-interests of autonomy from the European powers and a chance to increase their understanding of the universe. The European forces want it for military advancement and to further their hold over Venus.
• HOW: by understanding how to activate the portal tech at the center of the ruins, Henry will be able to reunite with his family.
• Part Withheld: they were built by a previous iteration of humanity? Perhaps that iteration of humanity created these three separate universes in the process of creating these portals? Maybe they were direct ancestors of the Hak-Jordan family?

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show Mysteries, assignment 1:

What I learned doing this assignment is…

How intricately and well-executed these types of mysteries are in the show JESSICA JONES. The series has built up multiple mysteries (e.g. What happened the night that Killgrave ordered Jessica Jones to kill Reva, where is Killgrave and what is his plan, why did Hope order her own attack in prison, where is the teenage boy that Luke Cage has been hired to track down, what is the secret information that Serena has that she will give Luke Cage in exchange for finding her brother). By setting up these mysteries in this episode (Ep06), and in previous episodes, the payoffs are satisfying and yet lead to more questions that compel binge-watching.

Assignment 1:

The Shocking Event Mystery in Ep06 of Jessica Jones:

1. Shocking Event: Hope is attacked by the inmates in the penitentiary.
2. Secret: Why would Hope pay the inmates to attack her on purpose?
3. Investigation: Jessica Jones goes to visit Hope and find the inmate who led the attack.

• WHAT: The head of the gang tells Jessica Jones that her and her gang beat up Hope for $50 and a pack of cigarettes.
• WHEN: Hope paid them before the attack and it happened during lights out.
• WHERE: The attack occurred in her cell and the subsequent investigation leads Jessica Jones through the visitor’s hall, and then the prison infirmary where Hope is being treated for her wounds.
• WHY: it turns out Hope is pregnant by Killgrave. She tells Jessica Jones that she wants to live and have children one day, but refuses to allow “this thing” inside her to continue growing. Therefore, she intends to continue paying the inmates to beat her up until she has a miscarriage.
• WHO: Hope is actually the instigator of her own attacks.
• HOW: She is paying the lady gang to attack her using Jessica Jones’ money. But upon finding all this out, Jessica Jones gets her lawyer Jerri Hogarth to meet her at the penitentiary with a drug that will induce a miscarriage within 8 hours. Jerri reluctantly complies, being compelled to stay with Hope while Jessica Jones tells her that she will find dirt on Jerri’s soon-to-be-divorced wife in order to expedite the divorce proceedings so that Jerri can marry her secretary instead.

Ultimate Reveal 1: the consequences of Killgrave’s malicious actions carry on long after his mind-control has faded from his victims.

Ultimate Reveal 2: Jerri Hogarth, the attorney that is supposed to be representing Hope in the legal battle to avoid being convicted of the 1st degree murder of Hope’s parents, actually wants the fetal remains from the drug-induced miscarriage to be saved by the prison nurse and sent to a lab without anyone else’s knowledge. She bribes this nurse to carry out this request.

The Over Time Mystery of JESSICA JONES:

1. Cover-Up: Killgrave is operating somewhere in the city, using his mind-control to make professional gamblers fold and taking their money ($1 million). Unfortunately, Jessica Jones and her allies have no idea where he is or when he’ll be vulnerable. The only way to predict that will be for Jessica Jones to piece together what happened during the time he was controlling her.
2. Secret: near the end of her term of mental imprisonment under Killgrave, Jessica Jones was forced to kill Luke Cage’s wife. This is a secret she’s been keeping from Cage even as they fall in love with each other.
3. Reveals: in the previous episode, Killgrave and Jessica Jones struck a deal wherein Killgrave agreed not to keep making Malcolm use heroin if Jessica Jones would send him pictures every day of herself smiling. In this episode, Luke Cage hires Jessica to track down a missing teen on behalf of the teen’s older sister, who tells Luke that she has information about the MTA accident that resulted in his wife’s death over a year ago. In the process of their investigation, Malcolm tells Luke about what happened to Jessica Jones and himself when they were mind-controlled by Killgrave. After Jessica Jones and Luke rescue the teen, the older sister gives them a folder that shows the MTA covered up the fact that the bus driver that night was drunk when he reported to work. Worse, the MTA covered that fact up because the driver’s brother-in-law is in charge of the MTA’s Claims Division.

• WHO: Killgrave, Luke Cage’s wife Reva, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones.
• WHAT: Killgrave mind-controlled Jessica Jones… and Reva! Under his spell, both women participated in a clandestine operation wherein a lockbox containing a USB jump drive was uncovered which Killgrave took possession of. Killgrave then ordered Jessica Jones to execute Reva with her own bare hands.
• WHEN: the events that started this chain reaction of death and guilt occurred over a year ago, and main characters are still dealing with the fallout from them.
• WHY: Jessica Jones is falling in love with Luke Cage and doesn’t want to jeopardize their budding romance by revealing that she was the one who killed Reva, not the bus driver.
• WHERE: the abandoned body shop near where the bus crashed, a secret marijuana growing operation in an industrial part of the city, Hope’s cell, Jessica Jones’ apartment, and Serena and her brother’s apartment.
• HOW: Killgrave has been using people by psychically coercing them into acting on his behalf and for his pleasure, seemingly at whim. Yet he seems to have a deeper purpose. The million dollars+ that he stole from the gamblers is used to buy a house in a suburb of New York City. Killgrave doesn’t use his mind-control powers to force the owner of the house to sell. Instead, he makes the owner a legitimate deal of buying his home for 1.2 million dollars provided that the owner vacate the house by sunset of the following day.

At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that the home that Killgrave has bought through “legitimate” means is Jessica Jones’ childhood home. He now lives in a place that she could easily get to if only she knew the extent of his obsessive depravity over her.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show Empathy/Distress

What I learned doing this assignment is…

I learned that it’s important TO NOT BE PRECIOUS WITH MY MAIN CHARACTERS! While I wouldn’t want to make any real people I know suffer and cry and go through the wringer and even die, it’s okay to put my fictional characters into those situations because it betters the overall story… and honors the expectations of my audience who are generously donating their time and attention to engage with my narrative.

I also learned from watching Jessica Jones that the writers use Empathy/Distress to make a character who is as cantankerous, petty, selfish, & self-destructive as Jessica Jones a likeable protagonist. How they do this is by putting her into really uncomfortable and even dangerous situations where only someone who has her irascible nature could possibly survive and overcome. In many ways, Jessica Jones would be the villain of any other show. She is hyper-aggressive, and often does things that are the exact opposite of what we’d expect from a “likeable” protagonist or hero. In fact, in this episode, there’s a great moment where NYPD officer and former special ops soldier Will Simpson says out loud that she’s no hero. “I’ve seen real heroes and you’re not even close.” LOL! So true. Yet the reason we, the audience, follow Jessica Jones on her journey as the protagonist is because the writers expertly put her into situations where only someone like her could hope to win the day.

Assignment 1:

JESSICA JONES s01e05 – “AKA The Sandwich Saved Me”

1.) EXTERNAL CONFLICT: Jessica Jones is confronted by her supervisor at her last job 18 months ago about taking diet soda home from work. She responds by exposing the supervisor’s company embezzlement. She also immediately embarrasses a misogynistic guy who insults her friend at a bar.

2.) Big picture UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: the PTSD that Jessica Jones faces any time she sees Killgrave while investigating him, like the moment in the park when she tails her mind-controlled neighbor Malcolm to a secret meeting between him and Killgrave. This is a recurring problem for Jessica Jones that hampers her judgment and effectiveness at catching the villain.

3.) Big picture UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: the continuing torment Hope goes through as she languishes in prison, surrounded by hostile inmates, for a crime that Hope did not intentionally commit.

4.) Big picture MORAL DILEMMA: Jessica Jones needs to capture Killgrave alive so that he can serve as material evidence for Hope’s acquittal. But she also really, really wants to kill him for all the suffering he’s caused her and the people she cares about.

5.) EXTERNAL CONFLICT: the audience is made to feel empathy for both Will Simpson and Jessica Jones as they are forced to work together to bring down their common enemy Killgrave – even though Will and Jessica don’t trust each other.

6.) UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: Malcolm nearly OD’s because of Killgrave’s continuing exploitation.

7.) FORCED DECISIONS THEY’D NEVER MAKE: Hope demands cash from Jessica Jones in order to appease the malicious inmates she is serving time with.

8.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: In a flashback, we see that Jessica Jones, adrift in her life without a strong purpose, saves a little girl’s life by stopping a car from hitting her as the girl is crossing the street. The girl thanks her. Later, we see that Jessica Jones also saved Malcolm’s life when he was getting beaten up by thugs who wanted his wallet. They make the decision to kill him when she intervenes. She saves his life and he remembers that later on. These two moments have us feeling empathy for brittle Jessica, but we immediately also feel distress when Killgrave shows up moments after Jessica stops the thugs from killing Malcolm. We realize we are witnessing the moment when Killgrave first encountered Jessica and began to control her mind with his powers.

9.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: Jessica Jones, Will Simpson, and Trish Walker enact a plan to capture Killgrave alive and contain him somewhere where he can’t use his powers, but the plan fails because they don’t realize until it’s too late that he has a tracking device on his person. Bodyguards show up and neutralize the three long enough to rescue their client and get Killgrave to safety. The plan has failed and they are all in a worse position now than before because Killgrave is onto them.

10.) FORCED DECISION: Killgrave calls Jessica Jones the next morning and offers her a deal. If she will continue doing the job that Malcolm was doing for him (taking pictures of Jessica Jones), Killgrave will no longer mind-control Malcolm into being a heroin addict. Jessica would never willingly take pictures of herself for Killgrave’s lascivious appetite, but she must now do so in order to save her friend Malcolm, who has demonstrated that he really wants to get on the road to sobriety.

Assignment 2:

Season 1 of the Three Worlds:

1.) EXTERNAL CONFLICT: The Hak-Jordan family realize the authorities are onto them and Sung and Barbara rush to activate the portal machine. FORCED DECISION: They put their children in first, intending to follow them into another dimension, when an agent fires a rocket-propelled grenade into the device causing an explosion that destroys the machine and injures Sung and Barbara. No trace of the children remains and they are presumed dead. UNDESERVED MISFORTUNATE: A devastated Sung and Barbara are taken into custody as Torquemada oversees the op.

2.) But the audience sees that Marjorie and Henry are flying through a wormhole, screaming in terror. PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: They get separated inside the distorted space-time and Marjorie loses sight of her younger brother.

3.) Marjorie wakes up from her nightmare. Her step-brother asks her what’s wrong and she says she had a strange dream. UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: It becomes clear that Marjorie was adopted by this family a year ago and no one, including her, knows where she came from.

4.) Henry wakes up from his nightmare. He is camping somewhere in the wilderness and his father (who is not Sung) asks him about the disturbing dream. UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: It’s made clear that Henry was also adopted by this family a year ago and no one, including him, knows where he came from.

5.) EXTERNAL CHARACTER CONFLICTS: Marjorie and Henry, in their respective worlds, deal with bullying at school.

6.) EXTERNAL CHARACTER CONFLICT: Teenage Marjorie discovers her first love is a player and he’s been cheating on her. She finally breaks things off with him.

7.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: adult Marjorie learns that her ex-lover is now one of the leaders of an anti-democracy conspiracy that is trying to take power. DILEMMA: She feels compelled to stop them but that would mean violating her ethics as a journalist.

8.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: adult Henry is part of an elite military unit sent to Mars to secure the site of an abandoned underground alien city. EXTERNAL CHARACTER CONFLICT: he must fight the British armed forces to prevent them from capturing it. DILEMMA: he must work together with a member of the enemy forces to escape from a deadly trap in the alien city, or die.

9.) FORCED DECISION: Marjorie must kill her ex-lover to prevent greater bloodshed and suffering.

10.) DILEMMA: Henry discovers a portal that could take him back home, but it would mean betraying his oaths to his adopted people.

11.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: Torquemada is driven to succeed at all costs and he is okay with using violence to get what he wants, yet he is forced to keep the existence of his disabled daughter a secret from the authorities so that she won’t be executed.

12.) UNDESERVED MISFORTUNE: Sung and Barbara are sentenced to a life term in prison.

13.) PLOT INTRUDING ON LIFE: They discover their children are alive, but can only be with them in their dreams.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show’s Relationship Maps, part II

Assignment 2: Relationship Maps for Three Leads From My Show

Henry Hak-Jordan to Sanji Punjabi:

• Surface: lovers
• Common Ground: mutual attraction, highly intelligent, good at their respective jobs, both are opposed to the agents of Torquemada
• Conflict: they
  belong to opposing armies. Sanji wants the British Empire to study the ruins.
  Henry is defending them for the Tribal Nations.
• History: they
  start off opposed but fall in love when trapped in the ruins and are forced to
  cooperate in order to survive and escape.
• Subtext: their
  relationship is doomed given the larger political contexts they live within,
  and they both know it.
• Relationship Arc: from
  enemies to lovers and then back to enemies.

Henry Hak-Jordan to Aspen-Leaf:

• Surface: best friends
• Common Ground: comrades-in-arms as they service in the Tribal military, have saved each others’ lives multiple times.
• Conflict: when
  Henry discovers that the ruins contain the means to open a new portal back to
  Earth Prime, he must disobey orders from his superiors (which he’s willing to
  do), placing him in opposition to loyalist Aspen-Leaf.
• History: Grew
  up together. Enlisted at the same time and have supported one another while
  also maintaining a brotherly rivalry.Grew
  up together. Enlisted at the same time and have supported one another while
  also maintaining a brotherly rivalry.
• Subtext: Aspen-Leaf
  has always known that there is something strange about Henry’s past but chose to overlook it, until now when Henry begins to betray his trust.
• Relationship Arc: Brothers-from-different-mothers
  to enemies.

Henry Hak-Jordan to Montgomery Cavill:

• Surface: enemies
• Common Ground: They both want their respective nations to have control of the alien ruins. Both are men of resolve.
• Conflict: Both
  lead soldiers on opposing sides. Montgomery is a shrewd tactician and engages
  in multiple battles and deceptions against Henry and his forces in order to
  take control of the alien ruins.
• History: Engaged
  in an aerial dogfight in the skies of Venus that ended in a draw. Ever since,
  they have been mortal enemies.
• Subtext: Their
  hatred of each other makes them reluctant to acknowledge how similar they are.
  Under different circumstances, they could have been friends.
• Relationship Arc: Start
  from not knowing each other to bitter enemies who will fight to the death.

Marjorie Hak-Jordan to Nelson Davis:

• Surface: ex-lovers
• Common Ground: Ambitious,
  want to protect autonomy of the Free Peoples Republic from the US & other nations.
• Conflict: He
  is part of a conspiracy to take authoritarian control of the Free Peoples Republic.
  She is violently opposed to that.
• History: Grew
  up together. Became high school sweethearts. He cheated on her with different
  people in college. He entered politics and she entered journalism and they’ve
  clashed since then.
• Subtext: He’s
  still attracted to her despite the years of being on opposing political
  ideologies. She is still hurt by the betrayal of her trust all those years ago.
• Relationship Arc: from high school sweethearts to bitter enemies.

Marjorie Hak-Jordan to Camilla Ludlow:

• Surface: best friends
• Common Ground: Love
  to party and have a good time, yet also are committed to social causes.
• Conflict: Camilla
  wants to stop the insurgents through non-violent means. Marjorie believes
  violence is the only effective way to stop it.
• History: Met
  during freshman year in college. Bonded over their mutual love of writing.
  Camilla is now a professor of English and a successful novelist.
• Subtext: When
  they were still in college and Marjorie was still dating Nelson, Camilla had a
  one-night stand with Nelson that Marjorie never found out about.
• Relationship Arc: From
  best friends to estrangement to a restored relation-ship when Camilla becomes
  the chronicler of Marjorie’s life.

Marjorie Hak-Jordan to Jevan Chandler:

• Surface: Editor/reporter
• Common Ground: Belief
  in the power of journalism, the power of truth, committed to justice.
• Conflict: Jevan
  believes in the fourth estate. Marjorie loses faith in it and begins to take
  matters into her own hands.
• History: Met
  when Marjorie graduated from journalism school and got her first job with the Times-Picayune
  where he was the editor of the Society Bee column.
• Subtext: Jevan
  has always been attracted to Marjorie but has kept his feelings hidden in order
  to maintain their professional relationship, but she knows.
• Relationship Arc: From
  mentorship and professional colleagues to becoming lovers.

Ennio Torquemada to Sung Hak:

• Surface: enemies
• Common Ground: Highly
  intelligent, will do anything to survive and protect their families.
• Conflict: Ennio
  needs to capture the Hak-Jordan children and bring them back to Earth Prime to
  further his own career ambitions.
• History: Were
  once colleagues.
• Subtext: Cat-and-mouse
  game to discover the whereabouts of the Hak-Jordan children.

• Relationship Arc: Former
  colleagues, now mortal enemies.

Ennio Torquemada to Ana Torquemada:

• Surface: father/daughter
• Common Ground: family members
• Conflict: Determined
  to keep his daughter’s existence a secret to prevent her from being terminated
  by the state for being “genetically inferior”. She wants to live a free life.
• History: After
  discovering that his daughter was born with a degenerative disease, Ennio faked
  her death and hid her from the state.
• Subtext: Ennio
  feels shame over his daughter, but loves her deeply too. She senses this and is
  bitter about it.
• Relationship Arc: Strained
  relationship, to Ana betraying her father, to her father attempting to kill her.

Ennio Torquemada to Barbara Hak-Jordan:

• Surface: enemies
• Common Ground: Highly intelligent, will do anything to survive and protect their families.
• Conflict: Ennio needs to capture the Hak-Jordan children and bring them back to Earth Prime to further his own career ambitions.
• History: Were once colleagues.
• Subtext: Cat-and-mouse game to discover the whereabouts of the Hak-Jordan children.
• Relationship Arc: Former colleagues, now mortal enemies.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Show’s Relationship Maps

What I learned from doing this assignment is…

That this is a good way to start thinking about who the Connected Characters are since it became apparent to me that I would need certain roles filled as I made the character maps for three of my Main Characters. So when I started on the character map for Henry, I knew he had to have a love interest who causes him to betray his oaths as a military officer. Thus, Sanji Punjabi was born – a woman who serves in the enemy’s military forces. As I made character maps, I also realized that I was advancing my understanding of the story by seeing how these burgeoning character relationships would affect the progression of the storylines. It’s a lot of time and energy to create these character maps, but they are very useful because they help me to see how these relationships unfold in a visual manner.

Assignment 1: Relationship Map for Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones to Luke Cage:

• Surface: lovers
• Common Ground: both possess superpowers
• Conflict: Luke
  senses Jessica is hiding something from him but she grows distant when pressed
  about it.
• History: Jessica
  helps Luke fend off angry footballers.
• Subtext: Jessica
  murdered Luke’s wife while under the mind-control of Killgrave.
• Relationship Arc: going
  from lovers to potentially enemies.

Jessica Jones to Trish Walker:

• Surface: best friends
• Common Ground: mutual
  respect, former roommates, both survivors of assault by males.
• Conflict: Trish
  thinks Jessica is behaving recklessly. Jessica wants Trish to use her influence
  to prove Hope’s innocence.
• History: lived
  together for some time before Killgrave mind-controlled Jessica.
• Subtext: they
  love each other like sisters but also have some major gripes about each others’
  behavior and coping mechanisms.
• Relationship Arc: estranged
  ex-roommates to becoming each others’ strongest allies.

Jessica Jones to Jeri Hogarth:

• Surface: boss/contractor
• Common Ground: both will get
  the job done for the right amount of pay.
• Conflict: Jessica
  always barges into Jeri’s office unannounced. Jeri uses Hope for her own career advantage despite Jessica’s insistence that she be treated with more respect.
• History: have
  worked together on previous legal cases.
• Subtext: Jeri
  is a cynic and believes the only way to help Hope is by painting her as mentally ill,
  while Jessica is more of an optimist and thinks they can gather hard evidence to prove Hope is innocent.
• Relationship Arc: they have a working
  relationship based on money, to helping each other break a tough case because
  it’s the right thing to do.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Character Emotions

What I learned doing this assignment is…

…that the problem of character is a worthy problem to solve because it’s what makes the difference between the indie film feel of grounded characters (like in LICORICE PIZZA) vs the action-drenched and very cool storytelling of Marvel and other superhero content (thinking of JESSICA JONES). As much as Licorice Pizza fails as a good movie, the one thing Paul Thomas Anderson excels at is telling stories that are grounded in the authentic emotions of psychologically complex characters. His main characters are very deep (even when they’re foolish like William H. Macy’s character in MAGNOLIA). They have needs and wants, they have despair covered up with all sorts of charismatic masks, and sometimes they possess bizarre or outlandish coping mechanisms that still tend to make sense in hindsight, and they get triggered at appropriate moments in the story that propel the story forward whilst revealing more character.

Jessica Jones contains examples of this kind of deep character work, but the presentation of it is so very different! I’m sure a lot of that is the “voice” of the storyteller(s). The showrunner for Jessica Jones is definitely going for an overall vibe of near-constant tension and fast-paced superhero thriller storytelling. If one had to prioritize the importance of the various storytelling elements, I’d hazard to say that plot ranks just a bit higher than characterization in Jessica Jones.

Whereas, one gets the feeling that Paul Thomas Anderson prioritizes character over plot. Think of THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Why does he put a twenty-year jump in time right before the last act? It’s very sudden, and he forces the audience to piece together key details about father-son relationship quickly before the audience is ushered into the bowling alley scene. There is no doubt in my mind that the bowling alley scene is powerful and entertaining and serves as a great ending to the movie. But it’s not exactly plot-friendly. Oh well, that’s the writer’s prerogative: what to prioritize in order to the tell the story that they need or want to tell.

Getting back to the internal design of characters, what I’m learning is to understand what the final product of my characters will look like on the screen once the show is filmed. In order to get there, I need to clearly understand for myself how these characters think, and I need to imagine in vivid detail how they act:

Mannerisms, nervous tics, the way the form sentences when they speak, the things in life they focus on and the other things they avoid, the dreams and aspirations they have, the fears and insecurities, their self-destructive tendencies, their contradictions, their ignorance (willful and not), their masteries, their practices and habits and compulsions and addictions, their habitual ways of responding to disappointment and obstacles – all these things can be figured out if I understand the character’s Emotional Profile.

Assignment 1: Emotional Profiles for Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones

• · Hope: to stop Killgrave. / Fear: becoming mind-controlled by Killgrave.
• · Want: to help Hope. Need: to redeem herself.
• · Base Negative Emotion: self-hatred. / Public Mask: tough private investigator.
• · Weaknesses: drinking, toxic relationships
• · Triggers: anything to do with Killgrave, victim-shaming, liars
• · Coping Mechanism: don’t show emotions and run away from her problems.

Luke Cage

• · Hope: to find out who murdered his wife. / Fear: to fail as a business owner.
• · Want: to be a good man. / Need: to be accepted by others.
• · Base Negative Emotion: anger. / Public Mask: Cool and always in control.
• · Weaknesses: pretty ladies
• · Triggers: dishonesty
• · Coping Mechanism: sleeping around, fighting

Assignment 2: Emotional Profiles for my THREE WORLDS CONCEPT

Henry Hak-Jordan

• · Hope: succeed in his mission. / Fear: losing to the enemy.
• · Want: to be a hero. / Need: validation.
• · Base Negative Emotion: fearful and uncertain of himself. / Public Mask: confident soldier, engineer.
• · Weaknesses: a player
• · Triggers: being rejected
• · Coping Mechanism: becomes angry, seduces ladies, gets reckless in battle

Marjorie Hak-Jordan

• · Hope: to preserve peace and justice. / Fear: the conspirators win.
• · Want: to leave her world a better place than how she found it. / Need: to be with people that she can trust.
• · Base Negative Emotion: angry and hurt. / Public Mask: polite.
• · Weaknesses: vanity
• · Triggers: breaking of trust, being lied to.
• · Coping Mechanism: gets drunk, hooks up with people she regrets later

Ennio Torquemada

• · Hope: to find the Hak-Jordan children. / Fear: failing and being punished by his superiors.
• · Want: status and power. / Need: to be loved.
• · Base Negative Emotion: terror. / Public Mask: confidence and strength; power.
• · Weaknesses: penchant for being cruel, vindictiveness, fragile ego.
• · Triggers: defiance of his authority, anything that makes him look bad.
• · Coping Mechanism: inflicting violence on others, secret visits to his invalid daughter.

Sung Hak

• · Hope: to be reunited with his children. / Fear: they will be caught by Torquemada.
• · Want: freedom and justice. / Need: to be the protector.
• · Base Negative Emotion: Angry. / Public Mask: the enlightened teacher.
• · Weakness: pride
• · Triggers: threats to his family, being wrong
• · Coping Mechanism: becomes emotionally distant – especially when he can bury himself in his scientific work.

Barbara Hak-Jordan

• · Hope: to be reunited with her children. / Fear: they’ll be caught by Torquemada.
• · Want: freedom and peace. / Need: to stop suffering.
• · Base Negative Emotion: despair. / Public Mask: the competent healer.
• · Weakness: pride
• · Triggers: threats to her family, failing at things important to her.
• · Coping Mechanism: becomes critical of others.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Redoing my Character Intrigue profiles for my new concept:

Name of character: Marjorie Euri Hak-Jordan

· Role: an activist in the Free People’s Nation. A journalist primarily, but she has skills in self-defense, medicine, and electrical engineering.

· Hidden Agendas: she doesn’t tell anyone about her lucid dreams involving her biological parents and her brother. She discovers an anti-democracy conspiracy in the Free People’s Nation and is determined to stop it.

· Competition: against her ex-lover who is one of the leading conspirators. She knows she must stop him from achieving his aim of winning the presidency.

· Conspiracies: she is in league with other activists who are determined to stop the imminent coup.

· Secrets: she knows more about technology and medical science than anyone else in her world. She must use that knowledge judiciously lest she become even more of a target than she already is.

· Deception: she deceives her ex-lover into letting his guard down so that she can assassinate him. She covers up her lucid dreams from her adoptive family and her friends.

· Wound: she wants to be with her biological family but knows that it is impossible. Even though she knows her parents sent her away out of love, she also blames them for it. And after discovering her ex-lover is part of a violent conspiracy, she has deep trust issues.

· Secret Identity: she has technical knowledge no one else in her world knows. She operates as an undercover agent for the activist group that is fighting the anti-democracy conspiracy.

Name of character: Henry Tae Hak-Jordan

· Role: an astronaut, engineer, and warrior in the Tribal Nations. He is sent on a mission to terraformed Venus where he must battle against European conquistadors bent on stealing ancient alien tech from the Tribal Nations to use it against them.

· Hidden Agendas: is sent on a secret mission to Venus to aid in the defense of the alien ruins. Is not allowed to talk about it with other members of his crew. Doesn’t tell others about his lucid dreams after he learns that agents of Torquemada have infiltrated his world.

· Competition: highly competitive in sports against his other crewmates. He wants to rise up in the ranks of the space program and is willing to work hard to do so.

· Conspiracy: works with the other members of the military to keep the existence of the alien ruins a secret from most until it can no longer be kept under wraps.

· Secrets: doesn’t tell most people about his lucid dreams.

· Deception: lies to others when asked about rumors of the alien ruins. Lies to protect himself from Torquemada’s agents.

· Wound: has trust issues from having been sent into exile by his parents. Suffered a broken heart from a relationship that ended badly and now has problems with intimacy as well.

· Secret Identity: keeps his true origins a secret, also operates as an special forces agent of the Tribal Nations military.

Name of character: Barbara Hak-Jordan

· Role: medical doctor and mother of Henry and Marjorie.

· Hidden Agendas: keeps her research with her husband a secret from the government forces. After they are discovered, she does everything she can to protect her children from Torquemada.

· Competition: must assert her dominance in the brutal environment of a federal penitentiary. Uses her knowledge of human psychology and medicine to weaken and harm her opponents.

· Conspiracy: in a conspiracy with her husband and her family to keep them safe from Torquemada and his minions.

· Secrets: doesn’t reveal to anyone outside of her family the nature of her research. Later, in prison, she uses her knowledge to glean secrets from others that are advantageous to her survival.

· Deception: she hides her and her husband’s research from the authorities. She lies to Torquemada and the others that their children were killed when the portal process was interrupted.

· Wound: hates that she has been separated from her children for so many years and has missed them growing up into adults.

· Secret Identity: is committed to seeing the downfall of the oppressive government that rules her world, especially Torquemada.

Name of character: Sung Hak

· Role: applied physicist and father of Marjorie and Henry.

· Hidden Agendas: keeps his research with his wife a secret from the government forces. After they are discovered and imprisoned, he does everything he can to protect his children from Torquemada

· Competition: jockeys to be the alpha male in prison as a survival strategy. Uses his mind and body to beat his opponents.

· Conspiracy: in a conspiracy with his wife and his family to keep them safe from Torquemada and his minions.

· Secrets: doesn’t reveal to anyone outside of his family the nature of his research. Later, in prison, he uses his wits and leverage the secrets of others for his own advantage.

· Deception: he hides his and his wife’s research from the authorities. He lies to Torquemada and the others that their children were killed when the portal process was interrupted.

· Wound: is deeply wounded that his children were exiled to alternate universes without them, and has been out of their lives for so long. Longs to reunite his family.

· Secret Identity: is committed to seeing the downfall of the oppressive government that rules her world, especially Torquemada.

Name of character: Ennio Torquemada

· Role: primary antagonist to the Hak-Jordan family. Is the leader of the counter-intelligence unit of the oppressive government.

· Hidden Agendas: leads covert ops to root out insurgents and anti-government groups.

· Competition: highly competitive. Seeks to attain the presidency. Ruthless in his quest for more power.

· Conspiracy: will side with any groups that give him an advantage in climbing the ranks of office.

· Secrets: has a daughter that he loves dearly and keeps her medical infirmities a secret from all his peers and underlings. Maybe his daughter is transgender and that is a source of shame for him?

· Deception: an expert liar and manipulator. Uses deception to capture and destroy his enemies, whether those are enemies external to the state or internal.

· Wound: raised in an abusive environment, he was profoundly scarred as a child and now believes that life is always about survival. Though he may play the game of being a member of polite society, he knows that it’s always about how he can dominate and come out ahead in any situation that matters.

· Secret Identity: he’s a killer who delights in having power over everyone. There are very few people in his life that he genuinely cares about. His daughter is one of them. Maybe his wife. But everyone else in his life are pawns to him. He may not be a true sociopath, but he’s close. Under his charming and charismatic exterior, lies the cunning ferocity of a wolf.

[Frank Kim]

I decided to come up with an entirely new concept for my bingeworthy TV show. So here are my new answers to Assignment 2 of Day 3 of Module 1:

1.) Tell us the journey of your show: two children find themselves in very strange versions of America where history seems to have gone in different directions than what we know. When the authorities try to discover where these children came from and who their parents are, they learn the children are suffering from amnesia. Foster families come in and adopt each child. As the series progresses, we learn that the children have lucid dreams at night. In the dreams, they remember their real parents, who impart knowledge and wisdom, but the children remember only fragments when they awaken — and they never remember who these real parents are or where they come from. As the children grow into adulthood, they will discover that they were sent into these alternate versions of America from our universe and that their parents did this in order to protect them from government forces in our universe who want to experiment on them.

2.) and 3.) Who are the main characters that will sell your show? And answer the Engaging Character Model questions for each.

Name of Character: Marjorie Euri Hak-Jordan

A. Role in the show: daughter of Barbara and Sung, finds herself in the Free People’s Nation.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: she learns how to fight and how to think critically from her parents over years of dreaming with them every night. She uncovers a conspiracy in the Free People’s Nation that threatens their 100-year-old democracy and becomes a leader among a group of activists that aims to stop it.

C. Intrigue: hides her multiverse-spanning dreams from her adoptive parents, fearing that they’ll think she is crazy. As an adult, she had a romantic relationship with one of the conspiracy members that she tries to hide from her fellow activists.

D. Moral Issue: she lies to her colleagues, and is willing to use violence to stop the conspiracy. She even uses sex as a weapon when necessary.

E. Unpredictable: she uses her knowledge of advanced tech to overcome security measures in the less technologically-advanced Free People’s Nation. Or, she will suddenly spout knowledge of advanced electrical engineering to illustrate how to fix a 60s-style cathode ray tube TV set. She kills her ex-lover at his most vulnerable moment, after lying to him about wanting to get back together.

F. Empathetic: as a child she was ripped from her home because of the dangers her family faced from their repressive dystopian government. She found herself alone and scared in a completely different universe and had to fend for herself until she was eventually adopted by a foster family. As an adult, she helps people with her knowledge of advanced medical science.

Name of Character: Henry Tae Hak-Jordan

A. Role in the show: son of Barbara and Sung, finds himself in the Tribal Nations.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: he learns how to fight and how to think critically from his parents after years of dreaming with them every night. He grows up to be part of the Tribal Nations’ space exploration corps and is stationed on terraformed Venus. There he discovers the ruins of an ancient underground city built by an alien civilization millions of years ago. European explorers land on the planet and a war begins for control of the alien tech.

C. Intrigue: he doesn’t hide his lucid dreams about his real parents from his adoptive parents because dreams and the messages they impart are respected in the Tribal Nations. But he does hide a relationship with a European woman from his colleagues because of the security threat that represents.

D. Moral Issue: trained by both his dream parents as well as by his Tribal teachers to be a warrior, he is willing to use physical violence to protect himself and his people. Later, he must hurt his fellow warriors in order to protect his love interest. He betrays his own people later when he must use the alien tech to reunite with his biological parents by opening up a new multiverse portal.

E. Unpredictable: is passionate and can fly into a rage if people he cares about are threatened.

Empathetic: as a child he was ripped from his
home because of the dangers his family faced from their repressive dystopian government.
He found himself alone and scared in a completely different universe and had to
fend for himself until he was eventually adopted by a foster family. As an
adult, he shows kindness to people and animals.

Name of Character: Sung Hak

A. Role in the show: father, husband, and a genius in applied physics. He creates the device that allows travel between universes. He, along with his wife, are the sources of the secret knowledge that get imparted to Marjorie and Henry through the course of the series. They are the parents in the shadows of the dream world who are helping to protect their children from the agents of evil.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Sung is a brilliant physicist and engineer. He is able to invent new technologies that vastly increase the capabilities of the human race, like teleportation to alternate universes. His genius helps protect his family, but later it could be subverted by the bad guys to endanger his children when they take over his tech. His technical brilliance could also be used by the bad guys to make life on Earth Prime more miserable for others, such that he is blamed by the masses for causing suffering on a global scale.

C. Intrigue: he hides the invention of his portal device from the bad guys until he is captured and interrogated. His inventions have been used by the bad guys to enslave, torture, and kill others and he feels great shame and regret because of it.

D. Moral Issue: he is willing to lie to the government in order to protect his family. He and his wife have tinkered with the DNA of his children in order to increase their chances at survival, knowing that this could place their health in danger. He is willing to use violence, and even kill others, in order to protect his family.

E. Unpredictable: during a moment of crisis, he lies to his children because he knows that is the most expedient way to get them to do something that will save their lives. He kills his best friend because he discovers his best friend is working for the bad guys. While in prison, he shanks a fellow inmate in order to assert his dominance and be seen as the alpha male.

Empathetic: he demonstrates a deep love for his
family. He’ll do anything to ensure that his children have a better life. After
he kills his best friend, he sobs in bleak sadness and despair at what he had
to do.

Name of Character: Barbara Hak-Jordan

A. Role in the show: mother, wife, and brilliant neurologist. She works with her husband to develop a technology that can safely allow humans to traverse the multiverse. Uses it to send her children to two different alternate universes as a last-ditch effort to save them from oppressive government forces. She appears in her children’s dreams, along with her husband, and helps to educate her children as best as possible to help them adapt and survive in an unfamiliar universe.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: she is an accomplished medical doctor and her knowledge of how the human brain works is without peer. She has pioneered advances in medical science that utilize a holistic approach to brain health. She can advise her children on what to eat, meditation practices, NLP exercises, and other techniques to keep their minds sharp.

C. Intrigue: she hides her and her husband’s portal technology from the bad guys. Lies to her colleagues at the hospital in order to protect her family.

D. Moral Issue: is willing to use violence and kill other if that will protect her family. Made radical changes to the DNA of her children in order to increase their chances of survival in alien environments.

E. Unpredictable: lies to her colleagues, uses her training in martial arts to beat up the bad guys with no warning beforehand. In prison, she uses her expertise in human psychology to manipulate her fellow inmates into doing things that put them in danger in order to protect herself.

Empathetic: she demonstrates a deep love for her
family. Gives her children a puppy as a gift before they are separated. She had
saved the puppy from medical experimentation.

What I learned doing this assignment is: that I initially resisted doing this assignment for four main characters because I knew it would entail a lot of work. But when I actually did it, I realized that the amount of work required is only half the story. By going through these questions for each character, I discovered some wonderful and even mind-blowing things about each character that I would not have discovered without going through the assignment in its entirety. This has given me a renewed enthusiasm for this story idea.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Intriguing Character Layers

What I learned from doing this assignment is…

What I learned is that by designing characters with lots of depth, it allows the story to unfold in a way that is constantly surprising yet always feels truthful – even when, paradoxically, the characters are lying and deceiving others and the audience. It’s authentic lying. Or at least, it’s a way to create characters who feel authentic because even their self-interests align with their overall personalities and motivations. And the exciting dramatic parts come about because these characters have schemes that butt up against other characters’ schemes, or some of the scheming characters form conspiracies and make alliances with others.

Assignment 1: Character Intrigue in Jessica Jones

1. Where have I noticed character intrigue so far?

a. Lots of character intrigue with Jessica Jones. Her hidden agenda is to find Killgrave’s weakness (powerful opiates), steal them from a hospital by throwing her drug addict friend under the bus, and use it to track down Killgrave and neutralize his mind-control powers. Jessica is in a conspiracy with her friend Trish to provoke Killgrave by publicly airing an interview with Killgrave’s victim, Hope. Jessica’s secret that she’s been harboring from Luke Cage is that she killed Luke’s wife while under the control of Killgrave. Jessica must hide this fact from Luke every time they are together. Her wound is that she was mind-controlled and raped by Killgrave repeatedly for many months. She also was the unwitting patsy for Killgrave’s machinations that led to the situation where Hope murdered her parents.

b. Audrey Eastman hires Jessica Jones to get evidence that her husband is cheating on her. Her hidden agenda is to hunt down, entrap, and kill “specials” like Jessica Jones. She is in a conspiracy with her husband to do this.

c. Hogath, Jessica’s lawyer friend, is always trying to find a way to come out on top, even if it means stepping on innocent people. This includes the very people she is supposed to be representing as an attorney. Hogarth is willing to make Hope seem delusional to the public in order to have a better chance at winning the impending murder trial, even if this means Hope must be declared not guilty by reason of insanity. Hogarth is in competition with her soon-to-be ex-wife to secure all their old hangouts as the domain of her and her new girlfriend. Hogarth deceives nearly everyone around her: Jessica Jones, the soon-to-be ex, her new girlfriend, Hope, and even the previous victims of Killgrave.

d. Even Jessica’s drug addict neighbor, who seems like a good-yet-misguided soul, turns out to have a hidden agenda. He’s been working for Killgrave by spying on Jessica and taking surveillance pictures of her – mostly likely under the influence of Killgrave’s mind-control powers, but still, it’s a huge blow to Jessica’s already fragile sense of trust.

2. How is the character intrigue being used to create the need to see more episodes? The showrunners are using these hidden agendas to craft characters who do one thing, yet have a secret motivation or agenda. By doing this, they are constantly pulling the rug out from underneath the audience, so that the audience is never sure who to trust. This could be a turn-off but because the motivations are authentic and/or logical given what has already been setup before, we keep wanting to know what will happen next. It never feels like cheating because the setups are so well setup and the payoffs propel the story forward into more and more interesting territory.

Assignment 2: Character Intrigue in The West Moon Chronicle

Character Name: Jae-Sun Baek

· Role: A modern-day warrior desperately needing a 2^nd chance at fatherhood.

· Hidden Agendas: get his grandfather to sell the old family home so he can get a percentage of the sale money and use it to get out of debt from a local gangster in Houston.

· Competition: against his grandfather to earn money off the sale of the house, against Sunny to reach the higher dimensional realm of the Sky Wyld, against Dor to save his baby daughter.

· Conspiracies: in a conspiracy with Sunny to convince Joon-Ho to sell the house.

· Secrets: he’s in trouble with a gang for not paying back a loan, he’s had to beat up people before as hired muscle, he was rendered impotent after he abandoned Maddy.

· Deception: deceiving his grandfather, deceiving every woman who meets who might feel something for him, deceiving himself into thinking he’s okay when he’s not.

· Wound: when he was 18, his grandfather was accused of murdering civilians during the Vietnam War and was taken into custody by the FBI. This left Jae-Sun feeling scared and betrayed, and then shortly thereafter, he learned that Maddy was pregnant. He entered into fight-or-flight mode and skipped town, abandoning her and their unborn baby. A year later, Maddy and the baby disappeared and were eventually presumed deceased. Since then, he’s been unable to have sexual relations with anyone else and has led a disaffected and bitter life.

· Secret Identity: in the streets of Houston, he’s known as the “Sugarland Kid” and is widely respected for his fighting prowess.

Character Name: Madison Green

· Role: Young mother trying to save her baby.

· Hidden Agendas: following a plan to rescue her daughter.

· Competition: against Sunny, who wants to stop Maddy and gain possession of Hanseng’s Pearl of Wisdom.

· Conspiracies: with Hanseng the Water Dragon. Together, they have formed a plan to capture Dor and infiltrate his fortress to rescue Autumn Dawn.

· Secrets: she is so mad at Jae-Sun that at one point she considered killing him.

· Deception: lying to her family because she knows they won’t understand the time dilation effect she went through in the Sky Wyld that only aged her 7 months to her parents’ 18 years. Deceiving Dor in order to rescue her baby.

· Wound: in the moment when she was most vulnerable, her boyfriend abandoned her when he discovered that she was pregnant.

· Secret Identity: Maddy had to hide the fact that she became a martial arts student under the tutelage of Joon-Ho from her parents and family.

Character Name: Joon-Ho Rhee

· Role: A Taoist sage who doesn’t want to sell his home.

· Hidden Agendas: he will risk his life to distract the guardian at the Lotus Gate in order for his grandson and Maddy to stop Dor.

· Competition: against Sunny in order to acquire the Pearl of Wisdom. Against the bull-dokkaebi guardian to distract Dor long enough for Jae-Sun and Maddy to succeed in their plan.

· Conspiracies: plotting with Jae-Sun and Maddy to stop Sunny and Dor and help the young couple rescue their baby.

· Secrets: while serving in Vietnam, he had an affair with a Vietnamese woman and they had a daughter together: Pamela. Later, he brought Pamela back to South Korea with him at great cost and raised her by himself.

· Deception: he kept his shady past in Vietnam hidden from Jae-Sun until the past finally caught up to him when Jae-Sun was 18. Even then, it would be another 17 years before Jae-Sun would understand that he is one-quarter Vietnamese.

· Wound: he couldn’t stop his platoon from murdering innocent civilians and had to settle for helping Pamela and Pamela’s mother escape from the village before the onslaught. Even then, Pamela’s mother died a short while later and he had to kill one of his platoon-mates in self-defense.

· Secret Identity: he is considered a traitor by some of his former squad-mates.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Engaging Main Characters, Cont’d

Assignment 2: Engaging Profiles of The West Moon Chronicle Main Characters

Name of Character: Jae-Sun Baek

A. Role in the show: an embittered Korean-American man who’s life has been an aimless slog since his infant daughter and his ex-girlfriend disappeared and were presumed deceased 18 years ago. Now he discovers they are both alive and his infant daughter was abducted tos an alternate realm of existence where she has aged only 7 months.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: He is determined to save his daughter. He is highly skilled in Taoist martial arts and has a good working knowledge about this other realm of existence from growing up near a haunted forest where he befriended supernatural creatures known as dokkaebi.

C. Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? Eighteen years ago, just before his baby girl was born, he abandoned his girlfriend Maddy when he found out she was pregnant. Also, ever since that terrible decision, he’s never been able to have sex with another woman.

D. Moral Issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? He has lived an aimless life as hired muscle for various criminal underworld figures since skipping town 18 years ago. As the story progresses, he’s willing to lie and manipulate others to achieve his aims. He even gets into a physical fight with his grandfather at one point.

E. Unpredictable: what will they do next? He’s going to tear down walls to save his daughter. He’s not willing to be polite or go easy on those standing in his way. Later, during his character transformation moment, he’ll have to acknowledge that he’s been a coward and has wronged his grandfather, and apologize to him.

F. Empathetic: why do we care? Jae-Sun has moments of roguish charm. As the story progresses, we learn that he cares about his daughter and is anxious to make amends to his ex-girlfriend. When she verbally unleashes her anger and bitterness at his betrayal, he doesn’t protest or try to defend himself. He is willing to accept full responsibility for what he did.

Name of Character: Madison Green

A. Role in the show: a young woman who had to become a single parent after her boyfriend abandoned her. She is unstoppable in her desire to save her daughter.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Maddy trained in martial arts as a teenager in secret because her strict Baptist Caucasian parents didn’t like the idea of her studying under a Korean Taoist master. She is also able to speak the empathic language of water dragons.

C. Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? She wished for Jae-Sun’s death and even fantasized to herself about killing him after he abandoned her.

D. Moral Issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? She is willing to steal food when she journeys through the Sky Wyld realm, in order to survive. She is prepared to kill the being that holds her daughter captive – even though this being was once her friend.

E. Unpredictable: what will they do next? She lets Jae-Sun have it when they finally reunite after 18 years. It’s clear that, for her, the wound of that betrayal is still fresh. And afterwards, she is willing to forgive Jae-Sun when he proves he will do anything to save their daughter.

F. Empathetic: why do we care? She spent 7 months all alone in a strange dimension of space and time, journeying by herself and doing whatever was necessary to survive in an alien wilderness. She loves her daughter fiercely.

Name of Character: Joon-Ho Rhee

A. Role in the show: an elderly Korean man who had to raise his grandson Jae-Sun by himself after Jae-Sun’s parents died in an auto accident. Joon-Ho is both the source of Jae-Sun’s greatest conflict and the source of Jae-Sun’s salvation.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Joon-Ho is a Taoist warrior with superior fighting skills and a knowledge of arcane subject matter — which aids him in navigating the strangeness of the Sky Wyld.

C. Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? Joon-Ho was forced to abandon his platoon in the Vietnam War in order to save a Vietnamese woman and her infant daughter. By doing so, his platoon went on to massacre the villagers without Joon-Ho there to stop them. The infant is Joon-Ho’s daughter and she would grow up to become Jae-Sun’s mother. Jae-Sun is unaware of any of this until the climax of the season.

D. Moral Issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? Initially, it seems that Joon-Ho committed the massacre of civilians along with his squadmates. But later, it’s revealed that he had to kill one of his squadmates after that soldier killed Joon-Ho’s lover. These actions earned him a dishonorable discharge from the ROK Marine force, but he was able to raise his baby daughter as his own back in South Korea.

E. Unpredictable: what will they do next? He will step in and risk his life to help save his great-granddaughter.

F. Empathetic: why do we care? Joon-Ho has the traits of being a tough man of high integrity. But he also has a sense of humor and enjoys a good drink and having a good time when the occasion allows for it.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Engaging Main Characters

What I learned doing this assignment is…

I noticed that when I created the character profiles for my project, the structure of these questions helped me to brainstorm more ways for them to be intriguing. I feel that there is still a lot of room for them to grow, but this structure is a really good tool for figuring that out. I especially liked answering the Intrigue question for each character because it helps me to build up the inter-character subtext possibilities as I explore the secrets that each main character is withholding from the others.

Assignment 1: Engaging Profile of Jessica Jones

Name of the Main Character: Jessica Jones

A. Role in the show: an emotionally-wounded private investigator in NYC who must prove that a young woman named Hope didn’t intentionally kill her parents but was manipulated into it.

B. Unique Purpose/Expertise: Jessica possesses super-strength, can leap up onto high ledges and balconies, and has a keen investigative mind. Her unique purpose is to prove Hope’s innocence and stop the man who manipulated Hope into the crime – the same man who also manipulated Jessica Jones over a year ago into committing a different murder.

C. Intrigue: what is the secret beneath the surface? Jessica Jones has started a romantic relationship with Luke Cage, but cannot bring herself to confess to Luke that she was the one responsible for his wife’s murder a year ago.

D. Moral Issue: what moral boundaries are they crossing? Jessica Jones knows she shouldn’t be sleeping with Luke Cage after what she did to his wife, but she initiates the relationship anyway. Jessica drinks too much, which affects her judgment. She often breaks into people’s homes to find clues, into a hospital pharmaceuticals room to steal powerful sedatives, lies to people in order to attain information on her cases, and uses her friends to get what she wants – even if it places her friends at risk with the law or worse.

E. Unpredictable: what will they do next? Her volatile temper causes her to damage property and intimidate others until they bow to her wishes. She does anything necessary to track down Killgrave, placing herself in great danger repeatedly.

F. Empathetic: why do we care? Jessica Jones can be grating with her snarky attitude and indifference to the feelings of others, but then she’ll have moments where she displays real compassion for another. By the end of the pilot, she has a chance to flee from the horrible circumstances of Hope murdering her parents in the elevator of Jessica’s apartment. But Jessica chooses to do the heroic thing and stay in NYC long enough to solve the case and prove Hope’s innocence.

[Frank Kim]

What I learned doing this assignment is…

The characters in a binge worthy show must be given careful thought to understand which circle they fit into. I noticed that even the connected and environment characters can be vital to making a scene or an episode work well. While watching Jessica Jones, for example, I thought Hope Schlottman was a main character given the fact that her action at the end of the pilot is the powder keg ignited, which sets off the main journey of Jessica Jones for the rest of the season. But in reality, Hope only appears in a few key scenes and is a connected character. This opens my mind to the possibility that a connected character can trigger vital plot points and events, but need not be given a tremendous amount of screen time. And even environment characters like the members of the rugby team that go with their friend to beat up Luke Cage in episode 2 are vital to fleshing out a vital plot point – in their specific case, they are what allow Luke Cage to see Jessica Jones’ super-strength ability, thereby cementing their relationship for the rest of the journey. Overall, it’s important to understand that every character is a tool that can be used tactically throughout a script to enhance the story and move it in the right direction.

Assignment 1: Identifying the three circles in JESSICA JONES

A. The Main Characters Circle includes: Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Killgrave

B. The Connected Characters Circle includes: Hope Schlottman, Jeri Hogarth, Jeri’s secretary, Jeri’s wife, Bob and Barbara Schlottman, Trish Walker, Det. Oscar Clemons, Gina, Gina’s husband, Maureen Denton, Jack Denton, Reva Connors, Dr. David Kurata

C. The Environment Characters Circle includes: Luke Cage’s bartender Roy Healy, Gregory Spheeris, noisy upstairs neighbors, Polish mechanic, Rugby team, Door Repair Guy, Mind-controlled family

Assignment 2: Create the three circles of characters for my show, THE WEST MOON CHRONICLE

A. The Main Characters Circle:

1. Jae-Sun Baek – an embittered Korean-American man who’s deep fear of being trapped in life causes him to abandon his infant daughter as a teenager, leading to a life of regret until he is given a 2^nd chance at fatherhood upon the discovery that she was abducted to another realm of existence where time runs slowly, and where she has aged only 7 months in the intervening 18 years.
2. Joon-Ho Rhee – Jae-Sun’s maternal grandfather and sole guardian after Jae-Sun’s parents die in a car accident when Jae-Sun is 11 years old; Joon-Ho is a Vietnam war veteran who was accused of committing a war crime at one point, causing a schism in his relationship to Jae-Sun.
3. Madison Green – a Caucasian woman raised in a strict Baptist household by her minister-dad, she grows up experiencing the WASPy world of east Texas while also learning about Korean martial arts and culture from her intimate relationship with Jae-Sun and a granddaughter-like relationship to Joon-Ho.
4. Derek Jones – an African-American cowboy and rodeo champion who becomes Jae-Sun’s best friend as children going to school together.
5. Dor – an elemental being of mud and wood, granted life through blood magic, who befriends young Jae-Sun and guides him through adolescence until Jae-Sun’s betrayal of his family, at which point Dor becomes Jae-Sun’s enemy.

B. The Connected Characters Circle: Carlos Vasquez, Vanessa Holguin, Trina Tyler, Mrs. Carson, The Fableist, Alberta Reeves, Pastor Alvin Green, Beth Green, Jake Green, Bradley Donovan, Conway Burbank, Sunny Rojas, Armando Carrillo the Bouncer, Eddie Wilson, Luis Holguin the barback and nephew of Vanessa, Dowager Empress, Ivan Miller, Pamela Baek, Hae-Soo Baek, Sara Koenig

C. The Environment Characters Circle: Jimmy the Mailman, fifth grade students at Vane Elementary, Mrs. McPherson the Christian Outrage Woman, bar patrons, fifth grade bullies, ensorcelled children, Baptist church attendees

[Frank Kim]

BINGE WORTHY SHOW: JESSICA JONES

What I learned doing this assignment is…

That a binge worthy pilot requires several key components to work synergistically: 1.) Have an engaging lead character – even if the lead is an anti-hero like Jessica Jones is initially. 2.) By creating empathy and distress for that lead character repeatedly, we are willing to follow them to the climax. 3.) The climax must be powerful and set the stage for the rest of the conflict throughout the season. In this way, the climax of the pilot isn’t meant to lead to a resolution. It’s more like the Inciting Incident of a feature film, where events are set in motion from which there is no turning back for the main character(s). By ending on this sort of emotionally jaw-dropping cliffhanger, the audience is compelled to start binging more episodes to find out how in the world our heroes will get out of this mess.

Assignment 1: Make a light outline of the show

INTRO: Jessica Jones, voiceover narration, setting the context as a private investigator in New York City who excels at finding the worst in people. When her clients get upset with her, she handles them with uncanny strength.

ACT 1: Jones’ contact at a high-end law firm gives her a job to serve a court summons on a sleazy gentleman’s club owner.

We learn that there was a previous case involving a man, Luke Cage, that she can’t seem to let go of. During this scene, she experiences a strange vision of a man whispering threateningly in her ear.

Two parents of a college student named Hope hire Jones to find out what happened to their missing daughter.

Jones goes to the apartment of Hope’s college best friend. (This scene and the previous one have funny and colorful supporting characters.)

Jones serves the summons on Gregory Spheris, the sleazy gentleman’s club owner using her super-strength.

ACT 2: Back at her apartment, she wakes from a frightening dream of the same mysterious man who whispered in her ear earlier, only this time he licks her face. She recites a litany of streets like she did in the earlier scene, to calm herself. She receives a call from her lawyer friend; check is on the way.

Jones goes back to the neighborhood bar where she saw Luke Cage before. They talk, he invites her in to the bar, she accepts. They flirt, then have sex.

Afterwards, she goes into his bathroom and discovers a picture of an African-American woman that causes her to break down into tears as if she knows her. She quickly leaves while apologizing to Cage.

ACT 3: Jones is awakened by a phone call from Hope’s mom. Jones explains that Hope has been using a credit card to buy something “special” for her secret boyfriend.

Jones goes to a restaurant where she discovers that Hope and her boyfriend were there and the boyfriend somehow convinced the waiter, the sommelier, the chef, and others to act out of character. Jones has a flashback to when the restaurant was a different restaurant and something similar happened to her.

Jones runs to the hotel where Hope’s parents are staying and demands to know who referred them to her. They explain it was a man with an English accent. She tells them to fly back home immediately and goes home. Tries to buy a plane ticket to Singapore and use Hope’s credit card but the card has been cancelled. She tries to get a loan from her lawyer contact but Hogarth refuses. Hogarth is revealed to be cheating on her lesbian lover with her secretary from the office.

Jones goes to the apartment of Trish, a talk show host. They have a troubled history. Jones thinks the mystery man is back and Trish argues that he died a year ago. Wants Jones to go back to counseling for her PTSD. Jones rejects the idea and insists that he’s back, and is responsible for Hope’s disappearance. Trish urges Jones to stop him before he does something terrible to Hope. Jones denies that she is a hero. Trish acquiesces and says she’ll give Jones the money to leave the country.

Jones is in a cab ready to go to the airport when she has 2^nd thoughts and goes to a penthouse apartment in uptown instead. She sets off the fire alarm and breaks into one of the apartments. Inside she discovers Hope and asks if Killgrave is still here. Hope says he’s gone but she violently resists when Jones tries to take her away from there.

ACT 4: Jones and Hope are in Jones’ office. Jones tells Hope that none of it was her fault. Hope’s parents arrive and they leave with their daughter. Hope thanks Jones by telling her that she saved her life.

Then, just as she gets to the elevator, Hope pulls out a gun from her purse and shoots her parents multiple times. By the time Jones gets to her, it’s too late. Hope has murdered her parents. Jones’s first instinct is to flee but she instead chooses to go back and “do something about it.”

Assignment 2: List the 5 star points for the show

1. What is the big picture hook of this show? One is the theme that, when a person is confronted with unwelcome news, they can ignore it or do something about it. Another hook is that it’s about a superhero suffering from PTSD who opens her own detective agency. Upon further reflection, it seems to me that the foundational hook for this series is about Courage. Can an emotionally-damaged, self-destructive person find the courage to do the right thing in the end?

2. What makes these main characters intriguing and interesting? Jessica Jones has super-strength but her mind is wounded from an extended encounter with the mind-controlling villain Killgrave. Jones suffers from PTSD and has trouble connecting with others. Despite this, she is amazingly compassionate, even in the midst of terrible tragedies that make her want to flee. Killgrave is one of the most disturbing villains I’ve seen in awhile. He seems to have a huge appetite for causing chaos, pain, and death. His mind-control powers and his intellect make him more than a match against any superhero. Hope is a tragic victim of circumstance. She has been manipulated by Killgrave into killing her beloved parents and must now somehow convince the authorities that she wasn’t responsible for a double homicide.

3. What situation causes us to feel empathy and distress for this character? Initially, it’s the fact that Jones is suffering from a traumatic past experience. By the end of the pilot, we feel distress because she must now help Hope prove to the world that Hope is not responsible for murdering her parents. There are key moments that make us empathize with Jones. In the first act, she sees a bus driving by with an advertisement for Trish’s talk show. We have no idea what the exact nature of their relationship is, but from the way Jones stares at it before turning away with a complicated expression on her face, we get that this is someone she cares about but is also ambivalent about.

4. What questions are created by the first episode that can only be answered by watching the entire season? This show masterfully poses the question of: how does an emotionally unstable private eye who drinks too much and is prone to making bad personal decisions prove that a young woman wasn’t in her right mind when she gunned down her parents in a very public manner?

5. How does this pilot invite obsession by creating the need to see every single episode? It does it by presenting the audience with a deeply flawed yet engaging lead character in Jessica Jones. We get to see how she struggles to be a good person in the midst of many challenging circumstances. Then, it ends the pilot by sinking her into a HUGE dilemma: help her client Hope prove that she killed her parents while under the influence of a mind-controlling villain.

-F

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Name: Frank Jun Kim

I agree to the terms of this release form.

GROUP 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.

This completes the Group Release Form for the class.

[Frank Kim]

Hi Everyone,

1.) My name is Frank Jun Kim.

2.) I’ve written five feature-length screenplays and five shorts.

3.) I’m here to learn the 50 Questions technology that Hal developed for ensuring that any TV/streaming scripts I write will keep audiences hooked and asking for more as well as encouraging producers to greenlight my projects.

4.) Something strange: I was born in 1978 on the same day that two completely unrelated yet noteworthy events took place: one of the deadliest blizzards in American history hit the New England area and would go on to kill over 100 people, and a computer programmer named Fred Newman set the world record for the most consecutive basketball free throws made while blindfolded (88 to be exact!) on the West Coast.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment

Pull out the 4-Act structure of your story. Using the list of Infinite Possibilities, brainstorm 5 or more Hope/Fear moments that can occur in each Act. Sequence those Hope/Fear moments to fit the emotional journey you want your audience to have.

High Concept: when a 12-step program sponsor can’t keep his sponsees sober through traditional means, he resorts to violently threatening the drug peddlers and bad influences that threaten his sponsee’s sobriety.

Conflicts: the sponsor vs drug dealers, the sponsor vs the addicts he’s supposed to support, the addict vs the drug dealer who tempts him from the path of sobriety, the masked vigilante vs the police officer trying to catch him.

Reason for Containment: the 12-step meeting takes place in a meeting hall. That’s where The Sponsor gets the information he needs to track down the bad influencers. That’s also where he is ambushed later by the cunning Cesar. The other location is the alleyways where The Sponsor beats up his targets.

Characters: Jordan Maan: the 12-step sponsor who has brought his addiction to narcotics under control, but not his addiction to violence. Roy Green: the too-sensitive young man who looks to Maan for guidance, but is also tempted back into a life of getting high. Cesar Machado: the drug dealer who takes sadistic pleasure in seeing people broken down before his will.

Transformational Journey: through embracing his savage side, Jordan becomes more honest about who he is. After facing death and betrayal, he drops his lofty pretenses about being a “servant of humanity” and finds a new and more authentic purpose in life: to fight injustice because he enjoys the physical danger and because he needs an outlet for his violent tendencies.

THE INFINITE POSSIBILITIES OF HOPE/FEAR:

ACT 1:

THREAT: a masked man is going around town beating up innocent bystanders.

HOPE: Austin police officer Susan Espinoza is on the case and will surely keep the city safe by catching him.

UNPREDICTABILITY: the Officer Espinoza seems strangely cold to the beaten-up bystander.

SECRET IDENTITY: the violent masked vigilante is a 12-step sponsor named Jordan Maan, and none of his sponsees are aware of what he’s doing at night!

TURNING POING 1: Roy, the sponsee that Jordan is most concerned about because he reminds Jordan of his deceased little brother, hasn’t shown up to an NA meeting in a couple of weeks. Jordan learns that Roy hasn’t been home in many days and his guardian is worried he’s using again.

ACT 2:

HOPE: the Sponsor goes to Roy’s apartment hoping to find a clue.

WORRY: there are police at Roy’s apartment. He learns from a detective that Roy is officially a missing person and there appears to be foul play involved.

HOPE: after an NA meeting concludes, Roy appears in the meeting hall!

MIDPOINT TURNING POINT: Roy wasn’t kidnapped at all. He went into hiding because a drug dealer named Cesar Machado has been threatening him.

ACT 3:

RETHINK EVERYTHING: the Sponsor realizes he’ll have to stop Cesar once and for all.

NEW PLAN: the Sponsor will need to obtain firearms to stop someone as well-protected as Cesar.

OPPOSING NEEDS/DESIRES: the Sponsor doesn’t have the money to buy an unregistered firearm, so he reluctantly decides to take money from the NA group’s collections pot.

HOPE: he goes to the NA meeting hall to get the money.

TURNING POINT (TRAPPED): Cesar and his goons are waiting for Jordan and they knock him unconscious and tie him up to a chair.

ACT 4:

OUT OF CONTROL SITUATION: Cesar is ready to torture and kill the Sponsor. The Sponsor learns that Roy sold him out and was working for Cesar all along as bait for his trap. Cesar has been looking for the masked vigilante for awhile now. He takes it personally that the Sponsor is dwindling his drug market.

HOPE: another masked vigilante shows up and shoots an arrow that cuts through some of the rope holding Jordan bound.

ATTACK: a fight breaks out as Cesar and his men hunt the archer through the meeting hall. The numbers are on Cesar’s side.

TRANSFORMATION: while the goons are distracted, Jordan channels all of his rage and aggression and busts out of the ropes. He goes on a rampage, killing the goons and beats Cesar to a bloody pulp.

HOPE: the masked archer is revealed to be Officer Espinoza. She’s been looking for him. She offers Jordan membership into a secret organization of Black Lives Matter activists who want to reform society and do so by any means necessary. He accepts.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

This is a really good and simple way to build in more conflict into the story. Going through this exercise helped me to see how I can create the “emotional rollercoaster” that Hal talks about in the lesson. It’s pretty simple how one can build in the swings of fortune that create constant audience engagement in the story.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment

Create a first draft of your 4-Act Structure

CONCEPT: A 12-step sponsor resorts to using violence to scrub the drug peddlers and other bad influences out of the lives of his sponsees. But doing so brings him face-to-face with his own addictions – not just to drugs, but to savagery.

CONFLICT: The Sponsor must battle against a sadistic drug dealer who is an expert on exploiting people’s addictions.

ACT 1:

· Opening: a man is beaten up badly by a masked individual. It’s revealed the masked man is a 12-step sponsor named Jordan and his sponsees have no idea of his nocturnal activities.

· Inciting Incident: the sponsor learns one of his sponsees, Roy, is being tempted to use again due to a local drug dealer named Cesar.

· Turning Point: Roy has gone missing and the Sponsor goes looking for him.

ACT 2:

· New Plan: The Sponsor decides to go to Roy’s apartment.

· Plan In Action: His visit to Roy’s apartment yields no clues.

· Midpoint Turning Point: Roy isn’t kidnapped; he’s been getting high and working for Cesar.

ACT 3:

· Rethink Everything: Roy has been working “undercover” for Cesar, trying to figure out who the masked vigilante is.

· New Plan: Roy sells out Jordan to Cesar in exchange for more drugs.

· Turning Point – Huge Failure/Major Shift: the Sponsor is ambushed in his own NA meeting hall by Cesar the drug dealer and his goons.

ACT 4:

· Final Plan: a masked archer shoots the rope binding Jordan and attacks Cesar’s men. While distracted, Jordan gets free of the ropes.

· Climax/Ultimate Expression of the Conflict: the Sponsor uses all of his animalistic fury and energy to fight the drug dealer and his goons, killing them in the process. Maybe Roy gets away? During the fight, the Sponsor is aided by the masked archer.

· Resolution: the masked archer is revealed to be Officer Susan Espinoza. She wants to recruit Jordan into her secret society of BLM activists to help fight injustice.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

It’s nice to have the traditional 2^nd act of a 3-Act Structure broken out into two separate acts like this. It helps to fill in the puzzle pieces of a screenplay quicker and, in this particular case, created a nifty twist where one of my characters is revealed to be a betrayer.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment 1

Brainstorm potential plot layers.

· Major scheme: Officer Espinoza is actually trying to recruit Jordan. Cesar has set a trap to destroy his enemy.

· Mystery revealed: Roy seems to be staying sober and he’s holding down his job, but something is off to Jordan. Maybe Roy seems like he’s withholding something. Or there’s a slight inconsistency in something Roy said and his actions.

· Not one thing, it’s another: It’s not just an AA meeting, it’s an information-gathering session for Jordan.

· Major shift in meaning: Jordan is not helping his sponsees, he’s driving them toward addiction.

· Hidden history: Jordan’s abuse of power in D.C.

· Hidden plan: Cesar has set a trap for Jordan in his very own 12-step meeting hall. Espinoza is shadowing Jordan to evaluate him for possible membership into the BLM organization.

Assignment 2

Brainstorm potential character layers.

· Secret identity: Jordan is a masked vigilante. Espinoza is working for another organization. Roy is hiding the extent of his drug abuse.

· Intrigue layers: Roy sells out his friend to Cesar in exchange for drugs. Espinoza is closing in on Jordan.

· Hidden relationships and conspiracies: Roy is getting drugs from Cesar. There is a conspiracy in the police department.

· Hidden character history: Jordan’s addiction to physical violence.

Assignment 3

Brainstorm potential location layers.

· Hidden operation: a bunker somewhere where the BLM org is headquartered. Cesar’s base is a seemingly innocent looking business or store or domicile.

· Deeper meaning: a Narcotics Anonymous meeting hall that is a vigilante base, and then becomes a drug and alcohol-laden trap for Jordan.

· Trap to draw prey: yup, the NA meeting hall. And Roy himself is a trap for Jordan.

· Unique sub-world: an underground base for BLM activists that are taking a more active role in transforming police from within.

Assignment 4

Tell us about the layers you’ve chosen. Use this format with them:

Surface layer: a group of Narcotics Anonymous members who meet a couple of times a week to support each others’ sobriety.

Beneath that: It’s a base of operations for one of the members to wage a campaign of violence and terror against drug dealers and bad influences in the lives of his sponsees.

How revealed: Through a scene where a masked vigilante brutalizes a low-level drug dealer to the vigilante hiding in a park and taking off his mask, and match cutting to the man leading an NA meeting.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

I learned that my brain is starting to get this because I had already answered a lot of these question in my story before I did the assignments. And where I hadn’t already created solutions, this structure for creating deeper meanings was really useful. I found that I could imagine the world of this story in greater detail and depth.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment 1

For each of your main characters, create a 3-Act Structure of their journey.

JORDAN MAAN: he’s the flawed protagonist who displays the concept by demonstrating what it’s like when your good intentions in helping people collide with an addiction to hurting others.

· Beginning: he stalks a man down an alley and proceeds to beat him senseless.

· Turning Point 1: it is revealed that he is a 12-step program sponsor and is trying to help others stay sober.

· Midpoint: reveal that Jordan used to be in law enforcement and wrongfully detained and assaulted BLM activists during the D.C. marches in the summer of 2020. He is trying to make up for those actions.

· Turning Point 2: Jordan learns that his sponsee Roy fell off the wagon when he got meth from a local drug dealer named Cesar Machado.

· Dilemma: Jordan is supposed to honor the 12-step program’s doctrine of non-violence but he sees that violence can save his sponsees from ruining their lives from sinking back into addiction.

· 3rd Act Climax: Jordan goes to the meeting hall to get ready to attack Cesar but Cesar has already set a trap there and Jordan is captured. He is freed with the help of an unexpected ally and proceeds to kill Cesar and his gang.

· Ending: Jordan is given a new opportunity: work with a shadowy syndicate with connections to BLM and the police force.

CESAR MACHADO: the cunning and deadly antagonist who displays the concept of the story by being an addict who is unflinching about his addiction, while also deriving dark pleasure from causing others to succumb to addiction. Cesar loves to break people’s spirit since his is already so broken.

· Beginning: learns that Mike, one of his associates, was assaulted by a masked vigilante. Puts the word out on the street to start looking for this guy.

· Turning Point 1: one of his low-level dealers is beaten up too.

· Midpoint: leans that Officer Espinoza is also looking for the masked vigilante.

· Turning Point 2: Roy comes to him asking for meth. Roy mentions that he’d been going to NA meetings and has a sponsor named Jordan.

· Dilemma: Cesar is addicted to his own drugs, but needs to be sharp enough to run his business effectively.

· 3rd Act Climax: Cesar ambushes Jordan at his own NA meeting hall. Plans to torture and kill him but things go awry when Jordan is able to get free from the help of a mysterious stranger.

· Ending: Jordan and Cesar fight to the death and Jordan is finally able to kill him.

ROY GREEN: an addict who is being sponsored by Jordan Maan. Roy displays the concept of the story by being someone who is addicted and unable to stay sober, and that is taken advantage of by Cesar and causes Roy to betray someone he cares about.

· Beginning: attends an NA meeting with his sponsor Jordan. He is happy that the negative people in his life have been fortuitously absent and he can take ground on staying sober.

· Turning Point 1: Officer Espinoza interviews him about the assault and his name being mentioned. Roy is baffled and can’t understand why anyone would do that.

· Midpoint: Roy is fired from his job.

· Turning Point 2: Roy goes to Cesar to buy drugs. Cesar wants to know where he’s been all this time. Asks him why someone beat up Mike and told him to stay away from Roy Green?

· Dilemma: Does Roy tell Cesar about his sponsor or keep quiet and not get any drugs?

· 3rd Act Climax: Roy tells Cesar and sets into motion events that will end with his sponsor and friend being killed.

· Ending: Roy sinks into the throes of addiction, riddled with guilt over what he’s done.

SUSAN ESPINOZA: an Austin Police Department officer, & woman of color. She displays the concept by representing someone who\s not dealing with addiction but is affected by those who are, & vice versa.

· Beginning: has learned of a couple of recent assaults by a masked man who warns the victim to stay away from specific people. These people seem to have no idea why their names are mentioned and do not appear to be directly linked to these assaults.

· Turning Point 1: she realizes that the assaults are in a certain part of the city and patrols that area every night. One night she gets lucky and witnesses the masked vigilante assaulting someone. She tries to catch him but he gets away.

· Midpoint: after interviewing Roy Green, she realizes that the masked vigilante must be his sponsor.

· Turning Point 2: she learns that Jordan Maan was an former Army soldier who became a law enforcement officer. He partook as one of the many unmarked police officers who arrested BLM protestors in D.C. in the summer of 2019.

· Dilemma: does she bring this former cop into her secret organization? Can she trust that he’s the type of reformed officer that she needs on her team?

· 3rd Act Climax: while surveilling Jordan, she realizes that he’s been captured by homicidal gangsters.

· Ending: she helps him defeat the gangsters and offers him a membership into her secret order.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

This is a really good way to plot out the story. By figuring out the character arcs of each of the main characters, it’s easier to understand how the overall story will flow. This seems to be a really effective way to make a character-based story, even if the story is an action movie or thriller, which are traditionally more plot-centered stories.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment 1: Create character profiles

Create a character profile for each of the main characters.

Jordan Maan: a former Federal Bureau of Prison officer and ex-Army guy who is addicted to inflicting violence on others, but tries to control it by only brutalizing people who threaten the sobriety of his sponsees.

• · Secret: he was part of the extralegal law enforcement operation to arrest, torture, and interrogate Black Lives Matter activists in D.C. during the summer of 2019. This experience messed him up because he enjoyed the violence, but realized he was hurting people that didn’t deserve it. His other secret is described in his Hidden Agenda.
• · Wound: he’s addicted to inflicting physical violence on others. It started at a young age from when he was beaten by his father, progressed through his youth and into his service as an infantryman in the Army while serving in a warzone, and extended throughout his career in law enforcement.
• · Motivation: wants to save his people from addiction by any means necessary. Needs to prove to himself that he’s a good person making a positive difference in the world.
• · Hidden Agenda: he assaults drug peddlers and bad influencers at night while wearing a mask.
• · Dilemma: he preaches a message of forgiveness and acceptance in NA meetings but doesn’t believe that works in all situations and so he resorts to violence at night.
• · Conspiracy: he meets a fellow co-conspirator at the end of the movie when he is saved from a dire situation.

Cesar Machado: a drug dealer and masochist who enjoys causing pain and suffering on others.

• · Secret: he used to wet his bed up until he was a teenager.
• · Wound: he was left to take care of himself as a child by his drug-addicted parents. His younger brother died as a result of their neglect but Cesar blames himself. He despises people almost as much as he despises himself.
• · Motivation: wants to be a kingpin. Needs relief from the hell of pain and suffering that is his daily existence.
• · Hidden Agenda: to discover who this mysterious vigilante is and make an example of him.
• · Dilemma: he’s addicted to his own drugs but still has to be functional enough to sell them and keep his business growing. Failure to do so is literally a death sentence in his line of work.
• · Conspiracy: he is using Roy to ambush Jordan in order to torture and kill him.

Roy Green: a young man who’s addicted to meth and trying to attain sobriety but keeps falling in with bad influences.

• · Secret: he’s fallen off the wagon yet again and ashamed to admit it to Jordan.
• · Wound: his mother never loved nor wanted him. He’s never felt like he truly mattered to anyone in the world.
• · Motivation: to find relief from the emptiness of his life by getting high or by feeling like he’s a good person during his periods of trying to get sober.
• · Hidden Agenda: he wants to please Jordan, whom he greatly admires, but he also needs to get high.
• · Dilemma: he knows he shouldn’t tell Cesar about what he knows about Jordan’s secret life, but he also needs to score meth from Cesar.
• · Conspiracy: he agrees to tell Cesar everything he knows about Jordan in order to get the drugs.

Assignment 2: What conflicts emerge from these characters?

Roy has a deep conflict with himself when he is asked to betray Jordan. When he does, his shame is overwhelming and jeopardizes any chance he has of becoming sober, whilst also jeopardizing Jordan. Jordan and Cesar are inherently enemies. They hate each other – the more so because they recognize themselves in each other, even if Jordan would never admit it out loud. Jordan and Roy’s relationship of trust is broken after Roy rats him out, and if both of them survive their ordeal in the climax of the movie, they will have to deal with the profound breaking of trust afterwards, or they’ll never talk to each other again.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

Is that my characters had some surprising traits. Cesar being a bed-wetter till he was a teenager came out of nowhere but it makes sense to me. He’s a tragic figure, in a way. If he’d had love and support from healthy parents, he could have been a business leader or financial genius. But all of his talent and energy has become corrupted and dark and he is now a master of causing pain and suffering for a profit.

I was also surprising to realize that Jordan’s internal need is to prove to himself that he’s a good person. He’s desperate to do that, which drives him to extremely bad behavior like hurting others… even if his victims might be seen to be “deserving” of that violence.

Roy is a tragic figure too. He’s got no belief in himself, no self-worth. He also tries to be a good person but fails repeatedly because deep down inside he knows that he’s bad. One of the few people that have ever believed in him is Jordan but then he betrays him and that will haunt him for a long time.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment 1

How do each of my main characters fit the hook?

Jordan Man – the protagonist. Korean-American, ex-military and ex-officer in the Federal Bureau of Prison, based in Texas. He is well-versed in using violence to get out of dangerous situations. His time in Afghanistan left him in chronic pain from war-injuries and he became addicted to opioids when he returned to civilian life. Eventually, he got sober but some of his poor life choices left him with a nihilistic worldview. He has never fully come to terms with his addiction to violence and the pleasure he gets from defeating his enemies through brute force.

Cesar Machado – the antagonist. Mexican-American, mid-level drug dealer. Also well-versed in violence. From a young age, he was exposed to the drug trade on the border and learned how to be self-sufficient after his parents abandoned him in the throes of their own addictions. Cesar has had to fight his way through life constantly. But he finds a twisted pleasure in the pain and suffering he’s experienced and inflicts pain and suffering on all of his victims too. He is addicted to methamphetamine, but is still able to run his business effectively – mainly through fear and intimidation and violence.

Roy Green – a Caucasian drug addict. He constantly strives to be a better person but continues to fall off the wagon, tempted by those around him.

Assignment 2

How does each main character enhance or cause that conflict?

Jordan and Cesar get into it because they are two similar personalities with competing agendas. Jordan wants to save Roy from drug abuse, and Cesar wants to encourage Roy’s drug habit. Cesar also sees Roy as a source of income. When that income, even though it’s miniscule compared to all the money Cesar makes from all of his other customers, is threatened, Cesar takes it as a matter of survival and goes to war against Jordan. Roy’s inability to stay sober is a cause of the conflict for Jordan. Jordan has problems letting things go and will push situations to violent extremes.

Assignment 3

What makes these characters the “right ones” for this story?

As mentioned above, each character is dealing with powerful addictions that can’t just be willed away. They are biochemically attached to the addictive behaviors. Their very sincere attempts at recovering from addiction paradoxically lead to a further worsening of the circumstances around their addiction. For example: research has shown that one of the most influential factors in reducing recidivism to addiction is a supportive social network or community. That is one of the ways 12-step programs seek to help their members. But in this case, Roy’s use of AA makes things worse because his sponsor, Jordan, becomes more and more attached to keeping Roy sober. And that exacerbates Cesar who then uses Roy to get to Jordan. All of these characters are also dealing with an addiction to outcomes. Not just the outcome called “getting high”, but also outcomes like “I’m right and you’re wrong”. Or “I will fix this” or “I will wreck this”. They are all people who are highly addicted to being right about their viewpoints.

What I learned doing this assignment is:

This is a good impetus to design characters that are multi-dimensional and interesting and have backstories that enhance the main story. By doing this assignment I got inspired to create a new Word document dedicated to designing the visual look of these characters. I even researched mask options for the main character as he evolves into a masked vigilante. This process is time-consuming but also greatly elevates the quality of my original concept.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Frank Kim.

[Frank Kim]

Assignment 1: Brainstorm Possible Major Hooks

A.) Intriguing Contained Setting: the Hobbit’s Nest, an AA meeting location, a haunted house.

B.) Unique Device: an AA sponsor who uses violence to help his sponsees stay sober, Taoist principles applied in a practical manner to solve cases, two unlikely allies like a Native American warrior and a Buffalo Soldier.

C.) Unique Monster/Villain: a shape-shifting monster, a drug-dealer who takes sadistic pleasure from causing recovering alcoholics and drug-users to relapse, a cult leader who brings people back from the dead by killing their murderers, the old and embittered future self of a young activist, a monster mutated by exposure to orthogonal time who started off as an idealistic do-gooder.

D.) Mystery: who is beating up all the local druggies? Who lives in the strange house in the middle of the woods? Why is a ghost haunting the mansion?

E.) Impossible Goal/Unsolvable Problem: How do you stop your sponsee from relapsing when their friends and family are drug addicts or negative influences? How do you catch a ghost that can go through walls? How do you escape and unescapable trap, like a house in a foggy pocket dimension?

F.) Unique Layers: The Sponsor has combat training and is secretly beating up drug peddlers that are tempting his sponsees. The seemingly benign old lady is your future self when you’ve become embittered and corrupt. Someone who lies all the time would not know the truth when they experience it. Or, they have been lied and mistreated so many times that they assume everyone else is either a liar or they’ve been abused.

Assignment 2: Ask the High Concept Question

Having to do with a movie about vigilante justice, what haven’t we seen before? A movie about an AA sponsor who takes matters into his own hands when his sponsees fall off the wagon due to bad influences in their lives.

Having to do with a movie about trapped characters fighting a monster, what haven’t we seen before? We haven’t seen a twist where, by the 3^rd act, the monster is revealed to be the prey and the trapped characters are actually the real predators. They engineered the situation all along.

Having to do with a Sherlock Holmes detective type, what haven’t we seen before? A detective who is a Taoist. Rather than solving cases through sheer logic alone, they use Taoist principles. Mutual arising. Wei wu wei. The soft and the hard ways. The wavelike nature of reality. The one being representative of what the whole is doing.

Assignment 3: Pick one and do the Exchanging Components process

The current components with alternatives are:
A.) A group of 12-steppers
– A cult leader and his followers
– A writer’s room
– A magician and their assistant
– A teacher and students
B.) The sponsor is beating up bad influencers
– The cult leader is conning his followers
– The head writer can’t pay the other writers and is stealing their ideas
– The assistant is trying to steal the magician’s secrets
– The students are setting up the teacher for a fall
C.) A drug peddler sets up a trap at the AA meeting hall
– The cult leader underestimates his followers’ willingness to martyr him
– The assistant is going to sabotage one of the tricks, killing the magician, and making it look like it was an accident.
– The Sponsor has been working with a gangster all along
– The Sponsor is secretly in love with his sponsee

How did this process work for me?

It required a lot of time and thought on my part but it helped me to see how I could create a tightly-woven contained story that has only three main locations. Initially, I had thought I’d need four locations, but this process helped me to see that the story could become even more impactful if the last location was the same as the second location.

What did I learn from doing this assignment?

I learned that by going through this process, though lengthy, it helps me to consider new ways to approach the original story.

[Frank Kim]

Frank’s Guidelines for “Burn After Reading”

Assignment 1: Select Your Project

I evaluated my ideas based on the guidelines of: A.) it can be done as a contained story, B.) I can write the pitch in one or two sentences, C.) there is something unique about it. By doing so, I noticed that all of them were derivatives of movies I’d seen before. Three of them were overtly rip-offs, so I ended up picking the most original of my five. I can see that by judging any contained story idea I have against these three criteria, I can immediately get a sense of what is original and what is not.

Assignment 2: Adjust a Pre-COVID Movie to COVID Guidelines

TITLE: Burn After Reading

AS THEY DID IT:

A.) People – a main cast of about a dozen characters.

B.) Stunts – a character getting punched in the face, a character getting shot in the face, a foot chase, and a fight that goes from indoors to outdoors.

C.) Extras – more than two dozen ancillary and background actors for CIA headquarters scenes, party scenes, and crowds in exterior shots.

D.) Wardrobe – business suits and ties for CIA operatives, gym clothes, casual modern attire, raincoats.

E.) Hair and Makeup – makeup for Frances McDormand’s character since she likes to look pretty. Some funny but contemporary hairstyles for Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

F.) Kids and Animals – no kids or animals are featured in this movie.

G.) Quarantine – there are large amounts of extras in this movie.

COVID GUIDELINE VERSION OF THIS MOVIE

A.) People – main cast only includes Frances McDormand’s character, Richard Jenkins’ character, and John Malkovich’s character. Bookend scenes of movie show only the CIA boss played by J. K. Simmons, and the CIA analyst that is in his office.

B.) Stunts – keep the fight at the end. Get rid of the other stunts.

C.) Extras – don’t show the party scene or any of the exterior scenes.

D.) Wardrobe – keep as is but have actors bring their own wardrobe.

E.) Hair and Makeup – have actors do their own. Men can go au naturale.

F.) Kids and Animals – none needed.

G.) Quarantine – by restricting the number of actors, the locations, and getting rid of all the extras, quarantine is more manageable.

Assignment 3: What I Learned From Doing This Assignment Is…

I learned that the three evaluation questions can help me determine which idea of mine is good and which are derivative. By going through the COVID guideline adjustments, I could see a sprawling story like Burn After Reading can be distilled down to a core plotline that is the most intriguing.