Gordie Cowan
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Gord’s “Height of Emotion” – Assignment 1
What I learned: Revisiting an emotional moment to create lines that deliver the deeper meaning of the scene.
Screenplay: TMS (abbreviated title) NOTE: Usual formatting is changed to share the scenes without taking up lots of space.
Emotional Moment 1
Jess thinks he overheard, just a couple of tables away, the voice and identical message he would never forget hearing on the radio just after the bomber pilot killed his friends. In a German accent, the stranger says to his friends in a bar when parting from them, “Good night my friends.” OMG, it’s him – the bomber!
Jess confronts. They fight. Jess’s anger prevails. But the woman with the bomber comes running over to stop the fight. It turns out to be Greta, Jess’s lover. (What a twist!) Turns out the bomber, to Jess’s shock, is Greta’s brother. (Another wild twist!) In the shock that envelopes Jess because of these revelations, Jess doesn’t hurt the guy more, but makes it clear he would not survive if he drops another bomb. And when hearing her brother is, in fact, the bomber, Greta is likewise shocked.
But the emotion that simmers in subtext is that Jess can no longer live with, or be with one whose brother just killed his friends. He’s incredibly torn up over it because he’s fallen in love with Greta. And she likewise has fallen in love with Jess.
In this moment Jess struggles to tell her that it’s over. But how?
JESS – Can’t go on living with the sister of the murderer of our friends. Of children.
Jess and Greta lock eyes.
JESS – I’ll take your things to the airport locker. Pick them up there. And…
(hesitates)… stay away.
Greta, stunned, looks at her brother then casts her stare longingly toward Jess who, with Bull, heads to the bar.
Retrieving the bottle and glasses Jess and Bull, licking wounds, unsteadily walk into the street. Bull raises a glass.
BULL – To pay back.
Jess continues with a conflicted stare, not responding.
Emotional Moment 2
Couple days later Jess is in the pilot’s locker room when Greta enters to pick up her stuff. It’s awkward at first where they were not supposed to meet. But then:
Greta lowers her stare, walks determinedly to the same locker, takes the padlock, turns the dial, pulls the lock open, then abruptly turns, faces him.
GRETA – (blurts, emotional) Jess, I… I don’t know where to begin. Other than to say…
She searches for words.
GRETA – … There’s so much to tell, but ––
In the next moment their embrace is spontaneous. Their kiss exudes love, passion. Her tears stream. He hides his.
JESS (soul searching) Greta. Just don’t know what to do, what to say. How this could ever ––
She pulls him in for another passionate exchange. Pulling apart again, her loving stare softens him more.
GRETA I can’t tell you everything. Or why I’m even here. Not yet anyway. But in due course should you change your mind.
He stares off. She pauses, reflects with a tear.
In the next moment she tells him a horrific account of her brother’s past that confirms he’s a monster at heart, and that she hasn’t had anything to do with him in years. Even so, this a goodbye moment. The locker room scene ends with this:
Closing the locker she faces him, wipes a tear.
GRETA I’ve loved you ever since we were on our first beach date. Remember?
She smiles, hides tears before turning to leave. He reaches, his mouth opens but there are no words. His stare fills with confusion as she disappears out the door.
Emotional Moment 3
Jess and Augie’s plane is down because of a blown engine. They use that time to have too much to drink. By now Jess trusts Augie with anything. When Augie inquires why Jess is not with family, Jess finally relents with the help of alcohol.
Extended silence. Augie contemplates.
AUGIE You never finished tellin’ me. What really brings you here. Doin’ this risky business. Away from family. (focuses) What makes you tick man?
Jess stares off. Silence extends. His confident air fades. Augie concentrates as Jess deflates into his seat.
JESS Ever felt scared of choices? How they create irretrievable paths? Alter opportunities, relationships, others lives? Even love?
Jess’s eyes darken, shift with thought.
JESS Ever been afraid to apologize? Of confronting life’s mistakes? Making amends to those you’ve harmed?
Beads of sweat form on Jess’s furrowed brow.
JESS I’m living proof that… (reflects) … cowards would do most anything, even face death, to avoid confronting their true fears, their ghosts, their past.
Augie sobers.
JESS Guess I’m here fixing my own mess in a way that hasn’t really fixed anything.
Emotional Moment 4
Through a flashback Jess shares why he’s ashamed to go back home, confirming in scenes, not words, why he’s scared to apologize to those he hurt. Then returning to the scene, Augie provides wisdom that is “out of the blue” for the character of this “change agent,” but cogently accurate:
Augie studies Jess carefully a long moment.
AUGIE (reverent) May be wrong. But seems the first step is to forgive yourself.
Jess looks up, his expression steeped in confusion.
AUGIE Some stuff ain’t your fault. But most is. If you face it, forgive yourself, maybe you’ll find that peace that avoids you.
Jess’s eyes consider. Augie peers out the window screen before returning his gaze on Jess.
AUGIE Forgive yourself. Then just do it. Go home. Face your family. Apologize like you’ve never apologized before.
Augie locks eyes, has Jess’s undivided attention.
AUGIE Find Clayton. Be in his life. Never be afraid to apologize.
Long pause as Jess reflects, EXHALES.
For the first time Augie sees Jess’s eyes well up in the extended silence.
Emotional Moment 5
Jess is headed home. But something interferes. He becomes torn again with life choices even after he’s committed to leaving the war to head home to make amends with his family.
EXT. TARMAC – CONTINUOUS
Packing the duffel he wastes no time crossing the tarmac.
EXT. BASE OF STAIR RAMP, TRANSPORT PLANE – CONTINUOUS
When the final passenger heads up the ramp Jess takes a long look about before finally handing papers to the attendant.
As Jess nears the top of the stairs a military Jeep SCREECHES to a halt creating COMMOTION among ground crew. Two men jump out, sprint toward the plane YELLING, waiving.
AUGIE (yells) Jess. Wait.
BULL (yells to attendant) Hey stop that man.
The confused attendant glances up toward Jess who likewise confused, freezes. Bull is first at the base of the ramp.
BULL (to Jess, loudly) The call you made. Your friend?
Jess drops bag, scrambles back down. Augie arrives alongside the confused attendant who listens back and forth.
AUGIE (chuckling) Hey whatever you did, he came through in a big way. There’s just one catch.
BULL He’s adamant. Won’t give it to us. Only you.
JESS (surprised) The Frenchman. He’s here?
BULL What he brought? It’s a game changer. Would seriously change the course of the war. Make it a fair fight.
Jess glances longingly toward the transport plane. The flight attendant focuses inquiringly toward Jess.
AUGIE (understandingly) Either way man, wouldn’t blame you.
Jess and Augie lock eyes a long moment before Jess exchanges warm handshakes, hikes the ramp, picks up his bag, takes a final look about, faces the door, drops head, SIGHS.
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Gord Delivers Irony!
I, too, love irony. What I learned: In one sense, irony can be built through opposites of what’s true. Or can be built by making the abnormal the new “norm.”
Screenplay – TMS (abbrev. title)
One – The Captain or “First Seat” of a commercial flight is the least authoritative position in the cockpit. Huh?
Jess introduces Augie, a new arriving senior pilot with an airline transport pilot certification, to the big airplane. He puts Augie in the captain’s seat or “First Seat.” But Augie learns to his shock that the “First Seat” is actually the bottom rung of authority within the cockpit where it is the easiest job among the three crew positions. Augie must take orders and follow the direction of the crew who are the ones who truly keep the plane in the air where all Augie must do is fly by taking directions. Augie is further advised that, should he survive his first several nights, that perhaps he might earn his way to the “Second Seat” or the co-pilot’s position.
In the usual course of flying, the captain or “First Seat” is in charge and gives orders. But here, surprisingly, it’s not true. The coveted seat is, in fact, the co-pilot’s seat or “Second Seat,” who is in charge and gives orders.
Two – Danger is the new norm.
In the normal course, commercial pilots avoid all known dangers. But in this story, Jess and crew fly directly into known dangers, which is inapposite to how proficient airline transport pilots are trained.
On Augie’s initial flight he will have the crap sacred out of him numerous times. If he survives and can “take it,” he will learn that this is the “new norm” away from all that he thought was prudent and typical. Because, every nighttime flight involves edge-of-your-seat, “anything can happen,” dangerous flying, at least to the uninitiated. Later on, following a few flights, Augie recognizes the wisdom behind the method where this is the only way they can accomplish the task. And this is likely the safest method of doing so.
Three – Being shot at, is a good thing.
Back when there were no electronic navigation aids such as GPS to help determine one’s position, and particularly on the African continent where no other helpful nav. beacons were available, navigation was done celestially or by “DR” or “dead reckoning.” DR is the process of calculating the current position of a moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and incorporating estimates of speed, heading (or direction or course), and elapsed time to determine one’s approximate position while moving. When obtaining another “fix” or finding the next known location, navigators would adjust course accordingly and would begin the process anew.
With the flights described in this story, navigating is even more tenuous where all flying is done at night to avoid being detected by the enemy. Thus, known positions must be determined by another method where, in this story, the crews are flying blind. Little does Augie know that the next “fix” known to Jess and crew is when they are shot at by antiaircraft guns.
Augie, who is on his first flight is scared s#$%less when the plane is shot at. Not only that, but he also can’t believe Jess and Bull remain calm while he’s soiling his pants. That’s because Jess and crew know exactly where the big guns are located. When, therefore, Jess looks at a chart and calmly says to Augie that being shot at “is a good thing,” Augie thinks he’s flying with a madman. Of course, this is entirely counter to Augie’s sensible world. But nothing is sensible in this world. So yes, being shot at, is a good thing.
Four – The Pope’s Emissary is a fugitive from justice.
Father Tony becomes the Emissary for the Vatican and negotiator for the Pope when organizing an airline to fly humanitarian missions, to help stop the starving of young children who are victims of a war tactic. But Tony, a true Catholic Prist and exemplar “man of the cloth” is dubbed Nigeria’s Most Wanted Fugitive. Why? According to Nigerian leadership, Father Tony’s intermeddling into the war, by organizing these humanitarian flights, has protracted the war and caused greater casualties. It’s a lie, of course.
Five – The hero is a coward.
The core of the story is that Jess, the lead protagonist, is a true hero. He faces death nightly while supplying humanitarian aid to a starving nation. He goes beyond the job of mercenary pilot, saving the most important man behind these missions, a Catholic priest dubbed a “most wanted fugitive” by the enemy (more irony) and helping to even the score in favor of the victims of this most unfair war. But in truth, he does all this because he cannot face what he fears the most, fessing up to, and apologizing to family for his misgivings. He would rather face the dangers of this war than face the perils of being rejected by family.
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Gord’s “Delivers Insights Through Conflict”
What I learned: Working to replace dialogue when delivering insights and/or new ways.
Screenplay: TMS (abbrev.). (Note: The dialogue, etc. below, I cut, pasted and modified from standard formatting.)
JESS This is what’s killing our friends.
Augie returns a blank stare.
BULL (he’s Aussie) Shot from the L1A1.
Augie arches his eyebrows in confusion, still not understanding.
BULL The L1A1, Mate, is a standard issue infantry assault rifle. Made in the UK. By the thousands. For British forces.
They closely watch Augie take several moments to inspect the shell casing more carefully.
JESS Gambo not only starves these poor people. He’s getting help from a secret sponsor. A big one. To pummel whoever’s left.
Suddenly, Augie’s forehead pulls back all wrinkles. His eyes widen with recognition.
Situation 2 – What motivates the enemy’s sponsor?
Conflict – Before Jess tells Augie what they really do in this war, he must soften up Augie by telling him the truth of Britain’s motivation behind heavily supplying guns and ammo to the wrong side of this war. In doing so, Jess risks revealing “classified” info he learned when with his former employer, the CIA. So, he dances around it but gives Augie enough to “connect the dots.”
Insight – Augie discovers the motivation behind the war.
AUGIE But why?
Jess’s eyes shift in reluctance.
JESS What natural resource does Nigeria have? In abundance? That stays with our friends should Nigeria lose this war.
Augie stares off in thought.
FLASHBACK – EXT. NIGER DELTA, NIGERIA – DAY
Hidden at the jungle’s edge overlooking a section of the Niger Delta, the Colonel with Jess, Augie and Bull, all with binoculars to their faces, focus in the same direction.
Through their binoculars they see new big guns in place.
COLONEL Antiaircraft. Just arrived. Think they’re for you.
All but Augie lower their binoculars. Jess shows his gratitude with an acknowledging grimace.
JESS (to the Colonel) Yeah. More accurate than the gunboats. Thanks for the intel. We’ll pass the word. (troubled) Guess we’ll have to find new routes… (sighs) … complicating nighttime navigation.
AUGIE (spontaneously) What’s in them big storage tanks?
All look at Augie who has his binoculars trained a new direction. Jess and Bull raise their glasses toward the same. The Colonel turns to look.
COLONEL Oil. When we lost the Port to federal troops, they captured the oil fields.
BACK TO – PILOTS’ LOUNGE WITH AUGIE, JESS AND BULL
Jess remains focused on Augie.
JESS Their priority is elsewhere. Not on starving kids.
After a long moment Augie’s expression displays his lightbulb moment. He slowly shakes his head with disgust.
AUGIE (stupefied) People are starving. All because of oil? (disgusted) Ain’t right, man. Ain’t right.
Situation 3 – After revealing the truth of the unfairness of the war it’s time to tell Augie the truth of how they’ve been helping their friends.
Conflict – Jess and Bull are running guns, hiding them in with the humanitarian supplies. Should they get caught they would not only be in big trouble they would likely jeopardize the entire humanitarian aid program. And they would face arrest if caught. But they need to advise Augie before he discovers it on his own. The big questions are how to tell him and then, would he be supportive? Or would he call “foul” and tell others. Or would he leak it to his wife, the journalist. Thus, they require the utmost discreetness from Augie, or all becomes compromised.
Insight – Because of the secretive loads of armament the other side receives, it’s not a fair fight, which justifies Jess’s gunrunning.
INT. PILOTS’ LOUNGE – CONTINUOUS
Bull and Jess glance toward one another.
BULL So we’re doing something about it. But it’s between just the three of us. (nods toward Grace) Not the journalist.
Augie contemplates. Jess and Bull remain sharply focused.
AUGIE Sure. Yeah man.
Jess looks about confirming no one else overhears.
JESS We supply our friends with arms.
Augie grimaces sarcastically.
AUGIE (skeptically) Wait. You two arm a nation’s entire army? Single-handedly?
Jess and Bull reactively smile.
BULL No. No.
JESS We just supplement as best we can. In fact, wish we could do more.
AUGIE (dubious) How you doin’ all this?
JESS That’s the sticky part.
Jess and Bull maintain eye contact silently until Augie nods.
Both Jess and Bull peer out the big windows overlooking the tarmac. Augie’s eyes follow, sharpen on the big plane’s red cross. Jess and Bull brace for objection. Augie appears to contemplate, then slowly nods.
Situation 4 – Jess faces the reality that at some point he must go home to face the family he’s hurt.
Conflict – Augie, who in this journey, has evolved from someone Jess might not trust to becoming Jess’s closest confidant, hears Jess’s confession of his real fear – facing a family who may reject him. Jess is without guidance of what comes next in life.
Insight – Jess finds the key to life’s next step from the most unexpected source, Augie. He must first forgive himself before he can seek forgiveness from others. This is the moment that causes him to truly consider leaving the war and to leave for home.
INT. COCKPIT – CONTINUOUS
They lock eyes a long moment. Jess’s expression searches.
JESS Afraid to take that step to look others in the eye. To apologize.
Jess stares off.
JESS Think I could be a good dad. But don’t want to hurt or disappoint. Scared of failing.
Jess drops his head, tries to hide a tear.
JESS Would love to find my 18-year-old son. Explore a new beginning. But I’m… (hesitates) … not sure that’s possible.
Jess slumps further. Augie concentrates his attention on him, absorbing his revelations.
AUGIE (reverently) May be wrong. But seems the first step is to forgive yourself.
Jess remains still, focused on the floor.
AUGIE Some stuff ain’t your fault. But most is. If you face it, forgive yourself, maybe you’ll find that peace that avoids you.
Jess slowly raises his head to meet Augie’s stare.
AUGIE Forgive yourself. Then just do it. Go home. Face your family. Apologize like you’ve never apologized before.
They lock eyes.
AUGIE Find Clayton. Be in his life. Never be afraid to apologize.
Long pause as Jess reflects, EXHALES. Then for the first time ever, Augie witnesses a tear escape.
Situation 5 – While Jess stands alongside the plane, waiting for his crew to bring a truckload full of guns and ammo, suddenly Father Tony appears. He’s ready to inspect the plane to confirm there is nothing but humanitarian aid aboard. He’s also looking for a ride to monitor this particular flight. But Jess’s guns are about to arrive, shortly.
Conflict – The Church has made it clear; never can these humanitarian flights include arms.
Insight – Turns out, Tony has known all along of Jess’s gunrunning. But he’s remained silent about it.
EXT. TARMAC – DAY
After scanning the horizon again, he startles when finding Tony at his side. Smiles and warm handshake are exchanged.
TONY How’s the weather for Uli?
JESS You flyin’ tonight?
Tony nods, looks up at the big plane.
TONY Monthly report. The Vatican.
JESS Aha. Confirming no guns?
Tony nods. Jess’s expression calculates.
JESS Welcome to tag along. But we don’t have a spare seat tonight. Could be a rough ride. Weather won’t be good.
Jess points at a nearby plane also with new “JCA” symbols.
JESS We’re flying together. They have a spare seat. Might be safer to be strapped in.
…
Jess motions toward the plane.
JESS More than welcome to look around.
Tony nods appreciatively.
…
As Tony makes his way up the stair ramp Jess scans the outer distance again, this time spotting the incoming truck, afar.
His eyes narrow. He looks toward the ramp, glances back to the incoming truck. He comes to the base of the ramp, looks up. No sign of Tony. He toggles back to the truck. Closer.
Tony finally appears, takes the ramp quickly to face Jess.
TONY (sternly) I’ve just learned why you won’t take me.
Blanching, Jess glances over Tony’s shoulder. The truck closes in. With Jess speechless Tony smiles up at the plane.
TONY Wise choice.
Jess flinches when seeing Grace at the cabin door, waiving.
TONY God’s speed, good friend.
Warm embrace. Tony turns toward the other plane but stops.
TONY Oh, thank you for waiting…
Jess squints, not comprehending.
TONY … to load that special bit of cargo until after my inspection.
Tony winks, smiles. Jess, appearing stunned, watches Tony stride off toward the other plane.
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Assignment 2 –
Gordon’s Turns Insights Into Action
What I learned: In some key places in the film, when the Transformational Character is beginning to “see the light,” to replace dialogue with action.
Screenplay: TMS (abbreviated title)
New Ways 1 – It finally registers:
AUGIE (reverent)
May be wrong. But seems the first step is to forgive yourself.
Jess looks up, his expression steeped with confusion.
AUGIE
Some stuff ain’t your fault. But most is. If you face it? Forgive yourself? Maybe you’ll find that
peace that avoids you.
Jess’s eyes consider. Augie peers out the window screen before returning his gaze on Jess.
AUGIE
Forgive yourself. Then just do it. Go home. Face your family. Apologize like you’ve never apologized before.
Augie locks eyes, has Jess’s undivided attention.
AUGIE
Find Clayton. Be in his life. Never be afraid to apologize.
Long pause as Jess reflects, EXHALES. For the first time Augie sees Jess’s eyes well up in the extended silence.
New ways 2 – Jess begins to follow through
Jess looks up.
JESS
Some guys write messages. For good luck. Good karma.
Augie looks up peels back the insulation. Jess hands him a permanent marker. Augie is suspended in thought, then begins to write.
INSERT – The inscription which reads “Love you forever Grace – Augie”
The pen comes back to Jess. He looks up, hesitates, then writes a much longer note. His smile reflects his inner peace.
New ways 3 – Following through. Headed home.
INT. JESS’S BEACH HUT – CONTINUOUS
The hut is tidy, clean. All personal items are gone. The bed is stripped, its bare mattress rolled to the frame’s head.
INT. ISLAND AIRPORT LOUNGE – CONTINUOUS
The olive “Jess” duffel occupies floor space next to him. Jess focuses across the tarmac through the lounge windows. He glances at his watch, downs what’s left in the glass.
SUPER: “ “
EXT. TARMAC – CONTINUOUS
Packing the duffel over his shoulder he wastes no time crossing the tarmac.
EXT. BASE OF STAIR RAMP, TRANSPORT PLANE – CONTINUOUS
When the final passenger heads up the ramp Jess takes a long look about before finally handing papers to the attendant. As Jess nears the top of the ramp…. (continued)
New ways 4 – Jess is dedicated to following through but a new challenge complicates it
Jess glances longingly toward the transport plane. The flight attendant focuses inquiringly toward Jess.
AUGIE
Either way man, wouldn’t blame you.
Jess and Augie lock eyes a long moment before Jess exchanges warm handshakes, hikes the ramp, picks up his duffel, takes a final look about, faces the door, drops head, SIGHS.
<i style=”font-weight: bold;”>New ways 5 – a work in progress <i style=”font-weight: bold;”>
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Gord’s Seabiscuit Analysis – Assignment 1
What I learned: Unlike how I watched movies previously, this time I became sensitive to the movie’s profound moments vis-a-vis the action in scenes rather than words in dialogue.
In Seabiscuit there were many action-driven profound moments, more so than I list, below. But here are the ones that were most special, at least for me:
Profound Moments & Why They are Profound Moments
Moment: There are several scenes surrounding the tragic death of Charles Howard’s young son. They are all impactful and when strung together create an incredibly profound moment without dialogue. It starts with the fishing pole and tackle box complete with sandwich, then the key in the truck ignition, then the young boy driving down the road, then image of another truck coming the opposite direction. At this point what you feared would happen, you now know is going to happen. Then the next image is the truck in the creek, next the phone call, next Charles running in panic in a field, next Charles holding his son, sobbing and rocking. There are no words, just building tension from what is inevitable, then tears.
Why profound: Not much more needs to be said about the loss of a child where, by design, society accepts with less grief, the death of a parent first, before a child’s premature death. It’s all very tragic otherwise. But these particular scenes, weaved one after the other without dialogue, generate grief at a gut-wrenching level sans the gore.
Moment: When Red and Seabiscuit have their first moment on the track together. The horse is slow, until Seabiscuit sees a horse up ahead on the track, which causes Seabiscuit to accelerate to incredible speed.
Why profound: The horse is small (barely 15 hands) compared typical racing thoroughbreds who stand 16 hands or better, or four more inches taller at the withers than one standing 15 hands. And the horse has no lofty racehorse genes. Seabiscuit starts off a “mut” in the thoroughbred racing. But that’s not the point. The horse has heart and spirit which causes him to shine beyond any disappointing physical issues.
Moment: The starting bell from the firehouse that the starter looks at curiously before sending War Admiral and Seabiscuit down the track.
Why profound: It’s a great payoff scene following the setup scenes of night training on the track with the same bell, obtained at a fire house.
Moment: When trainer Tom Smith observes horse handlers fighting with Seabiscuit while at the same time he turns and sees Red Pollard fending off three young men who are fighting him.
Why profound: This is the moment where Tom Smith recognizes two misfits – horse and future rider, who just might complement one another.
Moment: When the banged-up jockey in a leg cast, Red Pollard, has the affectionate reunion with Seabiscuit who is, at this moment, also a banged-up racehorse in a leg cast.
Why profound: Earlier in the film, Tom Smith convinces a trainer from shooting a horse when conveying, “[y]ou don’t throw a whole life away just ‘cause he’s banged up a little.” The phrase is repeated back to Smith by Charles Howard when he wants to fire Red Pollard for having lied about his limited eyesight. But the payoff for this great comment is at its best at the affectionate moment, without dialogue, when the banged-up jockey in a leg cast, Red Pollard, is affectionately reunited with Seabiscuit who is, at this moment, a banged-up racehorse in a leg cast. Each is the mirror image of the other, both broken physically but not broken in spirit. They are, at that moment, united and providing inspirational strength to the other, from which they grow together as friends and are given yet again, a second chance. (This was my favorite moment of the film.)
There are so many more. These are just the favorites.
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Gordon’s Living Metaphors
What I learned: This exercise, at least for me, was hard. But it helped me appreciate the deeper meaning underlying certain scenes. Thank you.
The principal “old way”:
Jess avoids returning home to face family scorn. He does so to the extreme such that he has put himself in self-imposed penance by flying horrifically dangerous humanitarian missions, to help a culture and people afar from his home.
Five challenges to Jess’s “old ways” that should work but don’t really work:
1 Jess’s opening phone call with his wife. He conveys, “just six more months.” Meaning, he needs to stay another six months before coming home. But she’s not having any of it. She is not letting him get a word in edgewise before she hangs up. The CLICK from the disconnected call is followed by his expression of worrisome guilt.
2 On their first mission together Augie inquires of Jess, “[w]hy are you here?” The question lingers and is a challenge that really conveys, “why the f%$# are you not with your family?” To which Jess dances around the subject until turning it back on Augie (a method of avoidance which is one of his “old ways”), conveying in essence, that Augie has yet to understand the importance of their missions.
3 There is a locker room scene where Jess is breaking up with Greta who is his convenient lover while away from family. But he’s not ending the affair or sending Greta adieu to straighten out his own life. Rather, he sends her away when learning she is the sister to the bomber who killed his friends. This break up is the challenge. But he finds a reason other than the truth of why he should break it off. The “old way” is his creating a rational reason other than one based in the truth behind the breakup.
4 The dangerous components of the missions, when being bombed and shot at, are strong motivators to return home. These challenges fail when Jess negotiates directly with the mercenary pilots flying for the enemy, to have them not shoot at Jess and his planes. Or to be poor marksmen when shooting, thus missing their targets. Instead of leaving because of the danger, he modifies the danger into something more tolerable.
5 The final mission. Here Jess accepts the new forbidden cargo. But if he does so he risks everything. If caught he could never return home. He justifies his decision to fly the mission with the forbidden cargo because this time, this particular payload could make a big difference in turning the war in favor of the nation he supports.
Five living metaphor challenges:
1 Jess’s marriage is the airplane that he and crew fly nightly. It is beat up, torn apart, riddled with holes. Yet somehow, it still flies.
2 The missions are Jess running from his marriage. They come with frightening turmoil, some for which he knows he must apologize.
3 The affair with Greta is a roller coaster ride. It’s exciting one moment, frightening the next, with the final “drop off the cliff” moment occurring when he breaks it off with her.
4 The locker room scene is a tug-o-war with Jess’s emotions. When he makes Greta leave, he discovers his powerful love for her and is even more torn over the decision of leaving to return home versus staying. After his and Greta’s intimate verbal moment in the locker room where he finds this “love truth” within himself – that he loves Greta much more than he thought until that very moment, he is internally torn apart when watching her leave the room. He is experiencing the classic tumultuous broken heart emanating from the unraveling of a triad love affair.
5 The war is the world stage where Jess, in the leading role, is tasked with the uphill battle to save an entire culture.
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Gordon’s Counterexamples
What I learned: How to question (i.e., challenge) and how to create counterexamples to old ways.
Screenplay: TMS (abbreviated title)
Questions that Challenge Jess’s Old Ways
1. Jess, who is far from family for his job, is an extramarital affair while away. He’s asked by Augie, who is just getting to know Jess and doesn’t yet know, “Does your wife ever come here?” To which, Jess reminisces (flashback) of a recent moment in bed with his lover, before he replies.
2. Augie’s very next question:
Augie looks toward Jess, reads his discomfort.
AUGIE
So, why you here?
Jess glimpses out the windscreen.
3. Much later in the story Augie finally presses for answers:
AUGIE
You never finished tellin’ me. What really brings you here. Doin’ this risky business. Away from family.
(focuses)
What makes you tick man?
4. After Jess confesses his sins to Augie, Augie asks, “What now?” Referring to Jess’s future which causes Jess to consider and, for the first time, respond honestly.
5. The final question which is an in-the-face ultimatum, causing Jess to pause and ponder deeply, in which direction is he headed. Home? Or back to the war? Either way, there may be no turning back. That question comes from his lover who, at this point is completely unselfish:
GRETA
(interrupts, to Jess)
I won’t stop you. But if you so much as touch these guns you will be a wanted man.
She has Jess’s full attention.
GRETA
That means you could never return home. Do you understand this?
Counterexamples to an Old Way
1. Experience: Although Jess intentionally stays afar from family and home, the one thing he does regularly is to send letters with photos to his sister, who is his closest family for the time being, and she is back home in the states, close to his wife, close to his own family. In this way, when staying afar from home, he nonetheless stays in touch regularly with family, his sister, while avoiding apologies to his wife and chldren.
2. Experience: Jess’s act of writing a message to his son whom he’s never met, in the cockpit of the plane he flies. This message is Jess’s direct method of communicating with those from whom he’s chosen to stay afar, but with a message that could likely survive his own demise should he not survive the next mission.
3. Experience: One eve, when weather doesn’t permit flying, Jess is discovered playing the piano in the rec center. We see here that he’s a highly skilled concert pianist and he is reliving his past. We see how, through music, he meets his wife. He is reexperiencing or reliving in the present that which he misses while staying afar from family.
4. Experience: His part in running guns and munitions hidden within the humanitarian goods they deliver to the side they support. This gun running is Jess’s contradictory metaphor of sorts, his personal disgust over Britain’s secret munitions and armament shipments to the enemy. Like how Britain’s P.M. lies about not supporting their side, Jess is doing the same thing but against the side that Britain supports, while hiding it all from his former employer (the CIA) and from the Church and Father Tony whom he promised he would never run guns.
5. Character: Jess’s sister, Marion. She is family with whom Jess stays in regular contact. She represents the antithesis to his staying afar from family.
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Gordie’s Challenge Chart (Assignment 2)
What I learned is to ferret out the “old ways” that envelope the story behind TMS (abbreviation of title) and find ways to challenge them. The two principal “old ways,” follow.
Old Way
Jess faces life-threatening missions to save a culture marked for extinction, to avoid owning-up to what fears him the most – his past.
Challenges
Each nightly frightful mission while never knowing if he’d survive it for the next.
Augie asking, “Why are you here away from family?”
His returning thought of never having apologized to family.
His returning thought of never having been a “real dad” to the son he never knew.
Augie later asking, “You never told me, what makes you tick?”
Reflecting on his guilt of not telling his family who had been his employer and what he really did for a living.
By necessity, slowly letting Augie into the inner circle of gun running.
His reflecting guilt over not being honest with Father Tony when running guns on
humanitarian flights.
His finally conveying to Augie who is real employer had been until recently.
His finally telling Augie what he had done to cause him to flee from family.
Augie conveying to Jess, to seek forgiveness from others you must first seek forgiveness from yourself.
The capture of Father Tony.
The final mission that could truly “even the stakes” but could mark him a “fugitive of justice,” forever.
Old Way
Jess’s finding convenient extramarital love affairs where a hurtful breakup is ultimately inevitable.
Challenges
Guilt from reliving his prior unfaithfulness and reflecting on his current state and his current extramarital affair.
Augie’s inquiry over why he, Jess, has not invited his wife to spend a bit of time together while he is afar for so long.
Greta, his current girlfriend, conveying by action, not by words, her love for Jess
Greta being level-headed with their affair, conveying to Jess that to return home he must forego this final mission to prevent his becoming a wanted fugitive (for reasons not explained here) which would forever preclude his return home.
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ASSIGNMENT 1
Gordie’s 12 Angry Men Analysis (Assignment 1)
What I learned: Generally, I identified the old ways and the challenges to them.
I did not assign or attribute specific “old ways” to specific individual jurors. Instead, I offer thoughts on each juror’s principal character traits or character faults, below.
That said I believe most but Fonda as Juror No.8, start off sharing the same or similar “old ways” derived generally from two regrettable notions: One: the most assertive in the group espoused the Kid’s guilt right up front, making it an immediate uphill battle to convince anyone of the Kid’s innocence. Two: the struggle with the uncertainty of facts that form the basis of whether a young man lives or dies. Uncertainty is the root of the “old ways” for all who quickly vote to convict.
From this uncertainty many of the jurors have their respective methods of bending or massaging the facts or over-generalizing the facts when attempting to alleviate their uncertainty. Their methods of doing so are their “old ways.” It’s not “glossing over.” Rather, they each have their methods of justifying why their theses are right even when it all doesn’t necessarily fit the evidence. Put another way, each has his own way of fitting a round peg in a square hole while justifying their methodology of doing so.
Some take offense to being challenged. Some take it further by expressing it with vivid outbursts of outrage or anger while attempting to suppress a challenge. But generally, the “old ways” are really based on each juror’s deepest uncertainty of the facts while simultaneously justifying a position that demands no less than certainty, for “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.
What follows are my generalized thoughts on the jurors’ character traits, at least as I see it, and a few of the challenges that changed them. Some challenges remained ineffective, such as, but one example, the competence of the defense lawyer. Here goes.
1. Martin Balsam – quick to be compliant; wants to get along so he can accomplish his job as foreman.
2. John Fielder – needs time to feel comfortable in the process. Looks for guidance.
3. Lee J. Cobb – condescending; bullies his way to results; stubborn; intolerant of others who challenge his views; is prejudiced against adolescents and young adults that stems from his failed relationship with his own son whose age approximates that of the accused. There is no challenge that would sway him. In fact, he’s the final hold out and relents only because he doesn’t want to be alone in the vote and is ultimately heartbroken about how he’s bullied his own boy out of his life.
4. E.G. Marshall – stockbroker; intelligent; observant; rational; smug; sees himself in a higher class to that of the accused and many in the jury room. Makes up his mind early on the briefest of facts but which clearly point to the kid’s guilt. He remains unbending against a flood of evidence that contradicts his opinions until he is given additional facts that compete with what he does and uses on a daily basis – his glasses. And as a rational person he ultimately accepts the challenges given him on the woman’s use of glasses and bends to rational discussion.
5. Jack Klugman – timid; poor (“I’ve lived in a slum all my life”) and offended by statements that cast the accused kid as being poor; not willing to be alone in a vote; is empathetic to the accused kid. The challenge most influential for him is the use of the switchblade knife.
6. Edward Binns – blue collar worker; the enforcer in the room. The knife challenge works with him.
7. Jack Warden – salesman; has somewhere to go (the ball game) and can’t be bothered with determining the fate of an accused man. The challenge to him is to embarrass him into conducting his civic duty as a juror.
8. Henry Fonda – architect; charismatic; calm; compassionate. Takes his time in rationally examining the evidence, bringing respectful challenges to those who do not do so. Challenged best by No.4 who, now a minority among the jurors who believe the Kid is guilty, relies on the woman’s testimony who “saw it” happen.
9. Joseph Sweeney – empathetic; compassionate; easily changes his vote so as to hear the whole story and also to support Juror 8. And offers the challenge of the eyewitness woman who must wear glasses but likely did not when momentarily glimpsing the crime without them.
10. Ed Begley – horribly prejudiced; condescending; self-righteous; In his mind’s eye, the accused kid is guilty by association for being from the ethnic/class type for which No.10 hates. He will say and do anything to see the accused hang because of who he is rather than based on facts. “They’re all guilty.” Just goes with the flow after being ignored by all for his prejudicial remarks.
11. George Vosovek – European immigrant who is pleased to be there to be an integral part of an American jury. He is persuaded by all of the challenges.
12. Robert Weber – in advertising; snobbish; disconnected with the process; ultimately goes with the flow evidenced by his changing his vote back and forth.
P.S. I really liked this movie.
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Gordon’s Profound Ending
What I learned: To focus on the key, most important message of the story to have it pay off in the end; and to spend good time honing a parting image or a line that supports that message and is, perhaps memorable.
Screenplay: TMS
Profound truth:
The key to finding the courage to seek forgiveness from others is to first seek forgiveness from yourself.
How the TC and CA come to an end that represents the completed change?
Jess the TC
When Jess finally forgives himself it frees him to find forgiveness from family. It provides him the courage to leave the war, to focus on the future, to face potential rejection but with hope that he may be accepted. He commits, with no qualms, to leave the war, to return home to accomplish this goal.
Augie the CA
Augie expands his focus from beyond just making money, which is his priority when first arriving and anticipating “danger pay.” But as Augie gets to know Jess and discover the importance of their missions to the people and culture they help to feed, Augie becomes committed to helping others when witnessing and living first-hand, the brutality dealt those same people. This change in Augie becomes so significant to him, it even causes Augie to interrupt Jess’s trip back home which is the very course that Augie had encouraged Jess to follow.
The setup/payoffs that complete in the end, giving it deep meaning
A work in progress.
The inevitable but the surprise
The inevitable ending is that Jess is headed back home to repair family matters. The surprise occurs when Jess doesn’t return because of an intervening event beyond his control. But his son discovers his dad’s past, recognizes his heroism, then follows his estranged dad’s course to make amends to his family for his own indiscretions.
What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?
Jess’s inscription found on the plane, “Dear Clayton I’m coming home to apologize, to be a real dad….”
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Gordie’s Connection with Audience
What I learned from this assignment is to identify the four characteristics of principal roles that connect them with the audience.
Audience connections from the first 30 minutes of TMS (abbreviated title)
Jess is the TC. Augie is the CA
Opening Scene – Public phone at busy airport.
A foreign airport, 1968. Jess, in a sweat drenched pilot’s uniform, holds payphone receiver to his ear, the other hand over his other ear to cut the busy hustle-bustle noise. His armpits are drenched from oppressive heat. He listens intently to his wife but can’t get a single word in despite his trying. Then the line clicks dead. “Shit.”
Jess – the TC
A. Relatability
He’s away from family while working. He has kids. He’s trying to stay in touch with them while traveling.
Hasn’t everyone been sweaty in public?
Many have attempted to use public phones or their own phones in airports or in noisy places.
Most have endured a person dominating a conversation where one feels she/he could not get a word in edgewise. Many have endured such conversations while afar from home where they are left frustrated, alone and lonely after such a call.
B. Intrigue
The one partial sentence Jess is able to convey before being cut-off is that he must stay, wherever he is, “another six months….” Why? What’s going on? What’s he doing? What’s his work? Is he a pilot? Is there tension in his marriage? To what extent? Why? Is it the cause for his being afar from family?
C. Empathy
Empathy for the frustration when not being able to get a word in when conversing with a dominate person, whether at work, in a relationship or elsewhere. Empathy for being separated from family. Empathy for someone feeling frustrated, lonely, alone.
D. Likability
Friendly demeanor. Reasonable appearing guy. He’s trying to check in with family while traveling. What’s not to like about that?
Next Scene – walking across tarmac and first glimpse of the plane.
Jess meets Augie when walking across the tarmac toward planes. Augie is looking for his first ride’s check pilot, whom he doesn’t yet know is Jess, the guy with whom he’s conversing. Finally, there are intros and friendly handshake. {Remainder omitted).
Jess – the TC
B. Intrigue
Jess and Augie are pilots. Wow, how does that POS airplane get off the ground? Why must they fly this plane rather than another that is safe? What is their mission? What is the payload? They are leaving at dusk particularly when, in this era, there’s no precise electronic navigation aids that would help one keep track of location at night, like, e.g., GPS. And it’s not likely there are VOR towers in this part of the world.
D. Likability
Jess shows his friendly, experienced confidence. He’s funny – he crazily beats his chest like Tarzan at a passing crew who will fly tandem with them that eve.
Augie – the CA
A. Relatability
Augie is a newbie assimilating into a new job in a new place. He has the right skills. He must work with subpar equipment. He has a new wife. He’s taking a risky job for good pay.
B. Intrigue
Augie is a black man from the USA. That he is an experienced commercial pilot from the USA with an airline passenger “ticket” is unheard of back in the 1960s. But this is not the USA. And there’s absolutely no racism here where Jess is instantly accepting of Augie’s skills as his newest copilot. Will Augie risk life and limb to fly this death-trap-of-a-plane? Or does it just look like a death trap? Why the big paychecks? Are these missions dangerous? What the heck is the payload?
C. Empathy
Concern for Augie’s safety. To receive extraordinary paychecks he must risk his life by flying a seemingly marginally maintained airplane, at night no less. Is there even more danger to this mission?
D. Likability
Good natured with Jess’s joke about his name, “Augie,” as a pilot. Jess likes him.
Next scene – inside the cockpit
Jess puts Augie in the first seat (i.e., captain’s seat). Augie admits he has not flown this particular model. Jess tells him, this is a complicated airplane, that he, Augie, has the easiest job, that all he has to do is fly and follow directions precisely, nothing else. (Remainder omitted).
Jess – the TC
D. Likability
Confident but understated. Puts Augie in the “first seat.” Jess is gracious.
Augie – the CA
A. Relatability
New job, accepting the challenges to fit in.
B. Intrigue
A reversal of roles: Augie is placed in the captain’s seat but where the person in charge is the one in the copilot’s seat, Jess.
C. Empathy
Fitting into a new job, a new role, in a new environment where, although Augie holds the skills required for the job, this is a more edgy work environment.
Next scene – in flight (black skies outside)
Conversations between Jess and Augie where both get to know one another. Augie discovers it’s difficult to draw out from Jess what he’s all about. Jess is a bit understated and holds private matters “close to the vest.” Jess explains the payload, the mission. Jess tells Augie that what they do with these flights is more important than even their exceptional paychecks. (Remainder omitted).
Jess – the TC
A. Relatability
Many from audiences have either been or have worked with a capable, calm and focused leader. Many have emulated such persons in their work environments. Many from audiences have been required to perform or endure extraordinarily stressful tasks. Many have endured stressful working environments. Many have experienced it all while serving in the military.
B. Intrigue
We finally know this is a Red Cross mercy mission. We discover Jess and crew are flying through a gun enforced, blockaded no-fly-zone region and consequently they are taking on heavy antiaircraft fire. Jess and Bull are cool, calm, where this is their nightly experience. But it takes Augie, the newcomer, everything he has to keep from soiling his pants. And why would someone try to shoot down Red Cross humanitarian flights in the first instance?
C. Empathy
There is concern for the crew’s safety and hope that they would survival. These are civilians enduring combat conditions, and the audience feels their fright.
D. Likability
They are flying a Red Cross mercy mission, doing good, risking their lives to help others.
Augie – the CA
A. Relatability
Many have found themselves in a tough spot, in a dangerous situation, whether at work or elsewhere.
B. Intrigue
Will Augie return to the danger after he experienced first-hand on his inaugural flight, what it would likely be like every night from here on end?
C. Empathy
Concern for Augie’s safety.
D. Likability
Augie is a reasonable guy doing his best to fit in, stay calm and function while facing dangers he never before confronted and in his wildest dreams never anticipated.
Next scene – the landing, the bomber, the payload, the children
When attempting to land Augie discovers the strip is but a widened jungle road just wide enough to accommodate the big plane. Also, there is only one string of lights defining the landing strip for nighttime landings. While Augie follow’s Jess’s lead to guide the plane toward the lights, he is scared s%$#less. Then, as they watch their sister ship leave the airstrip before them, before Jess’s plane lands, their bretheren are bombed right in front of them. Then it’s bedlam. (Omitted).
Jess the TC
A. Relatability
Some have lived through or experienced nearly tortuous and frightening moments.
B. Intrigue
The entire plan and method of how these planes try to remain undetected while breaching a sovereign’s strictly enforced, nearly impermeable blockade is an incredible feat.
C. Empathy
Jess loses his close friends while watching it happen but can’t do anything about it. The audience feels his loss and his vow of retribution toward the bomber, Heinrick.
D. Likability
Jess’s level-headed leadership under incredibly stressful conditions truly shines. Despite the horrific events they all just witnessed, Jess must quickly formulate a plan to deliver their payload without being detected by the bomber. He does so while quelling his impassioned anger because there’s just no time to reflect on it and no time to mourn.
Augie – the CA
A. Relatability
Some have lived through or experienced nearly tortuous and frightening moments.
B. Intrigue
The entire plan and method of how these planes try to remain undetected while breaching a country’s border where entry is strictly forbidden and enforced by big guns. The nearly impermeable blockade. That these pilots are civilians, not military, engaging in military.
C. Empathy
The audience is sucked into agreeing with Augie, that Jess must be “absolutely bat shit crazy” when turning around to deliver their payload immediately after what they just encountered, until Jess conveys his level-headed reasoning. The audience feels Augie’s frightful moments at every step before realizing that most all of this would be Augie’s new life every time he flies with Jess.
D. Likability
Augie is human. His world as a trained pilot is repeatedly tested and exceeded well beyond his understanding, at least thus far, of what’s acceptable and safe. Yet he is learning that this is how it is. Meaning, he’s coping, like all of us when we find the normalcy of our lives put on tilt or when our normalcy is challenged.
© Gordon M. Cowan 2023 – All Rights Reserved
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Gordie’s Transformational Structure
What I learned:
1. This particular script evolves in two different times, today and 25 years past. This exercise caused me to analyze the two times separately, to treat them as two stories such that each can stand on its own legs. This story is the one evolving back in time.
2. Never worked a MM Method previously. It’s an upward learning curve.
Script – TMS (abbreviated)
Logline:
The fear of seeking forgiveness from the son he never knew, pushes a father into dangerous penance while finding the courage to forgive himself.
Mini Movie 1 –
Emotional Gradients – Desired change
Transformational Character – Jess (leading role – the hero)
Change Agent – Augie (newest flight crewmate of Jess)
Old Ways – Running guns. Running from relationships. Running from life’s mistakes.
Challenge – Survive this horrific war. Keep from being caught running guns.
Weakness 1 – Jess remains “close to the vest” with something that eats at him.
Weakness 2 – He’s an adrenalin junkie.
Weakness 3 – Beautiful women.
Vision for Jess – He flies these humanitarian missions for numerous reasons.
Vision for Augie – Fly for extraordinary paychecks to save up a nest egg for his bride.
Opening scenes:
Jess, a competent, cool, seasoned mercenary pilot who flies a big four prop former passenger airliner-turned-POS-freighter, must break-in his newest copilot, Augie. Through this first flight many of the elements that make this an incredibly dangerous job are revealed.
On Augie’s inaugural flight he makes no apologies for being there for the lucrative “danger pay.” But Augie soon discovers this job is way more dangerous than he had anticipated. In fact, it is “off the charts” dangerous. And he’s scared s#@&less.
Jess reveals nothing of himself. Except to tell Augie, when he, Augie, truly “gets” the “why” of what they accomplish with these flights, it would become more important to him than even the lucrative pay he came to reap. But Augie senses Jess masks deeper reasons that tether him there.
Mini-Movie 2
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
Old Ways – Jess seems to be running from life’s mistakes which remain ill defined. As matters escalate in war, Jess sees his contribution as a stronger reason to stay, which draws him more deeply into the war and more disconnected from family.
Challenge 1 – Finding courage to straighten out his own life.
Challenge 2 – Survive this brutal civil war.
Weakness 1 – The war is Jess’s escape valve, easy way out, to avoid his past.
Vision for Jess – Would rather face death nightly when flying these dangerous missions – a sort of penance for all his wrongs – than face his past.
Opening Scene:
Poor village with starving children. Intro of Father Tony. French doctor examines an emaciated child, one of several children in line waiting to be examined, most of whom, the French doctor surmises, won’t survive the next day due to malnutrition.
Jess discovers from Tony,
1. It’s no rumor, the ICRC (Red Cross) is pulling out – too dangerous.
2. The Church wants to take over the ICRC’s position, investing itself into this war.
3. Tony is the newly appointed Church emissary for the humanitarian relief flights
4. Tony asks Jess to convince pilots to fly for the Church when the ICRC pulls out.
Mini-Movie 3
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
Old Ways – Jess becomes good at hiding the truth of his past and his reasons for investing himself deeper into the war. He can’t break from a convenient relationship he’s maintained with Greta, a woman who uses him equally, who knows he’s married.
Weakness – Fear of facing rejection.
Weakness – Self-doubt of his capabilities.
Opening scene:
When raising glasses with Bull alongside, to their fallen comrades, Jess suddenly recognizes the bomber pilot who killed the very friends to which they are toasting. A classic knock-down, drag-out, fist-and-cuffs bar fight ensues.
But a shocking revelation is made, tail spinning Jess into deeper remorse over his choices.
Mini-Movie 4
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
Old Ways – Same. Still uses the war as an excuse to not fess up to life’s mistakes.
Weakness – Behind the cool and collected pilot, there’s a coward.
Weakness – The people he fights for.
Opening scene:
With their plane grounded Jess is at the piano in the recreation center, by himself, lamenting his woes. Jess has incredible, never-before-seen, musical talent, an important part of his past and which makes him who he is and what causes him to be there.
Next eve’s mission Jess discovers an allied country is secretly supporting the war on the wrong side, contrary to its Prime Minister’s official statements to his own country and to the world. And he has solid proof of the PM’s lies. Jess understands the war just became more unfair and more difficult for the side for which he supports.
This is the MIDPOINT.
Mini-Movie 5
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
Old Ways – Same.
Challenge 1 – Jess must find the courage to return home to straighten out his own life.
Challenge 2 – The war is not just brutal and unfair, it escalates in the wrong direction.
Challenge 3 – The war gets more dangerous for Jess while drawing him in, further.
Weakness 1 – Jess’s bravery is but subterfuge to that which internally eats at him.
Weakness 2 – Tony asks him to help enlist pilots. He’d do anything for the Padre.
Vision for Jess – Before confessing to Augie, Jess justifies his death defying, nightly missions as a sort of penance for all his wrongs to others. Jess finds the pull of the escalating war even stronger so as to further justify his lengthening stay.
Changing vision for Jess – Jess confesses to Augie, sharing his true secrets of who his real employer is and what eats at him the most.
Changing vision for Jess – Augie’s offered solution resonates with Jess.
Opening scene:
Jess inserts war photos with a letter to his sister. Augie questions.
When Jess and Augie are half “in the bottle,” Jess lets down his guard, revealing important facts, one so significant it could even jeopardize Augie if he knew (omitted). Following Jess’s confessions, Augie offers key advice that resonates with Jess. Using a method unique to the relief aid pilots, Jess memorializes his love of family and vows to return home. Augie similarly follows suit, affirming his love for his wife.
Mini-Movie 6
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
Old Ways – It seems at first Jess put his old ways in the rear-view mirror. But there is an immediate call to action that interferes with his returning home. Father Tony is captured by Federation troops.
Challenge 1 – The war beckons even after he’s vowed to leave, when Tony is captured.
Weakness 1 – his friendship with Tony trumps all else, even his return to the States.
Opening scene:
Father Tony, now unfairly labeled a fugitive from justice, finds himself involuntarily in a fire fight where Federation troops have attacked a small village. He is captured, nearly executed but saved temporarily when others would be witnesses to his murder. The enemy troops’ leader holds off on Tony’s execution, takes him away instead, to be dealt with later, in private, where there would be no witnesses.
As Jess is packing up to leave Augie breaks the news of Tony’s fate. Jess foregoes all else to rescue Tony, missing his flight home.
With the help of Jess’s crewmates and military friends, Tony is rescued. In the process Jess reveals to Tony he’s committed to leaving the war effort.
Mini-Movie 7
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Greta
Transformational Character – Jess
Changed Old Ways – The war beckons him back. But this time it’s not the “old ways” that keeps him. Rather, a more worthy final mission draws him in.
Weakness 1 – Jess is no longer a coward. He’s forgiven himself. And this act alone causes him to see more clearly, the path he must take which is to return home. But this last mission is a monumental opportunity to turn the tide of the war in favor of the right side. And so, he’s torn and must choose between two equally worthy courses. He ponders which is most crucial in his mind’s eye, family or humanity.
Vision for Jess – Would he be able to live with himself if he foregoes a final mission that could turn the tide of the war in favor of the side that truly must win to even survive.
Opening scene:
Jess is taking the stairway up the transport plane. He’s headed home. Suddenly Augie and Bull arrive, yelling to “stop that man.” His crewmates confront Jess with a breaking situation, a final mission that could critically change the war toward their side. But it is absolutely guaranteed it would not happen without Jess’s personal participation.
Next scene: Jess, Augie and Bull are driving together in a Jeep, to airplane hangars in an abandoned part of the field. Jess reflects when spotting a plane that disappears in the distance, the one that would have brought him back to the States.
In the hangar, it’s bedlam and revelations as old adversaries meet. And the good guys are saved by a most unsuspecting individual.
Mini-Movie 8
Change Agent (primary) – Augie
Change Agent (secondary) – Fr. Tony Byrne
Transformational Character – Jess
New Ways – Old ways are in the rear-view mirror. He has clear direction. He needs to go home. But this immediate call to action must take precedence. Through new thinking and motivation, Jess finds a commonsense solution. He just needs to survive the first to accomplish the second.
Challenge 1 – The war beckons him for one final, “all stakes” mission.
Challenge 2 – If he so much as touches these new armament packages that he’s being asked to deliver, if found out, he could become a fugitive and thus prevented forever, from returning back to his family.
Weakness 1 – His rationalizing of choices.
Vision for Jess – He’s accepted that he’s headed home. He visualizes it. But he must accept this most critical mission.
Opening scene:
Jess is waiting for the new armament that could change the war. Jess is pacing because his compadres are considerably late. Suddenly Tony shows up, involuntarily escorted by several men, American CIA, who are convinced the Church is supplying arms and that this plane is full of them (on good authority). The CIA wants to inspect. Tony intervenes, says that he will inspect. He does so, finding nothing but food and humanitarian goods. The CIA doesn’t believe Tony, a priest! The CIA person-in-charge defies Tony, searches the plane. He finds nothing. Embarrassed, the CIA types leave. Then Tony leaves after bidding Jess God’s speed. Thereafter the truck arrives. Jess and crew pack up the weapons. It’s all good. Or is it?
Act III – final scenes
The flight, the aftermath. The end.
© Gordon M. Cowan 2023, all rights reserved
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Gordie’s Three Gradients
What I learned doing this assignment is to define the depth of the story through a gradient of change in the character.
Forced Emotional Gradient for the script, TMS
A. Emotion: DENIAL
Jess cannot believe that, in a fit of rage, he nearly took it to a horrific physical level that which he caused his family at a most difficult emotional level. (We don’t know what it is until Act II-2.)
B. Action:
Jess flees, takes a dangerous pilot’s job, then faces death nightly to fly dangerous missions. He’s a mercenary pilot.
C. Challenge / Weakness:
Jess can’t face his family. He is shamefully embarrassed. He hasn’t the courage to apologize.
A. Emotion: ANGER
Jess is angry with himself for mainly being a coward. He can’t face his family to apologize.
B. Action:
Jess channels his anger toward the enemy of the Biafran state, including within his payloads, guns which, in turn, breaches the humanitarian purposes behind his missions.
C. Challenge / Weakness:
Jess, although outwardly brave while conducting these heroic missions, nternally, he’s a coward. He knows it. But to get past this internal struggle, this impasse, he must first forgive himself.
A. Emotion: BARGAINING
Jess sees the easier way out by risking risk is life repeatedly, to help save others, than owning up to his own family.
B. Action:
Jess justifies his avoidance of family at home by risking his life to save others on a nightly basis.
C. Challenge / Weakness:
To face his deepest fear he must return home.
A. Emotion: DEPRESSION
Jess: Confession to Augie
B. Action:
Jess: Heavy drinking. Confession to Augie
C. Challenge / Weakness:
Jess: Facing up to famiy is scary.
A. Emotion: ACCEPTANCE
Jess: In his meeting with Augie, he accepts he must forgive himself first to find forgiveness from others.
B. Action:
Jess: Is preparing to head home. Even gets on the transport plane to home.
C. Challenge / Weakness:
Clay: One last mission pulls at his heart, dividing his soul. Does he fly on this final mission, one that could truly turn the balance of the war toward the right course? Or does he continue on his journey home to make amends with family? If he chooses the former, would he survive to accomplish the latter?
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Gord’s Lead Characters
What I learned doing this assignment is, this: Had not previously thought to include a “betraying character.” Has me thinking and causes me to change up a character. Thank you!
Logline (for TMS):
Parallel journeys, one in present times, one in 1968, of a son and the father he never knew, search for forgiveness from the other, where both discover the strength to forgive themselves.
Change Agent:
Augie M. Augie becomes Jess’s closest friend during the war (described below). As Jess’s fellow pilot they pierce through the gun-enforced, impermeable blockade, nightly with their freight-laden planes, risking their lives to help feed a starving nation. As Augie settles in to witness first-hand the brutality of the war, something he’s neither seen nor experienced before, and which impacts him as it has Jess who remains a seasoned mercenary pilot, the two gain each other’s trust, become friends, then become close confidants as their friendship deepens. But it is the new guy’s guidance (i.e., Augie’s) against Jess’s secret revelations of why he’s even there in the first instance, that motivate Jess to change, to recognize that he must make amends with his family, the family he left behind, the family he hurt. And to do that, he must first forgive himself.
Transformable Character:
Jess M. (See Change Agent, above.) Jess did something horrific in his mind’s eye that caused him to flee his family. In a self-imposed punishment-type move, Jess flies dangerous missions nightly, to help others. In essence, he would rather face death, nightly, than face the family he’s harmed. But it is his friend Augie who shows him the path (above). And he follows it. But then, changed circumstances cause Jess to temporarily abort his path home to fly one final but necessary mission. Would he survive it to return home? To face his most burdening fears? To make amends with family?
The Oppression
It’s the Biafran-Nigerian civil war where a gun-enforced blockade caused nearly two million children to starve to death. It’s a brutal war tactic meant to starve thy enemy into submission, a sort of genocide by starvation, to prevent Biafra from seceding from its former homeland, Nigeria. And there is a dastardly, selfish reason for Nigeria’s leader to engage this tactic.
Betraying Character:
This is a new concept for me. Thank you. Thank you. I think I have a concept which involves changing one of the supporting roles. It’s a work in progress. Will revisit.
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Gordie’s Transformation Journey
What I learned in this lesson is a way to craft a logline using the transformational journey from the person’s old ways to her/his new ways.
Logline (for TMS):
Parallel journeys, one in present times, one in 1968, of a son and the father he never knew, search for forgiveness from the other, where both discover the strength to forgive themselves.
Old Ways:
1960s: The father’s most formidable fear is his impending face-off with family, to apologize for his past deeds and to the son he never really knew. But that fear is so deep, so strong, so shameful, that he chooses instead to face death nightly, to help feed a starving nation – a sort of self-imposed punishment for his past deeds.
Present day: The son, having taken a similar “mistaken path” as had his father, chooses a dangerous journey to find his son-of-a-bitch dad, to understand his roots, so as to understand himself.
New Ways:
1960s: A best pal, the “change agent,” convinces the father to first forgive himself so as to find that courage to apologize to those nearest to him. And he does so. But one last death-defying mission stands in his way.
Present day: The son’s dangerous journey to find the father he never knew, reveals that his dad was a significant hero. He also learns his father was returning home to “be a real dad” to him. These revelations impact the son, so much so that he too forgives himself to return to family to make genuine amends to those he’s hurt.
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Gordon’s First Three Decisions
What I learned doing this assignment is the discovery in working a puzzle that helps identify the depth of my stories.
Gordon’s First Three Decisions
What I learned doing this assignment is the discovery in working a puzzle that helps identify the depth of stories.
Not yet sure which story to take through the program. Here are the candidates:
Script One (title is abbreviated) TMS
Profound truths: Never be afraid to apologize. Never be afraid to search for the truth.
The change your movie will cause an audience: How avoiding an apology enslaves the soul. How braving-up to make amends liberates it.
Entertainment Vehicle: An embellished happening.
Script Two (title is abbreviated) ITC
Profound truths: 1. Blood is thicker than water. 2. Face your fears and doors will open.
The change your movie will cause an audience: Despite how scary it might be, there is no alternative to standing up against evil.
Entertainment Vehicle: A “cause” is the background – Homelessness
Script Three (title is abbreviated) Title: EFC
Profound truth: Youth and nostalgia are timeless and yet, bittersweet when revisited.
The change your movie will cause an audience: Our minds relive the most adventurous and harrowing times of our youth but with stinging awareness that we can never repeat them.
Entertainment Vehicle: Metaphor –
Script Four (title abbreviated) Title: ATC
Profound truth: Criticism can dismember all but the bravest who thoughtfully challenge the impossible.
The change your movie will cause an audience. Phenomenal personal growth follows those who smartly adventure beyond what is considered unthinkable.
Entertainment Vehicle: Embellished as it happened.
Script Five (title is abbreviated) Title TRA
Profound truth: Things are not always what they seem.
The change your movie will cause an audience. To be “on guard” for the truth.
Entertainment Vehicle: Metaphor
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Gord’s Analysis of Groundhog Day
1. The Transformational Journey
From unassuming jerk where fellow humans are beneath him and are disposable, to a genuinely caring guy. From arrogant weatherman who IS the weather and who also dislikes himself, to weathering the storm that alters his time, so as to learn how to be a loving and loved man.
2. Lead characters
a. Change Agent: Rita. She causes Phil to want to earnestly become a good man. Rita is the “good” that Phil is not, in the beginning.
b. Transformable Character: Phil.
c. Oppression: Time is stuck. And Phil’s own caustic persona.
3. Connection (what sucks us into this movie)
Intrigue of the time warp and how Phil faces each day and learns.
4. Old ways
Phil is arrogant, egotistical, uncaring and caustic. Even so, he’s always “level” or “even keeled,” meaning he never loses his temper or explodes. He’s just a level-headed jerk.
4. New way
Phil transforms into a likeable and caring Phil. He’s not a different person. Rather, he is a better version of Phil.
5. What is the gradient the change?
Begins as a jerk
Recognizes he’s stuck in time – panic
He becomes the scared Phil.
Tries to alter routines to break out of being stuck
Looks for support from Rita who disbelieves him
Then becomes bad Phil, testing the waters of what he can get away with
Commits suicides. But never takes anyone with him (driving on railroad comes close)
Meets drunk in bar who acknowledges that yes, his days also incessantly repeat
Tries repeatedly to seduce Rita but is rejected and slapped because it’s not genuine
In attempting to “be” with Rita he comes to fall in love with her.
Begins to help others. Not that he cares at first. But then he does
Learns that some lives can be saved while others cannot – it’s just their time.
Death of the old man on the street gives him an inkling of the value of life.
Learns to live with what he’s left with – that repeated one day – by educating himself and learning matters of cultural significance and to become a good person.
Becomes the well liked Phil
Then Phil finally becomes the one that Rita likes, then falls in love with.
6. How is the “old way” challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?
Time is stuck. How can this be.
Phil tests the waters, becomes even more of a jerk
Hates himself.
Experiments with suicide multiple times. Never takes anyone with him.
Then he becomes the reckless Phil.
Meets drunk in bar who acknowledges that yes, his days also incessantly repeat
Tries repeatedly to seduce Rita but is rejected and slapped because it’s not genuine
In attempting to “be” with Rita he comes to fall in love with her.
Begins to help others. Not that he cares at first. But then he does
Learns that some lives can be saved while others cannot – it’s just their time.
Death of the old man on the street gives him an inkling of the value of life.
Learns to live with what he’s left with – that one day that continues to repeat – by educating himself, learning music, French, poetry, the arts, even medicine (Doctor Phil).
Then he transforms into the well-liked Phil
Then Phil finally becomes the one attracts Rita.
7. What are the most profound moments of the movie?
Moment he recognizes that Rita is truly special.
Moment he must accept that the old man off the street is dead.
Meets drunk in bar who acknowledges that yes, his days also incessantly repeat.
In following, the moment he recognizes himself.
His acceptance of the people and the town he once despised.
The ice sculpture of Rita.
Morning when February 3rd arrives.
8. What are the most profound lines of the movie?
“I am the weather” (epitome of his ego)
“Come on, all the long-distance lines are down? What about the satellite? Is it snowing in space? Don’t you have some kind of a line that you keep open for emergencies or for celebrities? I’m both. I’m a celebrity in an emergency.”
“When you stand in the snow, you look like an angel.”
10. What is the Profound Truth of this movie?
Tomorrow will come. When it does be a good person.
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Hi everyone.
I am Gordie (“Gordon” at formal affairs, depositions, copyrights, etc. “Gord” or “Gordo” for short. Whatever works).
Four completed scripts. More info: three are features, one is a short.
What do I hope to glean from the class? To further my creative side of the craft, to elevate the quality of my screenwriting.
“Stranger Things” about me? Nothing stands out.
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This is perhaps the most reasonable and straightforward NDA I’ve come across.
Of course, yes, I agree to these terms.
Thank you. Gordie Cowan
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Day 7 Assignment – Gordon
What I learned: The villain’s secret drives the story.
What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger?
Plan: To raze the building with all inside and place all blame on the prior owner. Rebuild and sell, making a figurative “killing” on the property (even though it was a literal “killing” as well). Keep up the appearance that he’s a hero of the community.
How the hero becomes endangered: Unwittingly Gwen takes the files home. (See Day’s 6 assignment re. her job and how she ends up with the files.) Turns out they are Jeb’s files and include his most damning, criminal scheme for the building. Jeb discovers that someone has a copy of the material. He must get it back at all costs.
What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the Villain: Avoiding Jeb’s hired assassin. Avoiding Jeb’s second hired assassin.
From the list of potential dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.
Threats
Physical danger
Chased
Lured into a dangerous situation
Closeness to the villain
People around them die or are injured.
Thugs or professionals hired to hurt them.
Presence of weapons or thugs
The unknown
Sequence those dangers in order and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.
1. Opening scene. Present time. But we open near the end of the story. Assassin busts through the door to the mountain cabin where Gwen hides out. The gun and silencer are prominent. It’s a man. The trigger squeeze begins.
2. 76 hours earlier: Jeb is advised that someone electronically passed through the security system and likely copied files. Jeb realizes his most private, darkest, dastardly evil scheme re. the building is within those files.
3. Jeb hires one of the world’s best assassins, a woman, to locate, identify and eliminate the risk.
4. Intro to the hired hit woman who, on another asssignment, easily eliminates her “mark” on a deserted beach walk. She’s paid $3 million for the hit which is what Jeb would have to pay as well should she accept the assignment. This is who Jeb contacts to locate, identify and eliminate the individual who took the files.
5. When the hit woman locates Gwen, she is ready to kill. But something stops her. And Gwen now knows she’s in mortal danger for what she has but doesn’t yet know what it contains.
6. Jeb knows his hired assassin did not do the job when having opportunity to do so. He also now knows who Gwen is and where she’s hiding.
7. Jeb hires another assassin, this time to kill both Gwen and also the first assassin who failed at the job, because he now cannot trust the hit woman either.
8. Gwen now knows Jeb’s secret. She now knows she’s in mortal danger.
9. The first assassin helps Gwen get prepared for battle. And by necessity she must go after Jeb.
10 The second assassin comes for Gwen. Back to the opening scene (present day) where the rest of that deadly scene is played out.
11. Second assassin is killed by a combination of Gwen’s planned defensive tactics (helped by the first assassin) and by a (sorry, cannot disclose) surprising helper.
12. Etc.
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Gordon’s Mystery Sequence
What I learned: The villain’s secret drives the mystery.
What is the big secret that the Villain is covering up?
First Secret
Murder.
Cover up of First Secret:
A catastrophic collapse of a building kills hundreds.
The first mystery engaging the Hero into solving it:
Gwen’s mother, a tenant, perishes in the building with hundreds more.
Sequence of mystery chain engaging the hero re. the First Secret:
Jeb Briar just bought the building a few months back. From Day One of his ownership he’s hired teams to inspect it and determine how best to renovate the building, to resolve its dilapidated state and to keep all tenants in place without raising rents.
News media idolizes him. Tenants cling to him in gratitude for his contribution to help them survive. He’s a respected guy in the public’s eye.
His stated mission is to avoid contributing to the community’s already significant homeless problem and instead, help in some fashion to reduce it. That’s why he’s renovating, not tearing it down like others have who tore down old apartments and replaced them with new, highly sought after high rise condominiums while adding further to the homeless population.
The building collapses. It’s an event that causes the world to pause. Hundreds are killed.
Enter Gwen. She’s devastated with the loss of her mother in the collapse. But to survive she must keep working. To support her bereavement, with her company’s permission, she downloads files from her assigned project to work at home while she copes with her loss.
Following a quick investigation the former owner of the building is arrested. The inspection team determines the collapse is due to years of negligent maintenance. The former owner is charged with numerous counts of negligent homicide.
Gwen is a talented internet security analyst. Her company is in the business of reducing security threats from cyber and ransomware attacks. As it turns out the newly assigned project involves Jeb’s group of companies.
Jeb discovers that someone, somehow, may have confidential files relative to his private life and also of the building. He doesn’t know if this person knows what they have. Nonetheless the materials are sensitive, revealing and devastating to him.
Jeb hires someone to track the documents and do what is necessary to return them.
Gwen unwittingly has Jeb’s private material. Therein lies the truth that Jeb doesn’t give a shit about the homeless. In fact he’s intentionally sabotaged the building to make it appear that its collapse was due to the prior owner’s years of neglect.
In fact Jeb needs to be permanently rid of the lot so he can rebuild just like the others, to make a huge profit.
Jeb also paid for the inspection teams that determined that the former owner’s neglect was the cause of the collapse.
All secrets of Jeb’s relative to the building are in these documents.
The race is on between Gwen’s discovery of what she has of Jeb’s, and with Jeb who must retrieve the documents at all costs and eliminate her before he’s found out.
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Villain has a great plan
Day 5 – Gordon’s Villain’s Plan
What I learned is ….
1. The importance of the antagonist to the story. Her/his existence drives it.
2. The concept, paraphrased, “the villain’s story starts long before the story” caused me to recognize the truth of the matter.
3. That it’s okay to begin at the end, then “reverse engineer” the villain’s course.
What is the (Villain’s) end goal?
Jeb must find whoever spied into his most private computer files, containing the darkest secrets of his past. Then he must quickly eliminate them and all who may have seen them. He must assume that whoever bumped into the material has it, knows what it is, knows what it means (or will), and would likely furnish it to authorities. Consequently, Jeb must do whatever is necessary, and quickly, to ensure the materials remain forever private. At stake should he fail? A tumble from what wealth brings and a most certain lengthy prison term.
How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?
Silence the individual. Quickly.
How can he cover it up?
With a contract killer. The world’s best. He would not be suspected of Gwen’s demise if a true “pro” took care of the problem.
Sequence it for intrigue
Jeb’s plan is to identify, then locate, then kill whoever hacked into his digital world and who saw his most private, revealing and sensitive info that, at best, is criminal, and at worst, is gruesomely sick. The sequence (for now):
1. Jeb discovers that someone entered his private world, electronically. He runs through the emotions when discovering the breach.
2. Jeb hires Mara, one of the world’s most formidable contract killers, to identify, locate and then kill whoever it is who peeked into his private, criminal world.
3. Work in progress (WIP)
4. Work in progress (WIP)
5. Jeb on his own identifies the person as Gwen. (Sorry, can’t reveal more). But he learns that Mara likewise discovered her identity and is close to catching the person. He doubles her usual fee to get it done ASAP.
6. When Jeb discovers Mara had the opportunity to eliminate Gwen but didn’t do so, he’s baffled. In response he hires a “back up” killer to take out not just Gwen but the pro killer Mara as well.
Best, G
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Gordon’s SOTL Stacking Suspense
1. Distinguishing between M., I. and S.
2. Scene sequencing.
3. Concept of building or “stacking” suspense from one scene to the next
4. How to write a thorough and compact suspense chart (thanks).
5. That it’s okay, when writing suspense, to write very brief scenes that segue to the next major scene.
6. That a ten-minute in length thriller scene is acceptable [Clarice’s building search (her weakest skill in FBI training) for Buffalo Bill in his underground labyrinth of spooky stuff where he has the clear advantage].
7. Mystery and intrigue’s “peeling of the onion” (subtext??) to use as method of stacking.
And more.
Best, G
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Gordon’s BI Stacking Suspense
1. Working toward visualizing and experiencing the stacking of suspense for my script, 72 Hours, as obtained with watching Basic Instinct and as tracked by the chart.
2. Perhaps because of the period from which Basic Instinct came, a number of scenes appear to be more “on the nose” with its M.I.S. than, say, a more modern thriller.
P.S. Incredibly, I had never before seen Basic Instinct.
Best, G
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Thriller Class – Day 3 – Assignment Response
What I learned: some building blocks to evaluate and define the MIS of my story.
My story’s CONCEPT: 72 Hours – She extorts one of the world’s wealthiest individuals. He retaliates, hiring the world’s most formidable killer. But none know of the binding connection between them all that in 72 hours could eliminate any one or all of them.
Big Mystery: What is the true connection between Gwen, Mara and Jeb that pulls them dangerously toward one another?
Big Intrigue:
Mara’s true identity.
How did Gwen become so highly skilled to stealthily hack-without-a-trace?
How did Gwen discover Jeb’s crimes?
How does Gwen survive the ultimate FBI investigative interview?
Will Jeb keep his money? Will his crimes remain undiscovered? Will he find and kill Gwen?
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Big Suspense:
Would Gwen survive Jeb’s assassins?
Does Jeb see jail? Or, death?
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>The Intriguing World of my story
The underworld of computer hacking and the dark web
The underworld of professional assassins.
A peek into the resourcefulness of the business-savvy, ultra rich.
With your top 2 or 3 characters, tell us the role they play and then answer these three questions:
GWEN –
Her mystery: What drives her to take-down Jeb?
Her suspense: Will she be found out by Jeb? If so, can she survive his assassins?
Her intrigue: Her resourcefulness in the dark world of computer hacking
JEB –
His mystery: Seemingly without family or “old money,” where does this guy come from?
His suspense: Can he stop Gwen in time from publishing his criminal dirty laundry?
His intrigue: How he turned out to be so wealthy and so evil?
MARA –
Her mystery: Who is she? Her combat skills. Her methods. Her incredible weaponry cache.
Her suspense: Gwen. Surviving Jeb’s wrath when she must turn on Jeb.
Her intrigue: A deadly assassin but with a soft heart for certain causes.
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Gordon’s “72 Hours” MIS
What I learned doing this assignment is this: defining and refining my story’s MIS.
Log – She extorts one of the world’s wealthiest individuals. He retaliates, hiring the world’s most formidable killer. But none know of the binding connection between them all that in 72 hours could eliminate any one or all of them.
1. What are the conventions of your story?
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: GWEN, a resourceful security specialist seeks “pay back” from one of the world’s richest men.
Dangerous Villain: JEB. One of the world’s richest men who because of his evilness and wealth, can and does out-resource Gwen, to her detriment.
High stakes: Someone will die. And it’s likely Gwen. Jeb faces prison and would do anything to avoid it.
Life and death situations: Plenty. Break-ins by hooded hit person. Attacks by a bear. Death on a foggy jogging trail. Mixed martial arts combat perhaps to the death of one. A professional execution.
This story is thrilling because: The audience doesn’t know who will live and how they would survive, who will die and how death would come, and who would go to jail should they survive. One even rises to life after what was seemingly his most certain death.
2. Tell us the Big M.I.S. of your story?
Big Mystery: What is the true connection between Jeb, Gwen and Mara that drives the story?
Big Intrigue: Besides being the world’s deadliest hit woman, who, really, is Mara?
Big Suspense: Will Jeb finally catch up with Gwen? When he does how could Gwen ever survive his wrath?
Best, G
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No Time To Die (New James Bond 007 feature): Thriller Conventions
What I learned doing this assignment: I was able to identify and match the elements discussed in the first class with how they played out on-screen.
SPOILER ALERT: Should anyone desire to see this movie, it may be beneficial to not read any further.
James Bond is retired from his 007 active service with his probable forever girlfriend. But his peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old CIA buddy, asks for James’s help. This leads Bond on the trail of a mysterious villain armed with an ultra dangerous new technology that, in the wrong hands – this villain, could eliminate anyone in the world with pinpoint accuracy.
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero:
James Bond, retired version. He’s not adept or equipped as he once was when operating as the real 007 in his heyday. In fact, MI-6 replaced him with a newly assigned 007 when he retired.
Dangerous Villain:
Safin, pathetic in appearance yet clever, scheming and wealthy, desires world dominant power and plans a new world order he would lead by uniquely killing off any and all opponents without firing a single shot.
High stakes:
Safin conspires with a top biochemist, also evil, who develops nanotechnology that, by the mere touch by a host who has this special DNA, can infect another. The newly infected individual is either a host that is unwittingly targeted to kill another (because she/he is now infected) with her/his mere touch, or is the one who is targeted for death by the touch. In either instance, the DNA of this technology can be manipulated to target and kill with pinpoint accuracy of certain individuals, or it can be modified to kill groups of individuals, or it can be manipulated to kill off entire populations, even targeting an entire race. And in the hands of Safin who is mass producing the undetected “touching agents” in an impermeable World War II bunker, the world is in serious trouble.
Life and death situations: Here’s just ten:
1. Opening scene. Madeleine as a child, witnesses her mother’s murder by Safrin. She flees, falls through a frozen ice pond and is trapped under water. Safrin saves her. Madeleine later becomes James’s hopeful forever life friend in retirement.
2. Purported (false) betrayal of Bond by Madeleine.
3. James, in retired mode, visits a grave. But his old enemies, the Spectre organization, booby trap the grave with a bomb. He’s nearly killed but survives.
4. Ronan-type car / motorcycle chase scene.
5. Escape from Spectre ambush
6. Death of James’s CIA buddy, Felix Leiter.
7. Madeleine and her daughter’s kidnaping
8. The bio-nanotechnology, when explained
9. Break-in and break-out of the World War II bunker and the mass production of human infectors.
10. Spoiler: The final scene of the living James Bond who, now infected by nanobots meant to target for death his love, Madeleine, chooses to remain on the island where British missiles with warheads are irretrievably on their way to forever wipe out Safrin’s factory of human infectors.
This movie is thrilling because?
In James Bond fashion, there is always an anticipated, upcoming fight where Bond beats incalculable odds.
What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
The revelation of the method by which the bio-nanotech infection can be passed by a mere touch, and how it can be engineered to infect certain individuals or populations with pinpoint accuracy.
Big Mystery:
Bio-nanotech method
The hidden room in Madeleine’s Norway home and the secret therein.
How is the leader of Spectre directing Spectre while imprisoned and chained in the most secure prison in the world? (Answer revealed: bionic fake eye).
Big Intrigue:
Madeleine and everything that she represents.
Did Madeleine betray James?
Is Madeleine’s five-year-old daughter James’s child?
Why the “new world order”?
Big Suspense:
Will MI-6 with James’s help be able to take out Safrin’s organization and bunkered factory?
Will James survive?
Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller?
This is a long movie, nearly three hours long. But it keeps you on your toes. Next, the history of Bond and how he gets up to speed. And then his demise with the realization that Daniel Craig would never grace the screen as 007 ever again. And, lots more, of course.
With my best regards, Gordie Cowan
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Hello, all.
I’m Gordon (Gordie) Cowan. I am nearly finished with the first draft of my third feature script. I’ve not yet attempted to market either myself or any screenwriting projects thus far.
This class is intriguing where my current feature is an action thriller.
Best, G.
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Wow. Really good.