Jeff Glenn
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Binge-Worthy TV Lesson 5
Jeff Glenn’s Character Emotions
Doing this assignment I learned is that the important things about a character are deeper than the surface. I always used to hear people say you should know what your character has for breakfast. If this is meant to tell you to know everything about the character it is true, but it is not a very useful example. Breakfast menus live on the surface. What we really need to learn about a character are their emotions and motivations.
Assignment 1
Example show: The Night Of
Nisar Khan
A. Hope: to be acquitted of murder, Fear: spend the rest of his life in prison
B. Want: freedom, Need: to be believed
C. Mask: Base Negative Emotion: resignation to new life, Public Mask: holding on to some hope
D. Weaknesses: over-valuing people’s opinion of him.
E. Triggers: being confronted with his deceptions
F. Coping Mechanism: silence at first and then reluctant admission of guilt
John Stone
A. Hope: to give an adequate defense Fear: his lack of ability
B. Want: win the trail, Need: to be taken seriously
C. Base Negative Emotion: Apathy, Public Mask: being invested
D. Weaknesses: lack of experience as a trail lawyer. Being out of his depth. Feeling inadequate
E. Triggers: When someone moves in on his territory
F. Coping Mechanism: At times shutting down, at other times manipulating
Assignment 2
My Show: Farmland
Cody Lesueur Profile
A. Hope: reintegrate into small town life Fear: rejection
B. Want: family life Need: self-acceptance
C. Base Negative Emotion: Shame, feelings of unworthiness Public Mask: being an even-keeled, nice guy,
D. Weaknesses: being too passive, allowing others to get their way and never having any fun
E. Triggers: fear of really living, being confronted,
F. Coping Mechanism: shutting down, lying
Tracy Butchart Profile
A. Hope: to have a carefree life Fear: being committed to one place or person
B. Want: to forget about her childhood trauma Need: healing
C. Negative Emotion: weakness, worthlessness, Public Mask: stoicism, confidence
D. Weaknesses: not letting people in, not accepting help
E. Triggers: images of violence, threats, thoughts of losing her current life in any way
F. Coping Mechanism: isolation, being in nature, surrounding herself with familiar things (her tea, book, van etc.)
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Binge-Worthy TV – Lesson 4
Jeff Glenn’s Intriguing Character Layers
What I learned doing this assignment is discovering who your characters are, what their layers are will change the direction of the story. You don’t know your story until you know your characters.
Example show: The Night Of
Character Name: Nasir Kahn
Role: Young man on trial for murder
Hidden agenda: survive his trial and time in prison
Competition: there may be an implied competition with his brother, who is the better son?
Conspiracies: Nasir works with other inmates to smuggle drugs into jail.
Secrets: he doesn’t tell his parents or lawyers about past arrests. He is reluctant to share his sexual history.
Deception: the arrests, the whole story of the night of the murder.
Wound: being a victim of racism. He seems wounded by both the fact that he has any sexual experience and by his lack of experience.
Secret Identity: he is both a victim and a perpetrator
My Show: Farmland
Character name: Cody Lesueur
Role: man trying to reintegrate into his family while forging his own identity
Hidden Agenda: finding ways for the land to turn a profit, even if that means selling it, leaving again
Competition: there’s a history of all four boys vying for their parents’ attention
Conspiracies: Conner and Cody work together to modernize their farming operation (behind their father’s back), when Conner finds out Cody is gay he agrees to keep that from their parents too
Secrets: there is the obvious lack of acknowledging Cody’s sexuality, but also his wanting a life different from everyone around him
Deception: Cody has a habit of bending the truth, slightly exaggerating to get work, sex, to avoid confrontations
Wound: His dad taking his three brothers fishing (he wasn’t invited). His mom saying two men kissing is disgusting. Friends ditching him. He feels unwanted, always has.
Secret Identity: Cody fights with himself on this, is he a hard-working farm boy or a big city, musing photographer. Is it possible to be both?
Character name: Tracy Butchart
Role: woman traveling through town who becomes Cody’s friend
Hidden Agenda: She don’t have an agenda. She’s reached a point of freedom, self-determination
Competition: being on the road for an extended period has taught her that if you want something you better take it now, before someone else does
Conspiracies: she enlists Cody to take revenge on a man who wronged her on the road
Secrets: she abandoned her dying mother and left her siblings to take care of their mother
Deception: Tracy dupe this man to get Tracy’s revenge, but it also forms their friendship
Wound: Tracy’s parents were not abusive, but she experienced a lot of neglect
Secret Identity: she is not an open book, but she doesn’t actively hide anything, at least now with Cody. She wants others to think she is meek and agreeable. In reality she can take care of herself better than most. She’s tough but still loves Barry Manilow.
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Jeff Glenn’s Engaging Main Characters
Assignment 1
Example show: The Night Of
Journey: Naz is arrested and goes on trail for murder.
Characters that sell the show: Nasir Khan and John Stone
A. Role in the Show:
Nasir, a man Muslim in his mid-twenties, goes on trial for murder.
John Stone, a defense lawyer argues in a courtroom for first time.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Purpose: Nasir, faces consequences of impulsive decisions and is exposed to life in prison.
Expertise: John, has a lot of experience getting clients to a settlement. He helps guilty people get their best possible outcome and then he moves on to the next case.
C. Intrigue: What secrets are beneath the surface?
Nasir doesn’t abide by all Muslim teachings. This fact becomes more and more apparent as the trial progresses.
How much ability John has to try the case is questionable. Whether or not he is being fair with Nasir’s parents about fees is also unclear.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Nasir crosses more and more boundaries as the stories progresses. Some of the boundaries are his own while others have been placed on him. He steals, drinks, does drugs, has sex, associates with unsavory people, smuggles drugs into prison, and gets tattoos.
John’s boundary crossing is a bit less obvious. He turns away from traditional medicine for a holistic cure for his feet. He sticks with Nasir after the deal is rejected.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
The farther into prison like Nasir gets the more he becomes and inmate. The less he is the boy who was excited to be invited to a party.
John, so sure of his brand of practicing law, takes a backseat for most of the trial.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Nasir finds himself in a situation that is relatable until it becomes a horrific crime scene. Then everything spins out of control so fast he cannot get a handle on it again.
John is a jaded man with severe eczema. He doesn’t care about his clients; he just wants to get through the cases. There is something about Nasir that makes him care what happens.
Assignment 2
My show: Farmland
A. Role in the show:
Cody Lesueur a man navigating whether or not he can “come home again.”
Tracy Butchart the outsider who becomes the voice of reason
B. Unique / Expertise
Cody Purpose: to forge his own life, regardless of his family’s opinions
Tracy Expertise: she is far down the path Cody is embarking on
C. Intrigue: What is the secret beneath the surface?
Cody there are more secrets than Cody could ever confess. He knows his family knows he’s gay, even though it’s ever been spoken out load. But they don’t know he’s been living according to his desires.
Tracy she’s been places and seen things, yet she is still insecure, there is an unnamed pain below the surface. For as much as she wants to help Cody, she takes advantage of him too.
D. Moral issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Cody there are the obvious offences, sex and drinking. But what is more troubling is that Cody is no longer a believer. He is not going to be satisfied by his grandfather, father and brother’s life of farm work and churchgoing. Though he still wants the family life they have.
Tracy she has no desire for a husband and children. She doesn’t care about recipes and she doesn’t want to take care of anyone, that’s why she left her dying mother.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Cody goes from him brother’s (Cooper) funeral to a public rest room for an anonymous blow job, to the funeral reception. Coming back home to the farm makes him feel like a failure, he thinks his life is at rock bottom.
Tracy most people have some kind of code, she really doesn’t. Tracy is stopped at the Snake River as part of a vagabonding journey. She’s only looking around before moving on. Because of this she feels her actions have no consequences.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Cody though it takes him time to figure it out, Cody only wants to have a family and a life he cares about preserving. But he lives in a time, place and environment that puts up many roadblocks. Often these roadblocks are presented by the people and institutions that profess to help and love him.
Tracy on the surface she seems like the best friend everyone wants, but there is trauma in her past that can be difficult to pick up on. Everyone she has known (including Cody’s family) has treated her as vaguely less than, or not quite good enough.
What I learned doing this assignment is characters doesn’t come fully formed, you have to form them. It is easy for me to think of a character and assume the work on them is finished, but it takes time and asking many questions about them to get a character that will function in the story.
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Jeff’s Three Circles of Characters
Assignment 1
Example show: The Night Of
A. Main Character Circle: Nasir Khan, Andrea, John Stone
B. Connected Circle: Nasir’s parents, Detective Box
C. Environment Circle: Nasir’s brother, Policemen, Lawyers, Witnesses, other people being held in police station
My show: Farmland
A. Main Character Circle: Cody Lesueur, Tracy, Conner, Moreen, Brian
B. Connected Circle: Dominic (a farm hand), Elsie (a neighbor), Joseph (the bishop), Emily (sister-in-law), Leanne (sister-in-law), Amy & Andrew (niece and nephew)
C. Environment Circle: Relatives, Churchgoers, various men.
Cody Lesueur – Our protagonist, a maybe-not-good Mormon farm boy. Everything about him is a contradiction, nowhere is this truer than in his own mind. He is never sure where to go, what to do or who to be.
Brian Lesueur – Cody’s father, who seems to be the opposite of his son. A man of quite but solid faith, and integrity. The picture of perseverance in the face of tremendous loss.
Moreen Lesueur – Cody’s mother, not quite domineering, but forceful in her opinions, she defiantly runs the house and the family. Charitable, but not compassionate.
Connor Lesueur – Cody’s older brother, He is the family’s work horse, ever-present but still somehow overlooked.
Tracy Butchart – Cody’s friend, who inadvertently becomes his confidant. By the standards Cody grew up with she is a bad influence, but that becomes just what he needs. She has enough self-respect to refuse to be his beard.
What I learned from this lesson is it will take more characters to serve the story than I was thinking about. In my head there were only three or four characters, now I realize there will need to be many more of varying importance.
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Binge-Worthy TV
Lesson 1 – 5 star points
The Night Of
1. Big Picture Hook
After spending the night with a woman he doesn’t know, a 30-year-old man wakes up to find she has been murdered.
2. Intriguing Character
Naz has always done what he’s been told and what has been expected of him. The one night he decides to give in to his desires everything goes horribly wrong.
3. Empathy/Distress
Naz gets lost while driving in Manhattan and it only gets worse from there. He only wanted a bit of fun and ends up stripping in a room full of cops and needing a lawyer.
4. Open Loops
Will the lawyer be able to help Naz out of the situation? How will his family react? Will his father be able to get the cab back? Above all, what really happened to the girl? Who was she? Who killed her and why?
5. Inviting Obsession
How does this pilot create the need to see every single episode?
What is going to be the outcome of Naz’s situation? The police indicate that no jury would believe he didn’t kill her and, logically, that feels true. But his meek personality makes us sympathize with his situation and believe he is innocent, but we don’t actually know. We don’t know what happened, so we want to find out.
Doing this assignment I learned the best, most binge-worthy shows don’t start by giving the audience one big question, but many questions.
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Hi, guys. My name is Jeff Glenn. I have one script. I also wrote many stories while going to school at Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. I’m hoping to take the fragmented show that is in my head and make it into something real. In my neck of the woods it is not very unique, but in the larger world it is different to have been one of those missionaries with the black name tag, which may have a small presence in my show.
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Jeff Glenn
I agree to the terms of the 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.