[Gloria Katch]

Sorry I posted Lesson 1 and 2 together.

What I learned is to look for character traits that have high stakes and have lots of possibilities for things to happen to them.

[Gloria Katch]

What I learned during this assignment is: starting a thriller by looking at the hero, villian and red herring, especially the red herring. It gets one thinking in a different direction.

My LOGLINE: A snitch is blamed for the killing of two cops when she gets high one night and finds two cops dead in their squad cars at the side of the road. She gets her sister, who works for a high-powered attorney, to help solve the crime and get her off.

The Hero is Emerald Scholar, a paralegal who works for a criminal lawyer. She is strong, feisty, knows the law and is continuing to work her way through law school.

The hero has friends in the right places and resources. Her boss has put a lot of people away and has a lot of enemies. She has access to a lot of private information. She is 29- years old and is dating another man, Eric, a few years older. He is smart and works in the attorney general’s office. She wants to marry him, but she wants to wait until her school is finished. Then she wants to have two children starting at about 33. She is a planner. However, Eric is not a planner, and he isn’t quite ready to marry her.

She lives in a state where there is no capital punishment.

Her parents are alive and are from a middle-class neighbourhood about an hour away.

She is an idealist, a hard worker and has a diplomatic way about her. She did a lot of pro bono cases and feels bad that the justice system has dollar signs attached. She is usually polite, respectful, but can have a bad temper when she gets angry. She is bright, but her looks are deceiving –she looks younger than she is and comes across as sweet and harmless.

Her hobbies include: playing baseball. She’s on a girls’ softball team and was good at sports in high school. She golfs, walks and has a dog she takes everywhere with her. She has good instinct and reads people well. She is astute on computers and research. She is inquisitive and would’ve a good journalist or detective.

Emerald has two siblings, an older brother, and a sister about a year-and a half younger. The family are quite close and supportive of each other. They still get together about once a month for Sunday dinners.

She was born in the month that Emerald is the birthstone and so that became her name. Her mother is Asian and her father is British. She takes after her father’s side.

Her wound is a result of trauma and fear. She was about six years old and she and her best friend were playing hide and seek and her friend hid in a tree house they were not supposed to be in. Her friend fell going down the ladder and hit her head. Emerald was afraid to say anything so she ran inside, and said she needed to use the bathroom. Then she told her friend’s parents she was going home and they didn’t find her until about a half hour later. When they asked her where their daughter was, she just said outside playing. Her friend died and she never forgave herself for not saying anything. Now protecting whistle blowers is her thing.

The Red Herring is Emerald’s sister, Darla. She was in the army working as a paramedic, but she became injured even during a peace keeping effort. She ended up with a limp and got hooked on pain killers. She came home and has been in a rehab clinic, but still tends to fall off the wagon now and again. She has a lot of trauma from the war and is trying to straighten herself out, but is struggling with her mental health. She is streetwise and hardened. She’s blunt and can be forward and in your face when she’s drinking.

She got caught up in a drug bust at a dealer’s house and the police were going to throw her in jail. Her sister’s law firm got her off and she is trying to stay straight. She has a crush on one of the police officer’s that arrested her, but he doesn’t want anything to do with her. She doesn’t blame him.

Darla is more of a free spirit, but she has a caring nature and a sense of responsibility to others. However, lately she seems to care less about her own well-being. She has had a feeling that she lacks purpose in her life and feels like a failure since she left the army — wound. It doesn’t take much for her to feel down about things. She is at a crossroads in her life about not knowing what to do, moving forward. She says she won’t take charity so she won’t live with her parents and family and she is staying at the YWCA, a flophouse. The real truth is that she is really afraid that her parents or family will find her passed out doing drugs. However, living at the YWCA reminds her of being in the war and staying in rooming houses and barracks. She has a few possessions as she pawned many of her things for drugs. She goes to NA meetings a few times a week and volunteers at a women’s shelter. She is on methadone and hopes to stay stable enough to get a full-time job soon.

Darla’s goal is to get a full-time job that she likes and an apartment. The problem is she craves excitement, which not many jobs offer. She is weighing her options.

The VILLIAN – Wilhelm Bitter he is German, but he is really a Russian who changed his name. He came to America when the Berlin wall fell in 1990. He knows Germany and Eastern Europe well. He appears cultured and cosmopolitan as he has travelled around the world extorting money, runny syndicates for the Russian mob. He has wealth and is middle aged and is trusted in his organization. He is ambitious and he wants a piece of the arms smuggling in the states to support the Russian war. He is assisting with sex trafficking as he has helped bring many Russian and Ukrainian women and girls that can work in the sex trade throughout Europe.

He likes guns and has a collection of antique guns. He likes trains and for an indoor sport, he loves to bowl 10-pin, although he is the last person you would think would be in a bowling alley. But his father would take him bowling as a kid and he loves the smell and sound of a bowling alley, especially those that still make fountain sodas. So he bought two bowling alleys and he also says he’s in the real estate business if anyone is asking. He doesn’t have a wife, but has plenty of women and they help with his recruiting and grooming of women. He likes to take them out to dinner and dancing. The limo driver will take them, but often he likes to drive himself around when he goes out and has two sports cars.

Wilhelm runs his businesses, but usually keeps a low profile than most criminals. He doesn’t flash around a lot of money. He has people watching his girls and taking them to parties.

Occassionally, when he is invited he’ll attend, but most of his friends are European. He does like to go skit shooting and hob nobs with a few people at the gun club and golf course.

He often doesn’t get his hands dirty, but he will shoot anyone who stands in his way without blinking an eye. Oddly enough, he has kind eyes, that only turn firey if his mood changes. He doesn’t do drugs, but will deal in them if he’s asked.

He likes western music, western movies, discos and drinking. His only siblings in America are his brother, whom he trusts. The rest of his relatives are in Germany and Russia where they are protected and can’t be used as leverage or revenge by any enemies here against him. If his relatives visit, he has parties for them at the bowling alley. He enjoys being around well behaved children.

[Gloria Katch]

I agree to the terms of the release form.

Gloria J. Katch.

[Gloria Katch]

Lesson 12: Marketing

Attention: Producers Looking for Thriller Scripts/Writers for Hire

Re: Hell at the Healing Centre

Hello: John Dough

I’ve seen your producing credit on several films I’ve admired and watched over the last year or so. I’ve also noticed that several of them are similar to the screenplays I’ve written in this genre and in tone. I have written several thrillers and hybrids of thrillers that you may be interested in, and I can send you samples of them, so you can see the quality of my work. Several of them would target the same audience, as well.

Even if you’re not interested in seeing any of my work at this time, I enjoy the challenge of developing other people’s concepts, vision and projects. I’d be happy to work as a writer for hire and assist you in creating that project you always wanted to do.

I’m a former journalist, so I’m accustomed to receiving assignments and working according to deadline. Also, my past experience working in customer service means I aim to please and I’m not satisfied with the project until you are. So, if you have an idea in mind, please don’t hesitate to contact me at: gjkatch@yahoo.ca, or by calling (905) 735-8701.

Sincerely,

Gloria J. Katch.

2. Marketing Plan for Myself: Network on Linkedin and add that I’m willing to work as a writer for hire. I will try and contact some producers and directors.

I’m going to start sending out query letters again to certain companies again. I didn’t have much luck the first time around, but that was many years ago.

I’m going to practise pitching and meeting with producers on Stage 32. Perhaps post my info. more on screenwriting platforms about doing writing assignments.

Start a professional website. Brand myself. That will take some figuring out.

I would also volunteer for some film shoots in my area when the weather gets better.

I also want to attend some film markets and festivals this year. I’ve also volunteered to work at a local film festival, but that doesn’t happen until next fall, as it’s an annual event. I am also trying to take some production courses through there, so I hope to meet a few people in the industry before then.

[Gloria Katch]

1. Logline from the treatment: In a futuristic world where vampires are considered low-lifes, an awkward vamp becomes a superhero to protect the rights of all species and marry a human girl, whose parents hate him.

2. How would I cut the budget in half? – My budget might be about $20 million or less. I’m guesstimating, because there are about three scenes where Izaak is flying around, so this might be able to be green screened to save money. There are three major fight scenes. I would eliminate the scene of the mine blowing up. It would mean less insurance, extras and one less location that might be difficult to get permission to film at. I could possibly cut out two other scenes, which would cut out about 10 minutes from the movie and another location as well as a dozen or so extras. The movie is about 107 pages now, so these changes would save a considerable amount of money. Casting could also make a difference, Izaak and Putrid could be a recognizable leads, but the other characters could be secondary characters, although casting isn’t something we’ve really discussed.

3. Write it for a different audience: If I were going to make this into a female driven movie I would keep Izaak’s mother alive. She would also become a vigilante so it’s more of a comedy. In fact, it could be three girls making up the Vamp Squad that would include: Izaak’s mother, sister, girlfriend and her cousin, who are currently in the movie.

I could make it more of a sci-fi/action movie so it would attract younger boys say 15 to 25.

An animation of this would even attract kids.

You could make this more of a love story between Izaak and Anna, so it would attract teens and younger adult women. The Rom-Com could include a love/hate triangle, between Izak, his mother and his girlfriend who constantly vying for Izaak’s attention.

Double the Conflict — I could make more conflict between Izaak and Anna’s father. I could also make more conflict by having Constance, Anna’s cousin seek revenge on Izaak for ruining her wedding. I could easily double the conflict when I change the genres, because if it were a sci-fi or a horror, then the vampires could try and overthrow the human populations. In a sci-fi, aliens could overthrow the vamps and humans, so there are lots of high stakes and more options.

Change the Sex and Age of the Lead Character – Izaak is currently a male about 24-5 years old. In a futuristic world like this and what seems to be popular currently is that I would make Izaak trans gender or androgynous, so you can’t tell if he’s boy or girl. Sometimes, he may act both and have a fluid sexuality. If I were going to change his age, I could make him a senior vamp, like a Gramp Vamp in a comedy. Perhaps, being a super hero is on his bucket list and he’s a bit senile and likes to fly into things.

He could also be in his late 40’s and be a medical scientist or involved as a researcher into vampiricism.

This story is set in 2050, so Izaak could be a robot spy, who’s learned how to steal secrets from aliens visiting earth at this crucial point in history.

Change the Genre – I’ve mentioned several genres this could easily be changed to as this is a thriller. It could easily become more of a sci-fi, comedy, horror, Rom-Com, action as some of these elements are built in already.

What I learned is … that prior to taking notes from a producer; it is good to consider other aspects of this criteria just as a good exercise for coming up with better ideas to improve the script.

[Gloria Katch]

Lesson 9: Decreasing the Budget In A Script

What I learned doing this assignment is? I like the concept about budget cuts being about choices and substituting the dramatic elements. For me, it is difficult because many of my Thriller movies are Action/Thrillers and have many costly sequences. Since I am a novice writer, I understand the need to write movies that are less of a financial risk to produce.

1. Running through the list – The five things I can change to reduce budget are: Number of Locations: I can see a few locations that I may be able to be combined and used twice with just a change in set decorations, i.e. the banquet hall. There are two wedding scenes that could be held in the same hall. The Television show could also be shot there. One of the highest costs may be shooting at a hospital, but we only need two locations in that hospital.

Eliminate two scenes – I am realizing there is two scenes/locations I can cut, and it is an extra location that is not needed when I look at the heart of the story. The one scene was put in because it’s original, and shows how this future world has changed, but that would be up to the producer. This would shave about four minutes off a movie and less actors. In the second scene, which is a coffee shop, we could just have the actor duck into an alleyway and just use the outside not inside.

Rights to music. I would just have original music digitally scored, since it is the future and we don’t need to use any famous songs from the current era.

Baby – I do have a baby in the movie and dog playing in the park. They would have to be a fake robot baby or drones as the shots are not close ups.

Reduce pages – If I make all of the changes that I need to with cutting two scenes, I will save about 10 minutes of screen time, but more importantly, I would save a great deal of money.

2. The major scene that is a high budget variable is a scene taken at a mine that blows up and some miners are trapped. The dramatic goal here was to show the hero saving the day, and one of his relatives who works at the mine. The villain is also invested money in this mine, so it puts a hole in his plans and is a part of his downfall.

3. However, I can just have the explosion heard in the background and reactions to it, with some of the details and results given later through a news report or other actors. I could eliminate that location altogether and that may save a significant amount of money and the cost of insuring the movie as there may be some safety issues using dynamite.

[Gloria Katch]

What I learned during this assignment: I’ve learned to improvise. As I stated in Lesson 7, I am not able to connect with anyone else in this class. My email address is: gjkatch@yahoo.ca if anyone wants to interview me on my treatment and I will contact them by phone at a convenient time.

So, what I did here was re-write my treatment to better reflect the sample producer’s notes that Hal gave us on Best Served Cold keeping in mind conventions of the genre, building tension and thrills, combining storylines, etc.

Treatment of Super Vamp

It’s 2050 and climate change has made the world hotter than hell. Some species have died, while others have developed, adapted and managed to thrive. Science and technology had to reinvent itself and zombies and vampirism was a by-product of promoting longevity. The fountain of youth turned out to be a newfound blood plasma that keeps vampires and zombies from hunting humans and being able to co-habit with them on earth, except that they are considered low-lifes and second-class minorities.

This is particularly painful and demoralizing for Izak, who is an example of the New World, “Gen V’s”. He and his mother were attacked and bitten when he was 15, and he’s been a closet vampire wearing the new protective clothing and sunscreen ever since. Few people knew his vampire status. Izak wanted to keep it that way especially after he met Anastasia, a human girl he has fallen in love with. It isn’t until Anna’s cousins’ wedding that a hate squad of right-wing, anti-vampers disrupt the banquet and embarrassingly drag Izak outside to beat him up and leave him to die in the setting sun.

The head of the anti-vampers is a charismatic, but corrupt, power-hungry, populist politician, Ken Putrid who is running for governor in an upcoming election. While this “hate crime” incident is reported, few vamp rights’ laws are enforced. Also, vamps are not allowed to use their powers over and above human levels, otherwise they are considered dangerous to the state and New Order.

Anastasia is an activist, working for Schwarma, a guru democratic candidate running for governor. They’re hoping to legislate change for a better world for all species. It’s a goal, Izaak sees as a part of his mission in life, as well. So, Anna is really pissed that Izaak kept his identity a secret from her. Zach, Izaak’s best friend is a cop, and despite Anna and Schwarma’s political goals, he tells Izaak that vamp attacks and the street scene is becoming increasingly dangerous. With human resources being short, he suggests Izaak go on a ride-along with the police to assist. He also suggests that Izaak take a stand and become some sort of leader as vamps need “a hero” at this time. As a male nurse working toward being a doctor, Izaak says: “arresting, fighting or having to shoot at people is not my thang Zack.”

Despite Zack’s warning, the ride-along is an eye opener for Izaak as he realizes many criminals are often impersonating vampires as they rob banks and commit other violent acts. It isn’t until Annastasia is attacked after a political meeting and ends up in the hospital that Izaak realizes Zak is right. Shortly after, his sister Myra and Schwarma are also ferociously attacked by a female vamp as they are driving down the highway. Luckily, Super Vamp intervenes, but the struggle is fierce as the female vamp is a no holds barred fighter.

Shortly after, Izaak discovers his supportive friend for many years and dentist, Nolan is a member of the Masons, a somewhat secret society that has existed for centuries. But the outside of their building states: “The Shriners Club of District 3” as they remain anonymous. Some of the Mason’s members and the Shriner’s Club’s computers have been recently hacked, so they are not happy with the idea of a hatemonger like Putrid taking power. So, the Masons construct a mask and suit of armor to protect Izaak, and Super Vamp is born.

Izaak soon begins intercepting criminal acts, and leaving the perps tied up, playfully hanging them from the ceiling with their pants down. Super Vamp’s identity remains a secret and many confuse him with the legendary, Batman and refer to him as Bruce Wayne and other similar variations: “Bruce Vamp, Bat Ass, Super Turd and Vamp Wad” depending on what side of the law they’re on, and how stoned they are at the time.

Busy with the election campaign and having trust issues in their relationship, Anna and Izaak have been on a break. So, unbeknownst to Izaak, Myra decides to play matchmaker, and signs the pair up to Relationship Rumble, a show for dating couples, in hopes they will reunite. As luck has it, Izaak and Anna win the show, which garners them prize money, prestige, and a devious enemy.

Their competitors on the show, Voltara and Derek are sore losers. Voltara is a voluptuous, sex-crazed vamp. She follows Izaak to the bar downstairs from the gameshow and drugs him. She escorts him to her hotel room and takes pictures of them in provocative and compromising positions, and later charges him with sexual assault to get him disqualified from the show. That means her and Derek would have another shot at winning on Relationship Rumble.

Anna finds out by watching the news, and while she is shocked and skeptical of the charges, she is also somewhat jealous and madder than a hatter. How is this disastrous publicity going to affect her career, her boss’s reputation and election campaign? She is certain that they were set up by Putrid.

Nonetheless, Izaak is going to court. Nolan arranges for Mason’s legal counsel, Puny Mason, Perry Mason’s great grandson, to defend Izaak. He’s a firecracker attorney and gets Izaak acquitted in a bizarre courtroom battle. Putrid throws Voltara under the buss, and she’s charged with attempted blackmail as they can’t quite connect her to Putrid; although, the judge sees him for the criminal instigator he is. Consequently, the negative publicity also contributes to Putrid losing the election to Schwarma in a landslide vote.

But Putrid has tentacles in a lot of enterprises including Monarch Mines, where Izak’s uncle, Oscar works. Putrid recently became part-owner of the mine and is hoping to find energy crystals to help revolutionize the energy crisis and become filthy rich. While Putrid is still licking his wounds over losing the election, the mine accidentally blows up trapping about 60 miners. With some clever ingenuity, a hydraulic digger and some dynamite, Super Vamp turns himself into a bat and helps rescue his uncle and the remaining miners. His efforts are well publicized and appreciated.

One of Schwarma’s election promises is to create equal rights for vampires, including allowing them to legally inter-marry. After the court case, Anna realizes Izaak has been caught up in this political battle to no fault of his own, and they get back together. The couple become the first vamp and human to wed in a fabulous affair. Of course, Putrid is hellbent on ruining it. He kidnaps Anna and Schwarma after the banquet by drugging and dragging them to his house. He threatens to hurt their family members, unless Schwarma resigns and she works for him as a campaign strategist, because he believes she’s the real genius behind Schwarma’s success.

Windows shatter, bullets fly and the house is destroyed as he and his thugs unload on Super Vamp with his new stealth vamp weapons. Super Vamp’s armour saves him, but he gains a few battle scars in this scary fight to the finish that demolishes Putrid’s house.

As Anna and Super Vamp fly into the sunset together in each other’s arms, she recognizes that sweaty antiseptic hospital smell and realizes Super Vamp is Izaak. She is unbelievably and amorously impressed.

It’s a brand new world for them. There is a sense of calm. Putrid’s arrest means the streets have become a little safer. Schwarma further legislates the police to have a Vamp Squad. It will be headed up by Zack, who is promoted to police sergeant. Despite the fact that he’s “human,” Voltara is turned on with Zack’s human sexual prowess and now decides to channel her mischievous anger into policing. Super Vamp will act as a consultant to the Vamp Division, and as civic awards are handed out everyone is in a celebratory mood.

Surprisingly, Izaak gets a call from Nolan during the award ceremony to tell him that the mine blew up because of batshit. The nitrate in batshit combined with crystals and other properties works likes rocket fuel, which could help galvanize the energy industry and help stop climate change. All this time, Putrid and Monarch Mines were extracting the wrong thing and it was right under their noses.

Shocked by this positive revelation, Izaak finally feels like all the spheres of his life and planets are aligning in sync to create a better world.

[Gloria Katch]

I have moved on to Lesson 7, although I didn’t get a chance to interview anyone or vise versa. I’m not sure how to get in contact with others on this website? Everyone’s emails/phone numbers should be in the Discussion area or included with the Confidentiality Agreement ahead of time for the purposes of this exercise.

What I learned during this assignment is a quick way to write the treatment, which is one paragraph basically using the turning points or Mini Movie Method. This helps a lot because some websites asking for your treatment, and I’m sure producers only want it to be brief.

The lingo or language by producers used I thought I understood previously — I did not. I didn’t know a structure or outline would contain sluglines. I’ve never used that before.

The final tips to honor the genre and fulfill anything the producer said is important to note, since my screenplay may need some adjusting. That might be another discussion or question I might have.

The 17 interesting techniques – a takeaway from Maximum Entertainment is always helpful. I took the course, but one that always needs revisiting.

The Structure of Super Vamp according to the Mini Movie Model:

Opening – Broadcaster on a radio talk show who’s discussing vampiric rights gets a call from a lady with an outrageous opinion on why vampires are evil and can’t be trusted. She’s an example of all bizarre disinformation that goes around on social media. This is a voice over, showing the images of what the world looks like in 2050.

Inciting Incident – Isaak is a male nurse and a closet vampire, who gets outed during a wedding banquet by a bunch of goons. In this world, vamps are targeted by hate groups and the law doesn’t protect them.

First Act Turning Pt. – Isaac sees criminals impersonating vampires and committing crimes. His police officer friend tells him things are going to get worse and vamps need a leader.

Mid-Point – Anastasia, Izaac’s human girlfriend, is attacked after work and ends up in the hospital. His sister and Schwarma, a political candidate in the next election and Anna’s boss, are attacked as well. Izaak realizes the only way to protect them are by using his powers and he becomes Super Vamp.

Second Act Turning Point – Isaac and Anna go on a dating show that’s produced by Ken Putrid, who’s a populist politician and entrepreneur. He’s also a right wing, vampire hater who is causing a lot of unrest. They win the dating show.

Crisis – However, Putrid gets Voltara, one of the other contestants on the show, to drug Isaak. She escorts him to her room and takes compromising pictures and charges him with sexual assault. This disqualifies them from the show and generates a lot of bad publicity for Anna and her boss, Schwarma with the election in the offing.

Monarch Mine blows up and Uncle Oscar is trapped inside along with 60 workers. Super Vamp responds to save them.

Climax – Anna is kidnapped by Putrid at her wedding banquet. He threatens to hurt Izaak or anyone in her family if she doesn’t come and work for him, as he believes she is a genius and the reason Schwarma won the election. Super Vamp rescues her and she then realizes Izaac is SuperVamp.

Resolution – New world. Schwarma’s legislation allows for police officials to create a new squadron of vampires, which is headed by Zach. He’s been promoted to sergeant. Super Vamp will act as a consultant. Nolan tells Izaak that the mine blew up because of all the nitrate in bat shit and the combination of energy crystals. However, the synergy creates a kind of rocket fuel that could galvanize the energy industry and stop climate change.

Treatment of Super Vamp

It’s 2050 and climate change has made the world hotter than hell. Some species have died, while others have developed, adapted and managed to thrive. Science and technology had to reinvent itself and zombies and vampirism was a by-product of promoting longevity. The fountain of youth turned out to be a newfound blood plasma that keeps vampires and zombies from hunting humans and being able to co-habit with them on earth, except that they are considered low-lifes and second-class citizens.

This is particularly painful and demoralizing for Izak, who is an example of the New World. He and his mother were attacked and bitten when he was 15, and he’s been a closet vampire wearing the new protective clothing and sunscreen ever since. Few people knew his vampire status. Izak wanted to keep it that way especially after he met Anastasia, a human girl he has fallen in love with. It isn’t until Anna’s cousins’ wedding that a hate squad of right-wing, anti-vampers disrupt the banquet and embarrassingly drag Izak outside to beat him up and leave him to die in the setting sun.

The head of the anti-vampers is a populist politician, Ken Putrid who is running for governor in an upcoming election. While this incident is reported, few vamp rights laws are actually enforced. Vamps are not allowed to use their powers over and above human levels, otherwise they are considered dangerous to the state and New Order.

Anastasia is an activist, working for Schwarma, a guru democratic candidate running for governor. They’re hoping to legislate change for a better world for all species. So, she is really pissed that Izaak kept his vampirism a secret from her. Zach, Izaak’s best friend is a cop, and despite Anna and Schwarma’s political goals, he tells Izaak that vamp attacks and the street scene is becoming increasingly dangerous. With human resources being short, he suggests Izaak go on a ride-along with the police to assist. He also suggests that Izaak take a stand and become some sort of leader as vamps need “a hero” at this time. As a male nurse working toward being a doctor, Izaak says: “beating people up is not my thang.”

Despite Zack’s warning, the ride-along is an eye opener for Izaak as he realizes many humas are often impersonating vampires as they rob banks and commit other acts of crime. It isn’t until

Annastasia is attacked after a political meeting and ends up in the hospital that Izaak realizes Zak is right. Shortly after, his sister Myra and Schwarma are also attacked by a female vamp as they are driving home. Shortly after, Izaak discovers his friend and dentist, Nolan is a member of the Masons, a somewhat secret society that has existed for hundreds of years. Nolan constructs a mask and suit of armor to protect him, and Super Vamp is born. He soon begins intercepting criminal acts, and leaving the perps tied up, hanging from the ceiling with their pants down. His identity remains a secret and everyone confuses him with the legendary, Batman and calls him Bruce Wayne and other similar variations: “Ass Bat, Super Turd, Super Dick and Vamp Wad” depending on their stone or level of inebriation and respect.

Busy with the election campaign and having doubts about the trust in their relationship, Anna and Izaak have been on a break. So, unbeknownst to Izaak, Myra his matchmaking sister, signs the pair up to Relationship Rumble, a show for dating couples, in hopes they will reunite. As luck has it, Izaak and Anna win the show, which garners them prize money, prestige, and an enemy. Their competitors on the show, Voltara and Derek are sore losers. Voltara is a voluptuous, sex-crazed vamp. She follows Izaak to the bar downstairs from the gameshow and drugs him. She escorts him to her hotel room and takes pictures of them in provocative and compromising positions, and later charges him with sexual assault to get him disqualified from the show. She is also set-up by Putrid. Anna finds out by watching the news, and while she is shocked, she is somewhat jealous and madder than a hatter. How is this disastrous publicity going to affect her career, her boss’s reputation and election campaign?

Nolan arranges for Mason’s legal counsel, Puny Mason, Perry Mason’s great grandson, to defend Izaak. He is a firecracker attorney and gets Izaak acquitted in a bizarre courtroom battle. Voltara ends up being charged with attempted blackmail as they can’t quite connect her to Putrid; although the judge sees him for the criminal instigator he is. Consequently, the publicity also contributes to Putrid losing the election to Schwarma in a landslide vote.

But Putrid has tentacles in a lot of enterprises including Monarch Mines, where Izak’s uncle Oscar works. Putrid recently became part-owner of the mine and is hoping to find energy crystals to help revolutionize the energy crisis and become filthy rich. While Putrid is still licking his wounds over losing the election, the mine accidentally blows up trapping about 60 miners, which could have ended horrifically. With some clever ingenuity, a hydraulic digger and some dynamite, Super Vamp turns himself into a bat and helps save Uncle Oscar and the miners.

One of Schwarma’s election promises is to create equal rights for vampires, including allowing them to legally inter-marry. After the court case, Anna realizes Izak’s innocence, and they get back together. Seriously, this time. Anastasia and Izak become the first vamp and human to wed in a fabulous affair. Of course, Putrid is hellbent on ruining it. He kidnaps Anna after the banquet by drugging and dragging her to his house. He threatens to hurt Izak and her family, unless she works for him as a campaign strategist, because he believes she’s the genius behind Schwarma’s success. The abduction is quickly interrupted by Super Vamp. Windows shatter, bullets fly and the house is destroyed as he and his thugs unload on Super Vamp with his new stealth vamp weapons. However, Super Vamp manages to get Anna away from Putrid. As they fly into the sunset together in each other’s arms, it’s then she recognizes that sweaty antiseptic hospital smell and realizes that Super Vamp is Izaak. She is unbelievably and amorously impressed by the discovery.

It’s a brand new world for them. There is a sense of calm. Putrid’s arrest means the streets have become a little safer, which is also magnified when Schwarma legislates the police to have a Vamp Squad. It will be headed up by Zack, who was promoted to police sergeant. Voltara is turned on and taken with Zack’s human sexual prowess and now decides to channel her mischievousness anger into policing. Super Vamp will act as a consultant to the Vamp Division and as civic awards are handed out everyone is in a joyous mood.

Surprisingly, Izaak gets a call from Nolan during the award ceremony to tell him that the mine blew up because of batshit. The nitrate in batshit combined with crystals and other properties works likes rocket fuel, which could help galvanize the energy industry. Shocked by this positive revelation, Izaak finally feels like all the spheres of his life and planets are aligning in sync.

[Gloria Katch]

Hi Brent; I like the concept of the story, because it makes me think of how they are going to cover this up. This could potentially involve a lot of secrets and plots. In reality, the four rookies would not be responsible for this mistake — it would be their supervisor or captain that reviews and signs off on their work. Therefore, this snafu would involve higher ups and higher stakes, which is all good, especially if the criminal released ends up doing bigger crimes/robberies — more tension/fun for all your characters and plot.

Currently, you have four officers driving around in food trucks, it sounds like this comedy would/could have a zanier tone, so that would mean that all of these people including Administration staff would say some stupidly shocking things. The diversity element is clever. In this sample, you would have to cut some of the lines as the discussion on this matter is repetitive and slowing down the pace in the movie. You could eliminate that by combining the scenes and have everyone in Human Resources at the same time, especially since they are all officials involved, while the four wait with their ears to the door outside the office. Short and sweet. As someone else mentioned here, in comedy, a general rule is one comedic line to a page or some sort of humorous action. While I don’t see this in all comedies, it is a goal we have to all strive toward. This one joke per page rule, however, is really important in TV sitcoms. Whether you would want to expand it to T.V. would mean a lot more work in character development, however that would be entirely up to you. Otherwise, good job.

[Gloria Katch]

Gloria ‘s Thriller Writing Sample:

WHAT I LEARNED IN THIS ASSIGNMENT? I didn’t know you could stack a writing sample, which is very important. However, i didn’t feel I could do it on this sample, because the story progresses so quickly after the following scene. I could not figure out how to transition to another section of the story and still have it understood. This is something I will definitely have to practise.

Hell at the Healing Shelter:

The premise of this story focuses on Diane’s life, who is somewhat scarred from her parent’s messy divorce that involved her mother having an affair and later marrying her baseball coach in her late teens. With all the rumours and gossip about favoritism, Diana gives up getting a baseball scholarship to play in the pro-leagues. She feels forced to change careers and her life. A few years later, she meets Dave, her perfect match, in university. They marry and now with two adorable twin boys live a quiet, but busy life. The screenplay begins as she’s now a medical librarian and devoted baseball mom from a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. However, Diana, unlike her mother, strongly believes in the sanctity of marriage that lasts forever.

That’s why she’s hurt and devastated, when Rhonda, another baseball mom, shows her pictures of her husband, Dave kissing a strange, but beautiful woman in a park one day. Although Diana is shocked, it seems to explain a great deal about Dave’s recent behavior. He’s been an absent dad and husband for the last six months, rarely home, drinking and popping pills more and easily agitated over pressures at work. He expanded his pharmaceutical business and became this big entrepreneur overnight. After months of complaining, desperation and depression she decides to move her and her children into an emergency women’s shelter, which maintains an anonymous and somewhat hidden location. There she can receive counselling and support. However, one day the police arrive stating that they’ve been investigating her husband’s mob-based business partners. If she co-operates with them in getting the information they need, they will be lenient on her family when the case goes to court.

INT. SHELTER, DIANA’S ROOM, LATER THAT NIGHT, CONTINUOUS

The DOOR SLAM ECHOS and morphs into a clap of ROLLING THUNDER AND LIGHTNING STREAKS illuminating Diana’s room.

The CLOCK TICKS past one a.m. and her bedroom door opens slowly.

A silhouette of Marianna enters

She puts her hand over Diana’s mouth as she STABS HER with a syringe in the arm.

Diana lets out a MUFFLED SCREAM AND PULLS HER ARM BACK KNOCKING THE SYRINGE SIDEWAYS ON THE BED.

SHE GRABS FOR THE GUN UNDER THE PILLOW, BUT IT’S PUSHED TO THE FLOOR.

Diana tries to get up, but slides down, the walls melt

Marianna PINS her on the bed

Diane mumbles…

Lightning flickers on their faces.

One of the boys turns over…

She gasps, tense, but he goes back to sleep.

She tiptoes out as the lightning CRACKS behind her.

MATCH CUT SOUND TO:

SHELTER’S OFFICE

The desk where Joanne is photocopying shakes from THUNDER. It’s black.

JOANNE

Damn!

She opens the window blind and notices lights on the street.

Joanne SHUFFLES through a side drawer for a flashlight and fuses.

Circles of light beams shine directly ahead of her. She passes the hallway, playroom, toy closets, and into the utility room.

Emerging silently from the toy closet, Marianne sneaks out and back up the stairs.

UPSTAIRS HALLWAY, CONTINUOUS

She DRAGS Diana from the bedroom into the hallway and down the stairs to the back door.

She opens it and pulls Diana out onto the back porch.

Lights automatically turn on making the heavy drops iridescent in the dark

The steel door HUMS from electricity.

She takes out her cell phone and dials #3.

MARIANNA (V.O.)

The power’s back on. You’re going to have

to cut it from the street to get the back gate open undetected. Stay away from the cameras.

INT. SHELTER OFFICE, CONTINUOUS

Joanna checks her security panel and cameras. She notices a car turn the corner beside the shelter but doesn’t pass the back of the property.

She spots two men emerge from a car.

JOANNA

Shit!

A male figure approaches the back gate.

She’s lost sight of the second guy.

RING! She JUMPS AND RUNS TO THE PHONE.

JOANNE

Hope and Healing Centre Crisis Line.

Are you safe at this moment miss? I

have an emergency situation, so please call

the other shelter. Yes, that’s the number.

Joanne FLIPS ON the flood lights on the backyard.

ANGLE ON:

Caught in the glare, Marianna drops Diana at the gate and turns.

MARIANNA

Shit!

She flips on her cell phone.

MARIANNA

It’s too late. Cut the power. We have to go to Plan B.

In a few moments, it’s black again.

She struggles to drag Diana back inside AS A FIRE ALARM RINGS.

She peers around the doorway, DROPS Diana and RUNS toward Joanne, who is about to shut the office door when..

A gun nozzle IS THRUST IN HER FACE.

JOANNE

Marianna? What are you doing?

MARIANNA

Shut that off now and call the fire

department and tell them it’s a false alarm.

Remember I have a gun pointed at you.

Joanne is resetting the alarm and is on the phone when….

FOOTSTEPS –Marianna DUCKS behind the desk

A few small lights appear in the dark.

Margot and Hunter approach the office..

HUNTER

When the hell did the power go out?

JOANNE

Just now. The storm’s screwed up the

electrical –alarm went off.

Kailee yells from upstairs:

KAILEE

Does anyone have any candles/flashlights in case

the kids have to go to the washroom?

JOANNA

I’ll look. But go to bed, everyone

— false alarm. It’s just the storm!

Margot whispers to Hunter as they walk up the stairs.

MARGOT

I thought I heard another voice.

Something’s going down.

HUNTER

Let’s check on Diana.

Margot and Hunter run up to Diana’s room. The door is slightly ajar.

She flicks on the lighter, and scans the room, but Diana is gone. She walks in, closer and sees the kids bunks, baseball bat, equipment and desk.

She NOTICES DIANA’S GUN BY THE BED

Sasha sits up.

SASHA

What’s going on? How come the alarm went off?

Where’s mom?

HUNTER

Oh, it’s a false alarm because of the storm.

Nighty night.

They RUSH out to avoid any more questions.

They tiptoe down a few steps until they see lights reflecting and HEAR FOOTSTEPS approaching from the back hallway.

They retreat up the stairs, hiding behind the banister.

A shadow of a man walks into the office.

Margot and Hunter look at each other.

Hunter goes into Diana’s room, returning with a gun and a baseball bat.

MARGOT

(whispers)

Gun.

She flicks her lighter to check it’s loaded. They tiptoe down the stairs and hear:

MARIANNA

Sorry Joanna, while I really respect

what you do for women, I’m going to have

to lock you in the back office.

Marianna takes Joanne’s cell phone and leads her to the back.

MARIANNA

Your keys.

She hands her the keys to the shelter.

Marianna locks her in the back office, but doesn’t realize there’s a private staff washroom at the back that opens to the main hallway, everyone thought was a locked closet.

ANGLE ON:

Joanne is listening on the other side of door.

Marianna is looking at the keys.

MARIANNA

I think this is the key to the utility room.

SEAN

Okay, good. The gas line should come

in through there.

MARIANNA

I’ll call Dave to come and get his kids.

It might take a half hour.

Sean nods.

INT. BACK OFFICE, CONTINUOUS

Joanne feels her way to the back and goes through the staff washroom. She cautiously opens the bathroom door and RUNS into the hallway when:

THUMP! Her foot hits something and she FALLS ON TOP OF DIANE. She MOANS.

Lightning CRACKS and she sees Diane eyes flutter.

Pools of light appear down the hall, so Joanna ducks back into the washroom nearly missing:

Marianna who is checking to make sure Diana is still lying where she left her. Then she and Sean head toward the basement and gas main

ANGLE ON:

Joanna shakes Diana,but looks up to see shadows and then a lighter coming from the stairs.

She whispers:

JOANNE

Margot, Hunter? Come here.

They run towards Diana.

JOANNE

Shhh! Marianna and another man

are downstairs. Is this why the police

are investigating her?

HUNTER

Yeah, her husband’s basically in bed

with the mob. We’ve got to get

her out of here.

Joanne looks scared.

JOANNE

Do either of you have a cell phone

to call the police and the city to

get our gas main shut off.

MARGOT

Fuck! Marianna will kill her by the time

anyone gets here. I’ll grab her car

keys. Take her out front, I’ll meet you

at the car.

She heads quickly up the hall and stairs.

Hunter and Joanna DRAG Diana through the front door to her car, which is parked in between several other cars. They lie her down.

Joanna pats Diana’s face, now splattered with rain.

JOANNA

C’mon Diana — Wake up!

INT. SHELTER, HALLWAY, CONTINUOUS

Margot has Diana’s purse and is on her way downstairs when she sees a light appear below.

She backs up behind the banister, then moves running backwards

MARIANNA

Shit! She woke up. The kids!

Marianna RUNS UP THE STAIRS.

By that time, Margot is heading up the other stairwell to the third floor. She looks outside the hallway window.

Under the streetlight, she sees a guy with a black mask SHOOTING at Hunter and Joanne.

SHE OPENS THE WINDOW AS BULLETS HIT THE WALL AND CAR WINDOWS SHATTER.

Hunter and Joanne are ducked down peering over the cars.

THE ASSASSIN is descending quickly, Margot steadies her gun on the window ledge.

BAM! BAM!

EVERYONE IS STARTLED at the SOUND, INCLUDING DIANE.

She sits up, looks around wiping her face.

DIANA

What’s going on?

They turn.

JOANNE

The shelter’s been breached. Someone’s

shooting at us! We’re trying

to get you out of here.

The assassin BACKS OFF.

MARGOT

Here! Hurry, he’s coming back!

She PITCHES THE PURSE OUT THE WINDOW AND IT LANDS ON A CAR.

Hunter NABS THE PURSE AND KEYS AND OPENS THE DOOR. They slide in.

HUNTER

Stay low.

She BACKS UP, TIRES SCREACHING AS JOANNE RUNS INSIDE.

INT. SHELTER HALLWAY, CONTINUOUS

Margot turns, Marianna and Sean have guns pointed at her.

MARIANNA

Drop it, Margot!

MARGOT

Sure thing, bitch!

SHE PITCHES THE GUN AND IT BOUNCES OFF THE WINDSHIELD OF DIANE’S CAR. She SLAMS THE WINDOW SHUT.

ANGLE ON:

HUNTER SCREAMS, AS A BLACK OBJECT LANDS ON HER WINDSHIELD AND BOUNCES. SHE SLAMS ON THE BREAKS.

Diana doesn’t see the Assassin. SHE CHARGES OUT, LIKE SCOOPING UP A GROUND BALL and NABS THE GUN. She hops back into the car.

Suddenly, the ASSASSIN appears from behind a tree.

He FIRES TWO SHOTS OFF!

One HITS THE BACK WINDSHIELD SPRAYING GLASS ALL OVER THE CAR.

THE SECOND SHOT SLICES OFF A PIECE OF HER EAR. SHE REARS BACK.

AS HUNTER WHIPS THE CAR AROUND, DIANA IS ABLE TO GET A CLEAR SHOT AS HE CHARGES TOWARDS THEM. HE DROPS SPLATTING INTO A PUDDLE.

ANGLE ON:

Marianna PEERS out the window to see Hunter and Diana SPEED AWAY leaving the masked man dead on the pavement.

SHE SLAPS THE WALL

Kailey and Sung Lee trailing behind in slippers that make a FLIP-FLOP SOUND APPEAR DOWN THE HALL.

Marianna shines a light in Kailee’s face to blind her as she PUSHES her gun in Margot’s back.

KAILEE

What in God’s green earth is all

that racket outside?

SUNG LEE

It sounds like the fourth of

July! Who’s that man in a

women’s shelter?

MARIANNA

Electrical maintenance and I’m losing

my shit tonight!

MARGOT

You’re way past that now. This is a

cluster fuck.

MARIANNA

Shut up! All of you go to your room

and stay there. You heard Joanne.

Kailee and Sung Lee look disturbed and disappear around the corner.

Marianna nudges Margot down the hall.

SEAN

(to Margot)

This job blows, but I can’t wait to

see the look on Done Deal’s face when

he finds out you’re here.

MARIANNA

You didn’t look out the window Sean!

MARGOT

That’s who I was shooting at? (laughs)

Man, I’d love to see his done dead face!

Sean GRABS MARGOT by the throat.

MARIANNA

Not now, Sean! We’ve got unfinished business.

DISSOLVE TO:

Kailee and Sung Lee dart into Kailee’s room.

SUNG LEE

Something’s wrong. We go into

emergency plan.

ANGLE ON:

Marianna opens the back-office door for Margot.

When she opens it, Joanne is sitting there like she never moved.

MARIANNA

You two keep each other company.

Joanne nods.

Marianna LOCKS the door.

INT. DIANA’S CAR, CONTINUOUS

HUNTER

Who would’ve thought the healing shelter

would turn into a war zone!

Diana notices the approaching sports car under the streetlights.

DIANA

I think that was my husband. Stop!

Turn around.

Hunter looks alarmed.

HUNTER

What the F. Di? I don’t think he’d

hurt the boys, but he’ll kill you.

And he might not have a choice.

DIANA

My kids aren’t growing up in a mob family,

Pull over and get out!

Hunter jumps out looking annoyed and worried. Diana hands her a twenty-dollar bill.

DIANA

Stay away from the shelter! Go to that

all-night breakfast place and call the

cops. Ask for Detective Spencer and McCabe.

They know what’s going on.

Hunter stares after her.

DIANA MAKES A U-TURN TOWARDS THE SHELTER FOR A DANGEROUS STANDOFF ..

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by  Gloria Katch.

[Gloria Katch]

Lesson 4 : Four Key Business Decisions in Your Script

What I learned in this assignment is to reconsider combining scenes for the budget as there are many locations. Making the movie and title more catchy so it is more marketable. Making the movie funnier with more thrills, adapting it to the thriller genre that I am now specializing in.

The screenplay I listed in Lesson 2: Wild Cherry Bomb is not my most current script, but it is the highest budget. So, I’ll use it.

Genre: Comedy Adventure

Title: Wild Cherry Bomb

Concept: High Concept – High Stakes.

Audience – Males Under and Over 25. (The protagonist is about 24 as is his friend.)

Budget – $50 million

Lead Characters: Joey, a young, risk-taking gambler who also likes racing cars. He has a best friend named, Carmine, a hippie type car mechanic, who despite his appearance is a lot more responsible than Joey. Joey’s mother, an Italien street-wise firecracker of a woman who has no boundaries. She aligns herself with Joey’s gambling friend, Aggie, an Asian woman who has trouble with English, but manages to tell it like it is.

Journey/Character Arc: Joey is a gambler who doesn’t see the danger or ramifications to himself or to the others around him. Until one night after a seemingly harmless, small time poker game, some hillbillies beat him, rob him and throw him in his hot rod and drive him off a cliff. He ends up stuck in a tree, which saves his life. There he has an epiphany to give up gambling. He also gets revenge on the people that cheated him and manages to escape the country with his friends and nagging mother.

Opening – Joey is thrown out of a casino by a bunch of mobsters who warn him he has until the end of the week to pay off his debt.

Ending – While fleeing the country, his pilot does a few stunts and he decides that stunt flying is his new addiction.

2. Since you brought up the idea of specializing, and the genre I’m picking is thriller. I could possibly add more thrills and adapt it to be more of a thriller. Although, it has several already. If anything, it might need more comedic moments to make it more marketable, so focusing on more of one hybrid than another might help its marketability.

Considering the lead characters, I could make the villain, the mobsters more scary in a quirky way. Previously, I was considering Joey as his own worst enemy, but that isn’t as visual or entertaining.

Perhaps, I should re-visit the title: Wild Cherry Bomb is kind of a weird title or in your words obscure. It doesn’t say anything about what the movie is about. I got the title because Joey loves Wild Cherry slot machines. In fact, they were the first machines he played on when he grew up and became exposed to gambling.

I understand the idea of target marketing, but I usually think about using less swearing, nudity, graphic violence, so my films would reach a broader audience. A 14-year-old could suitably watch this movie. I think it would be attractive to women, as well as his mother is feisty and funny and the movie has some interesting twists.

Budget – I have a lot of locations in the movie, so to save money, I would have to combine a few scenes, so the overall movie could be shortened. I wouldn’t want to give up the stunt flying scene or the throwing off the cliff scene, because they are unique in their own way.

[Gloria Katch]

Writing Paid Assignments, Lesson 3 – Specialization

1. My specialty is thriller movies. Although, not every script I’ve written would be considered strictly that, but hopefully hybrids of that genre.

2. There are so many thrillers and thriller hybrids as it is one of the most popular forms. Top thrillers include: In Bruges, No Country for Old Men, Taken, Fatal Attraction, Silence of the Lambs, Bourne Identity Series.

3. For the purpose of this exercize: I’ll use Taken and No Country for Old Men.

4. Taken – delivers on the genre, because it deals with a CIA agent who wants to retire to spend more time with his daughter. His wife has left him and has a new rich boyfriend and his daughter lives with them. His daughter is 17 and goes to Paris with her friend, and while they are there, they are targeted by sex traffickers and Taken. It’s a mystery, because we don’t know who she is taken by and how her father is going to get her back. He has few clues to go on, but he uses all his resources and finds her. It is very suspenceful as he is put in life and death situations attempting to get his daughter back. He is dealing with dangerous people, so the stakes are high. He also figures out who is running the sex trafficking ring, which is of international importance and makes this a big concept movie. But one of the main aspects of a thriller is that the protagonist is unwittingly thrown into a plot that is masterminded by the villain, which is how this plot is designed. It has a lot of twists and turns and is thrilling. You don’t know who to trust.

No Country for Old Men focuses on an old sherrif in the southern U.S. near the Mexican border. A drug deal gone bad leaves about six people dead in the dessert, and the sherrif figures out that someone random came upon the scene and took the money, because all the drugs were left behind. He figures that the cartel is involved and are going to want their money back. So, the sherriff is trying to find the man who stole the money before the cartel’s hit man does. The hit man is a Frenchman named Sugur, who is a fatalist and a cold-blooded killer, who uses a cattle gun to shoot people. He is creepy and his strangeness is very hypnotic and mysterious. This story is also a mystery as we wonder how the sherrif is going to solve it and we dread he could get killed trying to solve it. The viewer doesn’t know who or when someone will live or die as Sugur kills people on the results of flipping a coin. Literally. As thrillers go, the sherrif is dragged into this chaos, because it’s his job to solve crimes. We see the crime happen first and then the sherrif comes onto this tragic scene. Sugur is not there, so it becomes intriguing as to who the villain is when he is first introduced.

5. What I learned during this assignment? – I’ve been writing in several genres, but it’s better to pick one and specialize in it. This seemed quite restrictive to me, at first. However, I’ve always been attracted to thrillers and they are highly popular. They are also easy to pair up with another genre, which makes them even more interesting. Now, I’ll have to focus more on making sure I have more of the conventions of a thriller and how to make my screenplays more thrillingl

[Gloria Katch]

Writing Paid Assignments– ScreenwritingU – Assignment 2, Building Credibility

Credibility Checklist

1. My Writing Sample – I’ve never had a producer request a writing sample. Some of my work has been posted on Inktip, and many producers read the Log Line and synopsis, but did not continue further on and read the screenplay. I don’t think my screenplays are up to par yet.

2. I have no screenwriting accomplishments.

3. Googling my name, brings up articles I wrote for a local newspaper. Some listings state I am a freelance writer, journalist and screenwriter, but no listings of the movies I’ve written, because nothing has been produced.

4. My Network- I recently joined Stage 32, a film organization and there are several producers, directors and actors attached to me like friends or acquaintances on “My Wall.” But I haven’t kept in touch lately, because I’ve personally just been too busy. I may also need to learn how to navigate that site better as it’s quite large.

5. Education – I majored in Fine Arts and I later received a certificate in Film Studies. I completed Playwriting in university and Writing For Sitcoms. I received a certificate for these two courses, but most of the other on-line courses don’t offer certificates.

6. Borrowed Credibility – I am not represented by an agent or manager. I had one director interested in producing my screenplay, but he is having difficulty getting financing. He also works in other capacities, so I think he has moved on or changed his mind about doing it.

7. No IMDB credits.

8. Other forms of credibility – I was a journalist for many years and later a freelance writer for many news/arts magazines locally. This doesn’t appear to impress anyone in the film industry in the least.

2. Make a list of things to increase your credibility in future:

I am not social media savvy person, and basically it’s because I abhor it. But I realize for marketing I need to either develop a better profile on my Facebook Page and Linkedin Page. There are some media people on the latter. I was thinking of getting my own website.

Perhaps I should take a course on Social Media, even though it just sounds abstract to me.

There is a Film Festival group in an adjacent city that I want to get involved with, which may help me improve my knowledge and exposure. I’ve offered to help volunteer there.

I’ve thought of writing a book instead of a film. It appears many writers on Stage 32 have written numerous books, hoping they will be turned into screenplays. Is this a good idea?

I would like to attend the American Film Market next November and perhaps a Screenwriter’s conference. There I could meet many producers. I live in Canada and we have a film and TV festival in Banff, Alberta every fall that sounds similar to the American Film Market.

3. In the next 30 days…. I could become more active on Stage 32, improve my Linkedin profile and create my own website. I need to learn more about social media and if there are more sites for film.

4. What I learned doing this assignment is .. I need to establish a marketing schedule and stick to it. Otherwise, I’m a ghost and not even a ghostwriter at that!

[Gloria Katch]

Hi everyone: My name is Gloria Katch and I agree to the terms of the confidentiality agreement. This is about my sixth class and I haven’t stolen anything yet. I’m still broke and looking for some recognition and I look forward to hearing comments and hopefully be able to help others in their work.

I’ve written about six or seven screenplays, a T.V. pilot and a play. I’m very social media challenged and pretty lazy about marketing. However, I do respond to websites I belong to, i.e. Inktip, where producers are requesting a certain screenplay in a certain genre. I’m trying to learn how to pitch, as I tend to include too many details and feel quite O.C.D. in those moments.

3. I’m working on a kind of superhero story and so this would likely require one of the largest budgets probably about $40 million because of the CGI – as a fair amount of flying around is required, but I don’t know how much this costs.

I also did a screenplay, titled Wild Cherry Bomb that includes about ten locations, a pipe bomb and a small airplane, which also would require a larger budget – $40 million or less.

a. An idea I would like to create? I have several and I’m wondering if I should write more episodes on my pilot, i.e. write the entire season. But I have a rough outline of about three movies, but the most recent is a heist/comedy called Trading Spaces.

b) Hell at the Healing Shelter is the most recent completed screenplay. It’s a thriller/drama. I also wrote a comedy short called: Maxx, The Vaxx, which is loosely based on a true incident.

Tell us what you learned about the teleconference? – I’m most interested in learning about the business/system and how and when to negotiate a deal. On some websites, there are low-budget producers asking you to give up your screenplay for almost nothing or for free to get it produced. So I’m looking forward to this lesson. I also need to learn more about marketing.

For me, the most interesting part of the conference was the idea of helping the producer bring his idea to fruition or fulfillment, because I can understand someone having a few unique ideas, but not quite sure how to execute them or put them together in the best way possible. It happens to all of us.

That’s all folks!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by  Gloria Katch. Reason: I didn't know I had to include all of the answers from lesson 1 in this post

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV, Lesson 8: Inviting Obsession

What I learned during this assignment was: To try and fit in a mystery or secret to spice things up. I looked to the wound first to just pick the most immediate/obvious thing to find. I will probably have to dig deeper and have yet to figure out how it will be spaced out and revealed for the most impact.

Assignment 1; Big Little Lies – The 8^th episode is the last one in the first season and solves the big mystery that’s run the entire season about who raped Jane. It turns out to be Celeste’s husband Perry. Celeste manages to get away from her husband and goes to the costume party. When he tries to talk to her in private, she refuses. A fight ensues and the women (Madeline, Jane and Celeste_try to stop Perry from dragging her away and Bonnie, Ed’s wife sees it and charges at him, knocking him down the cement stairs, where he hits his head and dies.

That is the first time Jane, who is fairly new to the town, saw Celeste’s husband and recognizes him as the guy she dated and the guy who raped her.

So, there are a lot of mysteries surrounding why Perry had an affair when he seems so in love with Celeste? Why did Bonnie go into a rage and push him so hard? We know little about her past that’s a secret. We know she was in some trouble previously.

At the end of season one, we discover Madelaine had an affair and we wonder if she will resume it? We don’t know why exactly?

What is it in Celeste’s past that allows her to stay married to Perry this long when he was so abusive? Celeste’s mother-in-law is interested in speaking to the police and telling them that Celeste was planning to leave her son and has a son by another women etc. This could be problematic for a lot of people.

Renatta’s husband made some shady financial dealings and lost a lot of money? What did he do exactly and how will this affect their marriage?

Assignment 2: Part 1 – The Shocking Event

A. Perhaps, the shocking Event is that even though Stuart is diagnosed with M.S. – maybe the diagnosis is wrong.

B. The doctor is an alcoholic and he read the lab reports and made a wrong diagnosis, except that he doesn’t know it and wouldn’t admit to it if he did.

C. Investigation: Perhaps, Stuart has a friend look at his lab reports later on figures that he has something else wrong with him. It could also be that the gets a bad reaction from taking the wrong drugs.

4. WHO: His doctor

What: Wrong diagnosis

When: When Stuart first goes to the hospital

Where: At the hospital in one of the rooms

Why: doctor’s overstressed and has too many patients from emergency that weekend.

How: Mix-up at the hospital. Wrong blood work.

Part withheld: Stuart has Muscular Dystrophy instead or some other similar auto-immune disease that isn’t as bad, or perhaps life-threatening or worse for his goals in life. (However, this is a comedy, so I don’t want it to end in a tragedy or become depressing.)

Part 2, The Over Time Mystery

A. The cover up: Stuart’s wife has an affair with Frank.

B. The secret is that she had an affair earlier — long before Frank’s wife died.

C. Someone Frank knows from university who lives out of town runs into him after 20 years and mentions he saw his wife and Frank having dinner in another city, when Stuart was on a conference. He thought his wife was home.

D. WHO: His wife.

What: Her affair

When: It started 10 years earlier

Why: Stuart has been married to his work and doesn’t give her enough attention. Frank was no longer attracted to his wife. She had trouble with her plumbing after three children.

How: They got drunk at a neighborhood party. It was easy to be seen together because everyone knew the two couples were friends.

Part withheld: The length of times they had been together. Perhaps, his wife got pregnant at 41 and had to get an abortion, because she felt too old to have another child or didn’t want Stuart to get suspicious.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV, Module 1

Lesson 7, Empathy/Distress: The Bingeworthy Drug!

What I learned from this assignment is to looking deeper into finding ways that create empathy and distress is to look at the wound and sometimes these things will also be reflected in the theme of the show. These are also good jumping off points to end with in the serial so audiences will continue watching.

Assignment 1: Big Little Lies: Madeline: A: Undeserved Misfortune: Her play is banned and petitioned against by Renatta, a rich women who seems to throw her weight around just because she stood up for Jane and her child, whose being wrongfully accused of bullying.

External Character Conflicts: Renatta is an external conflict. Joe, her producer, now has feelings for her and would like to rekindle her relationship which threatens her marriage.

Her daughter wants to live with her ex and his new young wife. Her ex and her present husband don’t get along, which also creates tension in their marriage. Because she is passionate about people she also gets involved in her friend’s lives and that will always be an ongoing concern.

Moral Dilemmas: Even though Madeline has feelings for Joe, she doesn’t want to ruin her marriage, because she knows her husband is a good man.

E: Forced Decisions They Would Never Make: So far Madeline tells her teenage daughter about her affair to illustrate that she is not perfect in order to keep her from making a colossal mistake. However, this is not something she should’ve done and it could come back to bite her in the ass.

Overall: We have empathy for Madeline, because she tries so hard to be a good mother and her teenage daughter doesn’t seem to appreciate her and gravitates towards her biological father who did little to raise her earlier. We also sense that her marriage is in trouble, which is confirmed when we find out she had an affair with the producer of her play. Madeline tries to be a good person.

Jane – Undeserved Misfortune: Jane was raped and had a child as a result of it that she is raising on her own. We also fear that the rapist could be a dangerous man and try and harm her.

External Character Conflicts: Jane’s son is also unfairly targeted as a bully, because he is the new kid on the block. She is embarrassed and centered out in the community. Her worry about her son inheriting anger issues terrifies her and this will be a big picture issue.

Plot Intruding on Life: Jane sets out to find out who her rapist is/was and this is putting her in dangerous situations, risk.

Moral Dilemmas: Why is Jane going after her ex? She seems to want to figure out if he is a dangerous man, so she says for the sake of her son, and perhaps her sanity. Or does she want to kill him?

Forced Decisions They’d Never Make: Jane might feel threatened enough to kill her rapist. Would she kill him depending on the circumstances? This is the question that keeps people watching. We also have a great deal of empathy/distress for her because she gets anxiety attacks has nightmares and flashbacks, so if she gets into one of these mindsets who knows what could happen.

Celeste – Undeserved Misfortune – Her husband is abusing her and sexually violent. The fact that she is keeping this a secret creates a lot of empathy for her. Celeste loves her husband and wants to keep her family together, so when she decides she should leave him it feels like a lose-lose situation for her.

External Character Conflict – She is going to counselling and the counsellor is telling her to leave her controlling husband. We know this is not going to end well. Celeste gets frustrated with her counsellor.

Plot Protruding on Life: Her husband also keeps her from working, which is one of her goals, as well. Madeline is telling her what a great lawyer she is when she defends her play, and this encourages her to go back to work. The tipping point is when Jane tells Celeste, her son Max is actually the school bully. Celeste then realizes despite the fact they have tried not to argue or show any violence in front of the children, the twins have overheard things and are now being affected by their volatile relationship.

Moral Dilemma: Should she leave her husband or will he change?

Forced Decisions They Would Never Make: Despite the love for her husband, she decides to leave him.

Renatta: Undeserved Misfortune: Renatta’s sweet daughter is being bullied in school and she isn’t certain who it is, which is driving her crazy.

Eternal Character Conflicts: Renatta believes it is Ziggy, Jane’s son. While she is wrong to blame him, her mistake creates a falling out among Madeline and a popular group of mothers and the school teacher and principal. Later on, when her husband tries to defend her, he just makes the situation worse.

Plot Intruding on Life: Her husband takes the incident lightly. Renatta’s career-minded and is driven to succeed, so her job keeps her from being a good mother. She also feels persecuted by others in the community for being so successful. She distresses about the gossip that goes on about her.

Moral Dilemmas: One of the moral dilemmas was Renatta’s choice to hold a birthday party and not invite Ziggy. Because some people, including Madeline who thought that was rude took several children to another event, so about three or four of Renatta’s daughter’s friends didn’t show up. When Renatta calls to try and make amends and fix this, Madeline and others refuse to go to the party, which wasn’t really a win for Renatta or Madeline.

Forced Decisions They Would Never Make: Renatta accepts Jane’s apology after Jane accidently elbows her in the eye. This gives us some empathy for Renatta and what she’s going through. Although, she is the least likeable of this group, we finally realize she’s also just trying to protect her child.

Assignment 2: Off Your Rocker- Undeserved Misfortune: Stuart’s big misfortune is his accident and discovering he has M.S. Then he also discovers his wife is having an affair and is leaving him. That leads to him losing his home and he ends up in a retirement village for the rehab and care when he’s only 49.

The other worst things that could happen is that his medications don’t work and his M.S. progresses to the point where he can’t find a cure. He is denied by the medical community.

External Character Conflicts: Stuart’s goals are not well received by the medical community that see him as competition. There are people in the retirement home that resent his being there. He decides to set up a mini-lab in his apartment, which goes against Beatrice the administrator, and others that enforce the rules in the home. There could be conflicts from his family who feel that his drive will almost make him self-destruct.

Stuart also has many internal character conflicts: some self -doubt when it comes to relationships with seniors and the thought of dating again can put him in a frenzy.

Plot Intruding on Life: In his professional life, Stuart will come across envious people he works with and the dean of the university he will be doing research in that will try to disrupt his goals.

On his personal goal of becoming a good dad and husband some day. The woman he chooses may have to jeopardize her career somewhat to be with him. Stuart may now have to adjust his career to be with her – not travel as much down the road. Maddy also has her eye on

Stuart, which she makes quite clear to Sarah Meade the counsellor and object of Stuart’s attention. Hank, the ghost, also dislikes Stuart because he is still in love with Maddy. He can cause all forms of mischief.

There is some tension between his ex-wife over his ability to move on, and jealousy from Frank. Perhaps, Stuart’s disease also drives him farther away from his children in some ways. He isn’t able to visit enough or be attentive. He worries they may forget about him before he’s deceased.

Moral Dilemmas: Stuart may have to give up his work as a marine scientist working on climate change and the sustainability of oceans and waterways to work on this cure for M.S. This is important work that he has always loved, so it’s a bit of a gamble. What if he doesn’t find a cure?

Forced Decisions They Would Never Make: Perhaps Stuart would have to give up his goal to save the planet to save himself? Stuart believes he can have it all and will go for gold, as they say and try and reach both goals. He may also want to make a stronger connection between sea creatures and humans but is this achievable in his lifetime. No one knows how long they are going to live.

[Gloria Katch]

TV Relationship Map

Module One, Lesson 6 – Part I – Big Little Lies

Module One, Lesson 6, Part- 2 – Off Your Rocker

[Gloria Katch]

ScreenwritingU, Reality TV, Lesson 3, Connecting to the Viewer

Assignment #1 – What Hooks The Viewer? Emotional Connection: In Fixer Upper –-There are many access points. There is an automatic one emotionally, because this is a married couple who work well together fabulously. They’re on the same page. They also focus on creative designs that have sentimental value to different aspects of the renovations, like that cupboard was your grandfathers, and “I know you like copper piping” so they added a rustic look to suit it. They also help people in need and do renovations on a shoestring budget for those who can’t afford much. They don’t always seem like they would make a lot of money from some of their projects, so its admirable in many ways.

Characters: Viewers like Joanna and Chip Gaines, because they’re both young attractive. They’re earthy, practical, dress down and look like a normal working couple in that field. Both of them are optimistic, as well. Chip lives in the moment, where Joanna admits to being more of a number cruncher with her design and looking at more of a bang for their buck.

Expertise: They are creative professionals and do an amazing job that you can’t help but be awed by at times. You can tell they are passionate about their work and think outside the box to make their designs work. They teach others through their work and viewers receive a lot of tips about decorating and design.

Settings: They are in Waco, Texas, which has a small town American feel and a rustic landscape. Middle class.

Humor: Chip has a good sense of humour and they enjoy working with each other, so there doesn’t appear to be a lot of friction on set.

What makes this show more distinctive and different from other shows whose formats are identical? This show probably feels more “real” like reality TV is supposed to be. They talk and sound unscripted and natural. The homes they do are not for the rich and famous, just regular folks. They hit more of the access points than others do.

Assignment 2: Harmonious Families: A: Emotional Connection: The emotional connection to the show is watching the families together at home and at practise. Some of the music selections may generate some sense of nostalgia and attraction, as well.

B: What’s going on in their person lives that will relate to others?

How are the characters relatable? They could be a cross of different families from different parts of the western world or America, different ethnic cultures, economic classes and backgrounds. Mostly, they are regular average families who enjoy playing music together. The background scenes will show their everyday lives, including the problems and how they have fun recreationally.

C: Expert advice? There will be some expertise on performing live and professional coaching. Those who are interested in performing may learn a thing or two on writing music or about a certain instrument during practise and rehearsal.

D: Authentic Setting: Back stage and on stage. Otherwise, we will see a variety of views when we seem them in their day-to-day environment, which could change every view shows and keep the show looking fresh.

E: Do the shows lend themselves to comedy or drama? Fun to watch? The shows are probably more dramatic and there will be many heartfelt, as well as funny, moments.

[Gloria Katch]

ScreenwritingU Reality TV, Lesson 2

The Marketplace

Part One: Determining Marketing.

From the trailers viewed on popular shows, try to rise about the show’s subject matter and observe themes, feelings, characters and emotions the shows feature and what’s at stake.. then answer the question:

This channel’s brand is ________.

HGTV – 1. Love it or List it.”, House Hunters International and Celebrity IOU.

HGTV’s brand is creating/finding that dream home with an inside look into the relationships, goals and lifestyle of how they go about choosing a house to call home.

Channel: Bravo – Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Below Deck and Million Dollar Listing.

Bravo’s Brand is a behind the scenes look at the lives and relationships of the rich and famous.

Channel I.D. (Investigation Discovery) True Conviction, Murder in the Heartland and See No Evil.

I.D.’s brand is a Docu-series investigating real life heinous crimes and cases, many unsolved or not brought to justice.

Part # 2 – 1. Harmonizing Families is a Competition Docu-Series about musical families competing for cash and prizes. The family that plays together, stays together and we see how the love of music unites them.

A. The family stands to win a cash prize that allows them to improve their lives and provide for their post-secondary education. The show also helps boost their confidence and perhaps allows all of them to continue a musical/recording or professional career in music if they so choose. It gives them international exposure, so they would like to fare well in the standing and look professional.

B. What kind of viewer might enjoy the show? Young families, anyone interested in music or becoming a musician or performer.

C. What elements are most compelling?

How the family gets over its problems and offer emotional support to each other. The performances themselves.

D. What does the viewer learn (or take home) after watching the show? Some tips on how to mentally and physically prepare for a large-scale performance and how to plan their performance on stage. They should also feel good about seeing these people they’ve come to somewhat know get through their big day.

E. What other show on cable or streaming most closely resembles my show idea?

Perhaps, America’s Got Talent.

F. On what platform – cable or streaming – could my show idea fit on?

G. This show could be a spinoff of The Masked Singer on Fox or America’s Got Talent on NBC. Perhaps it could also go to Arts and Entertainment as a docu-series. The Grand Old Opry does country, bluesgrass, blues and comedy. If it were more gritty than glam, PBS offers Austin City Limits every Friday night where various artists perform and PBS does many docu-series.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV, Module 1, Lesson 5: Creating Emotional Characters

What I learned in this assignment is: Thinking below the surface can create more connections between the characters in the show and create themes.

My Example Show: Big Little Lies:

Madelaine: Situational: Hope – Hope is to be successful as a drama teacher and an influencing creative force in her community, Monteray, California.

A: Fear: Is that she will be controlled and stymied by politics and conservative views on the school board and city council.

B: Motivation: Wants the play to be successful. Need: To be recognized in the community.

C: Mask: She feels threatened, insecure. Public Mask: Confident: assertive, and almost aggressive at times, Passionate.

D: Weaknesses: She wants her children to excel and can be picky and pushy and times instead of letting some minor things go. A bit of a drama queen and self-absorbed. She doesn’t pay enough attention to her husband’s needs.

E: Triggers: Her ex-husband, anything that challenges her as being an inadequate mother.

F: Coping Mechanism: She plots to get revenge. She lobbies/rallies behind the scenes to get what she wants.

Celeste: Situational: Hopes that she can resolve the issues with her husband. Fear: She will lose her marriage.

B: Motivation: Wants: To save her marriage. Need: Needs validation and fulfillment in her previous career as a successful lawyer.

C: Mask: She’s troubled by their abusive relationship. Public Mask: They’re a perfect couple with a husband who’s crazy about her.

D: Weaknesses: She’s afraid to tell her husband the truth about her need for a career because he will see it as a threat to their marriage and his need to be in control all of the time. She is ashamed of their sexual behaviour behind closed doors.

E: Triggers: Violence and aggressive behaviour.

F: Coping Mechanisms: Avoidance, Evasive of expressing her true feelings. She complies with her husband to avoid an argument, even though she doesn’t want to.

Jane: A: Situational: Hope – Hope is to raise her son properly. Fear: That her ex may find her and she has a secret that could be revealed that has severe consequences.

B: Motivation: Wants to lead a normal life for her son. Needs to belong and fit into a community.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: Fear in many areas including her son may be psychotic like his father.

Public Mask: Everything is normal. She’s a happy, regular single mom raising her child.

D: Weakness: She’s a little naïve, worries a lot, insecure, overly stressed.

E: Triggers: Anything that threatens her or her child.

F: Coping Mechanism: Jogs a lot to relieve her anxiety attacks. She also carries a gun for protection.

Renatta: A: Situational: Hope – Hopes to be a good mother despite the demands of her successful career. Fear: That she isn’t a good mother and her daughter will suffer for it.

B: Motivation: Success. Needs: To excel in every area of her life. It’s like she’s trying to prove something.

C: Mask: She worries about her status in the community and appearances. Public Mask: Rich, successful women.

D: Weakness: Perfectionist, buys her way around town.

E: Triggers: Anything that reflects negatively on her as a mother.

F: Coping Mechanism: She drinks a lot. Uses her influence and schemes behind the scenes to get things done her way.

Assignment 2: Off Your Rocker

Stuart — A: Situational: Hope: To find a cure for M.S.

Fear – That he will be so debilitated by M.S. he won’t be able to lead a successful life and die young.

B: Motivation: Love of science and discovering things. Needs to find a cure to prolong his life. Wants to be a good husband some day and father, grandfather.

C: Mask: Embarrassed about his divorce, losing his house and having to live in a retirement home at his age. Public Mask: He is going to find a cure and get himself out of this mess/predicament. He may try and become

D: Weaknesses: Stuart may be overestimating his abilities in medical science concerning humans. He can be self-absorbed, too detailed and has difficulty relating to seniors and sometimes others who are not as well educated as he is.

E: Triggers: Anything about his wife and Frank, who betrayed him or about not being a good father/family man bothers him. Academically, he may feel challenged in this new medical/science community that would annoy him.

F: Coping Mechanism: He may try to over-compensate in his professional life, by trying to influence and instigate more changes in his home environment – Cuckoo Valley.

Boris: A: Situational: Hope: He will be reunited with his family. Fear: He won’t be able to make this happen and they may end up in jail for protesting the Russian government.

B: Motivation: Want – He wants to be a good family man. Needs to fulfill this and sees it as his purpose in life.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: He’s a broken man, disabled and not able to work like he used to. He has a secret as a former KGB agent that defected.

Public Mask: Carefree and jolly most of the time. Is trying to leave his past behind him.

D: Triggers: Anything that negatively happens effecting freedom and democracy in Russia gets him worried. He feels for other people like himself he hears about in the news because of his own experiences. The sound of cars backfiring reminds him of gunshots.

F: Coping Mechanism: Drinks, goes to the shooting range when he can to left off some steam.

Likes to makeup stories.

Sandra Meade/Counsellor/Love Interest A: Situational: Hope – Hopes to find peace with herself and have a husband.

Fear: She fears she will always remain a middle-aged spinster.

B: Motivation: Want: Marriage. Needs: More sense of a personal life, family and to be loved, intimacy.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: Sadness and loneliness. Public Mask: Optimistic, has it all together as a counsellor.

D: Weaknesses – too trusting, perhaps, can be taken advantage of because of her caring nature.

E: Triggers: Persons who were adopted like herself or lost their family due to a tragedy. (Boris’s situation is always a trigger for her) Children who grew up in foster care and had particularly bad foster parents.

F: Coping Mechanism: Deflects by changing the subject, pretends everything is fine, minimizes personal issues. Helps others instead of working enough on her own issues.

[Gloria Katch]

Reality TV – Lesson 1 – Defining Your Idea as a Format

Assignment One –

The format of Group One Shows including Tiger King, (Netflix); The Vow, (HBO): Scientology and the Aftermath hosted by Leah Remini (A&E) is Docu-series.

The format of Group 2 shows including Below Deck (Bravo); Dino Hunters (Discovery) and Wicked Tuna (National Geographic) is Adventure Exploration.

The format of Group 3 shows, including: Marrying Millions (Lifetime), Love After Lockup (WE TV), Dating Around (Netflix) is Relationships.

The format of Group 4 shows, including: Expedition Unknown (Discovery), Mysteries at the Museum (TRVL) and Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted (National Geographic) is Occu-Series/Adventure hybrid.

The format of Group 5 shows, including: Cash Cab (Bravo), Who Wants to Be A Millionaire (ABC); and Flea Market Flip (HGTV) is Game Shows.

Assignment # 2 – Brainstorming Exercize on TV Reality Shows:

1. Music Competition – Harmonizing Families

2.Adventure – How to Plan the Best Vacation in 5 Minutes?

3.Topical – NGO World – People helping People!

4. Game-Docu-series – Weekend With a Star

5. Occu-Soap – Drama Queen Bloopers

6. Occu-Series and Game/Topical – Here Comes the Judge

2. (I’m not sure which one to pick, so I’ll give you an outline of each.)

A. Harmonizing Families – Family Bands family or extended family compete by performing for a top cash prize in the professional and non-professional categories.

B. This is a Competition/Relationship hybrid, which shows behind the scenes look at their relationships building up to the competition, including music practise, preparing for audition, where and how they live, life goals, how the show brought them together, and what they are going to do with the money if they win.

etc.

C. The real- life characters are family members where at least three members have to be a part of a family or extended family. (This could include: uncle, cousins, and in-laws getting together to work in harmony).

D. The situation these characters find themselves in, — learning to work together, sometimes with people we don’t always like, as well as competing in front of an audience.

E. The setting is the behind the scenes look at their lives, how they practise and get along. Team-work. Narrations of how they hope to win. What other talents they have.

F. The viewer experience: The audience gets to see the behind the scenes montages of the various families who are performing as they prepare for this exciting experience. A panel of judges can weigh in, and the audience can weigh in on the best performance & their favourite family. They will start out with 12 families and one family is eliminated each week until the end of a season. By the end of the year, the top four will compete for the top prize. It could be held at various locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.

How to Plan The Best Vacation Ever

A. Four different planners compete for prizes in planning the Best Vacation for a family.

B. The format is kind of an Docu-Series/Adventure as we follow a family, who are given an itinerary of their vacation together.

C. The real-life characters are real families and couples who are planning their next big trip.

D. The situation they find themselves in? It could be anything from heaven to hell– stranded at the airport or hotel, bad service, plumbing, a great zip-line, air conditioning breakdown to a great ski trip, kayaking, surfing, watching great shows, cultural dances.

E. The setting would be home then any place in the world.

F. The viewer gets to learn about different vacation spots, the good, the bad, the ugly.

They get to see these families and couples experience various aspects of their vacation and rate how they liked it.

NGO WORLD – People Helping People

A . A host and guests talk about the various issues/trends going on in non-government agencies that affect society.

B. The format – Topical

C. The real life characters – A news host with a good sense of humour as well as experts, representatives of organizations, university professors, authors of books on the topic.

D. The situation and setting of these characters: It’s in a studio setting with background footage of some of the issues being illustrated from the respective organization helping people like a news format.

F. Viewer experience – viewers will get to tune into issues that affect their communities that are not always covered as well in the news.

Weekend With a Secret Star

A. Three contestants play a Jeopardy type game to chalk up points or cash prizes in order to spend a weekend in a luxurious location with a star.

B. The format – Game Show and Docu-Series, one hour.

C. The characters include: three intelligent people who like trivia, entertainment, sports and recreation.

D. The situation: The first half of the show, contestants compete to win a weekend with a secret star. At the end of the game, the winner and star are introduced. Then there is a montage of the winner the previous week enjoying a few days having dinner with the star, shopping, having drinks on the patio, a limo tour or drive around their destination area.

E. The setting: a beautiful resort in a luxurious location.

F. Viewer experience: Audiences will tune in to get up close and personal with celebrities. It’s a red carpet event!

Drama Queen Bloopers

A: Six regular people are chosen to perform in a play. They are given a script and directions and an opportunity to work with a director performing different genres including sketch comedy and improv.

B: The format: Docu-series.

C: The real life characters: are random people, not professionals, but enjoy theatre and the idea of acting. Some may have some experience in high school or college.

D: The situation these characters find themselves in: They learn the basics of acting and have an opportunity to work with a few professionals. They must face an audience, overcoming the challenge of stage jitters is real.

E: The setting: behind the scenes of a theatre.

F: The viewer experience: They are given a clear synopsis of the show and we get to see an interview of the director, professionals and all the highlights and outtakes of the funniest and most embarrassing moments.

Here Comes The Judge

A: Four people draw straws to be chosen to act as: judge, prosecutor, defense attorneys and plaintiff to run a kangaroo court-room comedy/drama. A jury and audience will weigh-in on their performance and decide if the defendant is guilty of the crimes or a whole lot of misdemeanors.

B: The format: Docu-Soap/Game

C: The real life characters: random people who love court room dramas, detective shows and mysteries.

D: The situation: Each week, four people are given a brief scenario of a case and then draw a card which indicates their respective role to enact in running the court room: judge, prosecutor, defense or defendant. They will present the case filling in the details on the fly.

E: The setting: the court room, the jury’s and judges quarters.

F: Viewer experience – The viewer hears a narration of the crime and courtroom rules at the beginning of each show. Then they watch contestants wing out a plot about a crime among disruptive and misbehaved jurors, witnesses and attendants who all think they have a Get out of jail free card.

Question 3: Harmonizing Families: I thing viewers would be interested in the relationships of families that play and perform together, how they handle stress and their unique spirit that carries them through the task and season. The final performance will exciting and we will be excited for them and to see if we picked the winner.

How to Plan The Best Vacation Ever: Viewers would be enticed by the exotic locations, activities and what families do together. They would also learn more about planning their own vacation. Their final interview would rate the planner and give tips on how the vacation could’ve been better or not. The winning planner goes onto doing another family and gets so much money for each vacation. There are three sets of new families every three weeks, and two new planners including the winner from the previous week, so it doesn’t grow stale.

NGO World – there are lots of issues and news among non-profits and non-government organizations from finances and fundraising to volunteerism and changes that affect our community including: housing, addictions, medicine, poverty, racism, persons with disabilities that could be touched on. We scoop the newspapers here.

Weekend With A Star – Audiences always want to see more about their favourite actors and especially in a relaxed setting. We also want to see how they relate to others around them.

Drama Queen Bloopers and Here Come The Judge are all about the funny. People want to tune into see hilarious and embarrassing moments and the inspirational things people do under stress and on camera.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV- Module 1, Assignment 4

Layers of Character Intrigue

What I learned during this assignment: It’s really not that difficult to apply layers of intrigue to characters. You just have to ask the right questions.

Assignment 1 – Example Show – Big Little Lies

In Episode 4 of Big Little Lies – Push Comes to Shove

We discover that Jane’s flashback sequences have expanded to her actually shooting at someone. We’re not sure who it is, but it would appear that she’s hiding from this guy she dated, but did not know well. He appears to be the one who raped her, although we never see who this guy is.

The teacher calls Jane in for a meeting because she believes Abigail, Renatta’s daughter might still be getting bullied by Jane’s son Ziggy. She doesn’t have any concrete evidence, but it creates intrigue, because we have to wonder if Ziggy is secretly taking after his father, whom he doesn’t know. In the meantime, Renatta asks her husband if they should be taking Abigail to see a child psychologist, because she seems withdrawn too much of the time.

We see Celeste smoking pot alone for the first time to calm her anxiety now that her husband is away. She sees a counsellor about how to tell her husband that she wants to resume her career as a lawyer. We know that her husband is controlling and is violent, so this revelation is not going to go over well.

In the Episode prior, Celeste goes to the mayor and defends Madelaine’s legal right to present a theatrical production they’ve been working on, despite the fact, some people in the community, including Renatta, want to ban it. The play will go on, but we know it will be an ongoing issue in the future. Joe, Madelaine’s friend and director of the theatrical show kisses her and tells her they have chemistry and he’s attracted to her. Madelaine simply tells him he’s misreading her and reminds him they’re both married. Considering Madelaine’s husband is not that confident about their relationship, this could pose a problem in future, which also causes intrigue.

Assignment 2: Stuart’s Role – Protagonist

Ways to Create Layers: Hidden Agendas – Stuart starts bringing women he’s really not interested in to family functions just to make his wife jealous or to not feel like a loser.

Competition: He feels he is in competition with Frank over the boys, so he may start to spoil them with more gifts and things. This is a part of his wound to be a better father. In his professional life, he doesn’t trust Mike Scarpelli so behind the scenes they are both trying to get rid of each other. He believes Mike will trying to overblow any slightest mistake he makes, which could be a problem for him if his M.S. gets worse.

Deception: He steals another scientist’s formula for M.S from the lab to add to his research. This could be a continuing lie. Stuart’s M.S. changes his personality and he becomes more concerned about not being able to achieve his goals, so he will lie and cheat and do anything to find a better cure for M.S.

He could lie about the results in the clinical trial.

He could lie about drinking or the amount he drinks to cope with his M.S. episodes or mood swings.

Maybe he gets hooked on uppers since M.S. makes him fatigued?

Stuart initially gets Archie to let him have a mini-lab at Cuckoo Valley by telling him that he knows about the best Big Pharma medical stocks to invest in when he gets more involved on medical science and he’s willing to pass that inside info. to Archie so Archie can make money.

Secret I.D.’s – Stuart discovers Boris changed his name and has another identity, but he keeps it to himself as they are best friends and later allies.

Stuart’s biggest loss in his past – besides his wife’s affair would be that his dad died when he was young. His father had high expectations of Stuart, so Stuart strives to be a pioneer in his field or at anything that he tackles. He is an over achiever, which means that he sometimes takes himself too seriously, sensitive and has a sarcastic sense of humour. He can also be stand-offish.

Boris: Role- becomes Stuart’s best friend.

Hidden Agenda: Wants to bring his entire family over from Russia and not just his wife. His daughters and sons-in-law are conscientious objectors and their life is in danger there, because they are pro-democratic.

Competition: Anyone at immigration. Beatrice, the administrator at the Retirement villa is nosy, so he wishes she were gone. Perhaps him and the rest of the gang conspire to somehow get Beatrice fired.

Secret: Boris was in the KGB at one time and defected. He changed his name and fled the country. His truck accident never actually happened, he was shot fleeing the country following a protest. The thing is when Boris reveals this, everyone just laughs and thinks he’s joking.

Wound: He feels like a failure, because he has broke his promise to his family. He wonders how he can get them out, but being in a wheelchair means he hasn’t been able to make enough money working to get them out. However, most of the residents in the home know he wants to bring his wife here and understand a part of the political scenario, so they do have empathy for him.

Max Thornton: Role: Dean of the University.

Hidden Agenda: While he seems supportive of Stuart, he really wants one of his own students and companies he support to find a better cure for M.S.

Deception: He tries to get Stuart involved in his social circles, committees etc., but that mostly so Stuart won’t have time to do the research he needs and not the reasons he gives. In fact, he wants Stuart to lecture at the university.

Secret: He had several affairs in his younger years with other teachers in his department, which is against policy. Those details have never surfaced.

Wound: His father was a donor at that university and he always felt like he only got the job there because of his father’s money. This makes him a little insecure at times, despite his demeanor that exudes confidence and privilege.

Hank – Role: Ghost/Practical Joker

He’s in competition with Stuart and resents the fact that he’s dead and Maddy likes Stuart.

Hidden Agenda: Despite the fact, Bradrick and Maddy want him to cross over, he doesn’t want to leave the retirement village and likes being a ghost most of the time. He still loves Maddy.

Conspiracy: He tries to Sabotage Stuart’s plans, but has some difficulty.

Secret Identity: Sometimes he lets Bradrick think he’s the ghost of another person. Hank comes to people and speaks to them in dreams.

Hank’s daughter comes to visit Maddy and Hank watches when she comes around. She reminds them of Hank, so he is never quite gone or never quite forgotten.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV, Module 1, Lesson 5: Creating Emotional Characters

What I learned in this assignment is: Thinking below the surface can create more connections between the characters in the show and create themes.

My Example Show: Big Little Lies:

Madelaine: Situational: Hope – Hope is to be successful as a drama teacher and an influencing creative force in her community, Monteray, California.

A: Fear: Is that she will be controlled and stymied by politics and conservative views on the school board and city council.

B: Motivation: Wants the play to be successful. Need: To be recognized in the community.

C: Mask: She feels threatened, insecure. Public Mask: Confident: assertive, and almost aggressive at times, Passionate.

D: Weaknesses: She wants her children to excel and can be picky and pushy and times instead of letting some minor things go. A bit of a drama queen and self-absorbed. She doesn’t pay enough attention to her husband’s needs.

E: Triggers: Her ex-husband, anything that challenges her as being an inadequate mother.

F: Coping Mechanism: She plots to get revenge. She lobbies/rallies behind the scenes to get what she wants.

Celeste: Situational: Hopes that she can resolve the issues with her husband. Fear: She will lose her marriage.

B: Motivation: Wants: To save her marriage. Need: Needs validation and fulfillment in her previous career as a successful lawyer.

C: Mask: She’s troubled by their abusive relationship. Public Mask: They’re a perfect couple with a husband who’s crazy about her.

D: Weaknesses: She’s afraid to tell her husband the truth about her need for a career because he will see it as a threat to their marriage and his need to be in control all of the time. She is ashamed of their sexual behaviour behind closed doors.

E: Triggers: Violence and aggressive behaviour.

F: Coping Mechanisms: Avoidance, Evasive of expressing her true feelings. She complies with her husband to avoid an argument, even though she doesn’t want to.

Jane: A: Situational: Hope – Hope is to raise her son properly. Fear: That her ex may find her and she has a secret that could be revealed that has severe consequences.

B: Motivation: Wants to lead a normal life for her son. Needs to belong and fit into a community.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: Fear in many areas including her son may be psychotic like his father.

Public Mask: Everything is normal. She’s a happy, regular single mom raising her child.

D: Weakness: She’s a little naïve, worries a lot, insecure, overly stressed.

E: Triggers: Anything that threatens her or her child.

F: Coping Mechanism: Jogs a lot to relieve her anxiety attacks. She also carries a gun for protection.

Renatta: A: Situational: Hope – Hopes to be a good mother despite the demands of her successful career. Fear: That she isn’t a good mother and her daughter will suffer for it.

B: Motivation: Success. Needs: To excel in every area of her life. It’s like she’s trying to prove something.

C: Mask: She worries about her status in the community and appearances. Public Mask: Rich, successful women.

D: Weakness: Perfectionist, buys her way around town.

E: Triggers: Anything that reflects negatively on her as a mother.

F: Coping Mechanism: She drinks a lot. Uses her influence and schemes behind the scenes to get things done her way.

Assignment 2: Off Your Rocker

Stuart — A: Situational: Hope: To find a cure for M.S.

Fear – That he will be so debilitated by M.S. he won’t be able to lead a successful life and die young.

B: Motivation: Love of science and discovering things. Needs to find a cure to prolong his life. Wants to be a good husband some day and father, grandfather.

C: Mask: Embarrassed about his divorce, losing his house and having to live in a retirement home at his age. Public Mask: He is going to find a cure and get himself out of this mess/predicament. He may try and become

D: Weaknesses: Stuart may be overestimating his abilities in medical science concerning humans. He can be self-absorbed, too detailed and has difficulty relating to seniors and sometimes others who are not as well educated as he is.

E: Triggers: Anything about his wife and Frank, who betrayed him or about not being a good father/family man bothers him. Academically, he may feel challenged in this new medical/science community that would annoy him.

F: Coping Mechanism: He may try to over-compensate in his professional life, by trying to influence and instigate more changes in his home environment – Cuckoo Valley.

Boris: A: Situational: Hope: He will be reunited with his family. Fear: He won’t be able to make this happen and they may end up in jail for protesting the Russian government.

B: Motivation: Want – He wants to be a good family man. Needs to fulfill this and sees it as his purpose in life.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: He’s a broken man, disabled and not able to work like he used to. He has a secret as a former KGB agent that defected.

Public Mask: Carefree and jolly most of the time. Is trying to leave his past behind him.

D: Triggers: Anything that negatively happens effecting freedom and democracy in Russia gets him worried. He feels for other people like himself he hears about in the news because of his own experiences. The sound of cars backfiring reminds him of gunshots.

F: Coping Mechanism: Drinks, goes to the shooting range when he can to left off some steam.

Likes to makeup stories.

Sandra Meade/Counsellor/Love Interest A: Situational: Hope – Hopes to find peace with herself and have a husband.

Fear: She fears she will always remain a middle-aged spinster.

B: Motivation: Want: Marriage. Needs: More sense of a personal life, family and to be loved, intimacy.

C: Mask: Base Negative Emotion: Sadness and loneliness. Public Mask: Optimistic, has it all together as a counsellor.

D: Weaknesses – too trusting, perhaps, can be taken advantage of because of her caring nature.

E: Triggers: Persons who were adopted like herself or lost their family due to a tragedy. (Boris’s situation is always a trigger for her) Children who grew up in foster care and had particularly bad foster parents.

F: Coping Mechanism: Deflects by changing the subject, pretends everything is fine, minimizes personal issues. Helps others instead of working enough on her own issues.

[Gloria Katch]

Hi Cheryl: I’m agreeing to your Confidentiality Agreement for ScreenwritingU.

Thank you,

Gloria J. Katch.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV – Lesson Three

What I learned doing this assignment: Is to keep trying to make the characters unique and different, particularly the protagonist and leads. It is a good thing to keep in mind since this show has a fairly large cast. Off Your Rocker is also a dramedy and despite the seriousness of the goals and journey, there is a strong sense of crazy.

My Example TV Show is: Big Little Lies. (I picked this one, only because I saw it on HBO Crave that I subscribe to and it was on your list. I don’t have a subscription to Netflix. Normally, I wouldn’t like a show like this, but it’s presented well, despite it’s steeped in gossip.)

I state this point, because they have done a great job with making interesting characters.

The main character is Madeline, (portrayed by Reece Witherspoon) she is the protagonist. She only works 20 hours a week, because she wants to raise her children well, and make other working women jealous or have a one-up on her mommy skills. She is a drama teacher at the local high school and is very expressive of her feelings and speaking her mind. She has a daughter about 7 years old, and a teenager from a previous marriage named Abigail. Abigail has decided to go live with her father, because she believes her mother pushes her too much. Abigail also doesn’t like the tension between her mother and biological father. Madelaine is also jealous that her first husband remarried a younger, beautiful women and resents the fact that her daughter likes her, as well.

Her best friend is Celeste, a former lawyer, who gave up her career to move to Monterray, for his career and to raise her twin sons, who are about 7 years old. She is very unfulfilled, because she is a great lawyer. Her husband has serious self-esteem and insecurity issues which causes fights all the time. Behind the scenes, they have a very-high charged emotional relationships that start with controlling violence and then they end up having wild, almost violent sex. Celeste and her husband seek out a counsellor in this show to help solve their marital issues. Her husband says that he is afraid of losing her because she is so beautiful. By the end of the episode, he tells her he wants her to have another baby, a little girl this time, basically to keep her barefoot and pregnant at home. Celeste’s frustration and a part of his problem is that he also travels a lot on his job and he is gone a lot of the time.

The third character in the series is Jane. She is new to town and has a son Ziggy. She is a single mom, and they create her past as being very mysterious, because she didn’t really know the father. It appears that she was on a date with him and he raped her, which is how Ziggy was conceived. By the flashback sequences it appears and her anxiety attacks, it appears she may be hiding from him and she fears for her life. (She may have shot him, we don’t know, which ads mystery to this show.) The fact that Ziggy also doesn’t know much about his father causes him some embarrassment and shame, at times.

Renatta portrayed by Laura Dern, is a high-end business woman. She and her husband are affluent, and they have a daughter, Anabella in the same class as the other women. She is over protective of her and wants to give her the best all the time. She is a somewhat reserved child, so now Renatta wants to send her to therapy.

Madeline and Renatta seem to compete with one another. The main rift began in the first episode when Jane kind of rescued Madeline and they instantly bonded. Then Anabella said the first day of class that Ziggy choked her. Renatta wanted an apology, but Ziggy said he didn’t do it. He later apologized, but it appears he really may have been trying to kiss Anabella and she took it the wrong way. We don’t know, and no one really saw it happen. Madeline automatically took Jane and Ziggy’s side and said Renatta was over-blowing it and resents the fact that she seems to run the town. Renatta is also in this episode trying to get Madeline’s play banned from school.

The show varies from couple to couple and dilemma to dilemma very quickly, which keeps the audience on their toes.

But all of the characters are contrasting and interesting in their own ways and we see into their personal lives.

Assignment # 2

Stuart, a marine biologist and scientist has an accident and later discovers that he in addition to fracturing his spine has M.S. He sets out to find a cure as he says many species of marine life don’t get it. When he comes home from the hospital, he also discovers his wife is having an affair with his next-door neighbour. So, they sell the home, and Stuart on his doctor’s advice moves into a retirement village to get the proper care and rehab on a daily basis.

A: Stuart is the protagonist, he is smart, adventuresome with an inventive spirit.

B: His outer journey is to find a cure for M.S as he is a scientist. His inner journey is to learn how to relate to people better, especially the elderly who he commonly refers to as “old farts,” respectfully, of course.

C: Intrigue – Secret Beneath the Surface: Stuart is a fish out of water. He is only 48 and has to learn to like and live with seniors. Truth be told, Stuart likes finds marine life more fascinating than most people. He is also afraid that he wasn’t a good husband and father since he spends so much time concentrating on research and work. His inner goal is to marry one day.

D: Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing: He has an affair with the psychologist at the home.

E: Unpredictable: The symptoms of Stuart’s disease includes changes in his personality, mood swings, depression, forgetfulness, etc.

F. Empathetic: Why do we care? He is an important man experiencing a debilitating disease that effects millions of people and he’s trying to find a cure. He’s also been dumped by his wife, but still has to accept what’s happened in order to stay in the family. He also is adjusting to a new family and way of life living at the home, which is in stark contrast to his professional world. Many things that he loved to do will have to be set postponed or given up entirely, so we have to have sympathy for him.

2. Benjamin Barley, his boss, supports him on his journey. He makes allowances for his disability and becomes a closer friend. He’s a bit of an eccentric.

Unique Purpose: He, like Stuart, is looking to protect the planet and marine life and all its species and eco-systems from climate change.

C: Intrigue What is secret beneath the surface: He’s more of a businessman, marketing Aqua World and likes to be in the limelight.

D: Moral issue: There is always a moral issue when you keep whales and dolphins in captivity and to be put on display.

E. Unpredictable: It depends who flashes the money when one is president of running an expensive business.

F: Why do we care? He can help Stuart reach his goal. Generally, he is also supportive and means well.

A: Boris – He becomes one of Stuart’s best friends at the home. He’s about 69 and closer in age to him than the rest.

B: Boris is a Russian immigrant. He’s well educated. He supports Stuart and helps him adjust. He has also had a tragic life and is in a wheelchair.

C; Intrigue: Boris is a former KGB agent who fled Russia.

D: Boris is hoping to sneak his wife into the country.

E: Unpredictable: Boris has a lot of willpower and courage, so he can do anything he has to. We also wonder when his past will catch up with him.

F: Empathetic: Why do we care? Boris is likeable and also suffered a tragic life.

Philomena and Paul

A: Role in the Show: They live in the next apartment to Stuart. They are also younger crazy partiers.

B: Unique Purpose: Philomena is trans-gender and Paul is her gay hippie husband. So we learn more about them, but she also has a very laid-back way of life that helps Stuart during trying times.

C: Intrigue: Secret: She pretends that her parents, who don’t accept the way she is, doesn’t bother her, but it does.

D: Moral Issue: She doesn’t believe there is one, but certain sectors of society can be judgemental.

E: Unpredictable: Philomena and Paul are spontaneous people who live in the moment. She used to be a drag queen performer so she can “act out” at any time. She’s a real firecracker.

F: Empathetic – Why do we care? Stuart reminds her of another friend, another drag queen performer she once knew. She senses Stuart accepts her for who she is and his kindness. She is sympathetic to his wife dumping him and wants to help.

All of the seniors in the home are particularly unique and contrast each other. The retirement home is a microcosm of the world.

[Gloria Katch]

Bingeworthy TV – Lesson Three

What I learned doing this assignment: Is to keep trying to make the characters unique and different, particularly the protagonist and leads. It is a good thing to keep in mind since this show has a fairly large cast. Off Your Rocker is also a dramedy and despite the seriousness of the goals and journey, there is a strong sense of crazy.

My Example TV Show is: Big Little Lies. (I picked this one, only because I saw it on HBO Crave that I subscribe to and it was on your list. I don’t have a subscription to Netflix. Normally, I wouldn’t like a show like this, but it’s presented well, despite it’s steeped in gossip.)

I state this point, because they have done a great job with making interesting characters.

The main character is Madeline, (portrayed by Reece Witherspoon) she is the protagonist. She only works 20 hours a week, because she wants to raise her children well, and make other working women jealous or have a one-up on her mommy skills. She is a drama teacher at the local high school and is very expressive of her feelings and speaking her mind. She has a daughter about 7 years old, and a teenager from a previous marriage named Abigail. Abigail has decided to go live with her father, because she believes her mother pushes her too much. Abigail also doesn’t like the tension between her mother and biological father. Madelaine is also jealous that her first husband remarried a younger, beautiful women and resents the fact that her daughter likes her, as well.

Her best friend is Celeste, a former lawyer, who gave up her career to move to Monterray, for his career and to raise her twin sons, who are about 7 years old. She is very unfulfilled, because she is a great lawyer. Her husband has serious self-esteem and insecurity issues which causes fights all the time. Behind the scenes, they have a very-high charged emotional relationships that start with controlling violence and then they end up having wild, almost violent sex. Celeste and her husband seek out a counsellor in this show to help solve their marital issues. Her husband says that he is afraid of losing her because she is so beautiful. By the end of the episode, he tells her he wants her to have another baby, a little girl this time, basically to keep her barefoot and pregnant at home. Celeste’s frustration and a part of his problem is that he also travels a lot on his job and he is gone a lot of the time.

The third character in the series is Jane. She is new to town and has a son Ziggy. She is a single mom, and they create her past as being very mysterious, because she didn’t really know the father. It appears that she was on a date with him and he raped her, which is how Ziggy was conceived. By the flashback sequences it appears and her anxiety attacks, it appears she may be hiding from him and she fears for her life. (She may have shot him, we don’t know, which ads mystery to this show.) The fact that Ziggy also doesn’t know much about his father causes him some embarrassment and shame, at times.

Renatta portrayed by Laura Dern, is a high-end business woman. She and her husband are affluent, and they have a daughter, Anabella in the same class as the other women. She is over protective of her and wants to give her the best all the time. She is a somewhat reserved child, so now Renatta wants to send her to therapy.

Madeline and Renatta seem to compete with one another. The main rift began in the first episode when Jane kind of rescued Madeline and they instantly bonded. Then Anabella said the first day of class that Ziggy choked her. Renatta wanted an apology, but Ziggy said he didn’t do it. He later apologized, but it appears he really may have been trying to kiss Anabella and she took it the wrong way. We don’t know, and no one really saw it happen. Madeline automatically took Jane and Ziggy’s side and said Renatta was over-blowing it and resents the fact that she seems to run the town. Renatta is also in this episode trying to get Madeline’s play banned from school.

The show varies from couple to couple and dilemma to dilemma very quickly, which keeps the audience on their toes.

But all of the characters are contrasting and interesting in their own ways and we see into their personal lives.

Assignment # 2

Stuart, a marine biologist and scientist has an accident and later discovers that he in addition to fracturing his spine has M.S. He sets out to find a cure as he says many species of marine life don’t get it. When he comes home from the hospital, he also discovers his wife is having an affair with his next-door neighbour. So, they sell the home, and Stuart on his doctor’s advice moves into a retirement village to get the proper care and rehab on a daily basis.

A: Stuart is the protagonist, he is smart, adventuresome with an inventive spirit.

B: His outer journey is to find a cure for M.S as he is a scientist. His inner journey is to learn how to relate to people better, especially the elderly who he commonly refers to as “old farts,” respectfully, of course.

C: Intrigue – Secret Beneath the Surface: Stuart is a fish out of water. He is only 48 and has to learn to like and live with seniors. Truth be told, Stuart likes finds marine life more fascinating than most people. He is also afraid that he wasn’t a good husband and father since he spends so much time concentrating on research and work. His inner goal is to marry one day.

D: Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing: He has an affair with the psychologist at the home.

E: Unpredictable: The symptoms of Stuart’s disease includes changes in his personality, mood swings, depression, forgetfulness, etc.

F. Empathetic: Why do we care? He is an important man experiencing a debilitating disease that effects millions of people and he’s trying to find a cure. He’s also been dumped by his wife, but still has to accept what’s happened in order to stay in the family. He also is adjusting to a new family and way of life living at the home, which is in stark contrast to his professional world. Many things that he loved to do will have to be set postponed or given up entirely, so we have to have sympathy for him.

2. Benjamin Barley, his boss, supports him on his journey. He makes allowances for his disability and becomes a closer friend. He’s a bit of an eccentric.

Unique Purpose: He, like Stuart, is looking to protect the planet and marine life and all its species and eco-systems from climate change.

C: Intrigue What is secret beneath the surface: He’s more of a businessman, marketing Aqua World and likes to be in the limelight.

D: Moral issue: There is always a moral issue when you keep whales and dolphins in captivity and to be put on display.

E. Unpredictable: It depends who flashes the money when one is president of running an expensive business.

F: Why do we care? He can help Stuart reach his goal. Generally, he is also supportive and means well.

A: Boris – He becomes one of Stuart’s best friends at the home. He’s about 69 and closer in age to him than the rest.

B: Boris is a Russian immigrant. He’s well educated. He supports Stuart and helps him adjust. He has also had a tragic life and is in a wheelchair.

C; Intrigue: Boris is a former KGB agent who fled Russia.

D: Boris is hoping to sneak his wife into the country.

E: Unpredictable: Boris has a lot of willpower and courage, so he can do anything he has to. We also wonder when his past will catch up with him.

F: Empathetic: Why do we care? Boris is likeable and also suffered a tragic life.

Philomena and Paul

A: Role in the Show: They live in the next apartment to Stuart. They are also younger crazy partiers.

B: Unique Purpose: Philomena is trans-gender and Paul is her gay hippie husband. So we learn more about them, but she also has a very laid-back way of life that helps Stuart during trying times.

C: Intrigue: Secret: She pretends that her parents, who don’t accept the way she is, doesn’t bother her, but it does.

D: Moral Issue: She doesn’t believe there is one, but certain sectors of society can be judgemental.

E: Unpredictable: Philomena and Paul are spontaneous people who live in the moment. She used to be a drag queen performer so she can “act out” at any time. She’s a real firecracker.

F: Empathetic – Why do we care? Stuart reminds her of another friend, another drag queen performer she once knew. She senses Stuart accepts her for who she is and his kindness. She is sympathetic to his wife dumping him and wants to help.

All of the seniors in the home are particularly unique and contrast each other. The retirement home is a microcosm of the world.

[Gloria Katch]

What I learned from this assignment: The 2nd episode of Big Little Lies really solidifies that this story is going to gravitate between four couples. They seem to be drawn into the conflicts through their children and school, at this point. Their relationships as couples are also on the rocks, so it’s revealing what’s going on behind closed doors, peak by peak. Lots of scenes. Music plays a big role in creating the mood, making this show resembling a movie more than what I’m used to seeing on television.

Three Circles of Characters – Main Characters

Stuart (Protagonist) – (48), Marine Biologist, smart, self-absorbed in his own inventive spirit, loves to explore, gets along better and likes animals and water creatures more than people.

Sean – Stuart’s son, (21) in university studying to be an engineer. Is living with his girlfriend and future wife. He is helpful to Stuart and sympathetic about all he’s went through.

Boris – (67 years) wheelchair ridden due to an accident. He’s well educated and of Russian heritage and has a sense of humour as dry as his vodka. He plays a mean game of chess.

Maddy – (76) attractive, former actress, flirty, is always wary of appearances. She’s been married three times and would like Stuart to be the fourth. She can be gossipy and a drama queen in many respects.

Geovanno- (72) He’s a large burly man of Italian descent, who once owned a restaurant business, but lost it to gambling. He has some dangerous men after him. He likes Stuart.

Aggie (80) – a feisty, God-fearing country woman, who says what she thinks and quite bluntly. She likes to collect or hoard things. She’s crafty and wants to be the champion Bridge player. She believes Stuart is receiving preferential treatment at the home.

Sandra Meade – (42) Counsellor at Cuckoo Valley. She’s intelligent, attractive and introspective and eventually becomes Stuart’s love interest.

Max Thornton – (antagonist) head of a medical university, who dislikes and envies Stuart. He is authoritarian, pompous and rigid when it comes to rules and regulations.

Mike Scarpelli – (Antagonist) (39) – a co-worker of Stuart’s who is gunning for Stuart’s job. He’s an opportunist, but not as smart or hard-working as Stuart.

Connected Circle of Characters: – Marian, Stuart’s ex and her new husband, his neighbor Frank, and Hank.

The staff at Serendipity Retirement Village – Beatrice (antagonist); Aretha, head nurse; Marta, physiotherapist and other residents: Bradrick, Iman and Susan.

Environment Circle: Stuart’s other co-workers: Benjamin Barley, president; Abigail Greenfield, marine biologist, Mark and Shannon, animal trainers.

[Gloria Katch]

Subject: Big Little Lies – Five Start Model

What I learned Doing This Assignment – To put conflict and drama in every scene. There are many scenes that get to the point almost immediately, especially considering it’s a drama wrapped in a murder mystery. They even started with the inciting incident without even explaining or setting it up. It’s really presented in a unique way. They use sound effects like heavy breathing and whispering to create atmosphere in world building. This is a world where gossip rules, which makes everything surreal and a pretense. The people being interviewed in the murder also are used as commentary and create a quirky/comedic narrative.

<div>
Big Picture Hooks- Who was
murdered, Why and Who murder him or her?
Amazing and Intriguing
Characters: They all have different
personalities, but they appear to be normal, foremost part, but it’s all
artifice. It appears like a perfect world, but it’s far from it.
Empathy/Distress – They are
all relatable, and super nice, and they all seem normal. However, every
couple has some conflict they are hiding behind the scenes. It’s
distressing to think one of them is a murderer. We also see the distress
within their families, so we feel for them.
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Layers/Open Loops – Can
Madelaine keep her family together?
Who hurt Celeste’s daughter and why is she saying it’s the new boy
in town? Is Janet’s son dangerous? Why is she arguing with her mother
about this? What happened in Celeste’s husband’s past that he is so adamant
about keeping her children away from the new (Janet’s) boy? Each couple in this show
have a secret. This is in addition to the murder that occurs.

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Inviting Obsession: How does this pilot create the need to
see every single episode?

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Everyone loves a murder mystery. I think because this show deals with families and children, we feel a sense of our social values and the fabric of our communities being challenged.

[Gloria Katch]

1. Gloria Katch

2. I’ve written about five features, a play, a sitcom for writing class, a comedy short.

3. Spit and polish. My work definitely needs that. I hope this class will help me find my voice or at least develop more confidence in using it. I need to be more consistent/disciplined in writing. I’d also like to learn more about marketing myself.

4. I don’t know if there’s anything particularly unique about me, but with writing I like many genres and would like to be able to successfully write in all of them or create interesting hybrids, if possible. I find satire and quirky things interesting. I’m Canadian and live in the Niagara Falls area, which is quite the yawn-fest especially now, unless your watching for bodies going over the falls.

[Gloria Katch]

Hi: Thanks Brent. Those are good reminders, as I have a problem with “killing my darlings” as they say in the business, and not dragging them through enough hell. The reason I chose the thriller genre is that it’s usually paired with another genre and this script would also be considered a drama, so overall not as action-thriller oriented as it could be. But I will definitely keep your remarks in mind. I am making a post on your writing sample, as well.

Thank you.

[Gloria Katch]

Hi Cheryl: Re: Lesson 5, Are we supposed to partner up with someone writing in the same genre to give feedback? What if no one else is in the thriller genre? As it stands, I am only seeing three posts for Lesson 5. I don’t mind partnering with Brent Hanlen as I’m familiar with the comedy genre, as well. Is this okay?

[Gloria Katch]

Hi Deb: I’m Gloria. Your next screenplay sounds amazing especially since you would have access to a great deal of personal knowledge.

Don’t pay attention to executives or anyone who doesn’t give constructive criticism. D.A. also means District Attorney to me, so let everyone think you’re a lawyer and they won’t mess with you. Talk to you soon!