Courtney Hill
Forum Replies Created
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What I learned: the dynamics of the protagonist and antagonist and how it is important to flesh out both. Obviously, we need to know this information from the main character, however, it’s important to know the “villain” as more than just a bad guy. There’s reason, motivation, and history that pushes them to be the way they are. The most interesting Villains I’ve liked (The Joker, Regina George, Killmonger) all had reasons that were understandable, but didn’t justify their actions.
Protagonists
Michelle Hamwell
Role in the story: Victim- used by husband as fall guy for his crimes, and must defend herself or she will die.
Age Range: Early 30s, in-shape, trophy wife type,
Internal Journey: From meek, helpless, passive to confident, dangerous, and headstrong to go against her husband and his minions.
External Journey: She goes from sub- par boxing class student to trained fighter to take gain power and fight against her husband to defend herself from his punishment.
Motivation: If she doesn’t defend herself then she would be the target of her husband’s enemies and would die.
Wound: The betrayal of her husband. He was the first family member she trusted due to her family’s crazy life.
Mission: to learn the skills to prove her innocence by getting a confession or information from her husband.
Secret: Her “trophy wife” connections to people who can help her.
What makes her special: her ability to persevere in a life or death situation.
Antagonist
Brad Hamwell
Role in the story: Predator, used wife and her resources to gain notoriety, and then planted evidence on her to be the target.
Age Range, Early 30 year old forever frat boy in a business suit.
Internal Journey: From cold- hearted husband to a husband who wants to hide his true feelings for the sake of his goals.
External Journey: From promising gang leader to the joke of the gang.
Motivation: He broke the “rules” of the gang and blamed it on his wife. He needs her dead to save himself.
Wound: A need to prove himself and belong.
Secret: Who is really afraid of.
What makes him special? His ability to manipulate others to do what he wants.
Supporting characters: gang members, cops, and family.
Genera: Action
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What I learned in this lesson is the importance of the “old ways” and “new ways”. I’ve heard about the internal and external journey before, but defining the ways really helps narrow down the behaviors/person/characteristic of each aspect in the journey. It’s the “show” of the change.
My hero’s name is Michelle, a wife of a well known realtor, who finds out her husband’s secret and dangerous career when he uses her as the fall guy for his crimes.
Internal Journey: From feeling helpless, passive, and insecure to feeling confident to confront her husband and defend herself.
External Journey: From a passive “trophy wife” who takes directions from anyone to a confident, bad- ass woman who takes the lead to take down her husband and his minions.
Old Ways: Asks for permission, would never show off her talents in her self defense class, willing to fall to the background.
New Ways: Takes the lead, doesn’t see herself as “showing off” and owns her skills, doesn’t let people take advantage of her.
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I , Courtney Hill, agree to the terms of this release form.
GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
This completes the Group Release Form for the class.
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Hello all! I’m excited for this journey. My name is Courtney Hill and I’ve written 1 and 1/2 scripts, ha. I hope to learn the skills to just spit out the first draft and not get hung up on any excuse to stop writing it. I’m one belt away from my body being a lethal weapon, haha. I’m just talking about Taekwondo.
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Same- I was not able to watch the video.
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I feel like I always say the same thing, but I learned how much dialogue may not always be needed. He said of all of three things in that scene. We saw the very visual action of his desperateness by driving away in the RV van in his underwear, him getting the gun, and recording his information. So much happened in two minutes.
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The arc of the scene is Walter trying to escape but not successful, and at the end, he prepares for the worse by getting the gun and recording his information. You see him go from scared to accepting of his situation and ready to deal with it.
So many things make the scene great- the action- walter’s clothes and panic of running away from something, the men passed out or dead, and the acting.
We learn his name, and where he lives but wonder what got him in that situation. I wonder if the men are just passed out or dead?
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I learned that extreme can still be believable. I recently got food poisoning for the first time and it is actually very believable that you will relieve yourself wherever you can. It’s an awful feeling that you don’t have much control over. It was extreme for all the women to have the same reaction and run into the street, but not unbelievable. I would make every attempt to find somewhere to do my business, ha.
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This scene went from a normal bridesmaid shopping event to an extreme food poisoning reaction. It was extreme but somewhat realistic. It wasn’t random that they were all sick, it was a believable cause of eating some shady food, that led to all of the women getting sick. It’s also believable that there is only one bathroom available and everyone is on the struggle-bus to find somewhere to relieve themselves. I learned that even thought the actions of running into the street or using the sick is extreme, it is still believable.
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What I learned was how to draw out the scene to make it successful. Every action mattered in this scene. There isn’t room for any unnecessary suspense unless it moves the story forward. What made this scene great is you never really know when the shark is going to attack. You don’t even know where is going to come from. We know the huge shark is going to attack soon and they don’t have much time. The radio call stops him from getting his weapon sooner. The guy is having trouble with the barrel and the rope. It’s realistic! If you’re nervous about a shark, then, you would fumble around. I also learned that the character doesn’t always have to be smooth, unless it’s an important characteristic of theirs.
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Courtney’s Mission Track
What I learned during this assignment is to just brainstorm. I am way late on this assignment because I think I have to write the perfect answers. It’s not going to happen in my head, and I need to write it out. While reading the examples, I realized how much ACTION moved the story forward. Most of the plot points were action drive versus a conversation. People want to see more action, less talking.
A. The betrayal of her husband’s willingness to have her killed for his own gain. She wants revenge and she is literally fighting to live.
B. She has to get through his experienced gang members to get to him.
C. Internal Motivation: She gave her heart and should to the marriage, and his willingness to kill her is the catalyst of her spite and anger. External Motivation: She will die if she doesn’t kill.
D. She would have to find her husband. Study the gang and their patterns. Learn skills that will help her defeat them. Find Allies that are willing to help her. Fighting a lot of gang people. Running from the police. She might not be able to go through with it when she is actually face to face with her husband.
Clear Mission: To save her life and get revenge on her husband by killing him and destroying his gang.
Motivation for Mission: Michelle lives an ideal life with her husband. She also teaches self- defense due to a past incident.
1. Inciting Incident. She finishes teaching a night class when she is attacked. She fends the attacker off and finds out that he was hired to kill her.
3. First Action: She goes to the police station to make a report, and they aren’t taking her seriously. Her mission is to find out who the guy was and why he did it.
4. Escalation: She goes home to find her husband yelling at the man for not succeeding. An altercation occurs and she barely escapes.
5. Overwhelming Odds: Michelle is saved by a policeman from the station. Together they fight off the gang members that were trying to kill her. Turns out he is a “good” dirty cop and several others are against her husband. They warn her there is more to come.
6. TWIST: She finds out why her husband was going to have her killed. She has family in her husband’s gang and they wanted her to take over.
7. Apparent Defeat: Michelle and her new friends are set up by a her husband’s gang when they try to recruit.
8.Apparent Success: Michelle and her friends end up kidnapping one of the members.
9. Twist: The guy that is kidnapped turns out to be her cousin and is willing to help her take the gang over.
10. The final assault of Michelle’s gang vs her husbands.
11. Success: Michelle gets her husband’s gang to turn on him and lets them kill him.
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What I learned from this lesson is how “connected” the hero and villain must be. It’s easy to write good guy vs bad guy, but it’s interesting to create the barriers the villains will have for the hero. It gives the audience more reason to cheer for the hero than right vs wrong.
Concept:
Hero Morally Right: To prove that she was framed to save her life.
Villain Morally Wrong: Will destroy anyone and anything to attain his goal.
Hero:
Unique Skill Set- She is a self- defense instructor and her body is her weapon.
Motivation: To save her life and find the mole in her former husband’s gang who can prove her innocence. Before he finds him and kills him.
Secret or Wound: She learned self defense due to nature of her birth family.
Villain
Unbeatable: Has support from gang members, weapons and allies.
Plan/Goal: to prove to the current leader that he is the only one that can proceed him. He also needs to find the mole to kill him before his actions are brought to the light.
What they lose if Hero survives: His lie will be exposed and he will die.
Impossible Mission:
Puts Hero into Action: Must now find allies and learn to defend herself against her husband.
Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: Learn weaponry skills, learn to trust own family members as allies
Destroy the Villain – Find the mole, and turns his gang against him.
If the hero did find allies that could help her, then the villain will have to be more cruel in killing whatever is in his way.
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Hero: A woman’s self defense instructor who doesn’t know of her husband’s real job.
Mission: To kill her husband who has put a hit out on her.
Demand for Action: Her husband convince gang members to kill her.
Antagonist: Her husband, an upcoming gang member who is so close to replacing the retiring gang leader.
Escalating Action: She has to survive every encounter and form allies to get avenge herself.
High Concept: To prove her innocence of setting up a high profile gang member, a wife must kill her husband and his gang, before they kill her.
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I learned to create a scene that shows they dynamic of their relationship. To show what both of them want, and what they are willing to do to get it. I also thought of similarities between the two, which can add for a better cat and mouse game.
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Seriously one of the greatest scenes to ever exist.
The relationship between the Joker and Batman is love/hate. Batman hates it, and the Joker loves it. The are both extreme figures in their town and that are used for gain. Batman wants to know where people are. The Joker taunts Batman, even while knowing he is going to answer him. Joker is testing Batman. He has the upper hand and it shows. Batman can literally beat him, and Joker is like, “meh”.
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I feel like I say the same thing but…. Less dialogue and more showing. There was 3 minutes with not a long of dialogue but so much happened that moved the story forward. The audience understood was happening and it provided a smooth transition to pushing the story without explanation.
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This is the scene where Peter realizes that something is off with him. We actually see his powers via the web and his senses. Peter doesn’t say much at all in this scene. We are shown through his reaction and his classmates reactions to his powers. He is able to dodge the bully’s punches and eventually overcomes him with one punch. His friends are shocked and happy at whatever is happening to him. Peter is off to figure out what’s going on.
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This was harder to me. I usually struggle with “on the nose” writing. I learned to add behaviors that would push the story forward, and makes the audience question what’s going to happen.
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I would say everything is the scene could be a subtext. The conversations between Chris and the other guests left Chris (and the audience) with questions due to how uncomfortable the situations were. You can tell Chris was uncomfortable based on facial expression and his avoidance of people while using his camera to people watch. The subtext of the guests about race foreshadowed the point of the event. The way Logan didn’t catch normal black camaraderie of being the only minorities in the room or the hand shake.
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I learned that any scene can be made interesting. The scene we watched went from ordinarily diner conversation to, hopefully, not so normal diner behavior. It’s important to push the story forward while having a conversation that engages and entertains the audience. You can also use the setting! Part of what made this scene great is that the other diners reacted to what is happening, and even had comments. Sometimes, when I watch movies, I wonder why the background people aren’t reacting. It makes the scene more real.
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The characterization of Harry and Sally is fantastic. The differences between their posture, speech, and even their sandwich choices define each character. The arc of the scene is Sally convincing Harry that ,yes, a woman probably faked an orgasm with him. Sally didn’t seem like a woman that would moan loudly in a restaurant, however, she does seem like a woman who will go to any length to make her point.
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Show your character through action, and not always dialogue.
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What I think makes this great and is how much we “see” of Jack versus who we are “told” Jack is. You see Jack dive right into action in this scene. We don’t hear other characters talking about him or even hear him talking about himself. He jumps right into helping people, leading people, and finding solutions.
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I, Courtney Hill, agree to the terms of this release form.
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
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Hello all!
My name is Courtney. I’ve written one and a half scripts, haha. The 1/2 script I’ve written is action, and I hope to learn more on this genre to write a great story. I’m one belt away from being a black belt.
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I learned that endings can still leave you with questions. I rewrote my scene to make leave the audience wandering if the main character is the hero or the villain. The dialogue was tweaked to show what the character learned and how it affected their decision.
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I choose Se7en. I’ve never seen this movie, and I’ll have to change that!
This scene consists of actions and mind games. The prisoner taunts the cop, at the same time, Morgan Freeman’s character has an urgency to get to the scene. He lets the audience know the prisoner has the upper hand. Brad Pitt’s character has internal conflict of avenging his wife or following the rules of his job. The scene is satisfying if you want the prisoner dead. It’s conflictual because that’s what the prisoner wanted. I believe that is the intention of this scene; for the “right” ending to be ambiguous.
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I feel like I say this in all my posts, but I learned to keep dialogue to the minimal. It would be easy to have cheesy or cliche dialogue in the climax. The action of the climax is what is important. The scene is its own story. it shows what the character’s have learned, and apply their new skills or knowledge. They are challenged by the antagonist, and hopefully beat them. They can’t win the same way they would’ve won in the beginning.
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I choose 3:10 to Yuma
This scene was exciting and suspenseful to watch. The dialogue was minimal, and was mostly action. The arc of the prisoner feels like the point of the scene. He assisted his guard over his own gang. He killed them all. The guard’s son and the prisoner had a stand- off in which the son choose to spend to talk to his dad in the last moments. This scene also shows the relationship between the guard and the prisoner. The prisoner could’ve gotten away with, but he opted to avenge the guard’s death.
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I learned something very important! I identified my inciting incident and TP1 as the same scene. I rewrote my outline to now include and inciting in decent, and now I have all the turning points. I believe this makes the script more exciting, and pushes more effort on the main character to move forward. It feels less of a happenstance, and more intentional on my part.
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Get out TPs were suspenseful. In TP1, the tone of the movie lets you know that something is off with the mom. It starts off as a normal conversation until you realize that the main character is having a reaction to to Rose’s moms conversation. When I first watched the movie, I don’t think it was that obvious that he was being hypnotized, but I knew something wasn’t right.
TP2 with him accidentally triggering one of the victims. There is truly no going back in the scene. You can’t wipe that from your memory. It wasn’t a normal reaction, and I could’ve buy the excuse from the family.
TP3- what a twist! The movie was set-up to believe the girlfriend is on the main character’s side. The main character knew he had to go, the family is closing in on him, and his escape partner turned on him.
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In this lesson, I learned how the inciting incident can simultaneously ask and answer questions. I felt like my original scene had a few irrelevant lines or no set ups. I rewrote my scene to get to the point, ask questions to keep the audience interested, and rev up the movie. It’s hard for me to remember the the point or heart of the movie really starts after this incident. I don’t want it be subtle or overshadowed by anything. It needs to be clear to everyone what is at stake.
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This inciting incident is the whole basis of the movie. Why is one guy not voting like the rest of the “angry men?” The conflict is the frustration of the 11 men vs the unshakeable opinion of one guy. The writing shows the gravity of the situation to the one voter versus getting the job over with from the other. It provides an invitation for every man to answer why the voted the way they did. I appreciate how the style of dialogue is different for each character, even though the majority voted the same way, they aren’t the same type of people. The incident also moves the story for the main character to defend his vote.
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What I learned is that there has to be a real hook in the introduction. Sometimes, I think actions is all you need, but that will only get you so far. I was immediately interested in the reasoning for why these men were robbing a bank, why they were listening to some guy, even to the point of killing each other. I also like the fact that a questioned was answered “Who is the Joker?”, in the first scene while leaving us wanting the rest of the answers. I also don’t think there was any “wasted” dialogue, and it was realistic, and pushing the story forward.
I think my introduction needs more meaning in dialogue. I want to review it to see if it pushes the story forward, asks questions, possibly answers some and pushes the story forward at the same time.
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The scene grabs your attention from the beginning. There are so many questions that I asked myself while watching the scene. Who are the robbers? Who ordered them to rob the bank and why? Why a mob bank? Why are they killing each other. The scene set up the introduction of who the bank would call besides 911. I can’t remember, but I thought Batman. It’s a Batman movie, but it was still exciting if he was being notified. There really wasn’t a lot of dialogue because every line had meaning and advanced the story forward.
The arc of the scene was pretty fast, and it flowed throughout the five minutes. The tone of the movie seemed thrilling, and threw in some comedy aspects that were truly funny. The tempo of the scene stayed the same. There wasn’t a dull moment- every character, the dialogue, and action sequences all “put in” to the scene instead of taking away from it.
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Courtney Hill
I agree to the terms of this release form
GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, l agree to the following:hat I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
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Hello all,
My name is Courtney. I’ve written two scripts. I enjoy writing psychological thrillers, and maybe it’s because I work in mental health, ha. I’m hoping to learn how to make each scene the best it can be. I sometimes struggle with deciding if a scene’s necessary, the pace, and its value to the script. A fun fact about me is that I am a red belt in TaeKwonDo! I’m one belt away from my body being a lethal weapon.