[John Darbonne]

I learned a more streamlined way to build a character’s psychology to enhance the conflict.

Hero: JADA AMAYO [26; LatinX, Counter-terrorism Agent]

Unique Skill Set: Reckless. Violent. Often dismissed because of her small size but is highly skilled in a unique style of MMA fighting: Ground and Pound Capoeira style. Arm bars, leg lock submission holds. Drives a mean ass muscle car like a banshee.

Motivation: She is has a Temporary Resident status in America and wants full citizenship. This is at odds with her want to save her father. She feels like what happened to him is her fault. She owes him a debt she can never repay. He adopted her out of the slums of Juarez.

Secret: She turned her father in for a crime she committed. His wife, her adopted mother, was killed over it.

Wound: She feels a deep debt for what she did to her adopted family., but the father she remembers isn’t who he is anymore. He’s dangerous and being used to hurt immigrants. She begins to question why he saved her. He taught her things a father should never teach their children, how to kill. At what point does a daughter realize her father is a monster.

Villain: SENATOR VANILLA HAYES [62; smarmy beast, Politician with a God complex]

Unbeatable: Has a team of Government killers at his disposal. A GPS is embedded in Jada’s arm that he tracks her with. He is manipulating her memories. Erasing things that happened. Changing what she thinks happened. He is playing her like a puppet master.

Plan/Goal: To manipulate her father’s memories to have him blow up the International bridge, while manipulating his daughter into killing him to show the world that his new tech can solve the border crisis. He can make people not want to come. He can change people’s desires to unify us.

What he will lose if Jada survives: The border crisis will continue. People will continue to suffer. His crimes will be exposed, ruining his political career, and his new technology will be rejected.

Impossible Mission

Puts hero into Action” Either Jada can help Vanilla capture her father, or he will make sure she never gets or citizenship, deport her, and kill her father.

Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: While being continually tracked and attacked (think Atomic Blonde) Jada must evolve from being an impulsive fighter to a precision investigator and finds ways to solve a mystery without being able to remember what happened.

Destroy the Villain: Jada must make Vanilla think he is winning, stop her father, and have Vanilla expose his crimes to the world.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  John Darbonne.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  John Darbonne.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  John Darbonne.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  John Darbonne.

[John Darbonne]

I’m John Darbonne

I’ve written three scripts, a pilot, shorts, web series. I’m a filmmaker and shoot my scripts, so I try to write things in the scope of what I can afford to do.

I write drama and horror mostly. I don’t know why. I don’t even watch horror, but there is always action in it. I’d like to put in the time to get better at action. I think the Borne screenplays have some of the best written action scenes I’ve ever read. The tension is amazing on the page. Give me some of that!

I was a director of photography and editor in LA for ten years. I made 33 features and hated every minute of it. I left to focus on my own projects. I won Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Competition in 2019 and was a top ten finalist at Screencraft Horror. I directed that film, COMPANION, and sold it to Level 33 Ent. It released worldwide Halloween 2021. I’m also a Stowe Story Labs Fellowship recipient and Roadmap Writers Top 20. But really, I’m a beach bum. I like to surf. I live on an island in South Texas. Yup. There’s islands in South Texas.

[John Darbonne]

Concept: An incendiary Counter-terrorism Agent’s memories are manipulated as she engages in a violent pursuit of her father, a brutal terrorist known as the Coyote.

Conventions:

Highly Skilled Hero: A counter-terrorism Agent who specializes in Capoeira fighting, is caught between her Mexican upbringing and working for the U.S. Government.

Demand for Action: She must fight her estranged father, a terrorist, to expose a corrupt Politician before he becomes President.

Mission: If she doesn’t stop her father, he will blow up the International Bridge, killing countless civilians and launching the corrupt Politician into the White House.

Antagonist: A guilt-stricken U.S. Politician desperately tries to end the atrocities at the border by manipulating the memories of undocumented immigrants. If it is successful he has his eyes on doing it to America by becoming President.

Escalating Action: The Agent has false memories that causes her to wake up in places with no idea of how she got there or who the enemy is. She leverages her small size to maximum effect using Capoeira, an MMA grappling style of fighting focusing on joint weakness and leg locks, as she attempts to solve a mystery while she can’t trust her own mind.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  John Darbonne.

[John Darbonne]

John Darbonne

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.

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