Julia Keefer
Forum Replies Created
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You rock Pablo! Excellent criticism for a producer query letter although my goal is to query literary agents for the three novels first because of copyright issues.
Good luck with your excellent project!
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Today I had the pitch appointment with Cheryl at 4 EDT but there was no answer and then it said the mailbox was full although I tried five times throughout the 25 minutes. When I booked the appointment from that link, it confirmed the time but never sent me to another link to put another query letter. Nevertheless, I put lots of query letters and pitches in these forums, listened to Hal’s long lecture, and revised mine. Since my targets don’t like mass mailings or have their own websites with their forms, I must be flexible. Because I couldn’t reach Cheryl, I sent out a query to Trident in Manhattan to get a literary agent who also can negotiate screen adaptations. I will wait a month and if he doesn’t reply, I will pitch to a recommended agent at Writers House who used to do stunts in Hollywood before he waxed literary.
Sorry about this misunderstanding. I was prepared. I emailed Cheryl and SU but no one replied.
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Yes Pablo–cut half of it. Hope your week is going well is a waste of words.
Too much exposition and narrative. Do Hal’s model of hook, short explanation, hook, short explanation, and hook. Put a tiny bio near your name. Like me, you need more white space. I must rewrite for a film query. I was writing for a NY producer for my trilogy of novels. Gambling ring on the dark web that livestreams migrants crossing the border is intriguing.
But some of this is cultural. Different languages have different methods of communicating. When I speak French, the sentences are longer and more elaborate. Hollywood is a bullet point cut to the chase. Spanish tends to go on and on like many Latin languages so if you are opting for bilingual or bicultural production, you may be able to put more details in Spanish.
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A. What is your overall screenwriting goal for the next six months? For the past six months I got disorganized trying to write my last novel and the screenplay adaptation at the same time. Therefore, I must focus on novel language for the next few months getting a better second draft of my third novel. After I develop and edit my first novel, I may revisit that screenplay with new ammunition. Once I have finished the poetry for my second novel, I may write a screenplay for that novel, but its episodic structure lends itself to an audiobook.
B. What are you going to do to elevate quality? I know all the rules of dramaturgy as well as word painting and novel writing, but I must not let my critical brain trump my creativity. I must continue to write new things every day.
C. How are you going to build a library of marketable scripts? In addition to my three adaptations, I have four other scripts written in the twentieth century that could be reworked with a comic senior twist that still honors the wild fantasy of my youth.
D. What do you think might be your specialty (brand)? I tried and failed to do pure genre like thrillers and mysteries. Because of my health science knowledge and experience, dramedy with seniors, medical humanities, etc. would be a better market for me. Adolescents, action, TV rooms—NO.
E. How are you going build a stronger network? Since I am so reclusive and my fitness career has not come back, I am not sure. I hate parties, social media, and lack the money and clothes to hobnob. I must listen and then pounce when I see the right way to get the publisher and producer I need. Then I am great at Zooming literary readings of my work.
F. How are you going to improve your understanding of doing this business? I must go to writersdigest.com and find who is active post pandemic. I will attend free zooms or literary readings in NYC.
G. How are you going to market yourself and your writing? I was great at marketing other writers for Penguin in the seventies so I must pretend I am not me, but a character. I sometimes do that when I must teach kickbox to people young enough to be my grandchildren. Too much self-consciousness creates stage and page fright. In the long run, it doesn’t matter because we all die so I must grab my piece of the pie now. Yes, I am rhyming like Jake. I sometimes pretend to be a forty something fitness star and this has been working recently at Equinox even though I am 72. In the fall I published a chapter in a Funny Public Speaking book and I must get back my sense of humor.
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Hal’s logical/visual analogies are great for most people. Agreed that Hollywood tests its materials relentlessly. There is an art to taking criticism in a way that doesn’t block you. I took the wrong criticism from editors for my last big novel in 2006. When something is too original, the gatekeepers don’t like you so it takes someone more confident and connected than me to break through. Hal’s prodigy was great and should do well in Hollywood. But I must face up to the fact that I have spent my life throwing things out into the world that were imperfect. I am so sick of working on this trilogy in my cooped up room because I must make money to survive and once I am working, I can’t concentrate on this complex editing job. I don’t think anything is ever perfect and perfection is in the eyes of the gatekeepers. That said, there are at least ten things I must do to my three novels before I could even self publish them. I only want to take criticism now from publishers, editors, or agents because my own analytical mind is demanding enough. I appreciate this lesson making us think about these things and preparing for a time in the future when effective rewrites must be written.
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Since Emmanuel is the only post so far, I will critique his. I agree that writing query letters is an art, that minimalism can be even more challenging than writing 300,000 words like I just did for a trilogy of novels. Every word is a bullet that can be turned for or against you. Unfortunately, it is the same with literary fiction. I have been published many times without an agent but this is no longer possible and the competition is fierce although the work is not necessarily better.
I redrafted my screenplay query letter based on Hal’s hook lesson, but this cannot go out until the novels are contracted. They are copyrighted, and publishers must agree to the adaptation, one reason I want Penguin Random House Doubleday Knopf instead of postmodern literary presses that go out of print and have no media clout.
But I can write these kind of informal letters to NYC producers and stars:
Dear Robert,
I loved performing in “A Bronx Tale” and am delighted you have a place in the Gunks where my rock trilogy of novels and adaptations to the screen takes place. The first novel is Climb and Punishment, narrated by Sedimentary Shawangunk, the second Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan by Schist, Marble, and Gneiss, and the third Seismic Seesaw by the Magma Monsters locked down in the Palisades.
What happens when Jake La Roche, a fitness professional, is forced to make friends with BB/Betty a serial killer/rapist/arsonist and Ibrahim, the CEO of STEMGARCHS, to get their Bright Space Brain Buffet to save him from Parkinson’s and his parents from ALS and Alzheimer’s?
Transform, the screen adaptation of my third novel is a tandem-competitive narrative between fitness star Jake and the Magma Monsters from the COVID pandemic of 2020 flashing forward through diseases, deaths, fires, and floods to 2040, showing how similar rich New Yorkers are to the homeless. I have lived among both.
Jake wants so badly for people to listen to him that he is thrown out of college for plagiarism by Prof Ibrahim, rapes Ibrahim’s wife in retaliation, and ironically gives him sperm to make his family when they move from Historic Huguenot Street (the oldest in America) to the Summit high rise in Manhattan. Ibrahim wants power so much that he gives up Islam when Hurricane Ida pancakes his penthouse in the Summit and becomes CEO of STEMGARCHS, a one percent global organization doing illegal research. BB or Boat Bob wants so much to hide and recover from his crimes that he becomes Betty in old age and is forced to work as a population-reducer for STEMGARCHS. Litonya Lenape, a geologist and outstanding rock climber, wants so much to save the earth that she killed her father for fracking and secretly marries Ibrahim so that her son Kisele can have the money and power for Global Greens even though she loves having sex with Jake more than anyone else in the world.
I transitioned from acting and dance to writing novels, screenplays, and poetry. I am published, optioned, and produced. I am an expert in fitness, neurogenerative diseases, homelessness, and researched NYC geology and tourism!
I look forward to hearing from you and yours.
Julia
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Rough draft of a possible query letter:
Dear Robert,
I loved performing in “A Bronx Tale” and am delighted you have a place in the Gunks where my rock trilogy of novels and adaptations to the screen takes place. The first novel is Climb and Punishment, narrated by Sedimentary Shawangunk, the second Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan by Schist, Marble, and Gneiss, and the third Seismic Seesaw by the Magma Monsters locked down in the Palisades.
What happens when Jake La Roche, a fitness professional, is forced to make friends with BB/Betty a serial killer/rapist/arsonist and Ibrahim, the CEO of STEMGARCHS to get their Bright Space Brain Buffet to save him from Parkinson’s and his parents from ALS and Alzheimer’s?
Transform, the screen adaptation of my third novel is a tandem-competitive narrative between fitness star Jake and the Magma Monsters from the COVID pandemic of 2020 flashing forward through diseases, deaths, fires, and floods to 2040.
Jake wants so badly for people to listen to him that he is thrown out of college for plagiarism by Prof Ibrahim, rapes Ibrahim’s wife in retaliation, and ironically gives him sperm to make his family when they move from Historic Huguenot Street (the oldest in America) to the Summit high rise in Manhattan. Ibrahim wants power so much that he gives up Islam when Hurricane Ida pancakes his penthouse in the Summit and becomes CEO of STEMGARCHS, a one percent global organization doing illegal research. BB or Boat Bob wants so much to hide and recover from his crimes that he becomes Betty in old age and is forced to work as a population-reducer for STEMGARCHS. Litonya Lenape, a geologist and outstanding rock climber, wants so much to save the earth that she killed her father for fracking and secretly marries Ibrahim so that her son Kisele can have the money and power to save the earth even though she loves having sex with Jake more than anyone else in the world.
I transitioned from acting and dance to writing novels, screenplays, and poetry. I am published, optioned, and produced. I am an expert in fitness, neurogenerative diseases, geology, homelessness, and NYC tourism!
I look forward to hearing from you and yours.
Julia
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Hooks create curiosity, i.e. questions.
1) MM Red magma cools into igneous rocks locked down in the Palisades between NYC and West Point Military Academy overlooking the Hudson River to tell the story of the Seismic Seesaw by Jake and the Magma Monsters from 2020 to 2040. How can rocks talk?
2) Jake encourages Litonya as she out boulders him in the Palisades, showing his charming, feminist side. How can this Native American woman outclimb a male fitness pro?
3) Ibrahim’s black diamond and gold prayer beads flash in the sunrise as he prays with his family on the garden roof of his Manhattan Summit high rise. Why are these prayer beads so expensive? How many people are doing salat on Manhattan high rises?
4) BB cleans up his homeless encampment on the East River and gets into millionaire Ibrahim’s expensive electric car to drive through Manhattan not talking until they chat about suicide on the George Washington Bridge. Will they commit suicide or push someone off?
5) As Jake cares for his history prof dad paralyzed with ALS, an antique chandelier swings with the noose of the past. Can ADHD Jake slow down enough to be a caretaker as well as a boxing coach?
6) Ibrahim has a vaccine party at his Tudor mansion in New Paltz for his wife Sandrine and triplets Omar, Astride, and Delphine in the fall of 2020 before the rollout. Where did he get them?
7) Why do Jake and Litonya secretly make love in the snow in the cemetery after the funeral of her husband Rodney Feldman and his parents Jen and Eliot?
8) After the condo collapse of the Summit that killed Ibrahim’s wife, daughter, and son, why does he throw his Koran into the grave and take off a few days later with Blue Origin? Is it to get away from it all? How can he afford it? Why does he do this eco-incorrect thing when he is running EvergreenEnergy, a sustainable company?
9) Because MM reveals BB’s past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist before the car fire, it creates suspense but when his son Joe is accidentally killed as he tries to save his wife CS and the homeless Feldman siblings, this tragic surprise cuts into BB’s psychopathic soul so that he opts for a sex change in old age. What will happen next? Is this possible?
10) After BB becomes Betty and is raped and beaten several times, Ibrahim gives her the Bright Space Brain Buffet so that she performs an outstanding King Lear. Jake’s kids wonder about her past. How could she memorize Shakespeare in five minutes? As an old woman, why is she so athletic?
11) Years later, after Jake hits his beloved Litonya while hallucinating at night because of his PD, he learns to talk to the rocks to make a deal so that superhuman forces can help him and his parents with ALS and Alzheimers survive. We all want cures for these diseases but where are they?
12) After Jake obeys his dad’s DNR, he is surprised by a colonial and Native history party at the cemetery where Anahu, the son he had with Litonya, is doing research on past crimes of New York state.
13) Betty persuades Ibrahim to buy her the new carnivorous dentures at the NYC dental school so that the next time she is raped, her perp is in for a treat. When they meet Hank, the homeless senior who sings Sinatra songs at the Pierre gala, Betty takes him for a nightly stroll in Central Park and when he bends to kiss her she gives him a Dracula bite. Will he bleed to death? How many people has Betty killed?
14) Jake cries when his mom dies of Alzheimer’s and Litonya doesn’t come to the funeral. Where is she?
15) BB and Ibrahim dine at another dinner in Hudson Yards where Ibrahim gives speeches for STEMGARCHS but when Kisele, Litonya’s son contradicts him on alternative energy, he signals Betty to fix the ropes on the Skyscraping Adventure. Kisele falls. His girlfriend, Ibrahim’s remaining child, Delphine shrieks. Kisele is ironically caught by the Vessel, the place where most people his age commit suicide. Will this unwelcome news story expose BB and Ibrahim?
16) Where is Litonya? Since she and Jake were never officially married, she secretly marries Ibrahim and they go to a gala at the MET where he gives more speeches. She is wearing the black and gold prayer beads we saw in the first scenes, turned into a necklace, instead of a wedding ring. When they leave the MET, they run into Jake in fitness clothes. Ibrahim says he must catch a plane so Litonya and Jake go to Harlem for another kind of party and run into Betty at dawn who sails them back to New Paltz.
17) Jake is desperate for the Bright Brain Buffet to cure his PD so he and the kids confront Betty on a hammock saying they know her past crimes. She agrees to give them the BBB if they will shut up. They gossip about Ibrahim, the real villain, and Betty agrees to poison him. How? Although this is a plot point, the unusual circumstances make it a hook. Can Betty be trusted?
18) As Betty is eating the delicious last lunch on Ibrahim’s yacht, Litonya and Jake arrive to get the Bright Space Brain Buffet, but Betty surprises them and thrusts them below deck in a crucible where they must face each other’s flaws and lies. It looks like they will never get out but Delphine, Kisele, Anahu, and Aanadi, the adopted daughter of CS and Joe, arrive to catch and try the villains, Ibrahim and BB. BB agrees to keep eating the poison rather than be arrested or make the good guys kill him but what will they do with Ibrahim? As BB nods off to death gently rocking in the boat, Ibrahim shoots himself with a tiny gun. Are they really dead?
19) Before the kids sail down to NYU Langone to give the bodies to medical research, Litonya and Jake get off at the Palisades to play on their favorite seesaw even though they are now in their sixties. Suddenly MM unleashes an avalanche of igneous rocks due to a small earthquake caused by fracking, and buries them. Will they ever be found?
20) When the kids come back, they pull the rocks off to find the two bodies and throttle down to NYU Langone. Litonya goes to the morgue, but Jake is just in a deep coma. When he awakes, he is paralyzed from the neck down like his dad, but he can still talk and sing. When and how will he die? What will the kids do? How does the Rock Cycle continue? MM joins the Manhattan Prong of the second novel, Schist, Marble, and Gneiss in Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan, and the Sedimentary Shawangunk of the first novel Climb and Punishment to tell humans about the rock cycle. Can humans trade places with rocks for eternal life?
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Although I have done loglines and phone or elevator pitches before, I was usually winging it like comedy improvisation, listening and looking as much as talking, to figure out what to say next. However, it is best to be prepared. The logline in a screenplay seems more generic than a novel because producers must see a formula that they can fill in their way based on what they have done, while a novel must be unique from the beginning unless it is a pure thriller or mystery or romance, genre that I cannot write. I tried diligently and it didn’t work so I went back to my dramedy with horror and fantasy elements so that I can market my trilogy properly.
Following Hal’s formula:
1. Write a logline for your screenplay for each of the 3 formulas:
a. Protagonist __Jake has PD and must get the BBBB to stop dementia problem in order to continue his fitness career and be with his loved ones.___ and ___must achieve goal__ to solve that problem.
b. Jake needs the BBBB but Betty and Ibrahim won’t give it to him so he must fight and blackmail them.
c. (Situation) causes (main character) to face (largest obstacle) and (outcome).
Tandem competitive thread: BB hides her crimes and pain with a sex change to Betty but is forced to confront her past when exposed by Jake and his kids despite the power and money of her boss.
2. Write a one-sentence phone pitch for your screenplay. First tell us the biggest hook and then incorporate it into your one-sentence pitch.
Rich and poor New Yorkers have more in common than we think: Fresh Direct shopping bags, climate catastrophes, COVID, and the same human brains subject to neurodegenerative diseases and sociopathic behavior. This is a tandem competitive story between a charming, rhyming ADHD fitness instructor challenged by Parkinson’s and other catastrophes and personified rocks that talk and are linked to a serial killer/rapist/murderer who becomes a woman in old age and her boss, the CEO of STEMGARCHS who lives in a Manhattan high rise and a Tudor mansion in upstate New York, sailing up and down the Hudson River doing illegal research. (I realize my sentences are longer than Hal likes but I can talk fast, rhyme, tell jokes etc.)
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Thanks Hal. I reread your details about true stories and although this is inspired by some true events, it is completely fictionalized, names and bios changed, and I only take responsibility for my own journeys from the lives of NYC’s homeless to rich New Yorkers. One must be careful about lawsuits especially since so many of my characters are mentally ill, marginalized, and in protected groups. But being authentic in a project that screams insanity with talking personified rocks, grounds my fantasy and horror elements, and provides enough didactic elements to please global publishers who want literary novels to matter and last.
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My trilogy of novels is narrated by 1) Sedimentary Shawangunk, Climb and Punishment, 2) Metamorphic gneiss, schist, and marble, Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan and 3) Magma Monsters or igneous rocks Seismic Seesaw and 4) two human narrators –a NYC tour guide rendered homeless in the second novel and an ADHD fitness instructor who captures the serial killer in the third novel. There are some true elements about the serial killings near New Paltz. I developed the homeless characters from the inside out because I had a fire in my small room, and I lost jobs during the pandemic that forced me into the food lines. Over a period of seven years, I made friends with 20 homeless people, some of whom fell in love with me and caused PTSD. All screenplays are adapted from my novels that may be popular somewhere in the world. I have included timely events in the novels like condo collapses and flooding from Sandy Storm and Hurricane Ida, the pandemic, and trendy things like sex changes and finding cures for neurodegenerative diseases. The three screenplays could be filmed in ultimate and edgy ways because of the iconic Manhattan sites and rock climbing in NYC parks and upstate. “Bankable” changes every season so I will let my agent, then publisher, then producer cast. But if anyone want to give me a role, I will try to be bankable because I need more money in my bank for old age. The novels may not have wide appeal in the States, one reason I need a global publisher, but the screenplays can be dumbed down enough (I will say simplified to a producer) to please the masses, if they pay me enough.
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What I learned is that though I dislike social media, literary agents and publishers will require it to publish my huge trilogy so I must keep my focus so I don’t waste precious writing time. I signed up for Twitter and will combine fitness and writing on the Face and Linked In so if my trilogy is published, I can develop a base. I am following entertainment, SU, and publishers and will make comments when inspired. I don’t want to spoil my one chance by approaching producers prematurely. But I am getting ready for agents and publishers if I could only be more visual and better at word painting. I am good at Zoom readings so I will organize some with groups around the world with alumni reunions once I have a contract. I tend to make outrageous, intellectually effervescent comments so I must make sure I don’t do anything to damage future employment. Otherwise I will be living as well as eating with the homeless. Every day I am reminded that despite my education and experience, or maybe because I am a useless intellectual, I am teetering on the brink of destruction.
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“What potential do you already see in your network?” If this were ten to thirty years ago, there was lots of potential among NYC producers, directors, and A-list actors and then later, NYC publishers and editors. But COVID and bad luck killed my jobs and contacts. I can’t stand social media and it wasted my time in the past. People no longer socialize at the health clubs when Diane Keaton, Seinfeld, et al took my classes or when I trained producers or showed a gym in the Hamptons to Woody Allen. Maybe I can meet people cross-country skiing in Central Park or sitting with my cat on a bench. I gave my first screenplay to Brooke Shield when we were changing in a dance studio but they are still closed. And her date, Michael Jackson is dead. It is all I can do to write every day and teach fitness so I can’t waste time. The producers of Grease and Saturday Night Fever said they never react to mailings. I know an editor who may know agents so I will comp her into Equinox. I used to work for Penguin and I was published by Doubleday in the nineties in three anthologies so there must be a way to get them. But all the people I used to know retired or disappeared. I was never a popular prom queen and I have no fans except psychotic older men in soup lines. Maybe I should exaggerate all my problems so the agents and producers die laughing.
4. Answer, “What I learned doing this assignment is…” My goals are specific and humble for my newly narrow bandwith. Finish the submission drafts of my three novels and get them published.
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Campaign: A systematic course of aggressive activities for
some special purpose. A combination of strategies
and tactics working together for the overall
purpose. I am launching a campaign to publish three novels as a trilogy with adaptations to the screen and audio books for the literary global market. I tried to write pure genre, but my project is a dramedy with fantasy and horror elements. However, if a producer wants to option one of my novels and cut out a thriller thread, I will succumb for the right price.Strategy: A plan or a series of tactics to accomplish a
specific goal. I must get a NYC literary agent as soon as I finish the submission drafts of the novels. I have excellent first drafts. Ideally, I would like Penguin Random House Doubleday Knopf because I worked in publicity for Penguin and was published in three Doubleday anthologies. They have the global reach and film contacts for adaptations. If this works, I will perfect screenplays of the first two novels and maybe even revive three screenplays I wrote in the eighties. My last big novel in 2006 sold well in France and the Middle East but my trilogy is from1998 to 2040 in Manhattan, New Paltz, and the Hudson Valley so I need New York publishers, producers, and stars.Tactic: An action taken to accomplish a goal. Mass mailings never worked for me so I must contact agents with referrals. I will comp an editor friend into my Equinox classes. There are probably only a few NYC agents who would want to do this project and I must find them. Although I am published many times, I never had an agent and I need one now. I cannot compete with the Hollywood market but as I teach fitness, I will be open to meeting NYC producers and celebrities. In the past I trained the president of Stigwood group, Olivia Newton John, Diane Keaton, Woody Allen (he bought the gym I showed him in the Hamptons), other stars, and I was in A Bronx Tale with De Niro and ran into him in New Paltz. I used to run into Seinfeld and Madonna at the Reebok Club and Matt Damon in New Paltz. I got my first screenplay to Brooke Shields, Michael Jackson, and Baryshnikov in the eighties, but it was deemed too offbeat. It is dangerous to pitch screenplays to your patients for fitness and it backfired in the past sometimes. I need to find more contemporary NYC producers and stars, but nothing can be pitched until my book deal is made. I will work on the literary query letter.
The best that could happen: I get Penguin Random House Doubleday Knopf, at least two films are made and one audiobook, and my reputation allows me to revive screenplays I wrote in the past with a new comic twist.
The worst that could happen: I get rejected by all the agents and the
top publishers. In that case, self-publishing is better than a small literary
press that goes out of print. I have done it before. Then I would have to pitch
screenplays to local producers. My trilogy must be published at all costs. I don’t
have time to write new screenplays on spec or to spend hours hustling
Hollywood. I must be realistic about my dire financial situation but never be
desperate when I am pitching. One of my themes is the similarity between the
rich and poor of Manhattan so I move from soup lines with the homeless to
luxury Equinox clubs and upscale cultural events. Unlike Emma, I started rich,
dated princes and millionaires, and after years of being a useless intellectual
I fell into poverty in old age. But I must not chat about myself because I am
the writer, not the star. I almost got a deal years ago, but I told them I
wanted to star in my screenplay, not Sally Field. I was offered a “story by” if
I would give my screenplay about a rape on an AIDS wards to Erich Segal to turn
it into an eighties love story but I stupidly said no. Going forward, I will be
more flexible once my novels are published. -
What I learned is that my project is based in NYC and once my trilogy is published, I will hustle NYC producers and stars at the health clubs. Mass mailings never worked.
1. Make a list of five or more movies that are similar to yours and five actors that you might want to play your lead characters. I don’t know contemporary actors and no movies are similar to mine.
2. Using the Targeting process above, go to http://www.imdb.com and find 20 to 100 producers for your specific project. I can’t make this decision now. I knew producers and stars in the eighties but my agent and Penguin will have to do this. If I must self publish, I might look for producers then, but I can’t afford to do that.
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Julia’s Project and Market
1. Give us the logline for your story and the genre. It is a tandem competitive dramedy with fantasy and horror elements, i.e. two stories that compete with each other.
Jake logline: When a fitness pro is challenged by the deaths of friends and family from COVID and neurodegenerative diseases, he must make friends with a serial killer who has the secret brain buffet to curb the dementia growing in his own brain from Parkinson’s, and help his parents battle Alzheimer’s and ALS, until he discovers that the real enemy is the professor who threw him out of college for plagiarism and is now the CEO of a dangerous global network.
BB/Betty Logline: A funeral director turned hospitality chef hides his secret life as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist by changing into a hit man and finally a female chef who sacrifices her life to save others.
2. In one or two sentences, tell us what you think is most
attractive about your story. Rich and poor homeless New Yorkers are similar in too many ways. Fate versus will in climate catastrophes and aging.
3. Tell us which you will target first — agent, manager, producer,
or actor and how your script fits what they need and want. Agent for my trilogy. But if she/he/they doesn’t want to read 300,000 words, or can’t understand these short loglines, I will offer my screenplay for the last novel.4. Answer the question “What I learned today is that I must sell the trilogy first and this time I need a NYC literary agent although I was previously published by contacting editors or when editors asked me to write.
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Hope everyone is making progress. Elizabeth and I had an inspiring exchange and I finished a draft in Google docs I will return to after I finish my three novels. It is hard to do both at the same time but my focus is adapting literary novels to the global market, mainly mine. I appreciate the common sense and clarity of Hal’s Hollywood approach.
Peace and Health,
Julia
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Since I am fast and messy and you are slow and thorough and we both write novels, perhaps we should get going on this draft now. But where do we put the draft–in this forum, Google docs, or emails or a formal Final Draft collaboration? The pandemic has killed my finances along with everything else so I don’t want to buy new screenwriting software since I can eventually get it for free in computer labs. My main focus is finishing my three novels since I am already published. julia.keefer@nyu.edu
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Hi Everyone,
I feel like a wallflower at a high school prom. Are we supposed to post our final draft in this forum, buy software and post it there, or can we put it in Google docs? For the other peer reviews, we were analyzing forum posts but the forums mess up a meticulous format. Or are we supposed to email people separately? I don’t have an email listserv. Meanwhile please tell me where I should put the final draft?
Thanks for your patience, Julia
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P.S. Janeen: I loved the content of your oral pitch on Saturday but you could work more on public speaking techniques. I used to teach public speaking and published a chapter in a funny public speaking textbook last fall selling now on Amazon https://p-nt-www-amazon-com-kalias.amazon.com/Teach-Public-Speaking-Sense-Humor-ebook/dp/B09D9QNN5M. Even when you project is sad, humor on a pitch can help cover up nervousness and mistakes. I couldn’t talk Saturday because I am still swollen and miserable from my dental surgery.
Your career looks great! COVID killed my jobs and I have little income now so I must focus on getting publishers for my trilogy.
Peace and Health,
Julia
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Thanks for your constructive criticism Janeen. Since my main focus is finishing the last novel of a complex trilogy, many parts of my screenplay are coded. I am using this class to keep me structuring my project rather than produce a commercial screenplay because that would come after the publisher contracts the entire trilogy and then we get adaptation options. But your criticism should be incorporated in my first complete draft.
Thanks!
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Hi Janeen,
I was first struck by the skillful way you introduce characters, precisely and evocatively, without cliches. I loved the incongruous juxtaposition of the beautiful people stretching out in the limousine with the rapid fire of high impact unanswered questions by reporters to open your script. The visual and auditory clash of opposites creates a seductive environment to introduce the abuse of Amber by Daniel. He is a famous fashion designer who enjoys the elegant dinners as much as he loves to slap his wife and hurt her. I like the way Amber interacts with the kids. Then it is great she lies about her bruises and cuts and denies her husband’s guilt, the way most domestic victims do. You set up the subtext well for this with your twist. Your inciting incident is clear because the audience is now furious at Daniel but also worried because Amber cannot defend herself. It creates an open wound in the psyche of the audience as well as the Central Dramatic Question of what will happen to Amber? I read some of your first scenes and said then that your choice of nestling domestic abuse in this visually rich, upscale world instead of the depressed mentally ill shelters I see around here is excellent. It reminds me of a French documentary I just saw On the Edge of the World where homeless people told their stories framed by the magnificent lights shining on Paris’ most iconic buildings by night. Good luck with your terrific project!
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Because I am pasting into these forums, my format is a huge mess and I don’t know where I am in terms of meticulous page numbering.
EXT. PALISADES CLIFFS – NIGHT
Boiling red magma seeps into sedimentary rock glowing with lethal power.
VO
200 million years ago we were Magma Monsters as we boiled up from Mother Earth into the sedimentary rock of the Palisades frying dinosaurs.The scene suddenly changes to Spring 2020 as the rocks stand cool and quiet.
VO
The Lenape Indians called us a row of trees and now we are as sawed off and stalwart as the nearby West Point soldiers. You think you are locked down with COVID? We have had the longest lockdown. LITONYA LENAPE, a buff American Indian woman is bouldering with forty year old JAKE LA ROCHE Spring 2020.She scrambles to the top while he slips and falls, unleashing a shower of small pebbles, but laughing and clapping.
JAKE
You rock Litonya! Women are stronger than men.VO
See how tight her hands grip our rocks. That’s how the COVID spikes clench your lungs.CLOSE ON the red of the Coronavirus pulling back to an AERIAL SHOT of the Manhattan sunrise.
VO
We are jealous of these quiet, invisible killers since our better boiling days are over.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
VO
And on top of Manhattan because he must be in control. CLOSE on his Muslim prayer beads, sparkling with black diamond and gold, something his Saudi relatives would consider idolatrous, but it works here. His 10 year old daughter ASTRIDE works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.KISELE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
SANDRINE, his wife, and DELPHINE, the other triplet, are doing band exercises with JAKE LA ROCHE the handsome 40 year old trainer whose turquoise eyes charm everyone.
IBRAHIM
Turn off the music. Prayer time.
Jake switches his phone to loud, resonant call to prayers in Arabic as the women twist and stretch more vigorously.
IBRAHIM
Off, now!
Jake is a people pleaser, so he salutes and mumbles “rain check,” to the ladies.
JAKE
You’re the boss. They know what to do, or not. Damn Best Butt Ever, they got the wings of angels! I gotta client uptown. Later.Jake flies off the roof like a hornet on speed.
The ladies finish their exercises gracefully as Ibrahim and Omar go through their rituals on the wings of angels because the other four members join them. Ibrahim blows kisses to everyone, avoiding contact, puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage, and drives on the FDR.
EXT. EAST RIVER – DAY
Sixty-something BOAT BOB splashes on to the scene at sunrise. He decamps his homemade tent beside the East River, Cloroxing everything so the park police won’t take note and smell humanity and transforming himself from homeless into a clean hiker with a large backpack and an N95 mask that covers his toothless mouth.EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim, expensively dressed, picks up Boat Bob in his fancy electric car, stressing the contrast between them. BB gets in the back seat. It is strange that they say nothing as they drive through a pandemic-quiet north Manhattan and on to the GW Bridge where BB’s eyes light up.
EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
CLOSE ON You are not alone. Call 911.IBRAHIM
Suicide is haram in Islam unless it is Jihad.BB
What do they mean? Everyone is alone. This is the choice place for non-essential New Yorkers to commit suicide. Falling off this magnificent, famous GW bridge is more dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.IBRAHIM
Don’s say commit because you can’t criminalize the desperate acts of the marginalized mentally ill. The politically correct say complete suicide.
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as I can. But then I flunked out of school with Incompletes.They notice Jake running with his client.
IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who flunked out of college, thanks in part to me. But we forgave each other and now he trains my family at dawn on the roof.Once on the Jersey shore, Jake leaps up the side rocks and pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.
BB
He can’t see us through the windows.IBRAHIM
He doesn’t want us to pick him up anyway. He’s like a kid, always playing. Great babysitter.BB
And baby maker.Ibrahim steps on the gas and speeds to
EXT. PALISADES – DAY
BB covers his face and soul with a face shield and N95 mask. He pulls sanitizers out of his backpack and refills them with condensed COVID as if he were methodically preparing for a camping trip. Ibrahim and BB watch Litonya, a geologist at the Earth Observatory who boulders up a tough section of the rocks, exhibiting superhuman strength. They honk once she jumps down. She gets into the car with a bag of rocks. No hellos, or how are you, this world-class 45 year old rock climber is a woman of direct discourse and magnificent muscles, crackling with cognitive brilliance.LITONYA
I love nature. I would kill my fracking father again. I am not reformed after seven years in jail.BB
After seven months in jail I transformed into a better citizen. By the way, those are beautiful stones—they’d make gorgeous jewelry.LITONYA
I hate jewels and cosmetics.BB
You don’t need them because you are naturally beautiful.VO
It is important to pretend to be honest, matching her on the nose dialogue with his friendly rejoinders, but the truth is that he deserves to spend seven lifetimes in jail, or worse. Ibrahim narrows his black eyes in the rear view mirror and BB gets the signal to shut down into servile silence so the two of them can discuss their business for the EvergreenEnergy Company etc.LITONYA
Not now. I must prepare my Zoom defense for my doctoral dissertation in geology.EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
They drop Litonya off at her solar house on Huguenot Street. Kisele is her Zoom star since she lacks social skills. CLOSE on the zoom with the other professors applauding and giving thumbs up charmed by his ten year old wisdom.KISELE
Underground the Northeast is a labyrinth of old mines, contaminated water, and fracking disturbances that will cause future earthquakes.EXT. COLONIAL – DAY
Ibrahim leaves BB at the Colonial garage, a huge white pillared mansion with antique cars where BB helps Kisele and the kids design eco boats.INT. TUDOR MANSION – EVENING
Ibrahim finishes the next day alone in the Green Room of his Tudor and stone home on Huguenot St. with Muslim prayers. Out his window he sees Jake covered in turquoise paint. BB watches everything from the woods.EXT.TURQUOISE CHURCH – DAY
Jake is painting a pink church turquoise to turn it into a virtual fitness studio. FADMA and MINA pass by, Ibrahim’s former wife and daughter. Jake ends his day stretching and meditation in his alcove overlooking the forest. PAN the brushed brass track lighting as his EvergreenEnergy program heats up to his sighs of masturbation.INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Jake makes and serves lunch to JEAN LA ROCHE, his dad and a history professor locked in with ALS. Brass antique chandelier hangs in his study, swinging with the noose of the past. A grandfather clock beats the metronome of the present. The windows are covered with rich tapestries, hiding the future. His mom, DR. JOAN LA ROCHE stops by on her way to work.EXT. EAST 72nd ST. – DAY
Ibrahim and BB dodge the protesters during pandemic summer 2020. BB looks approvingly at the holes in his shoes.BB
Dressing down can be as challenging as dressing up.IBRAHIM
Wasn’t it amazing that Pfizer and Moderna created the perfect vaccines almost immediately, fitting into the COVID spikes like a jigsaw puzzle? We must dethrone the oily-garchs by locking down the world, reducing travel and tourism, and defunding fossil fuels. My STEM and Big Pharma stocks are stronger than ever.BB
There are too many destructive, useless, and miserable humans on earth. Not all crimes are solved, whether they are the unleashing of bioweapons or the repeated murders of serial killers.IBRAHIM
Some blame it all on China, others on the research with Fauci, Winnipeg, Saudi Arabia, and Israel that was ceased by Obama. Naïve Greenies say climate change made the bats give it to humans. It’s an international secret I would love to solve.BB
You could do it if you hide the truth with fantasies. Wikipedia has a hilarious, long website about COVID misinformation that could fuel movie plots for years to come. Young people can’t stand being quarantined. Protests are ways to socialize outside, screaming, shouting, spitting, and blowing off steam.Ibrahim and BB join the BLM Protests on Fifth and 72<sup>nd</sup> but leave after they spit on cops, scream “NYPD suck my dick,” and then are dismayed by the looting of designer stores on Madison Avenue.
IBRAHIM
Black lives do matter but spitting in a pandemic could be murder, especially if the cop dies of COVID.A SERIES OF SHOTS as they pound the pavements of Manhattan and end up in a tent in City Hall Park surrounded by a huge crowd screaming, “No justice, no peace. Black Lives Matter. Defund the police.” They walk through the West Village where garbage fires light up the night. The NYPD are greeted with eggs, spit, and kicks. BB is happy to observe this time.
Ibrahim almost stops a crowd from breaking windows in an elegant Tribeca shop, but BB gently holds him back.
BB
Let them express themselves. How else can we get rid of all these people?IBRAHIM
Fewer carbon emissions everywhere. Humans are the worst polluters. I never thought healthy, young college students could smell as badly as the unwashed homeless.BB
Looks are deceptive. They did nothing for me either and that is amazing considering how young women used to stimulate me.
After one night Ibrahim pays for
INT. SMALL HOTEL – NIGHT
a small room near the South Street Seaport to shower and nap.BB
That’s why I want to live on boats. Let’s take a walk.EXT.BATTERY PARK – SUNSET
Ibrahim considers Lady Liberty.
IBRAHIM
Gorgeous gift from France. I’ve always loved French culture, one reason I married Sandrine. We speak French at home.BETTY
C’est si bon! Will this lockdown ever release Lady Liberty?IBRAHIM
She still looks like a goddess at sunset.BETTY
You still believe in God or Allah?IBRAHIM
I am on the seesaw, weighed down by love of family and Islam on one end, and our science projects on the other. Omar makes me pray but on my own, I am not as observant as I used to be.BETTY
Romantic love and freedom fade with the sunset. Long live COVID.IBRAHIM
Thank God, I mean Science, we are immune.BB winks as he sprays the COVID sanitizer on their bench.
INT. NEW PALTZ MEDICAL CENTER – DAY
Dr. Joan tests positive for COVID. BB sprays sanitizer everywhere in this silent world of white.INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
BB is obsessively cleaning the mansion in preparation for her quarantine. Jake morphs into a caretaker for parents.INT. CPR OFFICE -DAY
Jake practices CPR on dummies. JOE, BB’s adopted son, helps. Then he puts on his firefighter uniform. BB enters and he and Joe go over old boxing videos.FLASHBACK to the funeral of Joe’s first boxing coach Floyd Patterson in the New Paltz cemetery who died of Alzheimer’s.
-
Since I am bleeding from a painful tooth extraction today, I rewrote my first page with a flashback to late Jurassic times when magma turned bloody red to seep into sedimentary rock.
EXT. PALISADES CLIFFS – DAY
Boiling red magma seeps into sedimentary rock glowing with lethal power.
VO
200 million years ago we were Magma Monsters as we boiled up from Mother Earth into the sedimentary rock of the Palisades frying dinosaurs.The scene suddenly changes to Spring 2020 as the rocks stand cool and quiet.
VO
The Lenape Indians called us a row of trees and now we are as sawed off and stalwart as the nearby West Point soldiers. You think you are locked down with COVID? We have had the longest lockdown. LITONYA LENAPE, a buff American Indian woman is bouldering with JAKE LA ROCHE Spring 2020.She scrambles to the top while he slips and falls, unleashing a shower of small pebbles, but laughing and clapping.
JAKE
You rock Litonya! Women are stronger than men.VO
See how tight her hands grip our rocks. That’s how the COVID spikes clench your lungs.CLOSE ON the red of the Coronavirus pulling back to an AERIAL SHOT of the Manhattan sunrise.
VO
We are jealous of these quiet, invisible killers since our better boiling days are over.EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR pray as the sun wishes good morning to a pandemic locked down Manhattan.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
VO
And on top of Manhattan because he must be in control. CLOSE on his Muslim prayer beads, sparkling with black diamond and gold, something his Saudi relatives would consider idolatrous, but it works here. His 10 year old daughter ASTRIDE works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.KISELE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Julia Keefer.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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CLOSE ON the red of the Coronavirus pulling back to an AERIAL SHOT of the Manhattan sunrise.
EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR pray as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City wishes good morning to a pandemic locked down Manhattan.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
And on top of Manhattan because he must be in control. CLOSE on his Muslim prayer beads, sparkling with black diamond and gold, something his Saudi relatives would consider idolatrous, but it works here. His 10 year old daughter ASTRIDE works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.
KISELE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
SANDRINE, his wife, and DELPHINE, the other triplet, are doing band exercises with JAKE LA ROCHE, a handsome 40 year old trainer whose turquoise eyes charm anyone.
IBRAHIM
Turn off the music. Prayer time.
Jake switches his phone to loud, resonant call to prayers in Arabic as the women twist and stretch more vigorously.
IBRAHIM
Off, now!
Jake is a people pleaser, so he salutes and mumbles “rain check,” to the ladies.
JAKE
You’re the boss. They know what to do, or not. Damn Best Butt Ever, they got the wings of angels! I gotta client uptown. Later.Jake flies off the roof like a hornet on speed.
The ladies finish their exercises gracefully as Ibrahim and Omar go through their rituals on the wings of angels because the other four members join them. Ibrahim blows kisses to everyone, avoiding contact, puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage, and drives on the FDR.
EXT. EAST RIVER – DAY
Sixty-something BOAT BOB splashes on to the scene at sunrise. The HOOK could be BB pulling a fish out of the East River as he camps disguised as a homeless man. He decamps his homemade tent beside the East River, Cloroxing everything so the park police won’t take note and smell humanity, and transforming himself into a clean, middle-aged, middle income hiker with a large backpack, expensive sneakers, and fashionable jogging outfit.EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob in his fancy electric car, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack. Ibrahim is always immaculately dressed, stressing the contrast between them. BB gets in the back seat. It is strange that they say nothing as they drive through north Manhattan and on to the GW Bridge where BB’s eyes light up.
EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
CLOSE ON You are not alone. Call 911. Looking at the signs and the net.IBRAHIM
Suicide is haram in Islam unless it is Jihad. You are not alone. Call 911.BB
This is the choice place for non-essential New Yorkers to commit suicide. Falling off this magnificent, famous GW bridge is more dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.IBRAHIM
Don’s say commit because you can’t criminalize the desperate acts of the marginalized mentally ill. The politically correct say complete suicide.
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as
I can. But then I flunked out of school with Incompletes.They notice Jake
running with his client.IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who uses every second. He was training my family at dawn on
the roof. -
CLOSE ON the red of the Coronavirus pulling back to an AERIAL SHOT of the Manhattan sunrise.
EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR pray as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City wishes good morning to a pandemic locked down Manhattan.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
And on top of Manhattan because he must be in control. CLOSE on his Muslim prayer beads, sparkling with black diamond and gold, something his Saudi relatives would consider idolatrous, but it works here. His 10 year old daughter ASTRIDE works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.
KISELE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
SANDRINE, his wife, and DELPHINE, the other triplet, are doing band exercises with JAKE LA ROCHE, a handsome 40 year old trainer whose turquoise eyes charm anyone.
IBRAHIM
Turn off the music. Prayer time.
Jake switches his phone to loud, resonant call to prayers in Arabic as the women twist and stretch more vigorously.
IBRAHIM
Off, now!
Jake is a people pleaser, so he salutes and mumbles “rain check,” to the ladies.
JAKE
You’re the boss. They know what to do, or not. Damn Best Butt Ever, they got the wings of angels! I gotta client uptown. Later.Jake flies off the roof like a hornet on speed.
The ladies finish their exercises gracefully as Ibrahim and Omar go through their rituals on the wings of angels because the other four members join them. Ibrahim blows kisses to everyone, avoiding contact, puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage, and drives on the FDR.
Sixty-something BOAT BOB splashes on to the scene at sunrise. The HOOK could be BB pulling a fish out of the East River as he camps disguised as a homeless man. He decamps his homemade tent beside the East River, Cloroxing everything so the park police won’t take note and smell humanity, and transforming himself into a clean, middle-aged, middle income hiker with a large backpack, expensive sneakers, and fashionable jogging outfit. A fancy electric car slows down and veers off the FDR. BB gets in the back seat. Ibrahim is driving. It is strange that they say nothing as they drive through north Manhattan and on to the GW Bridge where BB’s eyes light up. CLOSE ON You are not alone. Call 911.
EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack. Ibrahim is always immaculately dressed, stressing the contrast between them.
EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net.IBRAHIM
Suicide is haram in Islam unless it is Jihad. You are not alone. Call 911.BB
This is the choice place for non-essential New Yorkers to commit suicide. Falling off this magnificent, famous GW bridge is more dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.IBRAHIM
Don’s say commit because you can’t criminalize the desperate acts of the marginalized mentally ill. The politically correct say complete suicide.
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as I can. But then I flunked out of school with Incompletes.They notice Jake running with his client.
IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who uses every second. He was training my family at dawn on the roof.Once on the Jersey shore, Jake leaps up the side rocks and pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.
BB
What will Jake do with that stone?
IBRAHIM
Fermez la bouche. It’s a pandemic!BB
What could I do?BB covers his face and soul with a face shield and N95 mask. He pulls sanitizers out of his backpack and refills them with condensed COVID as if he were methodically preparing for a camping trip.
EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB watch LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory who boulders up a tough section of the rocks, exhibiting superhuman strength. They honk once she jumps down. She gets into the car with a bag of rocks. No hellos, or how are you, this world-class 45 year old rock climber is a woman of direct discourse and magnificent muscles, crackling with cognitive brilliance.LITONYA
I love nature. I would kill my fracking father again. I am not reformed after seven years in jail.BB
After seven months in jail I transformed into a better citizen. By the way, those are beautiful stones—they’d make gorgeous jewelry.LITONYA
I hate jewels and cosmetics.BB
You don’t need them because you are naturally beautiful.It is important to pretend to be honest, matching her on the nose dialogue with his friendly rejoinders, but the truth is that he deserves to spend seven lifetimes in jail, or worse. Ibrahim narrows his black eyes in the rear view mirror and BB gets the signal to shut down into servile silence so the two of them can discuss their business for the EvergreenEnergy Company etc.
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Sorry to hear this Amy. My problem is that this is the third novel of a trilogy that is no longer working. My head is scrambled and I pray I am not getting Alzheimer’s. The COVID lockdown and lack of money/jobs is not helping. I must finish this course as best I can and write the last novel any way I can and be done with it so I can work. Because I am a published writer, my trilogy will be published but selling a screenplay would be like winning the lottery.
In your case, it looks like you will be successful once you finish it the way you want.
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My project is failing abysmally for a plethora of reasons so I decided to brainstorm options for all ten categories and then combine. Remember that my novel isn’t long enough and that is the most important thing.
TYPES OF OPENINGS:
1. Instant Conflict Opening
Make Jake fight with Ibrahim and Ibrahim fight with BB or Litonya instead of just chatting. They should argue about some of the major themes or bringing up kids or show jealousy or something equally stressful..
2. Contrast Opening
There is a contrast between BB’s homelessness and Ibrahim’s wealth but dress them up and down more.
3. The Shocking Opening
It is shocking what they are doing with COVID. I could make it more obvious.
4. The Setup/Twist Opening
I could twist something on the roof to make the conflict more passive-aggressive. Since Ibrahim is so polite and Jake so optimistically on the nose, it would be better if Ibrahim twisted his anger into something.
The
5. The VO that’s unusual
I should bring back the MM VO because it is unusual.
6. The unique character
Litonya’s ability to climb rocks and talk to rocks is her most intriguing trait.
7. The action opening
I could show off Litonya more rock scrambling and bouldering.
8. Plunge us deep into a unique world (Moulin Rouge/Platoon)
With Litonya and the rock VO I could hint at the unique world she accesses with geology research including deep time.
9. Intriguing scene from another place in the movie
I could have the MM VO tell the viewer/reader that Litonya will die in an earthquake before she can get social security. 99 percent sure. There is always a slight chance the future will not come true. I can’t reveal the future of the bad guys or Jake or I will give away too much of the linear suspense.
10. The “trick” opening
The tricks could be other rockslides, or the seesaw in the playground or something. Or it could be dying human cells blown up or a close on someone’s face and a rapid transformation until their dying face.
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Very few movie scripts hold my attention so I chose this new one about Dickinson. I disagree with the interpretation but like the way the writer set up the images with a short VO and made the poems fly through space. The arrival of the man on the bike, the love of death, and the rebellious smoking are visual ways to embody this reclusive famous poet. She was even more locked down than me, but the inciting incident has her facing the marriage.
SLIDE SHOW – OVER BLACK
The whirring sound of an old-fashioned slide projector. Each
image that appears is small, at the center of the screen.
They are dusty photographs, relics from another time.
NARRATOR
Emily Dickinson was born in 1830,
in Amherst, Massachusetts.
A picture of Emily Dickinson appears. (There’s only one known
photo of her in existence, so it’s this one.)
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
She lived throughout her life in
her father’s house.
A picture of the big, yellow Dickinson Homestead.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
Near the end of her life, she
rarely left her own room.
A picture of Emily’s bedroom: sparse, Puritanical.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
Aside from a few anonymous verses,
she remained unpublished.
A picture of one of Emily’s poems, scrawled in pencil, on a
scrap of paper.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
When she died, her poems were
discovered.
More poems. Little hand-sewn books of poems. The slides start
moving faster.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
Some of the strangest, most
fascinating poems ever written.
More, more. Faster, faster. There are poems on envelopes.
Notecards. Candy wrappers.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
Almost two thousand of them.
Hidden. In a maid’s trunk.
The slide reel appears to burn itself out. Darkness.
CUT TO:
CLOSE-UP – A GIRL’S FACE
The face fills the frame. And looks directly at us. The skin
is pale, luminous. The lips are wry, slightly twisted. The
eyebrows, rakish. And the eyes – the eyes are so intelligent,
it’s scary.
A hand comes to the lips. The hand holds a cigarette. This
girl is SMOKING.
EXT. AMHERST COLLEGE, 1855 – DAY
The girl, in a WHITE DRESS, leans against the brick wall of a
college building, smoking a rolled cigarette.
It is springtime. The green lawns of the college are
immaculate. A BUMBLEBEE buzzes on a clover.
The girl takes another drag, and exhales a perfect SMOKE
CIRCLE.
Suddenly, a MAN rides up, on one of those Victorian-era
BICYCLES. He’s a stiff, gray-haired professor-type, in a long
black coat.
He nearly topples off his bike when he sees the girl.
MAN
(indignant)
What’s this?! Women are not allowed
on the grounds of the college. And
smoking?! The very idea… I’ll put
a stop to this. Who are you?
The girl looks at him, ironic, unruffled.
GIRL
I’m nobody. Who are you.
The man sputters.
MAN
I, young lady, am the prefect. And
I’ll give you one more chance,
before I have you dragged from this
campus by force. Identify yourself!
Who are you?!
The girl, slowly, takes another drag. We push in on her face
again, as she answers.
GIRL
I’m Emily Fucking Dickinson.
2.
MUSIC. Specifically, Kendrick Lamar, “King Kunta” (2015).
This twenty-first century anthem of black empowerment
becomes, for now, an anthem of Victorian white-girl
empowerment. What, you have a problem with that?
EXT. WOODS – DAY
With Kendrick as her underscore, EMILY DICKINSON, 25 years
old, struts through the woods of 19th-century Amherst.
KENDRICK
“Bitch where you when I was
walkin’? / Now I run the game, got
the whole world talkin’…”
As she walks, and walks, the weeds and brambles whip at the
bottom of her dress, getting it dirty. The wind reddens her
cheeks. Untidies her hair.
KENDRICK (CONT’D)
“Everybody wanna cut the legs off
him / Black man, take no losses…”
She looks exhilarated. But also like she could kill somebody.
TITLE: DICKINSON
INT. EMILY’S BEDROOM – BEFORE DAWN
Four a.m. in the mid-19th century — dark and quiet as shit.
Emily wakes up in her small, creaky bed. She throws off the
covers.
She grabs a shawl, lights a kerosene lamp, and sits down at
her tiny, cramped writing desk. Takes out a pencil and a
scrap of paper. Thinks. Chews her pencil.
Then — she gets into it. Writing. Writing. Lightning
striking in her brain.
And then — an interruption. A KNOCK on the door. From
outside, her sister’s voice.
LAVINIA (O.S.)
Emily! Emily, wake up!
Emily crouches, like a tiger, then explodes.
EMILY
What the fuck!
She slams down her pencil, bangs over to the door, opens it.
3.
Her sister, LAVINIA, 22, plump and curvy with a gap between
her teeth, is standing there, holding a BUCKET.
LAVINIA
You have to go fetch water.
Emily glares at her.
EMILY
It is four in the god damn morning,
Lavinia. I am writing. Wri-ting.
LAVINIA
Mother says you have to go. I did
it yesterday.
EMILY
Why doesn’t Austin do it?
LAVINIA
Austin’s a boy, Emily! He doesn’t
do chores!
Emily shakes her head.
EMILY
This is such bullshit.
Lavinia shrugs, and hands Emily the bucket.
EXT. PATH FROM THE WELL – SUNRISE
Emily trudges back from the well with her bucket full of
water, as the first light of day appears in the sky.
She half-whispers, still trying to puzzle out her new poem.
EMILY
(under her breath)
“Because I could not stop for
Death”… “Because I could not stop
for Death”…
She thinks up another line, and stops dead in her tracks.
Half the water sloshes out of the bucket. She doesn’t care.
She puts the bucket down. Takes a little pencil and paper out
of her dress pocket. She scribbles.
EMILY (V.O.)
“Because I could not stop for Death
– He kindly stopped for me.”
4.
Up in a tree, a BIRD chirps. Emily smiles.
EXT. DICKINSON HOMESTEAD – MORNING
An establishing shot of the BIG YELLOW HOUSE where Emily
Dickinson spent almost all of her life. A pristine, imposing
New England mansion, set amongst woods and hayfields. The
window up on the right is Emily’s room.
This is Main Street, Amherst, 1855 — not exactly bustling.
But still, any action that goes on in the town, the
Dickinsons are right in the thick of it.
Now, Emily emerges from the path, with her bucket, and enters
through a SIDE DOOR.
INT. KITCHEN – MORNING
Emily’s MOTHER, Mrs. Dickinson (think Laurie Metcalf), and
Lavinia are already hard at work in the overheated kitchen.
Mrs. Dickinson tends to a RAGING FIRE on the hearth, while
Lavinia PLUCKS A CHICKEN. As Emily enters, Mrs. Dickinson
attacks her.
MOTHER
We needed that water an hour ago!
Where have you – oh, Emily, this
bucket’s half-empty! You let it all
spill out! Oh, you’re a useless
girl. Useless!
Emily rolls her eyes. This is obviously a familiar routine.
EMILY
Can’t we just get a maid?
Mrs. Dickinson is appalled.
MOTHER
Over my dead body.
EMILY
But why? We can afford one.
MOTHER
It’s not for you to say what we can
and can’t afford, you wicked thing.
EMILY
We own six fricking horses, Mom. We
can get a maid.
5.
MOTHER
When your father married me, I said
he was getting the best housewife
in all Hampshire County. No – in
all New England! I’d rather scrub
the skin off my fingers than hire a
maid. And I’m bringing you girls up
to be just like me.
EMILY
But–
MOTHER
(cutting her off)
You’re going to make a good
housewife someday, Emily Dickinson,
if it kills me.
Mrs. Dickinson claps some flour on her hands, and begins
kneading a huge pile of dough.
MOTHER (CONT’D)
Now – you need to go get dressed.
We have another gentleman coming to
see you.
LAVINIA
Ooh! A gentleman?!
EMILY
Mom, no —
MOTHER
He’ll be here quite soon. So go
upstairs and prepare yourself. This
man could very well be your
husband.
LAVINIA
So romantic!
EMILY
(dark)
I wonder what hideous deformity
this one will have.
MOTHER
Don’t be rude. And you better not
pull any stunts like you did last
time.
EMILY
I made an offering.
6.
MOTHER
You dropped a dead mouse in that
poor man’s lap.
EMILY
Yes. Like a cat.
MOTHER
You are not a cat, Emily!
EMILY
No. Tragically, I am a woman.
Emily exits, but not before grabbing one of the FRESH SCONES
her mother has just pulled from the oven.
MOTHER
Those scones are for the suitor!
Emily’s gone. Mother shakes her head. Lavinia looks annoyed.
LAVINIA
Why don’t I get to have suitors?
MOTHER
I’m not trying to marry you off.
You’re good at housework.
LAVINIA
So I have to die an old maid
because I can fetch water?!
MOTHER
Life isn’t fair, Lavinia.
The Dickinson women go back to work.
INT. EMILY’S BEDROOM – DAY
Emily, in her room, is sneaking another chance to work on her
poem. She sits at her tiny desk, and scribbles. She hasn’t
changed her clothes or brushed her hair or anything.
From downstairs, she hears Lavinia screaming.
LAVINIA (O.S.)
Emily! He’s here!
Frustrated, she slams her pencil down.
7.
INT. PARLOR – DAY
Mrs. Dickinson sits in the parlor drinking tea with the
suitor, GEORGE. George is gawky, but cute — a Jesse
Eisenberg type. Mrs. Dickinson sips her tea, embarrassed.
MOTHER
She’ll be down in a moment. I do
apologize.
GEORGE
(awkward)
Oh – no worries.
Now Emily makes her entrance. She has brushed her hair so
that it all HANGS IN FRONT OF HER FACE. Like Cousin It. She
looks like a woman walking backwards. She looks insane.
She walks into the room slowly, her hair blocking her vision.
EMILY
(dramatically)
Hello.
Mrs. Dickinson gasps.
MOTHER
Emily – cut that out!
Emily laughs, and flips her hair back, so she can see. Then
she looks at the suitor. She recognizes him.
EMILY
Oh, for fuck’s sake. George?!
GEORGE
Hey, Emily.
Mrs. Dickinson is baffled.
MOTHER
You have already made my daughter’s
acquaintance?
EMILY
Mom, this is George. He’s in the
lit club with Austin. We hang out
all the time.
Mrs. Dickinson’s hand is trembling on her teacup.
8.
MOTHER
Well. I was just telling George
here what an excellent wife you
will be. How frugal and punctilious
you are in all your duties–
EMILY
Oh, yeah – I’m a real catch.
Emily flops down in an armchair and, literally, lights a
cigarette. Mrs. Dickinson almost faints.
MOTHER
You put that out right now!
EMILY
(exhaling)
George, can I talk to you for a
second? Outside?
George leaps up, eager for a chance to be alone with her.
GEORGE
Totally!
EMILY
Cool. Mom – we’ll be on the porch.
Try to relax.
Emily heads outside. George follows. Mrs. Dickinson looks up
at the ceiling, praying for help.
EXT. SIDE PORCH – DAY
Emily leans against the porch railing, and takes out another
cigarette. George scrambles to light it for her.
EMILY
What are you even doing here,
George?
GEORGE
I just wanted to see you. (Beat.) I
always want to see you.
EMILY
You know I’m not going to marry
you, right?
GEORGE
Never say never, Emily. Like you
wrote in your poem – “I dwell in
Possibility.”
9.
EMILY
Nice. I love when people quote me.
GEORGE
Why won’t you marry me? I’m not
good enough for you?
EMILY
You don’t understand – I’m not
going to marry anyone.
GEORGE
That’s not what your mother says.
EMILY
I have one purpose on this earth,
George – and it is to become a
great writer. A husband would put a
stop to that.
GEORGE
I wouldn’t.
EMILY
You say that now, but little by
little, you would.
Emily stubs out her cigarette. George grabs her by the wrist.
GEORGE
I’m madly in love with you.
EMILY
Well – too bad.
GEORGE
Is there someone else?
EMILY
Actually – yes.
GEORGE
Who is he? I’ll kill him.
EMILY
You can’t kill him. He is Death.
GEORGE
What?
10.
EMILY
That’s right. I’m in love with
Death.
FLASH TO:
EXT. FRONT WALKWAY – NIGHT
A black carriage pulled by white horses rolls up in front of
the Homestead, in the moonlight. Emily waits for it, at the
bottom of the steps.
EMILY (V.O.)
He takes me out for a carriage
ride, every night. He’s a total
gentleman. A silver fox. Sexy as
hell.
The carriage stops, and a HAND reaches out. Emily TAKES THE
HAND, and climbs in. The carriage rolls away.
BACK TO:
EXT. SIDE PORCH – CONTINUOUS
George shakes his head, in amazement.
GEORGE
You’re such a fucking weirdo. Why
am I so attracted to you?
Emily smiles at him.
GEORGE (CONT’D)
I’d do anything for you.
EMILY
Well… there is – something – you
could do.
GEORGE
Name it.
Emily reaches into the pocket of her dress.
EMILY
You’re still editor of the lit mag,
right?
GEORGE
Well – co-editor – but yes.
11.
Emily pulls out a piece of paper, and hands it to him.
EMILY
I want you to publish this.
GEORGE
Whoa! Awesome! You’re finally gonna
let me publish one of your poems?!
EMILY
Well – I’ve rewritten it forty
times – I’m still not sure it’s
ready, but…
GEORGE
This is perfect timing. We have a
little space in our newest issue –
I can sneak this in. It goes to
print tomorrow.
EMILY
Really?! Tomorrow?!
He nods.
EMILY (CONT’D)
Okay – but wait.
GEORGE
What is it?
EMILY
You can’t print my name.
GEORGE
What? Why not?
Emily looks over her shoulder. Paranoid.
EMILY
My father doesn’t approve of women
publishing.
GEORGE
Oh, come on. That’s stupid. You’re
a genius, Emily – he has to approve
of that.
A TAPPING on the windowpane interrupts them. Emily looks and
sees Lavinia inside, waving at her to hurry up and come in.
EMILY
Couldn’t you put my initials or
something? Or like – anonymous.
12.
GEORGE
No way. You deserve credit. And you
should stand up to your father.
Emily’s silent, thinking this over. Then she smiles.
EMILY
You know what? Fuck it. You’re
right. Publish it, with my name and
everything. Thank you, George.
GEORGE
(pocketing the poem)
Any time, Miss Dickinson.
George leans forward, and KISSES Emily on the lips. Then, he
hops over the porch railing, and takes off, down the lawn.
Lavinia, through the window, makes a kissy-kissy face at
Emily. Emily sticks a finger in her mouth like, gag me.
INT. PARLOR – DAY
Emily marches back into the parlor, where her mother and
sister are cleaning up.
EMILY
That was a disaster.
MOTHER
Yes, Emily, you ruined it again.
LAVINIA
She didn’t ruin it! They were
kissing! I saw!
MOTHER
(scandalized)
Kissing?! My god! What is wrong
with you?!
EMILY
You’re the one who keeps throwing
me at these men!
MOTHER
I’m not throwing you–
EMILY
Yes you are! It’s humiliating!
You’d pawn me off on a widower, a
cripple – anyone who would take me!
(MORE)
13.
The whole town of Amherst knows how
bad you want to get rid of me!
At this moment, Emily’s father, EDWARD DICKINSON, appears in
the doorway.
As soon as he enters the room, the energy changes. He’s in
charge of this family – a bona fide New England patriarch, in
a top hat and tails.
Mr. Dickinson can be tough, even harsh, which is why it would
be great if he was played by someone adorable (say, Bob
Balaban). He loves his daughter Emily enormously, but their
relationship contains much darkness and complexity.
Now, he regards his wife and daughters the way a farmer might
look at some chickens.
EDWARD
What’s all the fuss?
EMILY
Mother’s trying to disown me again.
MOTHER
You’re twenty-five years old,
Emily! I was married at eighteen –
it’s high time for you to find a
husband!
EMILY
And move out, you mean!?
MOTHER
Well yes, that is what happens when
girls get married!
LAVINIA
Why doesn’t anyone care if I get a
husband?!
Edward puts his hands up, shushing them all.
EDWARD
Emily doesn’t have to marry anyone,
as far as I’m concerned.
EMILY
Thank you, Dad. Jesus – at least
somebody around here isn’t trying
to kick me out of the family.
EMILY (CONT’D)
14.
MOTHER
(to Edward, annoyed)
So you’d just let her stay here, in
our house, till kingdom come, doing
nothing all day–
EMILY
I do plenty!
MOTHER
Oh, like what?
EMILY
I’m the one who found all those
bird’s nests.
She points.
INSERT:
In the corner, on a table, is a HUGE PILE OF BIRD’S NESTS.
BACK TO:
EDWARD
(ending the discussion)
All right. It’s time for you ladies
to clear out, so I can enjoy my
pipe and newspaper in peace.
He settles into his armchair. Mrs. Dickinson picks up a tray.
MOTHER
Very well. We should get back to
the kitchen, anyway. Girls, come
with me.
EMILY
God, do I have to?!
MOTHER
(staring at her)
You have a shitty attitude, young
lady.
EMILY
I just don’t want to do chores
twenty-four hours a day.
MOTHER
And what would you do instead?
Everybody looks at Emily.
15.
EMILY
I would just – think.
Mrs. Dickinson sighs. Edward lights his pipe, and chuckles.
EDWARD
Let her have a break, Mother. It’s
all right.
EMILY
Thanks, Daddy! You’re my hero.
She kisses her father on the cheek, and runs out of the room.
Mrs. Dickinson looks at her husband, coldly.
MOTHER
You just love taking her side,
don’t you.
Edward shrugs.
MOTHER (CONT’D)
You’re going to regret it. She’s
wild. She doesn’t know how to
behave like a proper young lady.
And she’ll be the ruin of this
family.
With that, Mrs. Dickinson exits. Edward puffs on his pipe.
-
What I realized is that this is the worst thing I have ever written but I must plough ahead, finish these forums, and try to improve my third novel that is now so messy I can’t stand looking at it. Dramatic rules are fine but I desperately need my Muse to return. All the plot points are there but it is deliberately too long so I can cut once I figure out how it works with the three novels.
EXT. LA ROCHE HOUSE – DAY Is this the beginning of the third act?
Joan is laid to rest in the backyard, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. He has trouble walking around. Betty takes care of the funeral rites in her usual efficient manner. Townspeople show up like shadows on a cold winter day. No real conversation, just murmurs, and ritualistic actions.JAKE
This is not how a village doctor should be remembered. Such a contrast to Dad’s party funeral. Strange that Litonya didn’t come. Where is she?
AANADI
I want to be the village doctor like grandma Joan.EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Jake tries to master the scrambling in the Palisades. He starts strong and then keeps falling.
ANAHU
Because we aren’t related, we will get married and continue to live together forever happily ever after.AANADI
I love you, Anahu. But no rings.JAKE
I have heard that before. Have you two seen your mom anywhere?ANAHU
We would have told you immediately, dad.JAKE
I am jealous. I wish we could have gotten married. She has been gone for six months now, longer than her Sandy Storm retreat.Jake hugs them into a trio and shakes from the contact.
ANAHU
Maybe Kisele knows where she is, but he might not tell.Jake forces his PD body to scramble along on all fours, but his pace is slower than a snail’s as his kids run ahead. Frustrated, he squeezes the igneous rock.
JAKE
Fuck you, Magma Monsters. Why can’t you help us? Why can’t you strengthen me the way the Gunks did when I was a teenager? Why do you hate humans so much?He throws small pieces of rock back up the landslide causing Anahu to run down./
ANAHU
Don’t have a temper tantrum dad. We don’t have to scramble. We can walk calmly on the path.
Aanadi comes down and takes his other arm. Tears fill Jake’s eyes.
JAKE
It was never supposed to be this way. Where the hell is Litonya? I hope she is okay.INT. TUDOR TOWER
Litonya is standing naked in the solar greenhouse attached as Ibrahim admires her from the door. The greenhouse is a lush forest of tropical vegetation furnished with schist and gneiss rock providing the inspiration that Litonya needs. The sunset licks her silhouette making her glow like spectacular sculpture. Ibrahim approaches from behind, touching her beautiful bronze shoulders with a possessiveness from which she doesn’t shrink.IBRAHIM
I knew you’d like this view of the Palisades. It is yours.Litonya nods and tightens her lips. Ibrahim takes a purple suitcase out of the closet marked Bright Space Brain Buffet.
IBRAHIM
This is also yours.LITONYA
I told you that I don’t want these artificial things. My brain and body are fine for my age.IBRAHIM
Some of it is preventive. Look what it did for me at 71.Ibrahim shows off his shiny black hair and trim body.
IBRAHIM
But the best is inside.Litonya says nothing as she looks out to the igneous rocks, communing with her Higher Powers.
IBRAHIM
I can read your mind. You want to know about my Will in case Big Pharma can’t help me conquer death?Litonya looks yes into his eyes.
He presses her beautiful body into his as she tries to yield.
A few minutes later they are naked on the rug. He has finished quickly, because her orgasms are not important, and she knows it. Conquest is key.
LITONYA
Where is it?IBRAHIM
You have everything. You don’t need it.LITONYA
The kids need as much power as they can get in the cruel world.IBRAHIM
They already own the future.LITONYA
You promised.IBRAHIM
You’ll get it but you know what you must do. I may never die.LITONYA
I will probably die by 85 because I won’t prolong life artificially.IBRAHIM
I keep going backwards. By then I will be middle-aged.LITONYA
God bless.IBRAHIM
Remember I give Him up? Science is my god. And you believe in rocks. That is why I made this rock palace for you. Enjoy.Litonya swallows her thunder and digs her rock climbing fingers into his tight back muscles, releasing the steam from his jaw and elsewhere. Her belly smells of his semen, a scent of death, unlike Jake’s life-giving seed. Kneeling, she squeezes out her feelings to profit from his stealing and dealings as the planet is reeling.
INT. CITY HALL – DAY
Ibrahim and Litonya marry without recognizable witnesses, dressed in drab business clothes.LITONYLA
The last time I was in this august marble building was for murdering my father.Ibrahim nods politely. Instead of a ring, he circles her throat with a necklace made of gold, diamonds, and black obsidian. His secret is that it used to be his Muslim prayer beads.
IBRAHIM
I made this just for you. You will look magnificent tonight.EXT. MET MUSEUM ROOF
And she does! Litonya, who never dresses up or wears make-up, has donned a sexy backless black evening dress to match her show-off necklace, eyes made up dramatically, and hair coiffed around other jewels. She even wears heels, making her tower over Ibrahim. But he is confident, dressed in the most expensive Brunico suit, royal blue to offset the black of his hair.He holds her hand and looks at her as if she were more outstanding than the MET sculptures. They are on the roof of the MET, watching the sun set over the west side. They both sip colored water, never alcohol. This gala is for STEMGARCHS that has given a fat donation to the MET. The socializing is mechanical but convivial.
Then they go down to the
TEMPLE OF DENDUR, lit up in an immortal way with candles, for the presentation. SLOWLY ZOOM into his acceptance speech.
IBRAHIM
It is our pleasure to set up a foundation and annual grant as well as a big Christmas donation. STEMGARCHS stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine, but we use our funds to support humanity—culture, history, and the arts. No American institution is more worthy of our philanthropy than the MET. Our foundation will nurture educational programs for all ages. The annual grant is for Green projects to make the MET sustainable and ecologically correct while renovating and respecting history. And this year’s avalanche of cash will set up a science and art section to make people appreciate the aesthetics of science, the beauty of cells, and the spiritual and religious reflections of human endeavor. We will build an enormous wing into the drive that used to be for cars. STEMGARCHS has been essential in ending fossil fuels.Thunderous APPLAUSE. As the CEO of the MET talks effusively and gratefully, Litonya’s eyes drift towards the park where runners and bikers can still express their freedom no matter what society organizes. She wishes she was out there running but not with them. She prays it will be over soon. Ibrahim returns to her and wraps his arms around her possessively.
LITONYA
I wish Kisele could have been here.
IBRAHIM
You wanted to keep this secret. Kisele is too honest to keep secrets. I must leave tonight for a trip—
LITONYA
Where?IBRAHIM
Not sure.
As they walk down the grandiose steps of the MET they run into Jake, jogging through the fountains. They walk faster. Litonya feels like jumping in the fountain.Jake doesn’t. He stops and stares at his true love,
JAKE
Here you are. What the fuck—He is sweaty and stinking. When he stops, the PD shaking begins. The jog was fueled by his Levodopa and now he is coming back to earth.
IBRAHIM
You look terrific, Jake. So glad you can jog on the UES like the old days. Hope you had a client. Litonya has been working hard to save the earth, so we came to schmooze and find Green donors.As they chat, participants stop to congratulate Ibrahim so his lie isn’t going over that well. For the first time in her life, Litonya shrinks. Thank God she is not wearing a ring. The black necklace is her marital chain.
JAKE
Lovely necklace. I thought you hated jewelry.LITONYA
These are rocks, not jewels.JAKE
So was my diamond, but I guess it wasn’t big enough.IBRAHIM
Look, guys, I have a plane to catch so I will leave you here and see you when I get back.LITONYA
Plane? I thought you said you were done with planes?IBRAHIM
It’s ecologically correct.JAKE
Blue Origin for your blue suit? Outer space?IBRAHIM
Perhaps. Life is an adventure.He kisses Litonya on the cheeks French style and shakes Jake’s hand. Then he hails an empty limousine, always parked on Fifth after galas.
JAKE
Why didn’t you tell us where you were? The kids were worried. I was hysterical.LITONYA
Throughout my life I have taken breaks. Baby Kisele and I disappeared for months with winter camping, but Rodney was patient.They hug and then kiss passionately.
JAKE
Now that you are all dressed up, would you like to spend the night here rather than take the boat or car upstate?Jake hails a cab, and they go to restaurants and bars, party in Harlem, drink alcohol, listen to jazz, and make their way to
EXT. INWOOD by dawn, ironically passing by the west side of Ibrahim’s Tudor Tower. In the cove, Betty, dressed gender fluid, is working on the boat.
BETYY
Night owls partying?JAKE
Yes, we did something different. Changer les idees as Delphine would say.BETTY
I love Delphine. And you, Litonya, look spectacular.There is a hint of the old Leo in Betty’s eyes as they move up and down her athletic frame in its morning after disarray.
Jake is still wearing the sweats,JAKE
She dresses up, I dress down, and we painted the town red before we are dead.BETTY
You look happy but almost dead. She looks twenty years younger instead of five older.JAKE
Women are stronger and smarter than men.BETTY
That is why I became one.JAKE
You’re looking pretty sniffer skipper.As they chat, Litonya begins to row to balance her body after the damage done by high heels.
JAKE
Good work Litonya! Once I recover, I will join you and leave Betty at the helm.EXT. HUGUENOT ST. – DAY
Betty is swinging blissfully on a hammock strung between two pine trees beside the boat garage. Jake hobbles over, trying to mitigate his PD shakes by pressing down on ski poles but he tips over as he approaches.
BETTY
You used to be so agile.Jake’s fury is slower than it used to be,
JAKE
Fuck Parkinson’s.BETTY
Love to, but he died over a hundred years ago.Jake is not in a good mood this time.
JAKE
We need them.Betty bats her eyes innocently, and amplifies her fake Southern accent,
BETTY
What, sugar? My cookies?Jake’s son Anahu walks by carrying a thick history book.
But Jake does the talking,JAKE
My son has done the research and we know your past. All of it.
Betty swings silently.JAKE
You were the infamous serial killer/rapist/arsonist.Silence: Betty swings in her hammock, ignoring this outburst.
JAKE
We almost caught you when you assaulted Priceless, but she was too strong for you. If you hadn’t bought her off and funded her dance career, you would have spent your life in prison.Action incongruent with words: Betty fusses with her hair and dress in a “ladylike” fashion.
BETTY
Do I look like a malicious man? You have no proof.JAKE
We have all the proof.JAKE
Oh yes we do. You were a stalker who sneaked up killing without a sound, a walking match in a sea of gasoline, a rapist who banged from behind after they burnt, and an antiseptic liar who hid your crimes in the icing of immaculate hygiene.BETTY
My hands are for cooking and cleaning and caretaking.JAKE
Your paws were always weapons.Jake uses one of his ski poles to tip over the hammock,
JAKE
You can’t row this boat forever. Our evidence will drown you..Betty falls on the grass gracefully and gets up,
BETTY
So, what do you want me to make for dinner tonight?JAKE
How could you do that to so many innocent women?BETTY
You aren’t so innocent yourself, sweetie. You basically raped Fadma.JAKE
You raped, burned, and killed multiple women. You set tenements on fire. You poisoned seniors. You may have done other things–BETTY
You have such wonderful family members, a great fitness career, despite your PD. You don’t want anyone to hurt your beloved kids do you?
JAKE
You wouldn’t dare.BETTY
STEMGARCHS is more powerful than either of us. Maybe I can help you with your PD. The worst thing would be for you to get Levo Dopa dementia.Jake is silent.
Betty chuckles pleasantly.
BETTY
I loved the Bright Space Brain Buffet, no side effects, and my memory is as good as a college student’s. Twenty years from now when we are dead, everyone will be Bright Spaced. Our brain buffet is for the one percent. I only got it because I work for STEMGARCHS and I was hit hard by that gang. I don’t have the power to–JAKE
They’re in that lab. I can’t have Delphine risk her life, but you can get them. It’s not just us. The world is desperate for this buffet.BETTY
Let me see the proof you have.JAKE
We matched your DNA, all over your hammock and our house, with hats and gloves left in the woods years ago near unsolved murders but we have more than this. We can’t tell you but trust us that you have a choice—get us the drugs and we forget, but not forgive, or keep them to yourself and everyone dies. Some things in the past never happened if we want to insure a brighter future.Jake bites his teeth. He hates to be in a position where he doesn’t have the last word.
BETTY
I know how to cook delicious meals for a last supper. Then I will be free to end my life peacefully on the boat and you will get your drugs.
(This is the crisis.)INT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim is depressed because he lost his position as CEO and billions of dollars and has the last supply of Brain Buffet drugs. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa, or so we think.
Betty can barely walk, and her eyes are rolling as she greets Jake and Litonya who arrive in a rowboat. Ibrahim is conked out on a couch on the deck with the remains of an elegant meal on a table before him.
BETTY
I did what you said. I am not a doc, but he looks gone and I am going. Go ahead. The drugs are downstairs.When Jake’s back is turned, Ibrahim springs from the sofa and grabs him. The fight makes Jake lose his PD balance. Betty is floundering near the table but Litonya rushes towards us. She still has the strength of a forty-something woman or even man. She separates them as Ibrahim glares at her.
IBRAHIM
Choose.Litonya backs off. She never liked people enough to be a martial artist. Betty’s southern drawl comes to the rescue.
BETTY
Since it’s the drugs you want, yall can just mosey down to the hull where you’ll find ’em in bright blue boxes labelled Bright Space Brain Buffet.As Jake and Litonya walk down those short, rickety stairs, Betty slams and locks the door.
INT. CRUCIBLE – TIMELESS
This lab only has four high tech computer stations, no animals of course, and no active vials and tubes. Jake rushes towards that blue door to open it, grabbing two boxes that look purple but are correctly labelled Bright Space Brain Buffet. It opens like a suitcase. He grabs the pills labelled “hormone balancing.” Done. Then he assembles the injection kit for the “plaque clearance.” Suicidal people hit the temple. Did it! Last, he applies the non-invasive brain stimulator around his scalp. It is like a vibrator, nothing invasive or painful. Then he sits beside Litonya and opens up a computer, looking at sights, listening to sounds, typing almost as quickly as he used to, but gets distracted by her beautiful face, youthfully smooth and cinnamon, her long, straight, silky, newly dyed black hair, and the strong body that makes him feel love in his crotch, a gift from the Bright Space Brain Buffet. He squirms and smiles. Litonya is not distracted. She never is. She is a genius.JAKE
Darling, here they are. Don’t you want your suitcase of precious drugs?She shakes her head. Always a woman of few words.
JAKE
I can inject you.She shakes no, her eyes stay on her screen.
JAKE
Put this fabulous stimulator on your brain to improve whatever you are doing now. Feels great—just like a vibrator. I remember you never needed vibrators. When I first saw you in 1998, you were having orgasms naked while climbing a rock waterfall.But now Jake wants her, so his fingers find the right spot through her clothes, and off they cum. He slips down to the floor under her computer. It doesn’t take long for her orgasms to warm this frigid lab. He stands up with a mastery that melts into making love. Never romantic, Litonya buttons up and returns to her work at the computer.
JAKE
Thank you. I love you. Listen darling, I realize you are in top form now, but these drugs are prophylactics. They are for our future. No human is immortal. You need your brilliant brain for at least another thirty years. Please take something. We risked our lives to get them.LITONYA
I don’t take artificial man-made drugs, woman-made, or LGBTQ-made drugs because I am linked to higher spirits in rocks, trees, and water. I must finish this now.JAKE
I wonder what they are doing on the deck. The agreement was that Ibrahim was supposed to be poisoned and dead. Betty was supposed to sacrifice herself.Jake goes up the stairs and tries the door, knocking and banging. He screams. Nothing. He looks out a small window to see they are slowly making our way north up the Hudson.
JAKE
Unlike Betty, I am not hypnotized by the gentle rocking of a boat going nowhere. Litonya, where are they? Where are we going? I hear nothing. Shit, I can’t get into my email or social media. Help me.LITONYA
The server’s down. I am doing research. Our phones are dead.Time moves too slowly for Jake’s new drug-infused energy. Litonya’s patience is endless.
JAKE
We need food, water, a place to pee. There is a sanitized toilet, thank God or rather Betty’s obsessive cleanliness. There is a dorm fridge with skim milk and oranges. Here, take one.
You are human enough to eat, drink, and pee. But where will we sleep? Or do these drugs make sleep optional? That would be great if we felt rested. I look around. There is nowhere to lie down. I hate sleeping in a chair like the homeless. I think of the comfortable chaise lounges on the deck. I scream, Betty, and bang again. Have they abandoned ship? Then we’ll crash but maybe we can get out. I realize you often live in Deep Time but where were you when you disappeared for ten months? We need to have a conversation.At night the only light is a 1960 brass vintage flashlight Jake uses for sex. It works.
TIME PASSES with a repetition of shots, taking drugs, having sex three times a day, using the toilet, working at the computer, but they are starving.
Suddenly the door opens, and Betty hands Jake a huge platter of fresh food as well as preserved and packaged goodies. Her eyes say shut up, so he nods gratefully, and she shuts the door. I can only imagine what is going on. Litonya and Jake eat this Mediterranean marvel slowly, savoring everything so they don’t throw up, then put some of the perishable leftovers in the empty fridge.
JAKE
It looks like they plan to leave us here for a while, but what are they doing? Now that my brain is functioning on a higher level, we must have an intellectual conversation. I know nothing about the science of climate change, and you could care less about fitness, wellness, popular music, and my interests. I am smarter but not about to take on physics and geology. So darling, now that I am slowly recovering my mental faculties and cleansing my body of the terrible Parkinson’s disease, I think we should marry legally before we die.LITONYA
I am not into social contracts.JAKE
Are you afraid we must be married forever if we never die? Do you think these drugs or the new ones they are working on will give us immortality or another century?LITONYA
We shouldn’t tamper with nature.JAKE
Come on, Litonya. Nature can be a bipolar serial killer worse than small-time Betty or any human.LITONYA
We will be recycled.JAKE
Into what? I was never good at recycling. I don’t want to be someone or something else. I want to be a better me with perfect you.
“
LITONYA
Just enjoy life.Jake kisses her passionately and twinkles his dimples.
JAKE
So where were you for the past ten months? You disappeared longer than your Sandy Storm runaway with Kisele.LITONYA
That is the point of these vacations, to vacate. To take a break. To have a recess.JAKE
Yeah, I guess relationships need sabbaticals too. Never thought of it that way. But they publish their books when they come back. What did you learn, see, hear, or do? Anything you want to share?Litonya prefers silence to sharing.
EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – DAY This is the end of the climax
Kisele, Delphine, Anahu, and Aanadi arrive in a boat and board Ibrahim’s yacht. They fight with Ibrahim and Betty, weakened by some of the poison but not dead and tie them up. They release Jake and Litonya from the lower deck. After the initial embraces and hugs, they sit facing the two villains.JAKE
How could you do all this? Killed and raped at least ten young women including our beloved Felice, fixed your wife Natalia’s brakes so her car would crash in a snowstorm, attacked my wife Priceless who surprised you enough to stop temporarily and move to Manhattan where you set fire to rent stabilized apartments killing seniors or making them homeless like MC, dropped matches into outdoor restaurants, and sprayed sanitizer that was really condensed COVID that infected and killed the Feldmans,Silence.
JAKE
You killed your own son Joe and CS with that fire you set in the antique car.Silence.
ANAHU
Your own son burnt to death because you are a psychopath.BETTY
I did not murder him on purpose. He was my hero.JAKE
Collateral damage, like the seniors who burnt to death or were poisoned by your food boxes. Not just a psychopath, you are a sociopath.BETTY
I thought we made a deal. You have the Bright Space Brain Buffet.JAKE
Yeah, but then you locked us up.Betty laughs.
DELPHINE
The real sociopaths are STEMGARCHS. They have killed billions.IBRAHIM
Litonya, I thought you loved the earth more than anything.LITONYA
More than you.IBRAHIM
So you are a whore, marrying me for money.LITONYA
No, for Kisele’s future.JAKE
You married him?They ignore his question.
IBRAHIM
He won’t have one. Sacrifices must be made to save the earth. Otherwise, no one lives.ANAHU
You are sociopaths.JAKE
Your footpath was a bloodbath not a steambath, but STEMGARCHS is a warpath.
ANAHU
We know your crimes Betty but now we must uncover Ibrahim’s secrets.
DELPHINE
Dad, I always thought STEMGARCHS was helping humanity.KISELE
Some humans.IBRAHIM
STEMGARCHS is a human organization—not God’s angels.DELPHINE
I thought you gave up on God.Orhan and Nikos arrive. Orhan plays his Sufi flute and Nikos says he has been listening to figure out what to do.
NIKOS
If we kill them, we are murderers. If they go to jail, taxpapers waste their precious money. The Greeks would have recommended that they drink hemlock of their own accord.IBRAHIM
What if Kisele replaces me as CEO?NIKOS
He might be crucified by the rest of the genocidal team.IBRAHIM
When you are too ethical, you are run into the ground. Be smart.EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – DAY
Kisele, Delphine, Anahu, and Aanadi arrive in a boat and board Ibrahim’s yacht. They fight with Ibrahim and Betty, weakened by some of the poison but not dead and tie them up. They release Jake and Litonya from the lower deck. After the initial embraces and hugs, they sit facing the two villains.JAKE
How could you do all this? Killed and raped at least ten young women including our beloved Felice, fixed your wife Natalia’s brakes so her car would crash in a snowstorm, attacked my wife Priceless who surprised you enough to stop temporarily and move to Manhattan where you set fire to rent stabilized apartments killing seniors or making them homeless like MC, dropped matches into outdoor restaurants, and sprayed sanitizer that was really condensed COVID that infected and killed the Feldmans,Silence.
JAKE
You killed your own son Joe and CS with that fire you set in the antique car.Silence.
ANAHU
Your own son burnt to death because you are a psychopath.BETTY
I did not murder him on purpose. He was my hero.JAKE
Collateral damage, like the seniors who burnt to death or were poisoned by your food boxes. Not just a psychopath, you are a sociopath.BETTY
I thought we made a deal. You have the Bright Space Brain Buffet.JAKE
Yeah, but then you locked us up.Betty laughs.
DELPHINE
The real sociopaths are STEMGARCHS. They have killed billions.IBRAHIM
Litonya, I thought you loved the earth more than anything.LITONYA
More than you.IBRAHIM
So you are a whore, marrying me for money.LITONYA
No, for Kisele’s future.JAKE
You married him?They ignore his question.
IBRAHIM
He won’t have one. Sacrifices must be made to save the earth. Otherwise, no one lives.ANAHU
You are sociopaths.JAKE
Your footpath was a bloodbath not a steambath, but STEMGARCHS is a warpath.
ANAHU
We know your crimes Betty but now we must uncover Ibrahim’s secrets.
DELPHINE
Dad, I always thought STEMGARCHS was helping humanity.KISELE
Some humans.IBRAHIM
STEMGARCHS is a human organization—not God’s angels.DELPHINE
I thought you gave up on God.Orhan and Nikos arrive. Orhan plays his Sufi flute and Nikos says he has been listening to figure out what to do.
NIKOS
If we kill them, we are murderers. If they go to jail, taxpapers waste their precious money. The Greeks would have recommended that they drink hemlock of their own accord.IBRAHIM
What if Kisele replaces me as CEO?
NIKOS
He might be crucified by the rest of the genocidal team.ANAHU
What part of the brain is damaged in psychopaths?DELPHINE
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. MAO-A is a gene is responsible for making a protein that breaks down certain types of chemical mean impaired mirror neuron system — that is, difficulties with the neurons that, in a healthy brain, activate both when we perceive someone else doing an action and when we do that same action ourselves. Hormones such as dopamine, noradrenalin, and serotonin, which are all linked to mood and the ventromedial and anterior cingulate sectors of PFC are theorized to mediate social and affective decision-making functions that appear to be disrupted in psychopathy. While psychopaths show a specific lack in emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and sadness, they can feel other emotions, such as happiness, joy, surprise and disgust, in a similar way as most of us would.AANADI
We know the BBBB balances hormones, but everyone is a bit different.IBRAHIM
When you are too ethical, you are run into the ground. Be smart.
AANADI
It is always nature and nurture because there are neuroscientists whose brains look the same as psychopathic murderers.BETTY
I had a terrible childhood, abandoned by parents, placed with the nuns to kill my religion forever, and then adopted by morticians who put me to work as a slave. I had a technical mind but no college education. I was beaten up by gangs in my E Harlem neighborhood, so we moved into a back portion of our funeral parlor. My first orgasm was over a dead body. When I moved to New Paltz, the almost naked rock climbers fueled my fantasies and the wilderness hid my crimes. When I moved back to Manhattan, my only job was secretly setting fires, spraying COVID sanitizer, and poisoning food to get rid of seniors, homeless, and other non-essential humans. Ibrahim gave me some respect and boats. I did some good things for my son and Priceless, both dead now, and taught Kisele about boats. When I became a woman, my testosterone no longer fueled violent crime.IBRAHIM
So you killed sweetly.
AANADI
Psychopaths and sociopaths will never feel compassion. Compassion melts the obesity of grief, letting the fat fry with a gentle fire. Only many humans will never have compassion. Compassion fatigue is something I know well. Porous boundaries or too shielded in PPE.BETTY
So compassion is something you can run of, like natural gas?
ANAHU
We know Leo/BB/Betty’s crimes but why do you become a sociopath Ibrahim?
IBRAHIM
Agreed that I had a privileged childhood, adolescence, career, and financial and emotional support but when Hurricane Ida demolished my family—BETTY
Liar. We were squirting COVID from the beginning.IBRAHIM
Like Litonya, I wanted to save the earth and it was a way to depopulate. I didn’t understand all of the implications because I am not a bio scientist but an engineer.BETTY
Bullshit.IBRAHIM
If you divorce me or kill me, you won’t get the estate you wantedLITONYA
For Kisele.KISELE
Maybe I don’t want his polluted hierarchy. Let his sandcastles flatten into the sea. Genocides to save the earth are not my values. I would rather be a poor hiker.NIKOS
Agreed that we won’t live forever and most will not make it to the twenty second century, but what do we do with two criminals? Hemlock is the best solution.ORHAN
Or spin till you stop –dead—released into the universe.IBRAHIM
Blasphemy. If you imprison me or kill me, STEMGARCHS can retaliate and torture you and yours for the rest of the century.BETTY
Or longer.ANAHU
Leo/BB should have been convicted in the twentieth century and none of this would have happened. Apologies are useless unless there is public exposure and apology with speeches to stop further assaults. Prison increases crime and costs too much. The criminal justice system is another cog in the economy. It is horrible for victims and taxpayers.BETTY
Agreed that neither of us want to go to jail. I don’t mind dying now. But Ibrahim must be coaxed.JAKE
Are you sorry for the lives you ruined or extinguished?BETTY
Not really. The planet needs to be depopulated. I don’t feel compassion because Ibrahim and I never took the fusion drug. But now that you have it, you could cure antisocial personality disorder and end these crimes forever.KISELE
Are you sure? That would be miraculous.BETTY
It is worth a try.DELPHINE
I could sign on to something like that. But how can we access a constant supply of the Brain Buffet?BETTY
I never had that. Only Ibrahim.JAKE
He must die so Litonya can be his widow instead of his wife. That is what you want, isn’t it?LITONYA
Maybe. But I am not killing anyone else. My father was enough. I am done with jail.BETTY
Me too.NIKOS
Humans love thrillers, mysteries, or dramas about humans more tortured than they are. What does it take to end a story or terminate a job?DELPHINE
How could we keep Ibrahim alive until he can gather enough Brain Buffets for most of the world?AANADI
Why does the best research have to be connected to political corruption and in this case, genocide?LITONYA
Things never really end. They are recycled like rocks.The following conversation is simultaneous and synchronous, so it is hard to know what words are attached to who. The effect is like maggots swarming around a fresh corpse. Why this fuss about living forever? Telomeres shorten, snip off, and cells break down. Like cars.
I thought you hated cars.
It’s an analogy.
Health is a temporary gift in short shrift like spring lilies until you drift into the land of the stiffs.
I thought hospices were in charge of healthy dying.
No. They make dying bearable for survivors. And they need to make a living too.
Like maggots.
Sort of. But hospices are cleaner.
Sometimes.
When people die, they pee and poop and smell horrible.
Brain buffet is to make our brains better while we are living so we don’t have all these geriatric vegetables to care for.
I thought it also helped mental illness.
Yes. It helps. But doesn’t cure.
Anahu searches Ibrahim’s office and pulls out a photo album.
ANAHU
If you just castigate criminals, you never understand their power. Look at these beautiful images.They gather round to see pictures of Ibrahim, Sandrine, and the triplets lined up for their bike brigade on the rail trail and the Minnewaska and Mohonk carriage roads, Ibrahim with De Blasio, Trump, Biden, Bloomberg, and a plethora of politicians and celebrities at events, masked and mask-less, secular and religious, BB and Joe in fire hats receiving awards from the Mayor’s office for their work cleaning up the Summit collapse after Hurricane Ida, and Betty on the dock, sorting a string of fish.
KISELE
I like that one the best! Betty looks like Jesus about to turn his two sardines into a feast for thousands.BETTY
And I cook better than Jesus ever did.Silence. Kisele and Delphine have tears in their eyes. Is it because of the poisoned fish or the loss of a dear friend?
BETTY
I am an old woman. My best days are over. I want to choreograph my death the way Hitler did. Only no cyanide or gunshots for me. This poison tastes delicious. I will eat more of it and rock myself in the boat back to the womb. As for Ibrahim, he must be killed because he has too much responsibility to do it himself.JAKE
No one else wants to be a murderer but you.BETTY
I have never used a gun and lack the stick strength I used to have. He knows this is poison, so he won’t eat more.LITONYA
We still have his estate in the Will, but STEMGARCHS would investigate his death.KISELE
Or could Ibrahim be trusted to make me his prodigy?DELPHINE
I was always his prodigy. But doing some lab work with musical comedy is enough. I don’t want to fly around the world and get involved in depopulation.KISELE
Mom thought I would save the world and I will try in my own small way, but I can’t be CEO of STEMGARCHS like Ibrahim. I have never even been overseas. Like Betty, I love boats around here. But STEMGARCHS must be exposed just as Hitler was exposed.AANADI
I want to be a country doctor like Grandma Joan, not a world leader for the rest of my life.ANAHU
And I want to be a history prof like Grandpa Jean and neither of us want to live forever. We don’t need Ibrahim’s toxic power.NIKOS
Orhan and I don’t mind living past 2060 because we are philosophically resilient enough to handle anything.JAKE
Fine. But we need a constant supply of the Brain Buffet. Could we keep Ibrahim, inject him with something so that he is a perennial Ted Talks guy promoting Brain Buffet for everyone the way they gave out COVID vaccines in the States?ANAHU
He is still responsible for the deaths of millions like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, Trujillo, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun,JAKE
So what do we do? So what is the moral lesson? If you have the courage to kill people and yourself, you can die well at the right time?Suddenly Ibrahim pulls out a small, soundless gun and extinguishes himself but is stopped before he kills Betty. Betty throws him into the Hudson but eats more of her poisoned fish food.
EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out.LITONYA
One last question: you said you stalked me for years when I was climbing pitches and swimming naked in waterfalls. Why didn’t you kill me?BETTY
You don’t fuck with Nature’s people. Your corpse would have been haunted.JAKE
But the other women were just pieces of meat?BETTY
I was a man then.JAKE
So Litonya is the only woman who scared you? Guess what, bro? Me too. What do you want honey?LITONYA
I’m not a honey, but I have always loved you Jake in a primal, visceral, illogical way.JAKE
I am no genius like you and Ibrahim, but I know how to make love.They kiss and Betty is lowered into her rowboat by the kids.
Betty gently rocks herself to death.
FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
EXT. PALISADES PLAYGROUND – DAY
The boat lands, leaving Jake and Litonya on the Palisades while the kids go back to Manhattan.Jake and Litonya get on the seesaw just for fun.
JAKE
I am shaking as the earth is quaking and we are aching, but our kids are baking and making love.
Suddenly an earthquake unleashes a shower of igneous rocks killing both of them.
EXT. ALL SOULS CHURCH – DAY
Kisele is giving a lecture at All Souls Church like Ibrahim did.
KISELE
Yes, our Bright Space Brain Buffet is for all souls…Delphine leads a communal dance with the privileged and homeless.
Conclusion Fate marries Will at least for now.
-
This scene answers the central dramatic question, a puzzle that never was solved till now related to deep character, and confessions for the first time.
EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out.LITONYA
One last question: you said you stalked me for years when I was climbing pitches and swimming naked in waterfalls. Why didn’t you kill me?BETTY
You don’t fuck with Nature’s people. Your corpse would have been haunted.JAKE
But the other women were just pieces of meat?BETTY
I was a man then.JAKE
So Litonya is the only woman who scared you? Guess what, bro? Me too. What do you want honey?LITONYA
I’m not a honey, but I have always loved you Jake in a primal, visceral, illogical way.JAKE
I am no genius like you and Ibrahim, but I know how to make love.They kiss and Betty is lowered into her rowboat by the kids.
Betty gently rocks herself to death.
FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
EXT. PALISADES PLAYGROUND – DAY
The boat lands, leaving Jake and Litonya on the Palisades while the kids go back to Manhattan.Jake and Litonya get on the seesaw just for fun.
JAKE
I am shaking as the earth is quaking and we are aching, but our kids are baking and making love.
Suddenly an earthquake unleashes a shower of igneous rocks killing both of them.
EXT. ALL SOULS CHURCH – DAY
Kisele is giving a lecture at All Souls Church like Ibrahim did.
KISELE
Yes, our Bright Space Brain Buffet is for all souls…Delphine leads a communal dance with the privileged and homeless.
Conclusion Fate marries Will at least for now.
EXT. HUDSON RIVER – DAY
We transform to survive. We transform as we die. -
1. Take a look at your final pages and write up a paragraph showing how each of these could possibly work for your story.
A. The Setup / Payoff final page. Accusations against personal and social crimes are couched in a family-friendly circle looking at photos of Ibrahim’s and Leo/BB/Betty’s better days. This would necessitate my setting up this historical methodology of Anahu’s after midpoint. As he studies the crimes of Northeast serial killers and leaders or organizations that commit genocide, he collects photo albums and social media postings of their better days, showing humor, friendship, service, anything good, because it is the seeds of goodness that cloak their badness and lead to victims’ sadness. Then I could make the trial less expository because the bad guys would think they are still liked and appreciated. Anahu could sympathize with motives. But then they confess and that is the payoff.
B. The Contrast final page. Everyone agrees to cooperate, be peaceful, work hard, never kill again, but Betty and Ibrahim suddenly attack Jake and Litonya and there is a brutal bloody fight where some are killed.
C. The Climax/Resolution final page There is an earthquake that causes a landslide on the Palisades so everyone is crushed by rocks.
D. The “Something good is going to come out of this mess” final page. Kisele and Delphine vow to work for Green Globals against STEMGARCHS and Litonya and Jake live happily ever after as long as time stops.
E. The “One last gesture” final page. Betty kills herself and Ibrahim with the kind of stick she used for years.
F. The Shock final page
After everyone is sure Ibrahim wants to live forever, he pulls out a secret soundless gun and kills Betty and himself as the boat lands. His will gives money and power to the kids. He dies with a good global reputation.Anahu searches Ibrahim’s office and pulls out a photo album.
ANAHU
If you just castigate criminals, you never understand their power. Look at these beautiful images.They gather round to see pictures of Ibrahim, Sandrine, and the triplets lined up for their bike brigade on the rail trail and the Minnewaska and Mohonk carriage roads, Ibrahim with De Blasio, Trump, Biden, Bloomberg, and a plethora of politicians and celebrities at events, masked and mask-less, secular and religious, BB and Joe in fire hats receiving awards from the Mayor’s office for their work cleaning up the Summit collapse after Hurricane Ida, and Betty on the dock, sorting a string of fish.
KISELE
I like that one the best! Betty looks like Jesus about to turn his two sardines into a feast for thousands.BETTY
And I cook better than Jesus ever did.Silence. Kisele and Delphine have tears in their eyes.
BETTY
I am an old woman. My best days are over. I want to choreograph my death the way Hitler did. Only no cyanide or gunshots for me. This poison tastes delicious. I will eat more of it and rock myself in the boat back to the womb. As for Ibrahim, he must be killed because he has too much responsibility to do it himself.JAKE
No one else wants to be a murderer but you.BETTY
I have never used a gun and lack the stick strength I used to have. He knows this is poison, so he won’t eat more.LITONYA
We still have his estate in the Will, but STEMGARCHS would investigate his death.KISELE
Or could Ibrahim be trusted to make me his prodigy?DELPHINE
I was always his prodigy. But doing some lab work with musical comedy is enough. I don’t want to fly around the world and get involved in depopulation.KISELE
Mom thought I would save the world and I will try in my own small way, but I can’t be CEO of STEMGARCHS like Ibrahim. I have never even been overseas. Like Betty, I love boats around here. But STEMGARCHS must be exposed just as Hitler was exposed.AANADI
I want to be a country doctor like Grandma Joan, not a world leader for the rest of my life.ANAHU
And I want to be a history prof like Grandpa Jean and neither of us want to live forever. We don’t need Ibrahim’s toxic power.NIKOS
Orhan and I don’t mind living past 2060 because we are philosophically resilient enough to handle anything.JAKE
Fine. But we need a constant supply of the Brain Buffet. Could we keep Ibrahim, inject him with something so that he is a perennial Ted Talks guy promoting Brain Buffet for everyone the way they gave out COVID vaccines in the States?ANAHU
He is still responsible for the deaths of millions like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, Trujillo, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun,JAKE
So what do we do? So what is the moral lesson? If you have the courage to kill people and yourself, you can die well at the right time?Suddenly Ibrahim pulls out a small, soundless gun and extinguishes himself but is stopped before he kills Betty. Betty eats more of her poisoned food.
EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
JAKE
I am shaking as the earth is quaking and we are aching, but our kids are baking and making love.
Last image is that of Kisele giving a lecture at All Souls Church like Ibrahim did.
KISELE
Yes, our Bright Space Brain Buffet is for all souls…Delphine leads a communal dance.
Conclusion Fate marries Will at least for now.
EXT. HUDSON RIVER – DAY
We transform to survive. We transform as we die.The rocks shake and let loose another shower of igneous rocks into the river, killing Ibrahim and Jake.
-
Fulfill the last three rules of Great Endings in the following methods:
RULE 5. Don’t go On-The-Nose.
Check the current version of your 3rd Act and tell us where
you highlighted any on-the-nose dialogue or action. Fie x it with a tangential yet symbolic conversation about something else like Pulp Fiction. I love on the nose when it is over the top so I may include it but have a running conversation about photo albums or something more superficial the way they do in Pulp Fiction.RULE 6. The climax of the movie must be set in the quintessential location for the conflict.
Brainstorm possible locations for the best setting for your climax. Show us your list of possibilities and tell us which you’ve picked. Climb and Punishment ended on the climbing pitches, but the conclusion was a sweep of the village with everyone sleeping. Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan ended in an abandoned pet store based as the tour guide choked to death from COVID Easter Sunday 2020 with Lenox Hill Hospital a minute away, and this novel that shouldn’t be called Seismic Seesaw because that won’t work for the screenplay ends on a boat on the Hudson River beside the igneous rocks of the Palisades. There could be a leak on the boat. Besides poisoning, they could try to drown each other. The conclusion was going to be twenty years later with a Palisades landslide after an earthquake that kills Litonya and Jake. Yes, this is deus ex machina but rocks are personified and it might work for the theme since the climax is generated by human conflict. The Summit has already collapsed but it could end in Ibrahim’s Tudor Tower apartment in Washington Heights, a fancy NYC venue or park, but the boat provides the crucible in the helm and the Hudson River where the screenplay started. BB/Betty’s dream was to have her own boat so she could die on it.
RULE 7. Must keep us guessing to the very end.
Tell us at least three things you’ll do to keep us guessing to the end. I wanted to have the trial but that sounds like a news broadcast because trials are expository and on the nose. People aren’t supposed to lie but they do. Since the kids have a personal relationship with the “bad guys,” I wonder if I could have Anahu go over a photo album, or something that documents their good deeds since films must be visual. Another idea is to put the on the nose and this photo memoir chitchat in the script for actors the way Woody Allen et al did. I think I must have a long version of the screenplay, up to 150 pages, because it adapts the last novel of my trilogy, and then a tighter one that is 110 pages. I am not sure if the last image is on the boat or if the boat could sink. They could dock the boat at the Palisades and call the police, or they could make a deal because they want the Bright Space Brain Buffet. The kids like Ibrahim and Betty for their good sides. Litonya has to choose between Jake and Ibrahim. Since I am still guessing about the ending, perhaps the reader will as well. -
Write the setups for your ending using these steps:
1. Looking at your current ending, generate ideas on how you can set it up
powerfully using each of these techniques. Try to come up with at least
one setup for each of the techniques below.I am overwhelmed with this because I must set up through three novels and one screenplay.
A. Build their Reputation In my first novel, Jake is the rebellious ADHD drug-addicted, alcoholic, cheating-in-school teenager despite his respectable doctor/professor parents, Leo is an OCD hospitality guy with a handsome, successful son, Ibrahim is a rich Saudi new arrival, polite, impeccably educated, super smart family man who serves college and community, and Litonya is a gorgeous superhuman mountain climber who is too smart for her own good but at the beginning of the third novel, Ibrahim and Leo/BB are sociopaths who have helped unleash and spread the virus, Litonya is a geologist and mother with a criminal record, Jake is a successful fitness star slightly sidelined by the pandemic, and others are in the way ready to be killed by the pandemic or nature like fires or floods, helped by people who want to depopulate the earth. Do reputations matter in a pandemic?
B. Justification for the final actions
Stopping genocides is usually justified and uncovering the crimes of serial killers is usually applauded. But no one is allowed to take the law into their own hands and Jake and his family don’t want to risk criminal records or retaliation.
C. Cast doubt on the success of the final actions
But these antagonists have a network more global and intricate and a past more complex than Jake or his kids can decipher. It’s like killing roaches–you never win.
D. Discuss the final actions openly
I did that with the trial and also at the beginning in scenes between Ibrahim and BB/Betty. But it is too on the nose so now I must cover it up.
E. Twists that take it away
Ibrahim shows his good side with philanthropic speeches, BB turns into nurturing Betty the chef and caretaker, and Jake loses some of his punch and promise with Parkinson’s.
F. Alternate Hope/fear
The changing scenes create seesaws of hope and fear. The problem is that some viewers/readers may not share the same environmental or political ideals. I feel fear all the time during the pandemic, so I am not sure what triggers hope. Could hope be a luxury of youth and health? Are hope and fear always wedded? Is the final twist to get rid of both so you can act freely?
G. Create and pay off emotional setups
I created emotional setups between Jake and Litonya and Litonya and Ibrahim in the beginning.
H. Suspense around the outcome
There is suspense in
the final scene and I tried to put more suspense throughout but it is not
natural for me. I realize suspense techniques don’t make me turn pages–language and character and big ideas do–but I agree it is a useful screenwriting device. -
1. The Ultimate Confrontation
This is set up on the boat when the kids arrive to free Litonya and Jake in the crucible. One option is to have a big fist fight and see who is thrown overboard but Ibrahim is stronger in terms of his power because killing him doesn’t kill STEMGARCHS. However, I should imagine how something physical would happen.
2. Return Home, Only it is DifferentJake and Litonya can return home to the La Roche Stone Mansion in New Paltz sleeping in his dead parents’ four poster bedroom but their marriage is sexual, unlike his parents, and their progeny are multiracial and multiethnic. But Jake is the man of the house only Litonya is stronger. They can live happily ever after here until natural deaths.
Ibrahim could return home to Saudi Arabia instead of being killed. He left as a college student to study engineering but returns to be part of Global Greens instead of Oily-Garchs, visited by Kisele and Delphine.
Betty can’t return to the male sex but she could go back to her mortician’s career or hospitality or Manhattan. That is a bit silly.
3. End with a Future
The future is what the kids will do. Anahu and Aanadi copy Jean and Joan as the country doctor and a history professor, Kisele could stay with the EE company and the Hudson boats or become head of Global Greens and Delphine could find another drug, do another scientific discovery at the end as a surprise to prolong human life. But the rocks could throw a one-two punch and launch a series of earthquakes all over the Northeast as a result of years of fracking and mining. Then my characters lose their homes on Huguenot Street and must escape on ecoboats. Or Huguenot Street remains but quakes and floods destroy everything around it.
4. Major Layer Uncovered
I already have Betty’s crimes, Ibrahim’s and Litonya’s secret marriage, and STEMGARCHS but maybe Jake or one of the kids did something bad or they expose other things STEMGARCHS did for research. It is proven that unleashed viruses but maybe other scandals as well making other genocides look minor. Or Jake has had a secret passion other than fitness that leads him to a surprising discovery. Delphine could have been a spy for EE, having affairs with top STEMGARCHS scientists to uncover their research.
5. Good Guy Wins after Much Pain and Risk
Theoretically Jake is the good guy and he has assumed pain and risk, especially with the last minutes in the crucible of the ship, he has PD, his parents have died, and he could be beaten up as he tries to get rid of Ibrahim and Betty. But if he kills them, he will probably go to jail.
6. Great Protagonist StrategyUnless more secrets are uncovered by Jake and the kids about the crimes of STEMGARCHS, and killing Ibrahim would make little old ladies clap as if Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Trujillo, Genghis Khan et al were being exterminated. The major layer uncovered might fuel a new protagonist strategy to maximize his wellness career.
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Because my trilogy is so complex, I will list each thread with three endings.
Betty’s fate: Happy: She is accused of crimes, but the proof isn’t solid, so she keeps taking the BBBB and lives on her own boat, going wherever she wants.
Worse for her: She goes to jail, a long trial, a horrible future as a senior in jail.
Ironic: Her crimes are exposed so she helps Jake, and the kids get the BBBB, finishes Ibrahim off, and choreographs her death the way Hitler did.
Ibrahim: Happy: He stays married to Litonya, CEO of STEMGARCHS, Jake dies of PD or is at least hospitalized, the world depopulates, and he continues to flourish to 120 or older.
Down ending: He is killed on the boat.
Ironic: He lives but must expose STEMGARCHS, lose Litonya, his money, and his power to Jake and the kids. Maybe he finds Islam again.
Jake: Happy: He gets the BBBB in time to stop his Parkinson’s,
Officially marries Litonya after Betty kills Ibrahim, lives happily ever after past 100 with her, working out, seeing clients, and being the patriarch of a large family that listens to him.
Down: He dies of PD soon after learning Litonya and Ibrahim will stay married, he doesn’t get the BBBB, and his kids must lead humble lives. His down is Ibrahim’s up.
Ironic: He gets the BBBB, lives another 20 years, but loses Litonya or he gets Litonya but loses the BBBB. Without the BBBB, his PD will get worse.
Litonya
Happy: She wants to save the earth but lacks the people power so Kisele gets Ibrahim’s money and power and becomes head of the Global Greens, exposes STEMGARCHS, and saves the earth as well as its people with population control and better sustainability.Down: The earth gets more crowded, polluted, and heads for its apocalypse. Jake dies so that is the end of her good sex and domestic bliss. Maybe she is still Ibrahim’s wife so his up would be her down.
Ironic: She marries Jake when Ibrahim and Betty die, but doesn’t take the BBBB, Kisele is in the Global Greens but compromises are made, and she and Jake die naturally in their eighties during an earthquake while rock scrambling in the Palisades.
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I understand every screenwriting structure ever written about, but I can’t apply them properly to my project and that is what I must do now, no matter how frustrated I get.
1. What is it that fascinates you about this story? Originally I was fascinated with the personification of rocks, something that doesn’t work in a film, but is part of my Green activism and belongs in the three novels. Then I was fascinated and appalled by the massacre of aging especially with neurodegenerative diseases. Then I was fascinated with how Jake could offset this suffering with fitness and wellness. Then I was appalled by the behavior of serial killer/rapist/arsonists. I put these two stories together in a tandem-competitive narrative via the Profound course for Jake and the Pro series for Leo/BB/Betty’s serial killing and sex change. Linda Aronson likes tandem competitive narratives and they work well with some novel adaptations. Note that I have complete drafts of the first two novels, but this last novel is making me crazier than COVID.
2. What is the main conflict of the story? STEMGARCHS versus EE and the people. Not sure Green activism exists in the film except as part of human health in the challenges of pandemics, diseases, and aging. I tried to keep the genre pure and clean but it didn’t work. I must combine the serial killer secrets with the transformational drama especially because I am so bad at suspense. Hence, comedy, drama, fear, and suspense are all needed.
3. What is the main goal/need of your protagonist? To survive.
4. What is the character arc of your main characters? Jake wants to be healthy as long as possible to help others and especially his extended family and for that he needs the STEMGARCHS Brain Buffet, Ibrahim wants to depopulate the world via STEMGARCHS with him on top, Betty wants to hide her crimes, and after the sex change, wants to keep them hidden but she loves killing, Litonya wants to save the earth.
5. How do you want this movie to end? I don’t know. I am looking at the world’s worst endings as well as the best to get ideas. I can make an arbitrary decision, but I am overwhelmed because the most important thing is finishing my third novel so I can publish my trilogy. The last chapter of my trilogy is a medley among all the rocks, the second last chapter would be a conclusion after the screenplay has ended with the natural deaths of the main characters from the first novel, and the third last chapter, Chapter 23, would be the end of the screenplay. Instead of 2060, I think the screenplay must end in 2040 or 2035 but no earlier. The screenplay should end on the boat although the parting shots may be at All Souls church or on the cliffs of the Palisades.
B. Give a short description of how each of these structural steps will occur in your script.
1. PLOT POINT 2 — A major twist that sends the story towards
its final destination.PP2 comes when Jake and his kids suspect Betty’s past after historical research, Jake’s mother dies of Alzheimer’s, Jake’s Parkinson’s is worse, and Litonya and Ibrahim secretly marry.2. CRISIS — The decision point. After Jake confronts Betty with her crimes, they agree to poison Ibrahim and give everyone the Bright Space Brain Buffet as hush money.
3. CLIMAX — Bring the Protagonist face to face with the
Antagonist to face his biggest fear. But when Litonya and Jake arrive, Ibrahim and Betty aren’t really dead, although sedated, and Betty shoves Jake and Litonya into the lower deck, their no-exit crucible. The climax ends when Anahu and Aanadi, Kisele and Delphine, Orhan and Nikos arrive to save them.4. RESOLUTION — After the informal trial of the psychopath Betty and sociopath Ibrahim, Betty opts to finish him off without a trace, professionally, and to poison herself with delicious food so she can rock gently to sleep on a boat, arguing that this is a happy ending to a violent life. Is she sorry for her crimes? She says the BBBB could correct APD if used properly. She gives her body to NYU Langone for research on APD. Could Ibrahim fuel the world with an endless supply of Brain Buffet drugs while giving Ted Talks? What about his marriage to Litonya? Or should they all have a physical fight so that Ibrahim can accidentally fall overboard? None of them want to be caught killing him especially because of STEMGARCHS. But who will get the Brain Buffet drugs from STEMGARCHS if Ibrahim is killed? Kisele?
5. FINAL PAGE — The final minute of the movie. It could be Betty rocking on the boat supered over a baby rocking in a womb but I need final images for the rest. Could they be climbing the Palisades rocks as a family? Litonya and Jake on the seesaw. Kisele giving the Brain Buffet to everyone at All Souls church. I still haven’t decided how Ibrahim will die because they need a constant supply of the Brain Buffet and he is the only one who has it. But his death is essential for others to live well.
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My example:
I get turned off by the graphic violence and predictable “suspense” of thrillers, mysteries, and horror films so I chose the Bunker 1981 with Anthony Hopkins as Hitler playing a convincing psychopath. There was silence throughout, no graphic violence, and no sex. They milked the puppies and the children who were sacrificed but Hitler and Eva and their henchmen died with a strange kind of dignity, abandoning the country and the people but facing death in an enviable way. Criminals get the last supper, the final goodbye, and a quick sure death while ordinary people are tortured with neurodegenerative diseases and cancers for decades. He had options like trying to take a plane to South America or fighting to the death, but both would have been risky and torturous in the long run. A megalomaniac to the end, he encouraged his entourage to sacrifice themselves and their children for his lost cause. The whole film was a recursive flashback, a known story, but I was glued to the screen because of Hopkins’ impeccable acting and the depth of the dialogue. It reminded me of mid twentieth century existentialist drama like Ionesco’s Le Roi Se Meurt and Sartre’s No Exit, but I would have liked more variety in options, tone, and development of female characters. The film went on ten minutes too long after the Goebbels had committed suicide. That should have been the final image, not more drinking, then the historical details with a separate conclusion since the film was two and a half hours. How can I use this for my film? Watching Hopkins in this movie should help me better imagine my crucible and the psychopathy of Betty/BB. But I have comic elements absent from this tight, minimalist style. When I try to write like this, I am always blocked. However, it is a happy ending with shades of irony. Happy because the Third Reich was over but also from Hitler’s POV, he choreographed the best death possible, a peaceful one surrounded by his younger love, Eva Braun, his friends, and dogs, after a last festive tea. I doubt I will be so lucky. So, what is the moral lesson? If you have the courage to kill people and yourself, you can die well at the right time? -
I understand the ingredients of kickass dialogue but decided to stay open-minded with the following mess until I have nailed my ending. It is so hard to imagine all these virulent characters colliding with each other in my tiny locked-down NYC room during a global pandemic but Jake and Litonya were locked in their crucible until the kids arrived and Ibrahim and Betty were supposed to be poisoned until they are tied up. What a mess.
EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – DAY
Kisele, Delphine, Anahu, and Aanadi arrive in a boat and board Ibrahim’s yacht. They fight with Ibrahim and Betty, weakened by some of the poison but not dead and tie them up. They release Jake and Litonya from the lower deck. After the initial embraces and hugs, they sit facing the two villains.JAKE
How could you do all this? Killed and raped at least ten young women including our beloved Felice, fixed your wife Natalia’s brakes so her car would crash in a snowstorm, attacked my wife Priceless who surprised you enough to stop temporarily and move to Manhattan where you set fire to rent stabilized apartments killing seniors or making them homeless like MC, dropped matches into outdoor restaurants, and sprayed sanitizer that was really condensed COVID that infected and killed the Feldmans,Silence.
JAKE
You killed your own son Joe and CS with that fire you set in the antique car.Silence.
ANAHU
Your own son burnt to death because you are a psychopath.BETTY
I did not murder him on purpose. He was my hero.JAKE
Collateral damage, like the seniors who burnt to death or were poisoned by your food boxes. Not just a psychopath, you are a sociopath.BETTY
I thought we made a deal. You have the Bright Space Brain Buffet.JAKE
Yeah, but then you locked us up.Betty laughs.
DELPHINE
The real sociopaths are STEMGARCHS. They have killed billions.IBRAHIM
Litonya, I thought you loved the earth more than anything.LITONYA
More than you.IBRAHIM
So you are a whore, marrying me for money.LITONYA
No, for Kisele’s future.JAKE
You married him?They ignore his question.
IBRAHIM
He won’t have one. Sacrifices must be made to save the earth. Otherwise, no one lives.ANAHU
You are sociopaths.JAKE
Your footpath was a bloodbath not a steambath, but STEMGARCHS is a warpath.
ANAHU
We know your crimes Betty but now we must uncover Ibrahim’s secrets.
DELPHINE
Dad, I always thought STEMGARCHS was helping humanity.KISELE
Some humans.IBRAHIM
STEMGARCHS is a human organization—not God’s angels.DELPHINE
I thought you gave up on God.Orhan and Nikos arrive. Orhan plays his Sufi flute and Nikos says he has been listening to figure out what to do.
NIKOS
If we kill them, we are murderers. If they go to jail, taxpapers waste their precious money. The Greeks would have recommended that they drink hemlock of their own accord.IBRAHIM
What if Kisele replaces me as CEO?
NIKOS
He might be crucified by the rest of the genocidal team.ANAHU
What part of the brain is damaged in psychopaths?DELPHINE
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. MAO-A is a gene is responsible for making a protein that breaks down certain types of chemical mean impaired mirror neuron system — that is, difficulties with the neurons that, in a healthy brain, activate both when we perceive someone else doing an action and when we do that same action ourselves. Hormones such as dopamine, noradrenalin, and serotonin, which are all linked to mood and the ventromedial and anterior cingulate sectors of PFC are theorized to mediate social and affective decision-making functions that appear to be disrupted in psychopathy. While psychopaths show a specific lack in emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and sadness, they can feel other emotions, such as happiness, joy, surprise and disgust, in a similar way as most of us would.AANADI
We know the BBBB balances hormones, but everyone is a bit different.IBRAHIM
When you are too ethical, you are run into the ground. Be smart.
AANADI
It is always nature and nurture because there are neuroscientists whose brains look the same as psychopathic murderers.BETTY
I had a terrible childhood, abandoned by parents, placed with the nuns to kill my religion forever, and then adopted by morticians who put me to work as a slave. I had a technical mind but no college education. I was beaten up by gangs in my E Harlem neighborhood, so we moved into a back portion of our funeral parlor. My first orgasm was over a dead body. When I moved to New Paltz, the almost naked rock climbers fueled my fantasies and the wilderness hid my crimes. When I moved back to Manhattan, my only job was secretly setting fires, spraying COVID sanitizer, and poisoning food to get rid of seniors, homeless, and other non-essential humans. Ibrahim gave me some respect and boats. I did some good things for my son and Priceless, both dead now, and taught Kisele about boats. When I became a woman, my testosterone no longer fueled violent crime.IBRAHIM
So you killed sweetly.
AANADI
Psychopaths and sociopaths will never feel compassion. Compassion melts the obesity of grief, letting the fat fry with a gentle fire. Only many humans will never have compassion. Compassion fatigue is something I know well. Porous boundaries or too shielded in PPE.BETTY
So compassion is something you can run of, like natural gas?
ANAHU
We know Leo/BB/Betty’s crimes but why do you become a sociopath Ibrahim?
IBRAHIM
Agreed that I had a privileged childhood, adolescence, career, and financial and emotional support but when Hurricane Ida demolished my family—BETTY
Liar. We were squirting COVID from the beginning.IBRAHIM
Like Litonya, I wanted to save the earth and it was a way to depopulate. I didn’t understand all of the implications because I am not a bio scientist but an engineer.BETTY
Bullshit.IBRAHIM
If you divorce me or kill me, you won’t get the estate you wantedLITONYA
For Kisele.KISELE
Maybe I don’t want his polluted hierarchy. Let his sandcastles flatten into the sea. Genocides to save the earth are not my values. I would rather be a poor hiker.NIKOS
Agreed that we won’t live forever and most will not make it to the twenty second century, but what do we do with two criminals? Hemlock is the best solution.ORHAN
Or spin till you stop –dead—released into the universe.IBRAHIM
Blasphemy. If you imprison me or kill me, STEMGARCHS can retaliate and torture you and yours for the rest of the century.BETTY
Or longer.
ANAHU
Leo/BB should have been convicted in the twentieth century and none of this would have happened.Apologies are useless unless there is public exposure and apology with speeches to stop further assaults. Prison increases crime and costs too much. The criminal justice system is another cog in the economy. It is horrible for victims and taxpayers.
NIKOS
Humans love thrillers, mysteries, or dramas about humans more tortured than they are. What does it take to end a story or terminate a job?
LITONYA
Things never really end. They are recycled like rocks.The following conversation is simultaneous and synchronous, so it is hard to know what words are attached to who. The effect is like maggots swarming around a fresh corpse. Why this fuss about living forever? Telomeres shorten, snip off, and cells break down. Like cars.
I thought you hated cars.
It’s an analogy.
Health is a temporary gift in short shrift like spring lilies until you drift into the land of the stiffs.
I thought hospices were in charge of healthy dying.
No. They make dying bearable for survivors. And they need to make a living too.
Like maggots.
Sort of. But hospices are cleaner.
Sometimes.
When people die, they pee and poop and smell horrible.
Brain buffet is to make our brains better while we are living so we don’t have all these geriatric vegetables to care for.
I thought it also helped mental illness.
Yes. It helps. But doesn’t cure.
Some of the greatest leaders in history have been mentally ill—Churchill, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao
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EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT DECK
Ibrahim and Betty are eating on the deck. Anaadi and Anahu are in a distant part of the boat, out of hearing.
BETTY
Now my brain has gone backwards with college student memory and the aerial views of an air traffic controller.IBRAHIM
It was three times as expensive as the estimate.BETTY
That is because I had a burgeoning brain tumor cushioned in her cranium that my surgeon has to excise and fill the cavity with my omentum, i.e. belly fat. So I got plastic surgery for a sculpted waist and a better brain for the buffet. My fat helps precious drugs go through the blood brain barrier. Then I took monoclonal antibodies to build immunity against neurodegenerative and other brain diseases. Then there are vaccines against tau, pills to dissolve amyloid that don’t cause bleeding, hormonal injections that increase dopamine, testosterone, estrogen, serotonin, and endorphins with the right stew for each individual brain, unlike Levodopa and other drugs, and finally, a non-invasive electric brain stimulator to bridge schisms that occur in schizophrenia and late-stage bipolar and other mental illnesses.IBRAHIM
Be quiet. I know this. It’s not for everyone. If you hadn’t been badly damaged by the gang bang, you wouldn’t qualify.</font>BETTY
Except that I am a hilarious hit woman and favorite chef. These fresh, new brains provide the juices and endorphins to inspire better exercise and movement but I still have the body of an old woman with some male muscles. It’s making me think about intelligence. I could start again, go back to school…IBRAHIM
Stop tutoring the kids. They will get ahead of their peers and be ostracized.BETTY
I love the smell and taste of food–tantalizing aromas. I see, hear, move, and feel like a superwoman thrust into a colorful kaleidoscope reminiscent of the hallucinations of hippies on LSD. Did you ever try drugs?IBRAHIM
You know I was a devout Muslim. And no, I didn’t smoke hashish either. My brain has always been excellent and now it is superlative.BETTY
This makes rocking
on a boat occasionally boring.IBRAHIM
I am devoted to my lab and I’ll find exciting ways to
stimulate your cognition but your body is still that of a seventy-something
human. And brains must be trained and educated. And you will still die.BETTY
Not yet. I still have the urge.IBRAHIM
Good. I can’t give either of us the
fusion drug because we need clear heads to govern and execute our tasks.
Bleeding hearts don’t make bright brains.BETTY
Amen. I want to enjoy life more than I
ever did but most social life is idiotic.IBRAHIM
That is why people drink alcohol in
bars and restaurants—so their brains can be as soggy as their conversation.BETTY
Coney Island with its silly rides
and food is worse. But I have an idea. What if I found something fun and intellectual to do?A few days later, they sail south down the Hudson to
EXT. BATTERY PARK’S OUTDOOR THEATER – DAY
Ibrahim, Betty, Delphine, Kisele, Anahu, and Aaanadi dock the yacht and get out, sitting on the lawn facing the Statue of Liberty. Betty seems to be in charge.</div><div>BETTY
Yall have free tickets to my
theatrical debut. I auditioned for this King Lear production with a three minute monologue
and today I must do a free performance as the final audition. They want a
gender fluid actor to start off male and end female and then kind of spiritual
cuz that’s how it was in Shakespeare’s time. I memorized all my lines with one read through. They dress me male with
female underneath and I decide when to reveal myself.DELPHINE
Such fun! Wish I could do this.
BETTY
You’d make a great Cordelia.They watch as a convincing Lear, beautifully acted, emerges from her female chrysalis in the scene with Cordelia and the doctor.
BETTY
You do me wrong to take me out o’
th’ grave. Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that
mine own tears Do scald like molten lead. Sir, do you know me? You are a
spirit, I know. Where did you die? Still, still, far wide. He’s scarce awake.
Let him alone awhile. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight? I am
mightily abused; I should e’en die with pity R To see another thus. I know not
what to say. I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see. I feel this pinprick.
Would I were assured Of my condition! O, look upon me, sir, And hold your hand
in benediction o’er me. No, sir, you must not kneel. Pray do not mock: I am a
very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less, And
to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you
and know this man, Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant What place this
is, and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments; nor I know not Where
I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me, For, as I am a man, I think this
lady To be my child Cordelia. , weeping And so I am; I am. Be your tears wet?
Yes, faith. I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I
know you do not love me, for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me
wrong. You have some cause; they have not. No cause, no cause. Am I in France?
In your own kingdom, sir. Do not abuse me.Flash forward to NIGHT after the play where they are all chuckling and congratulating Betty.
BETTY
If they hire me, I will get a role for
you, sugar. Male, female, they, it—whatever you can do.Anahu and Aanadi are whispering with furrowed brows. CLOSE on
ANAHU
Something is wrong with this charade. It’s almost as if Betty isn’t human. zAANADI
Of course she is human, but she keeps changing and breaking medical rules I learned in school.ANAHU
We must uncover her/his entire past. But sshh. This is not the time to talk.-
This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Julia Keefer.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by
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EXT. LAKE MINNEWASKA -DAY
Hot sunny August 2022.
Jake and Litonya are teaching baby Anahu to swim.Delphine and Kiele race with other teens. Kisele wins the prize.
Orhan and Nikos provide flutes and food for everyone on the beach.
JAKE
I am happy now because I have everything I want, but fearing the future makes me unhappy. Pleasure is the precious moment.NIKOS
That is called carpe diem in Latin, hedonism in Greece. Only those who have nothing to lose, can be happy.A PASSERBY disagrees.
You must be born rich to be happy.
NIKOS
Life hurts. Happiness accepts obstacles with serenity although Epicurus thought happiness was the absence of suffering.At this point BB shows up in his rowboat, dressed in black mourning for his son Joe.
BB
I am suffering.
JAKE
Turn your frown upside down and be a clown to party around town. Anything negative can be tipped positive with fitness, pleasure, passion, purpose and no pandemics.He says in unison with others: Sometimes.
ORHAN
Sa’āda (happiness) is a central concept in Islamic philosophy used to describe the highest aim of human striving,namely that of the hereafter. Only when a human being has liberated his/her soul completely from its corporal existence and arrives at what is called “active intellect”. Al-Ghazali believed in practical-ethical perfection and that by exercising his God-given capacity for reason man must be drawn to the spiritual alchemy that transforms the soul from worldliness to complete devotion to God.Orhan plays the flute.
KISELE
We are so sorry for your loss. What would help you be happy now?BB
Happiness is Luck. Its bedrock is the loss of others. Happiness floats on top of misery like cream on coffee. There isn’t enough for everyone. Jake knows this more than anyone. [Subtext: If Rodney hadn’t died of COVID, he couldn’t have had Litonya and Kisele for his family. Anahu would never have been born. If CS and Joe hadn’t been burnt, Aanadi wouldn’t be his daughter. No one knows I am responsible for Jake’s happiness, not fate.]
KISELE
That’s not nice.BETTY
Humans aren’t nice. Weren’t you happy to win the swimming race and get the trophy?KISELE
Yes, well, sort of.BB
You were the only winner so the rest loss and some were miserable. See what I mean?DELPHINE
Scientific evidence suggests that being happy may have major benefits for your health. It may also help combat stress, boost your immune system, protect your heart and reduce pain. What’s more, it may even increase your life expectancy. .He asked what about you?BB
Anything that floats my boat. Who wants to come for a row?DELPHINE
As long as you don’t capsize us.
You are great swimmers.
LITONYA
Happiness is swimming peacefully on top of life. Or rock climbing.
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I used this exercise to do a rough draft of a new ending I can’t solve that is still a mess. I am writing on the nose at the end because secrets have been covered up for three novels.
EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – DAY
Kisele, Delphine, Anahu, and Aanadi arrive in a boat and board Ibrahim’s yacht. They fight with Ibrahim and Betty, weakened by some of the poison but not dead and tie them up. They release Jake and Litonya from the lower deck. After the initial embraces and hugs, they sit facing the two villains.JAKE
How could you do all this? Killed and raped at least ten young women including our beloved Felice, fixed your wife Natalia’s brakes so her car would crash in a snowstorm, attacked my wife Priceless who surprised you enough to stop temporarily and move to Manhattan where you set fire to rent stabilized apartments killing seniors or making them homeless like MC, dropped matches into outdoor restaurants, and sprayed sanitizer that was really condensed COVID that infected and killed the Feldmans,Silence.
JAKE
You killed your own son Joe and CS with that fire you set in the antique car.Silence.
ANAHU
Your own son burnt to death because you are a psychopath.BETTY
I did not murder him on purpose. He was my hero.JAKE
Collateral damage, like the seniors who burnt to death or were poisoned by your food boxes. Not just a psychopath, you are a sociopath.BETTY
I thought we made a deal. You have the Bright Space Brain Buffet.JAKE
Yeah, but then you locked us up.Betty laughs.
DELPHINE
The real sociopaths are STEMGARCHS. They have killed billions.IBRAHIM
Litonya, I thought you loved the earth more than anything.LITONYA
More than you.IBRAHIM
So you are a whore, marrying me for money.LITONYA
No, for Kisele’s future.JAKE
You married him?They ignore his question.
IBRAHIM
He won’t have one. Sacrifices must be made to save the earth. Otherwise, no one lives.ANAHU
You are sociopaths.JAKE
Your footpath was a bloodbath not a steambath, but STEMGARCHS is a warpath.
ANAHU
We know your crimes Betty but now we must uncover Ibrahim’s secrets.
DELPHINE
Dad, I always thought STEMGARCHS was helping humanity.KISELE
Some humans.IBRAHIM
STEMGARCHS is a human organization—not God’s angels.DELPHINE
I thought you gave up on God.Orhan and Nikos arrive. Orhan plays his Sufi flute and Nikos says he has been listening to figure out what to do.
NIKOS
If we kill them, we are murderers. If they go to jail, taxpapers waste their
precious money. The Greeks would have recommended that they drink hemlock of
their own accord.IBRAHIM
What if Kisele replaces me as CEO?
NIKOS
He might be crucified by the rest of the genocidal team.IBRAHIM
When you are too ethical, you are run into the ground. Be smart.P.S. I am not being smart because I don’t know how to resolve this because it changes my original ending but maybe it is a good thing.
-
I have always been terrible at making people turn pages so this is a technique I must implant into my stubborn brain and use every time I run through my outline or work on my accompanying novel. To get the momentum for this, I don’t want to focus on one scene, but on adding direct and implied consequences, questions, countdowns, deadlines, egregious reputations, worries, warnings, fierce ambitions, worry, dread, and fear of the future as I struggle to enjoy the present and wax nostalgic over the past, noting the difference in dramatic and personal writing and why I resent being pushed onto the narrative thrust treadmill everyday. I vow to spend a few minutes each day on this essential technique. I wonder whether other languages that read from right to left instead of left to right have this same forward momentum.
-
I expanded an interlude scene with circular, metaphoric, and simultaneous dialogue to deepen character and setup payoffs later in the script.
EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit high rise pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. Remains of Omar and Sandrine, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found by BB and Joe and respectfully covered in white sheets. September 4, 2021.EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine ends in early September 2021. Ibrahim can’t trust God anymore, so he goes through the motions like a robot. The following conversations go on at the same time around the cemetery.LITONYA
I don’t know what to say.
JAKE
I am sorry for your loss. Our loss, losses.IBRAHIM
There are no words to express this kind of tragedy.Litonya joins Kisele and Delphine who are planting trees.
LITONYA
Oaks are the strongest.DELPHINE
Not exactly, Mom. White oak is strong but pin oak is weak.KISELE
I prefer evergreens because they are beautiful all year round and never shed their leaves. And our company is called EvergreenEnergy.DELPHINE
But their roots are too shallow.KISELE
How do you know so much?DELPHINE
I like lab sciences as much as musical comedy. I like funerals where there is dancing.KISELE
SSShhh!While they are planting, Ibrahim is walking around the tombstone with Jake.
IBRAHIM
I will never have another wife like Sandrine, a companion in every way. Omar was the perfect son, the way he recited the Koran, did his homework, chores, and took care of the women. Islam started in deserts where water is sacred. Floods and hurricanes threaten its existence.JAKE
I know what it’s like to lose a wife but losing children must be hell.BB and Joe finish the digging.
IBRAHIM
Thank you. I cannot stomach this kind of manual labor.BB
Our pleasure, I mean—JOE
We are glad to help. When tragedy strikes, actions speak louder than words.BB
And Joe has been through enough fires, floods, viruses, and other disasters. You are a hero, sun.IBRAHIM
I will never have another son.Litonya and Delphine continue digging roots, but Kisele joins the men.
KISELE
We are planting trees to heal.IBRAHIM
Trees can’t replace humans.Just before they
cover the gravesite, Ibrahim throws his Koran into the hole. but keeps his
black gold and diamond prayer beads, [having them transformed into a necklace
with obsidian rock pieces he will later give to Litonya as a wedding present. Set-up
and Payoff.]JAKE
I never know what to say at funerals.JOE
You are not alone. -
I must go through my entire script to make the words opposite the actions. BB/Betty already does this naturally as a criminal, but here is a family birthday party where actions and words don’t always sync. It looks mundane but it is a set up before the Feldmans die of COVID and Omar, Sandrine, and Astride are killed in the Hurricane Ida Summit collapse.
INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Fall 2020 New Paltz before official vaccine rollout.
Ibrahim tries to vaccinate his family in his master bathroom. Sandrine submits quickly and quietly but the triplets object.IBRAHIM
This is the best birthday present you will get.OMAR
It’s a bioweapon.
IBRAHIM
COVID may or may not be a bioweapon, butDelphine is so eager she talks over the others.
DELPHINE
Sure. Finally I can go back to performing.
ASTRIDE
But who will come?As he tries to inject Astride, she screams.
IBRAHIM
Sorry darling. Think of this as a kiss of love.OMAR
It’s poison. It may change our DNA.SANDRINE
No son. This is misinformation. It is our only weapon against this terrible disease.OMAR
How come we are getting the vaccine before it’s been approved?IBRAHIM
FDA and CDC are slow to approve. I was vaccinated in the spring.DELPHINE
Now you tell us.IBRAHIM
I was the guinea pig. I would never experiment on my family.After the girls submit, Omar hands his dad a Koran.
OMAR
Keep your hands on the Koran and let mom do it.Done. But Astride panics and throws up on the floor and Omar suddenly poops in the toilet. Delphine sings Happy Birthday. Nonplussed, Ibrahim cleans like he has never cleaned before as he speaks calmly.
IBRAHIM
I am an intellectual, a PhD, former professor, consultant for top global organizations, President of the EvergreenEnergy Company.As he mumbles through his stellar resume, Sandrine kisses him.
SANDRINE
Et un mari merveilleux.DELPHINE
And a devoted husband and father.INT. KITCHEN – DAY
The Al-Harbis work on the big meal. Ibrahim is stirring something on the stove that is sticky and burning as Sandrine runs around organizing, and the triplets chop veggies, garlic, and ginger.
IBRAHIM
I am not used to manual labor, but we can’t risk having help around.OMAR
I thought you just protected us with those jabs!IBRAHIM
Vaccines are against the first variant, but viruses mutate.DELPHINE
Like cancer.IBRAHIM
Sort of.SANDRINE
We need more optimistic conversation. Parlons francais.DELPHINE
No, the Feldmans will be here soon so our tongues must stay with English rhythms. It is an accentual syllabic language but French is syllabic, English is placed–IBRAHIM
We need to make them drinks.OMAR
Liquor is haram.IBRAHIM
I know son but in America, we must extend Arabic hospitality that has lasted longer in history than Islam.SANDRINE
I bought the latest Beaujolais. That should be enough.IBRAHIM
No, they have always been hard drinkers. Funnier expression.INT. LIVING ROOM
ELIOT and JEN FELDMAN are still conquering the town sideways, fifty pounds overweight, dominating the local college as a Dean and the town as an antique dealer. Rodney at 40 is twenty pounds overweight, but Kisele is in perfect shape.Ibrahim serves them cocktails, vodka and fruits, and gives the rest of the family water.
Everyone sings Happy Birthday to the triplets. They shout in unison: No presents, just love!
JEN
It’s important to be healthy during a pandemic.She eats full fat cheese, charcuterie, wine, and then religieuses, the French eclair. Eliot nods and helps her.
-
World View: Ibrahim is oscillating between Islam and a ruthless science that depopulates. BB’s world view keeps regressing him to the womb where he rocks in a boat forever.
Rules and Strategies: Ibrahim is a devoted family man, director of EvergreenEnergy, a sustainable energy company, a practicing Muslim, but he harbors lethal ambitions to be the CEO of STEMGARCHS to put him in the one percent. BB was a serial rapist/murderer/arsonist, then hit man, who amuses himself in the moment play acting different roles. He spent his youth working in a funeral home and wants to repeat the rituals of dying forever without actually dying, hence he loves the action of rocking in a boat.
Life Metaphor: Ibrahim is beginning to think the end justifies the means because to save the planet we must get rid of millions of humans as well as fossil fuels. Truth kills–you– is BB’s modus operandi, the main reason he has never been caught. He perfects the art of lying.Justifications: Ibrahim justifies his actions by donating to charities and being polite, educated, loving, and engaged. BB has always hidden his crimes with his busy, helpful, hygienic approach to life. BB sincerely idolizes Joe, his adopted son, a firefighter and EMS hero.
EXT. EAST 72nd ST. – DAY
Ibrahim and BB dodge the protesters during pandemic summer 2020. BB looks approvingly at the holes in his shoes.BB
Dressing down can be as challenging as dressing up.IBRAHIM
Wasn’t it amazing that Pfizer and Moderna created the perfect vaccines almost immediately, fitting into the COVID spikes like a jigsaw puzzle? They wanted to get rid of the old, fat, weak, sick, and too hyper although they had to accept the collateral deaths of some robust young people who didn’t get the right treatment at the right time. We must dethrone the oily-garchs by locking down the world, reducing travel and tourism, and defunding fossil fuels. My STEM and Big Pharma stocks are stronger than ever.BB
There are too many destructive, useless, and miserable humans on earth. Not all crimes are solved, whether they are the unleashing of bioweapons or the repeated murders of serial killers.IBRAHIM
Some blame it all on China, others on the research with Fauci, Winnipeg, Saudi Arabia, and Israel that was ceased by Obama. Naïve Greenies say climate change made the bats give it to humans. It’s an international secret I would love to solve.BB
You could do it if you hide the truth with fantasies. Wikipedia has a hilarious, long website about COVID misinformation that could fuel movie plots for years to come. Young people can’t stand being quarantined. Protests are ways to socialize outside, screaming, shouting, spitting, and blowing off steam.Ibrahim and BB join the BLM Protests on Fifth and 72<sup>nd</sup> but leave after they spit on cops, scream “NYPD suck my dick,” and then are dismayed by the looting of designer stores on Madison Avenue.
IBRAHIM
Black lives do matter but spitting in a pandemic could be murder, especially if the cop dies of COVID.A SERIES OF SHOTS as they pound the pavements of Manhattan and end up in a tent in City Hall Park surrounded by a huge crowd screaming, “No justice, no peace. Black Lives Matter. Defund the police.” They walk through the West Village where garbage fires light up the night. The NYPD are greeted with eggs, spit, and kicks. BB is happy to observe this time.
Ibrahim almost stops a crowd from breaking windows in an elegant Tribeca shop, but BB gently holds him back.
BB
Let them express themselves. In the long run, more people will disappear and that is the goal.”
IBRAHIM
Fewer carbon emissions everywhere. Humans are the worst polluters. I never thought healthy, young college students could smell as badly as the unwashed homeless.BB
Looks are deceptive. They did nothing for me either and that is amazing considering how young women used to stimulate me.
After one night Ibrahim pays for
INT. SMALL HOTEL – NIGHT
a small room near the South Street Seaport to shower and nap.BB
That’s why I want to live on boats. Let’s take a walk.EXT.BATTERY PARK – SUNSET
Ibrahim considers Lady Liberty.
IBRAHIM
Gorgeous gift from France. I’ve always loved French culture, one reason I married Sandrine. We speak French at home.BETTY
C’est si bon! But liberty is having a hard time during this lockdown.IBRAHIM
She still looks like a goddess at sunset.BETTY
You still believe in God or Allah?
IBRAHIM
I am on the seesaw, weighed down by love of family and Islam on one end, and our science projects on the other. Omar makes me pray but on my own, I am not as observant as I used to be.BETTY
Romantic love and freedom fade with the sunset. Long live COVID.IBRAHIM
Thank God, I mean Science, we are immune.
BB winks as he sprays the COVID sanitizer on their bench. -
INT. WAITING ROOM OF DENTAL SCHOOL l DAY
Betty and Ibrahim sit with a plethora of perturbed patients. Betty grins her toothless, smelly smile.BETTY
Since my brain is so good, thanks to your Bright Space Brain Buffet, I need a more optimistic smile. The next time I am raped, my perp is in for a treat.IBRAHIM
Agreed. But why this crowded, crazy dental school? There are plenty of uptown dentists that work faster.BETTY
Just tryin to save you some money, boss. But there’s another reason. This dental school is the best in the country because they take a cross disciplinary approach combining teeth with climate change, engineering, epidemiology, and other endeavors STEMGARCHS supports. My new implants will feature an innovative carnivore cutting feature so that they can kill. The scientists developed them in case of climate catastrophes where people are lost in the wilderness and must eat raw meat.IBRAHIM
My teeth look great but maybe they aren’t hard enough.BETTY
In our world, you can’t be hard enough on the inside although like me, you can look soft superficially. Teeth and diets and bodies have gotten too soft. But as humans become climate refugees, they may have to fend for themselves in the wild. Other mammals had sharper fangs. So they are working on implants with more biting power. I am in.IBRAHIM
Okay, we’ll fund it. I may need something like this going forward.INT. PIERRE HOTEL BALLROOM – SIX MONTHS LATER
Six months later, Betty has a shiny, strong, white pair of dentures that make her smile as wide, willful, and welcoming as a whale’s. Ibrahim is dressed impeccably but is occupied with the coming-out of his debutante daughter Delphine, ironically clad in the same kind of red satin dress Betty wears although she looks more appetizing.Enveloped by a stunning ceiling of silver and gold, the Grand Ballroom is donned opulently with lustrous drapes, handsome detailing, and floor-to-ceiling windows revealing a vast, pillarless center where humans spew out their carbon emissions as if they were perfume. Ibrahim approaches the stage.
IBRAHIM
I am speaking on behalf of STEMGARCHS, the organization that is responsible for this generous, beautiful ball. This is an inclusive debutante ball, all ages, genders, incomes, nationalities, and ethnicities, pets welcome, in the luxury ballroom of Manhattan’s marvelous Pierre Hotel on Central Park South just north of Trump Towers. We even invited Trump and local homeless and poor seniors if they agreed to submit to wardrobe and hygiene improvement beforehand.
THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE.
IBRAHIM
This is also a fundraiser for our young scientists, engineers, and medical students. My daughter Delphine doesn’t need the funds, but other young people without her resources need our help. They are our future. Delphine is a neuroscientist and a musical comedienne.All the young men ogle at her. Delphine taps, does a bit of ballet, belly dance, hip hop etc. Her rainbow dress and long shiny dress attract suitors, but she isn’t interested. She changes partners every dance.
Betty also feels like a debutante. The male homeless seniors who don’t recognize her fight over her because she looks rich and sort of healthy. Betty whispers to Ibrahim.BETTY
I dare one of these dudes to rape me.Ibrahim considers her enthusiasm,
IBRAHIM
Agreed that your bite could be lethal, but then you would swallow their blood in a world of contagious diseases. You lack Dracula’s immunity.Hank sings his off-key Hank Sinatra songs. Betty winks at Ibrahim.
BETTY
Hank is appalling and obnoxious. Remember MC?IBRAHIM
How could we forget Manhattan’s best tour guide and Green activist sadly sacrificed to COVID Easter Sunday 2020?BETTY
In another life, Hank was my rival, the retired postman schizoaffective furniture, food, and book hoarder who chased MC. He sings or spits Sinatra songs off-key everywhere accompanied by his spastic arm movements and facial grimaces from years of meds.IBRAHIM: He should have disappeared years ago. What went wrong?
BETTY: We couldn’t take care of them all.
Ibrahim whispers to Betty.
IBRAHIM: It’s good for Delphine to come without Kisele for a change.
BETTY: I feel like a debutante. Renewal is ageless.
IBRAHIM: Agreed age is a protected category all over the country.
EXT. FIFTH AVENUE and CENTRAL PARK SOUTH – NIGHT
At the end of the evening, Kisele waits for Delphine at the front door, and they walk in the park. She takes off her Cinderella gown to don jeans and sneakers.IBRAHIM
So nice to see you Kisele. Did you bring your boat?KISELE
Always. But we are walking in the park first.Betty stays in her bouffant dress and hair and goes to the park with Hank who continues to sing Sinatra songs.
EXT. HALLETT SANCTUARY – NIGHT
Betty and Hank stroll or rather hobble to this wooded area beside the pond and the Plaza since he isn’t in shape for a long hike, she lets him kiss her, and then takes a bite out of his cheek. He hollers and runs away, as she screams rape. She then lowers her voice, so he realizes she is the old Boat Bob from the senior center. He screams louder than her. She brought Listerine, Fluoride, and Chlorine wipes to disinfect. She didn’t swallow anything.Scene ends with Frank Sinatra lyrics:
Your looks are laughable, unphotographable
Yet, you’re my favorite work of art
Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?-
This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Julia Keefer.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by
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The opening of Serial Mom reveals that Mom’s physical actions and facial expressions are contrapuntal to her motherly domestic duties and upstaged by the Hillside Strangler in the news and her use of irony and understatement. This carefully constructed scene opens the credits and ends when real police arrive at this happy household. Characters have strong traits, especially Mom. Subtext and visuals are precise and drama is intense. It ends with questions to create suspense.
INT. KITCHEN – DAY
As MOM serves the cereal, she spots a lone fly as itlands on the butter dish. Without letting on to her
family, she grabs a flyswatter and begins stalking
the fly with a terrifying intensity, its buzzing
enough to make MOM’s head explode.
DAD
(Reading paper)
Look at this!
(Reading out loud in disgust)
“Hillside Strangler gets his
college degree in prison!”
MOM
(Preoccupied, stalking fly)
That’s nice.
DAD
Nice?! He should have been
executed!
MISTY
He killed people, Mom.
MOM
(To herself)
We all have bad nights.
(Gets ready to swat, but fly
buzzes off)
CHIP
(To MISTY)
You’d probably date him!
(Mimicking her)
He’s cu-uuute! Hey, Dad, did
you ever see “Henry, Portrait of
a Serial Killer?”
DAD
I certainly did not.
MISTY
You’ve been working in that
video shop too long.
DAD
And all that gore better hadn’t be
interfering with your schoolwork.
MOM stalks fly as it lands on CHIP’s toast as the
rest of the family remains oblivious to MOM’s
building anger.
CHIP
I do great in school, Dad.
(Eats toast as fly buzzes off)
A sickened and rage-filled MOM stalks the fly to
DAD’s orange juice glass where it secretes on the
rim in closeup.
DAD
Well, your mother’s going to PTA
today. We’ll see what your
teacher has to say.
(Takes a big gulp as fly buzzes away)
CHIP
(Giving a pleading look to MOM as
the buzzing of the fly builds in
intensity on the soundtrack)
Aw, Mom! I hate Mr. Stubbins!
MOM
(Moving in for the kill, hissing
the words in a rage)
Don’t say the word “hate”, honey.
“Hate” is a very serious word!
MOM swats violently and we see fly splat in bloody
closeup. (“Directed by John Waters” credit appears).
Family is suddenly silent as they uneasily look up
in surprise at MOM’s ferocious attack.
MOM quickly wipes up squashed fly and smiles back at
her family.
MOM
There. All better.
(Suddenly all innocence)
Anybody for scrambled eggs?
END OF CREDITS.
A loud banging is heard on the back door. MOM jumps up
guiltily.
DAD
(Getting up from table)
Who on earth…?
MOM opens door to two police detectives in plain
clothes. DETECTIVE MOORE is younger and more rugged
than the older more world-weary DETECTIVE BRADFORD.
DET. MOORE
Mrs. Sutphin?
MOM
(Nervously)
Yes?
-
INT. PEAK RESTAURANT HUDSON YARDS – SUNSET
Ibrahim asks Betty on a date to the Peak restaurant in Hudson Yards for a Green benefit. She wears a flowing, green, eco-correct dress and a radiant red wig that looks like real, young hair. Her face is made up to look younger. She still looks five years older than Ibrahim, but older women are in. Her secret is that she is pushing eighty. They are double dating with Delphine and Kisele who are now teenagers, dressed casually.Peak is a stunning restaurant, bar and event space located on the 101st floor of 30 Hudson Yards, at the summit of the 1,296-foot tall tower, Peak soars one level above Edge – the highest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere.
IBRAHIM
What will you have my dear?BETTY
For my appetizer, a squid ink chitarra with red dulse seweed, then Atlantic scallops with caviar and cauliflower. Desserts look sumptuous but I don’t want my belly fat back. I have enough BBBB for now.IBRAHIM
Sounds excellent. Same for me. What about you Delphine?DELPHINE
Only vegan. Locally sourced veggies and fruits.KISELE
Likewise.IBRAHIM
This is New York City’s smartest park, with a sophisticated layered approach to nutrient delivery, temperature regulation, irrigation and drainage. For example, the plants and trees have their own climate-control system to combat the 150-degree heat generated below. Cooling water circulates through underground tubes around their root systems as 15 large fans – the type found in jet engines – blow 45-mph fresh air breezes toward the tracks. Storm water retention tanks help Hudson Yards collect nearly 10 million gallons of rainwater each year to be filtered into the building’s cooling and irrigation systems to water the Public Square and Gardens.
KISELE
Why manufacture all this in the first place? A few miles upstate rainwater does what it wants.BETTY
Eat your spinach, darlin.A SERIES OF EXOTIC SHOTS OF HUDSON YARDS AS THEY GULP, TASTE, OR AVOID THEIR FOOD.
Ibrahim gives a short speech to Green vendors.
IBRAHIM
Thank you all for coming to our dinner. We are celebrating Manhattan’s first LEED Gold neighborhood. Designer stores, shopping, hotels, luxury dining—all done with the best Green technology. We can combine a healthy economy with sustainable living. STEMGARCHS is donating another billion to the HY community. Thank you and go back to your dinner.THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE.
KISELE
Solar panels are bad for the environment because toxic chemicals are used in their manufacture. The fabrication processes have waste products which can be harmful to human health and the ecology. Old solar panels may become toxic waste due to the heavy metal content of the solar cells and other contaminants.IBRAHIM
Delphine, we can go shopping this evening after dinner.DELPINE
I don’t need new clothes.Ibrahim bites his tongue and gives a knowing look to Betty towards the skyscraping.
BETTY
City Climb is the highest open-air building ascent in the world. Climbers scale the outside of a skyscraper more than 1,200 feet above the ground, then lean out and look down from the highest outdoor platform in New York City. Skyscraper adventure!
DELPHINE
I’ve always loved aerials, just like Priceless, who was a beautiful dancer.Ibrahim whispers to Betty.
IBRAHIM
And a cheap slut.KISELE
Jake would love this but he isn’t invited and maybe gets jealous but he is busy with Aanadi, Anahu, mom, and dad, and Litonya.BETTY
It’s an adventure unlike any other in the world and an achievement that you will remember for the rest of your life.KISELE
High-end Greenwashing. Windmills kill wildlife, Saudi solar cells cause pollution, biomass stinks, geothermal cellars blow up, hydroelectric displaces people and ruins history. Sometimes we must leave nature alone.Ibrahim is embarrassed by Kisele so he offers the skyscraping adventure. Delphine is so keen because she, like Priceless, likes aerials, so she buys two tickets and drags Kisele. Ibrahim makes a subtext hint to Betty to fix the suit or the ropes.
IBRAHIM
Kisele, not Delphine. She deserves better.A SERIES OF SHOTS focusing on the teenagers’ skyscraping adventure.
Kisele does start to fall but grabs the Vessel, holds on tightly, and is coptered out. No one guesses how Betty tampered with the ropes. 101 floors observation deck. Kisele flies, everyone screams, and is caught by the Vessel.
IBRAHIM
We are so grateful that although the Vessel has been the site of many suicides over the years, this is the first time it has saved our precious Kisele’s life.BETTY
Indeed.Kisele is bruised and battered but feels better in Delphine’s embrace.
-
Valentine’s Day has multiple meanings.
INT. LAB
Betty gets vials that she brings toINT. LA ROCHE MANSION
February 14 2030: Betty bakes healthy cakes and Nikos bake traditional cakes, filled with dark chocolate and strawberry cream, hearts and flowers, that read Eat Me, You are Mine, Love is a Battlefield, The Best is Yet to Cum, and Love is Eternal. Betty injects things discreetly into cakes, not poison, but sticky stuff to change brains. No one suspects anything.DELPHINE
Some foods, like chocolate, are intrinsically sexy. Chocolate is bold and sweet and melts in your hands if you wait too long to enjoy it — creating a sense of immediacy and desire, so it’s naturally associated with sex.Kisele gives her a chocolate kiss. Aaanadi and Anahu hug each other.
Jake boxes playfully.
Jake sings.
JAKE
Love is a Battlefield, as Benatar would belt. I love this You are Mine cake. I admit I don’t want to share my loved ones. Priceless cured me of that. But Litonya is not here, as usual.KIDS
We miss her.JAKE
Yall keep asking me where she is, and I tell you, I don’t know. Love is freedom. Blake said, “He who binds to himself a joy does its winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sun rise.” So I am trying to be as eternal as Litonya’s eyes.ORHAN
True love is eternal.JEAN
Love is a social construct once devoid of its biology. But social ties can be the strongest.NIKOS
Like a noose.Jake does exercises against the wall.
JAKEI love to be eaten, my love is possessive, and I can also love the wider world for the common good. I love the symbols and meaning of these cakes, but I can’t eat them. I love sweets, but I have been gaining weight. Did you know that asparagus is an aphrodisiac?
NIKOS
Next time I’ll make asparagus cake with vinegar. It’s good for the blood vessels and whatever clears them up, makes it easier for–
He points to the cake that reads The Best is Yet to Cum!Jean’s voice booms over the loudspeaker.
JEAN
The way to a man’s heart is never through his stomach. It is through his mind.Joan enters.
JEAN
But my wife has lost her mind and me with it.Orhan plays Sufi music on his flute.
NIKOS
Love is transcendence.
BETTY
Food transcends through the digestive tract, a dark, murky labyrinth.
We have healthy cakes: Olive Oil Tangerine Cake with Pomegranate Glaze, Figs with Ricotta Cheese, Drizzled in Honey to make your insides as smooth as your lovemaking.Joan can’t smell but sees all the people and the cakes.
JOAN
Confusing.Jake kisses his mom.
JAKE
I love you, Mom.Love you can be said to almost anyone. It eases communication. But it can be a bullet, a harbinger of bad things to come if the exchange is not mutual and productive.
INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Betty brings new DNA to Ibrahim.BETTY
This DNA will be a field day of research, before and after Valentine’s Day.
Ibrahim is too pleased to reply. -
I know a guy in this soup line who would do this but I made him talk more like I would talk with figures of speech, innuendo, sarcasm etc.
INT. ALL SOULS CHURCH -Xmas Eve 2021
Jake holds his six week old newborn Jesse against his chest. He recognizes Julie sitting there, bent in two on the back pew. But then he smells her and sees a drip of urine coming out of her pants. Her skin is blotched, dry, and pale but her faded blue eyes open wider. He hugs her, COVID be damned.
The choir is singing O Little Town of Bethlehem.
JAKE
Meet Jesse, your great grandson.Her face lifts into a smile as she touches his candy cane outfit garnished in green. His black eyes meet her blue ones.
JULIE
Litonya’s son?JAKE
I hope I am as smart as you at 92.”A masked attendant brings Communion down each aisle. Julie partakes, but Jake abstains and sings louder.
Jesse squeezes his little fist around one of Julie’s swollen fingers. Hark the Herald Angels Sing!
As the service ends, the priest addresses the community more informally. Ibrahim, dressed in a business suit with a red tie, approaches the speaker. He speaks perfectly as if he has been coached,
IBRAHIM
New Yorkers are the toughest, loudest, proudest, and fully vaccinated. Our goal is to make them the healthiest. Our grant will set up a culinary school in the basement of this beloved church for homeless and poor neighborhood seniors holed up in rent stabilized apartments. Free range chicken, wild fish, fresh fruits and veggies, quinoa, barley, and whole grains instead of white rice and pasta. No dessert. Comfort foods create diabetes and heart problems. These unfortunate folks were never criminals nor drug addicts, they are not anti-social, many went to college, and most have worked, but bad luck, high living costs, and not enough social security is making them starve. For too long churches have been associated with alcohol and sweets. We won’t exacerbate their diabetes with these drugs. Homeless are not smelly criminals and drug addicts. You could be homeless after a lifetime of hard work with no vices and no law-breaking. A fire, a disease, a breakdown, a pandemic, a flood–anything can derail our upward trajectories. Going forward, we call them the “housing challenged.” Starting tomorrow, you will see the healthiest daily soup kitchen in the country, a wardrobe room with ecologically correct clothes, and hygiene kits with fluoride rinse, gum stimulators, tongue cleaners, quality toothbrushes, and paste. Agreed that some people do not like healthy food, so we have a hospice kit of leftover pastries from local merchants, more delicious than drugs. STEMGARCHS stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine but we have a heart of gold and will share our wealth with those less fortunate.APPLAUSE. He leaves so the priest can finish the service. They sing Silent Night as they walk down the aisle.
But Julie’s head has collapsed to her lap. Jake takes a pulse. Nothing. Before he plunges into CPR, a team arrives from nearby Lenox Hill Hospital, and they confirm complete death. She has gone to heaven. Jakes leaves with them to the morgue to make funeral arrangements.INT. STARBUCKS – EVENING
BB and Ibrahim enter Starbucks smiling snidely.
BB
Is Starbucks healthy?
IBRAHIM
I am drinking passion flower tea, no pastries.
BB
I need some passion for my flower but will settle for an espresso to make my bright brain crackle. What a heartfelt speech! Heart of gold is the perfect metaphor. STEMGARCHS is more philanthropic than the Red Cross.IBRAHIM
Or the Red Crescent. I gave the same speech at the 96<sup>th</sup> St. Mosque this morning. Blood, crucifixion, and the moon are part of STEMGARCHS as well.BB
And part of my modus operandi. Hospice kits are a considerate touch. Original. And speaking of endings, I couldn’t have choreographed a better demise for Julie.
IBRAHIM
She went straight to heaven, Alhamdulillah.
BB
And you are his Faithful Servant. Lovely space, that church, but heaven is more immense. We need more souls in that sacred space. More room up there than in this squished down town. We are doing our part for those less fortunate.
They sip their drinks, humming to Starbuck’s Xmas carols.BB
I am housing challenged but boat bountiful.
IBRAHIM
And STEMGARCHS has the best bounty of all.
BB
Yeah, gimme more, and I’ll have more energy for our earth philanthropy.
IBRAHIM
Declutter the cities and nature will flourish.
BB
You sound like Litonya.
IBRAHIM
We have more in common than you think.BB: Remember: I don’t think. I obey. And–I kept this for a souvenir.
BB reveals the shiny gold of an antique relic he carefully shoplifted if you could call a church a shop.
And with that they part ways for the holiday weekend.
-
Going through this list prolongs the crisis scene and strip teases Betty’s cover-up in a way that gives her the upper hand and makes Jake uncomfortable. Anyone can be bought.
EXT. HUGUENOT ST. – DAY
Betty is swinging blissfully on a hammock strung between two pine trees beside the boat garage. Jake hobbles over, trying to mitigate his PD shakes by pressing down on ski poles but he tips over as he approaches.
BETTY
You used to be so agile.Even Jake’s fury is slower than it used to be,
JAKE
Fuck Parkinson’s.BETTY
Love to, but he died over a hundred years ago.Jake is not in a good mood this time,
JAKE
We need them.
Betty bats her eyes innocently, and amplifies her fake Southern accent,BETTY
What, sugar? My cookies?Jake’s son Anahu walks by carrying a thick history book.
But Jake does the talking,
JAKE
My son Jess has done the research and we know your past. All of it.
Betty swings silently.
JAKE
You were the infamous serial killer/rapist/arsonist.Silence: Betty swings in her hammock, ignoring this outburst.
JAKE
We almost caught you when you assaulted Priceless, but she was too strong for you. If you hadn’t bought her off and funded her dance career, you would have spent your life in prison.– Action incongruent with words: Betty fusses with her hair and dress in a “ladylike” fashion.
BETTY
Do I look like a malicious man? You have no proof.JAKE
We have all the proof.JAKE
Oh yes we do. You were a stalker who sneaked up killing without a sound, a walking match in a sea of gasoline, a rapist who banged from behind after they burnt, and an antiseptic liar who hid your crimes in the icing of immaculate hygiene.
BETTY
My hands are for cooking and cleaning and caretaking.JAKE
Your paws were always weapons.
Jake uses one of his ski poles to tip over the hammock,
JAKE
You can’t row this boat forever. Our evidence will drown you..
Betty falls on the grass gracefully and gets up,
BETTY– Change subject:
BETTY
So, what do you want me to make for dinner tonight?
JAKE
How could you do that to so many innocent women?– Attack back:
You aren’t so innocent yourself, sweetie. You basically raped Fadma.
JAKE
You raped, burned, and killed multiple women. You set tenements on fire. You poisoned seniors. You may have done other things–– Compliment them:
You have such wonderful family members, a great fitness career, despite your PD.
– Threaten them:
You don’t want anyone to hurt your beloved kids do you?
JAKE
You wouldn’t dare.– Confirm something they already believe whether it’s true or not:
STEMGARCHS is more powerful than either of us.
– Misdirection: Do or say something that sends their mind in a different direction:
Maybe I can help you with your PD. The worst thing would be for you to get Levo Dopa dementia.
Jake is silent.
– Inappropriate reaction to an emotional event: Betty chuckles pleasantly.
– Distraction: I loved the Bright Space Brain Buffet, no side effects, and my memory is as good as a college student’s.
– Make a joke of it
Twenty years from now when we are dead, everyone will be Bright Spaced.
BETTY
You have no proof of this..Our brain buffet is for the one percent. I only got it because I work for STEMGARCHS and I was hit hard by that gang. I don’t have the power to–
JAKE
They’re in that lab. I can’t have Delphine risk her life, but you can get them. It’s not just us. The world is desperate for this buffet.
BETTY
Let me see the proof you have.
JAKE
We matched your DNA, all over your hammock and our house, with hats and gloves left in the woods years ago near unsolved murders but we have more than this. We can’t tell you but trust us that you have a choice—get us the drugs and we forget, but not forgive, or keep them to yourself and everyone dies.– Continue the conversation as if nothing happened.
Some things in the past never happened if we want to insure a brighter future.
Jake bites his teeth. He hates to be in a position where he doesn’t have the last word.
He doesn’t eat dinner at home that night.
[If it were just Jake, Betty might use his ski pole to finish him off, but his strong son is standing by. (This is the crisis.) -
This symbol exercise was an opportunity to review my symbols in my outline. A previous exercise related to the main plot points. They were COVID sanitizers, lighter fluid, and matches for BB/Betty’s crimes, boxing gloves, weights, bands, and kettlebells for Jake, and ski poles, beds, chairs, gardens, rocks, boats, that are used purposefully to reveal plot and character. But this was a SUBTEXT symbol exercise, so I developed brass candlesticks, chandeliers, lamps, and the necklace that Ibrahim made from his prayer beads to give Litonya as a wedding present. It forced me to review every scene in my messy outline and imagine some visuals that relate to feelings like love that form the underbelly of the action plots. The brass shines and candlesticks are used to see without fossil fuels, relating to my Green activism theme. A necklace can be used to strangle, Leo/BB/Betty’s modus operandi as a serial killer. There are history lovers so these objects can be of value. They can be polished to hide feelings. They are good for close-ups and sequencing between scenes. Brass cooking pots are used in the kitchen when Nikos, Betty, and Jake compete for culinary dominance.
-
Hiding the wedding and the gala are challenging because everyone now has a secret agenda. This scene forced nature girl Litonya to transform into a high society UES MET matron at a gala, at least for an evening. It also stimulated the necessary questions at the end of the scene to keep the pages turning.
INT. CITY HALL – DAY
Ibrahim and Litonya marry without recognizable witnesses, dressed in drab business clothes.LITONYLA
The last time I was in this august marble building was for murdering my father.Ibrahim nods politely. Instead of a ring, he circles her throat with a necklace made of gold, diamonds, and black obsidian. His secret is that it used to be his Muslim prayer beads.
IBRAHIM
I made this just for you. You will look magnificent tonight.EXT. MET MUSEUM ROOF
And she does! Litonya, who never dresses up or wears make-up, has donned a sexy backless black evening dress to match her show-off necklace, eyes made up dramatically, and hair coiffed around other jewels. She even wears heels, making her tower over Ibrahim. But he is confident, dressed in the most expensive Brunico suit, royal blue to offset the black of his hair.He holds her hand and looks at her as if she were more outstanding than the MET sculptures. They are on the roof of the MET, watching the sun set over the west side. They both sip colored water, never alcohol. This gala is for STEMGARCHS that has given a fat donation to the MET. The socializing is mechanical but convivial.
Then they go down to the
TEMPLE OF DENDUR, lit up in an immortal way with candles, for the presentation. SLOWLY ZOOM into his acceptance speech.
IBRAHIM
It is our pleasure to set up a foundation and annual grant as well as a big Christmas donation. STEMGARCHS stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine, but we use our funds to support humanity—culture, history, and the arts. No American institution is more worthy of our philanthropy than the MET. Our foundation will nurture educational programs for all ages. The annual grant is for Green projects to make the MET sustainable and ecologically correct while renovating and respecting history. And this year’s avalanche of cash will set up a science and art section to make people appreciate the aesthetics of science, the beauty of cells, and the spiritual and religious reflections of human endeavor. We will build an enormous wing into the drive that used to be for cars. STEMGARCHS has been essential in ending fossil fuels.Thunderous APPLAUSE. As the CEO of the MET talks effusively and gratefully, Litonya’s eyes drift towards the park where runners and bikers can still express their freedom no matter what society organizes. She wishes she was out there running but not with them. She prays it will be over soon. Ibrahim returns to her and wraps his arms around her possessively.
LITONYA
I wish Kisele could have been here.
IBRAHIM
You wanted to keep this secret. Kisele is too honest to keep secrets. I must leave tonight for a trip—
LITONYA
Where?IBRAHIM
Not sure.
As they walk down the grandiose steps of the MET they run into Jake, jogging through the fountains. They walk faster. Litonya feels like jumping in the fountain.Jake doesn’t. He stops and stares at his true love,
JAKE
Here you are. What the fuck—He is sweaty and stinking. When he stops, the PD shaking begins. The jog was fueled by his Levodopa and now he is coming back to earth.
IBRAHIM
You look terrific, Jake. So glad you can jog on the UES like the old days. Hope you had a client. Litonya has been working hard to save the earth so we came to schmooze and find Green donors.As they chat, participants stop to congratulate Ibrahim so his lie isn’t going over that well. For the first time in her life, Litonya shrinks. Thank God she is not wearing a ring. The black necklace is her marital chain.
JAKE
Lovely necklace. I thought you hated jewelry.
LITONYA
These are rocks, not jewels.
JAKE
So was my diamond but I guess it wasn’t big enough.IBRAHIM
Look, guys, I have a plane to catch so I will leave you here and see you when I get back.LITONYA
Plane? I thought you said you were done with planes?
IBRAHIM
It’s ecologically correct.JAKE
Blue Origin for your blue suit? Outer space?
IBRAHIM
Perhaps. Life is an adventure.He kisses Litonya on the cheeks French style and shakes Jake’s hand. Then he hails an empty limousine, always parked on Fifth after galas.
JAKE
Why didn’t you tell us where you were? The kids were worried. I was hysterical.LITONYA
Throughout my life I have taken breaks. Baby Kisele and I disappeared for months with winter camping, but Rodney was patient.They hug and then kiss passionately.
JAKE
Now that you are all dressed up, would you like to spend the night here rather than take the boat or car upstate?Jake hails a cab and they go to restaurants and bars, go to Harlem, drink alcohol, listen to jazz, and make their way to
EXT. INWOOD by dawn, ironically passing by the west side of Ibrahim’s Tudor Tower. In the cove, Betty, dressed a bit butch, is working on the boat.
BETYY
Night owls partying?
JAKE
Yes, we did something different. Changer les idees as Delphine would say.
BETTY
I love Delphine. And you, Litonya, look spectacular.There is a hint of the old Leo in Betty’s eyes as they move up and down her athletic frame in its morning after disarray.
Jake is still wearing the sweats,JAKE
She dresses up, I dress down, and we painted the town red before we are dead.
BETTY
You look happy but almost dead. She looks twenty years younger instead of five older.JAKE
Women are stronger and smarter than men.BETTY
That is why I became one.
JAKE
You’re looking pretty sniffer skipper.
As they chat, Litonya begins to row to balance her body after the damage done by high heels.
JAKE
Good work Litonya! Once I recover, I will join you and leave Betty at the helm. -
A subtext relationship scene is hopelessly confusing out of context. My drafts of novel and screenplay are now even more confusing. But maybe one goal is to confuse the audience/reader to make them think and ask questions.
INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
KITCHENNikos and Betty are fussing around the stove where a huge roast is stewing.
NIKOS
There is too much cholesterol in this heavy meat with the rich sauces.BETTY
Yeah, but we might as well die happy. Jean loves this stuff.,
“
NIKOS
I have known Jean longer than you have.BETTY
What do you want to cock, I mean cook?NIKOS
A Mediterranean diet is best for everything.BETTY
His body is gone but he can still chew and taste.NIKOS
And talk. I always loved his voice.
Nikos’ lover Orhan looks uncomfortable. He paces nervously. Nikos casts an eye his way.NIKOS
Don’t worry, Orhan. We need your music. Why didn’t you bring your flute?”ORHAN
I forgot.Nikos lets this lie go. Betty is stirring a thick sauce that reminds Nikos of semen, of ancient trysts with Jean he will never forget.
NIKOS
He hates vegetables.BETTY
Always did, but I can mix them with kebob and seasoning and –”NIKOS
Go for it.Betty prepares two trays and hands one to Nikos.
NIKOS
Of course, Jean always cared more about the life of the mind. The only good thing about ALS is that it preserves the mind.
BEDROOM
The two of them enter Jean’s room. He is lying in his four poster bed, transformed into a hospital bed to move in different positions. But he is like a head without a body. He is listening to a sermon he gave years ago about death at a funeral.ORHAN OFF-SCREEN
It is strange he is listening to his own voice.They bring in the food. Betty puts on a bib and Nikos smiles. The door is left open. Orhan stands in the doorway. Jean looks too ecstatic to see Nikos so Betty begins feeding Jean to distract him.
Nikos argues with what Jean is saying in his loud lecture, creating a cacophony of SOUND that is irritating Orhan’s ears. Jean throws up. Betty cleans up and turns off the recording.
Orhan is still frozen at the door. A smell of poop makes Betty realize another clean-up is needed but Jean screams as she approaches his pants.JEAN
I want a man!It seems that no one recognizes the old Leo, including Orhan and Nikos. Nikos steps in and quickly changes his diapers as Betty cleans around the room. Overwhelmed by the stench, Orhan transcends the brutal biology of the scene by softly singing Sufi songs to soothe everyone. Jean’s ears respond to Orhan and his eyes to Nikos’ forgiveness. He sighs into his bed. Betty surveys the scene.
BETTY
See, when we work together, we can accomplish miracles.Suddenly Joan shuffles in her night clothes and a huge beaver hat.
JOAN
Who are all these people?Nikos never spent much time with her in the past. Maybe she doesn’t recognize him and Orhan.
NIKOS
We were just feeding and changing your husband.JOAN
He is just a voice.There is a logic in Alzheimer’s. Then she recognizes Betty.
JOAN
I am hungry.Betty sits Joan down in the rocking chair and sets up a little table to give her the untouched tray. After sampling the meat, she throws her spoon on the floor.
JOAN
Too fat!Nikos smiles with a tolerance he never expected to feel for his long-time rival. Joan joins Jean on his bed and Orhan enters the room to take Nikos’ arm. Betty winks at Orhan.
NIKOS
I guess you never spent much time in Muddy Mansion, and I never knew your history. Humans tend to paint history in pretty colors.Betty guffaws.
NIKOS
Did you know Leo, the owner of Muddy Mansion?BETTY
As well as we can know ourselves. Long live LGBTQ!The three of them leave Jean and Joan to curl up into their afternoon nap. Betty hurries back to scrub the kitchen before her real past is revealed. Nikos and Orhan wave from the door.
NIKOS
Please let us know when we can help. Diseases and dying are challenges for everyone and compassion is needed to forgive the past.Betty nods and sings to herself as she cleans up the kitchen, knowing that no amount of Clorox can forgive her past.
-
What I learned is that when doing subtexts for minor characters, I imagined potentially dramatic scenes with major characters. Plot points are clear, but it is always challenging for me to design activities on a smaller level that create intrigue and conflict for scenes.
Character Name: Jake
Subtext Identity: Loving, insecure, jealous family man
Character Traits: External personality is to be a positive, successful, essential fitness pro who rhymes and tells jokes
Subtext Logline: Jake realizes that he is mortal and his legacy is through his family.
Possible areas of subtext: His feelings for Litonya, desire to be legally married, hope and fear for his kids, and concern about his parents who have neurodegenerative disease.
Then his flaw or weakness comes with his PD, making his imperfect in his fitness career. He may not want to accept the diagnosis or tell people. For the first time, he becomes insecure.
Character Name: Betty/Bobby
Subtext Identity: A serial killer/rapist/arsonist who hasn’t been caught
Character Traits: Externally he/she is organized, clean, hard-working, and helpfulSubtext Logline: Once Bobby light the fire that kills his son Joe, he feels sadness and regret for the first time and has a sex reassignment in his sixties to become Betty.
Possible areas of subtext: The conflict between his criminal activities for Ibrahim, his love of boats, his service as a female aide and chef, and his desire to hide his past. New relationships with the La Roche family
Character Name: Ibrahim
Subtext Identity: Greed and need for absolute to compensate for reproductive sterility that makes him plot, lie, and finally commit invisible crimes
Character Traits: On the surface, Ibrahim is cordial, calm, polite, super-educated,Subtext Logline: To become and stay on top of the pyramid, Ibrahim must do anything. But it gets lonely so he wants Litonya.
Possible areas of subtext: After Hurricane Ida kills his wife, son, and daughter, his ambition increases as he loses his religious faith and any residual ethics or morals. But then he falls in a kind of love with Litonya and will do anything to have her in his life.
Character Name: Litonya
Subtext Identity: She gets ensnared with humans because of her boys Kisele and Anahu, her passion for Jake, and her need for Ibrahim’s power and money that throws a wrench into the mix
Character Traits: Strong, brilliant, nature-first geologist
Subtext Logline: She must compromise her feelings to make Ibrahim do what she wants and she can’t give Jake what he wants
Possible areas of subtext: Two timing Ibrahim and Jake, Rodney before he dies of COVID, doesn’t want the brain drugs but wants a better future for her kids, but maybe they will do something she doesn’t like, I need a stronger history with Bobby that I will go back and put into the first novel.
Character Name: Jean La Roche
Subtext Identity: He is gender fluid and wants to feel loved even though his body has left his brain with ALS
Character Traits: Respected history prof and community member, dogmatic,Subtext Logline: He wants to resolve the affair with Nikos that made him feel guilty before he dies because he loves his wife and Nikos although Nikos is married to Orhan
Possible areas of subtext: Softening of his pedantry as he succumbs to ALS, new relationship with Jake whom he tried to control for years, must connect him and Joan to Ibrahim and Betty
Character Name: Joan La Roche
Subtext Identity: Fear of Alzheimer’s
Character Traits: Respected physician and community member
Subtext Logline: Wants to survive old age with the knowledge that hurts her
Possible areas of subtext: The irony of a physician refusing radiographs, the problem of knowledge in old age, how Jake takes over and gets smarter as she weakens, who or what does she forget first? A unique relationship with Betty whom she doesn’t recognize as Leo or Bobby. Her forgiveness of Jean in part because she doesn’t grasp the extent of his infidelity.
Character Name: Anahu
Subtext Identity: Angrier than he looks, self-righteous about crime
Character Traits: Curious, literate, family boy
Subtext Logline: He wants to be an American historian, like Jean his grandad, but his goal is unsolved crimes of Ulster County.
Possible areas of subtext: He suspects Bobby/Betty. He falls in love with his childhood mate, Aanadi. What goes wrong? What does he feel for his parents, Jake and Litonya? Ibrahim?
Character Name: Aanadi
Subtext Identity:In love with Anahu
Character Traits: Good at science, compassionate, wants to be a physician like her grandma, Joan
Subtext Logline: She wants to marry Anahu and live in the La Roche stone mansion
Possible areas of subtext:?? Touching scenes with Aanadi and Joan, Jake, what does she think of Litonya, Ibrahim, and Betty? Does she compete with Betty for care? Is that why they got suspicious?
Character Name: Joe
Subtext Identity: A bit of BB’s violent sexuality
Character Traits: Heroic, Super-strong, Silent, Servicing
Subtext Logline: Not sure. Indecisive. He is frustrated with his sick wife CS and the ambiguous dealings of his dad BB.
Possible areas of subtext: Burnt out by FDNY. When he saves CS, he is sacrificed to die a hero.
Maybe he gives hints to someone about his dad before he dies.Character Name: CS
Subtext Identity: Insecure, scared, little girl
Character Traits: Was a fierce competitive martial artist before long COVID, a financial whiz
Subtext Logline: Wants to get back her health but it isn’t working
Possible areas of subtext: Conflicts in her marriage and with the adoption of Aanadi who is too much for her.
Character Name: Orhan
Subtext Identity: Jealous and possessive despite his Sufi religion
Character Traits: Spiritual, talented musician, in love with Nikos, impractical, otherworldly
Subtext Logline: Wants to possess his lover Nikos to and through death
Possible areas of subtext: Conflictual scenes with Jean and Nikos, intellectual arguments.
Character Name: Nikos
Subtext Identity: Intellectual confusion and passion for two men
Character Traits: Super-educated, classical, reasonable, charming, good cook
Subtext Logline: Former lover of Jean, married to Orhan, but wants both of them in his Classical fashion
Possible areas of subtext: Conflictual scenes with Jean, Nikos, Betty, Jake. But I need to get back the connection he had with Litonya. What do they think of Ibrahim?
-
What I learned is that exaggerating on the nose creates laughs. That telling the truth can seem like a lie if it is incongruous. That once the truth is set up, the audience trusts the characters so when they are finally pushed to lie in the following scenes, new interest is generated. I learned that lies must form a quilt that runs underneath to another outcome, in this case a separation of Gil and Inez at the end.
Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is egregiously on the nose–that is where the comedy comes from at the beginning. He plants the fantasy of the time warp to the twenties to create situation comedies. Characters are stereotyped, especially historic writers, so that their dialogue is recognizable, exaggerated, and repeated for laughs. When people express their honest opinions in scenes, it can be hilarious and this was my strength. I was never good at subtext unless I did contrapuntal physical actions. But by the end of the script Woody Allen has set up intrigue and fantasy worlds and secrets so that he can play subtext. In the first scene, Gil the midnight reveler who is supposed to marry Inez in 2010 and live happily ever after in Hollywood had a secret new love, Adriana, who is also courted by famous painters and writers. The metaphor “volcano in the sack” is on the nose, true, and yet the other characters don’t know what is going on. But at this point in the script, pedantic Paul has also been playing beyond his partner’s back having a tryst with his former student Inez. So suspense is generated about their engagement that doesn’t look like it is going to happen.
INT. L’ORANGERIE MUSEUM – DAY 35
Paul, Carol, Inez and Gil in circular room with huge Monets.
PAUL
If I’m not mistaken he painted this
marvelous portrait of his French
mistress Madeline Brissou in the
twenties.
GIL
Er – I have to differ with you on
this one.
PAUL
Really?
INEZ
Gil pay attention and you’ll learn
something.
GIL
If I’m not mistaken this was a
failed attempt to capture a young
French girl named Adriana – from
Bordeaux – if my art history serves
me – came to Paris to study costume
design for the theatre. Believe
she had a brief affair with
Modigliani – then Braque – that’s
where Pablo met her – er Picasso.
You’d never know it from this
portrait but she’s quite subtly
beautiful.
INEZ
What have you been smoking?
GIL
And I’d hardly call the picture
superb. It’s more of a petit
bourgeoise statement of how Pablo
Picasso sees her, saw her – he’s
distracted by the fact she was a
volcano in the sack.
GUIDE
The writer clearly has feelings for
this man Gil. That’s your name,
no?
GIL
She finds him no genius – naive and
unassuming – that’s not exactly
dazzling.
GUIDE
To some women naiveté is endearing.
And she’s romantic. She dreams of
Belle Epoque Paris and a gift of
earrings and making love with this
man.
Gil stares, thinking.
CUT TO:
59 INT. HOTEL SUITE – NIGHT 59
Gil is sprucing up. He douses himself with aftershave,
checks clock. It’s eleven PM.
GIL
(to himself)
Eleven – let’s see – where the hell
am I going to get earrings at this
hour?
(thinks)
I must improvise.
He goes to Inez’s jewelry box and picks out art nouveau
earrings he knows Adriana would like. He grabs a box and
gift wraps it quickly.
Maybe it comes in a blue velvet box and he finds some colored
paper. Gil writes card: To Adriana with love. He crosses
it out – To Adriana avec amour.
He gives a final check to himself and opens door to leave,
running smack into Inez and both her parents, home from their
trip prematurely.
GIL
Ohmigod! What are you doing back?
65
58 CONTD: (2) 58
INEZ
Daddy got chest pains.
GIL
Really?
JOHN
I’m sure it’s indigestion.
HELEN
Well we can’t take a chance.
INEZ
Daddy had an angioplasty three
years ago.
JOHN
They put a balloon in me. Big
deal.
HELEN
(phone)
Yes – I want the hotel doctor –
suite 818.
(she trails off)
INEZ
Why are you so dressed up?
GIL
Me? No – I was just writing.
INEZ
You dress and put on cologne to
write?
GIL
I took a break and showered. I
think better in the shower. All
those positive ions.
INEZ
We were halfway to Mont. St.
Michele and Daddy started to look
pale.
GIL
That’s terrible.
INEZ
We turned right around.
66
59 CONTD: 59
GIL
No – sure – is there anything I can
get you, John?
JOHN
I’m fine. I’m sure it’s the beef
bourguignon.
INEZ
What’s this.
(picking up gift)
GIL
(grabs it from her)
It’s nothing – nothing –
INEZ
What is that? It’s a present.
GIL
Yes – yes… it is. Because it’s
gift wrapped… but er – you’re not
supposed to see that – it’s a
surprise.
INEZ
You got me something?
GIL
It’s nothing great – from the flea
market.
INEZ
Let me open it.
GIL
No! No – not now… I got it for –
I mean to give it to you at a
special dinner – just leave it…
GIL IS LYING.
INEZ
Now I’m dying of curiosity. If
it’s jewelry I hope it’s my taste –
not like the moonstone necklace.
GIL
You didn’t like the moonstones?
They’re understated yet elegant –
(to Helen)
Don’t you always say that, ha,
ha…
67
59 CONTD: (2) 59
HELEN
Cheap is cheap is what I always
say.
INEZ
You never saw the necklace he got
me. I’ve never actually worn it.
You’ll see why immediately.
Opens her jewelry box, holds up moonstones.
GIL
I thought you’d like their
simplicity.
INEZ
That’s just it, they’re too simple.
HELEN
I agree.
INEZ
Hey – where are my art nouveau
earrings?
HE STOLE IT FOR FANTASY ADRIANA.
GIL
You probably didn’t pack them.
INEZ
I’ve worn them here.
GIL
I guess you lost them. They
probably dropped off.
INEZ
Both of them? My ears are pierced.
HELEN
I told you to keep everything in
the hotel safe.
INEZ
You think it was the maid?
HELEN
It’s always the maid.
INEZ
I remember seeing them there this
morning.
68
59 CONTD: (3) 59
HELEN
I would report the theft right
away.
INEZ
I’ll bet it was that maid. She was
so snotty yesterday about turning
out the beds.
She goes to phone.
GIL
Gee I wouldn’t jump to any
conclusions. I mean an accusation
of theft.
INEZ
(phone)
I want to report a theft. I’d like
the house detective to please come
to room 818.
GIL
Oh god –
INEZ
(hangs up)
I didn’t like that maid from the
first day, didn’t I say that?
Gil seems like a psychotic surrealist when he is telling the truth. One of Allen’s techniques is to make the truth funny through juxtaposition and exaggeration. Then he filmed it to look exquisite and romantic and researched the past to make incisive, accurate jabs at the twenties and Gilded Age to please his educated audience. Only 90 pages and it reads fast, turning pages, with great dialogue and monologues as if it were a play and gorgeous cinematography of Paris. The DEEPER MEANING is also related to his impressive satire of the writers of the twenties and what he reveals about how we humans paint history in pretty colors because we can’t tolerate the present. Even Adriana wants to go back to the Belle Epoque. The goal of this film is to make the audience think as well as feel, laugh, and be charmed by the fantasy trip.
-
EXT. LA ROCHE HOUSE – DAY
Joan is laid to rest in the backyard but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. He has trouble walking around. Betty takes care of the funeral rites in her usual efficient manner. Townspeople show up like shadows on a cold winter day. No real conversation, just murmurs, and ritualistic actions.JAKE
This is not how a village doctor should be remembered. Such a contrast to Dad’s party funeral.Strange that Litonya didn’t come. Where is she?
AANADI
I want to be the village doctor like grandma Joan.EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Jake tries to master the scrambling in the Palisades. He starts strong and then keeps falling.
ANAHU
Because we aren’t related, we will get married and continue to live together forever happily ever after.AANADI
I love you, Anahu. But no rings.JAKE
I have heard that before. Have you two seen your mom anywhere?ANAHU
We would have told you immediately, dad.JAKE
I am jealous. I wish we could have gotten married. She has been gone for six months now, longer than her Sandy Storm retreat.Jake hugs them into a trio and shakes from the contact.
ANAHU
Maybe Kisele knows where she is, but he might not tell.Jake forces his PD body to scramble along on all fours, but his pace is slower than a snail’s as his kids run ahead. Frustrated, he squeezes the igneous rock.
JAKE
Fuck you, Magma Monsters. Why can’t you help us? Why can’t you strengthen me the way the Gunks did when I was a teenager? Why do you hate humans so much?He throws small pieces of rock back up the landslide causing Anahu to run down.
ANAHU
Don’t have a temper tantrum dad. We don’t have to scramble. We can walk calmly on the path.
Aanadi comes down and takes his other arm. Tears fill Jake’s eyes.
JAKE
It was never supposed to be this way. Where the hell is Litonya? I hope she is okay.INT. TUDOR TOWER
Litonya is standing naked in the solar greenhouse attached as Ibrahim admires her from the door. The greenhouse is a lush forest of tropical vegetation furnished with schist and gneiss rock providing the inspiration that Litonya needs. The sunset licks her silhouette making her glow like spectacular sculpture. Ibrahim approaches from behind, touching her beautiful bronze shoulders with a possessiveness from which she doesn’t shrink.IBRAHIM
I knew you’d like this view of the Palisades. It is yours.Litonya nods and tightens her lips. Ibrahim takes a purple suitcase out of the closet marked Bright Space Brain Buffet.
IBRAHIM
This is also yours.LITONYA
I told you that I don’t want these artificial things. My brain and body are fine for 66.IBRAHIM
Some of it is preventive. Look what it did for me at 71.Ibrahim shows off his shiny black hair and trim body.
IBRAHIM
But the best is inside.Litonya says nothing as she looks out to the igneous rocks, communing with her Higher Powers.
IBRAHIM
I can read your mind. You want to know about my Will in case Big Pharma can’t help me conquer death?Litonya looks yes into his eyes.
He presses her delicious body into his as she tries to yield.
A few minutes later they are naked on the rug. He has finished quickly, because her orgasms are not important and she knows it. Conquest is key.
LITONYA
Where is it?IBRAHIM
You have everything. You don’t need it.LITONYA
The kids need as much power as they can get in the cruel world.IBRAHIM
They already own the future.LITONYA
You promised.IBRAHIM
You’ll get it but you know what you must do. I may never die.LITONYA
I will probably die by 85 because I won’t prolong life artificially.IBRAHIM
I keep going backwards. By then I will be middle-aged.LITONYA
God bless.IBRAHIM
Remember I give Him up? Science is my god. And you believe in rocks. That is why I made this rock palace for you. Enjoy. -
I am trying to write my tandem competitive narratives in my last novel with attitude. Jake’s voice is easier and clearer than that of the Magma Monsters, a chorus of igneous rocks, sitting stalwart on the NJ Palisades over the Hudson River. This is not realistic and hard to do with film but since this is an exercise, I will write their Voice Over that occurs after Midpoint arguing with Jake.
EXT. PALISADES OVER HUDSON RIVER
A Kaleidoscope of sumptuous images of the Palisades rock and its vistas and views accompanies the MM chorus.Positive by Jake versus Negative by MM
What is the nature of
a seesaw? A first-class lever, where the fulcrum sits between the effort and the load. To balance the loads. But you humans are smaller than anything in the universe. How can skinny Jake balance the we group of
Magma Monsters? Because we are heavy and he is light. He rhymes and we can be
minimal or maximal, using words he doesn’t understand. He likes short friendly
words that rhyme. His ADHD works for him because he forgets insults, doesn’t
fumigate with worry and guilt, and skims and bubbles over the surface as we
connect with Mother Nuclear and kill with passion and purpose.Prayers are the pleas from an unbalanced
seesaw when you are caught too high in the air.JAKE
The secret of the universe is
that rhymes make time bearable and laughter light: pain broken into dazzling
stars shimmying like a belly dance skirt. That is my ADHD POV but MM has a
deeper and more dreadful approach to the disasters, diseases, and disabilities
that roadblock life.MM
You are making your lives too
significant. All this megalomania for a blink in time. You had to invent time
to seal your space. Just because you control the current space, at least its
surface, you think you matter in time which devoured you years ago. We control
time, deep earth, and the sky and cosmos. Your civilization is a tiny piece of
baloney sandwiched between deep earth and the cosmos. We have seen better
civilizations dissolve before your time. The dinosaurs were more spectacular
than your pathetic bodies.What do we want? We are getting bored standing
stalwart on the Palisades like the row of trees the Lenape called us, watching
your ships go by and your planes fly and your world die. You ignore us unless
you look out the window on a Metro North Hudson train when the fall leaves
surround our black/grey rocks with their crimson bouquets. But we were once the
stars of the show, the spectacular erupting volcanoes whose magma intruded into
the sedimentary rock to make these war-like cliffs. Each splinter of our rock
can shave, cut, or kill. But we are
ugly and utilitarian. The Gunk rock is worshipped by rock climbers, marble is
made love to by your artists, you are always drilling into schist or making him
sparkle, and gneiss is left alone to communicate with Father Sky. But we are
ignored.We are sick of guarding the NYC waterway. Each of your character’s
deaths is a minor volcano that we can celebrate. We love the finality of death.
Death is a bit like celebrating birthdays because we focus on one person at a
time. Then we can close the dates and stop counting and repeating. There is
nothing special about the dead body–just another piece of smelly matter–but
it is important to know what he or she did, or not, in the wide space of
crustal earth.
There is nothing worse than aging. In
youth you add to what you do but aging cancels what you grew. Famous writers
have called it a massacre–we say an apocalypse. Every system in your body
breaks down, dying slowly, in a metabolic process known as catabolism. The only
thing that can grow is cancer–the creative, promiscuous entity left in your
dilapidated system. And there is no cure, despite what doctors say. Docs feed
off the dying like maggots, pumping you with drugs and surgery that ensure that
your last days are more painful than they would be naturally.In case you don’t
get it, we mimic your stupid rhymes: What with skin cancer’s intrusion,
brain cancer’s extrusion, try to end the confusion with a contusion that makes
you bleed into magma mush. Call us Magma Mush, not Magma Monsters.Never look
in the mirror. Even healthy seniors have wrinkles, sunspots, thinning hair,
discoloration, varicosities, and blotches of imperfections. You are now
repulsive so don’t try to make new friends and forget about lovers. Your
dangling dicks will never rise again to their dinosaur heights no matter how
many drugs you take. Women are like shriveled, dried fruit that rips on contact
or friction. You can’t use your mind to forget about your body because your
brain is an organ filled with clogged arteries, amyloid plaque, tangled
dendrites, shrinking neurons, and cancerous tumors that find homes in this
jungle where you have lost your way.You forget what is important, like the
names of loved ones. You don’t see, hear, smell, or feel as well as you used to,
locked in a fog of sensory deprivation. Your muse abandons you and creativity
is a closed door. You can’t read all the books in your library, not even the
titles. Even if your legs still work, you are a dead brain walking, your head separating from the rest like a mouse caught in a roach motel. Because of
modern medicine, your last days will be disastrous, a slow choking that makes
you hate everyone and everything. Death is the horrifying finale to the long
torture of aging and there is no afterlife.Why bother being born? Unless you
can manage pyroclastic petrification before your putrefaction seeps into the
soil and become a fossil.JAKE
But I believe in the best of all possible worlds, freedom of human will, and a benevolent God of some sort. Yes, I heard that pyroclasts are more promising than cryogenic preservation. But MM, you are too pessimistic. Aging and death aren’t that bad–there is a lot of fun to be had, as we stop the run, and spend time in the sun. You say sun is cancerous? End it with a gun before our time is done–or use an umbrella. Counteract catabolism with cardio, weights, rest, relaxation, lean protein, fresh veggies, and fruits, and lots of water. Say no to carcinogens like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and junk food. Alzheimer’s can be cruel, worse than a duel, unless you eat your gruel and let your soul refuel like a jewel outside of school. At least you forget that you are in pain. People still talk about my wife’s suicide, cascading down the waterfalls of the Trump atrium to crash into the salmon-colored marble, but she died at the right time, as Nietzsche would say–the last leap of a beautiful dancer before multiple sclerosis frayed her nerves and slaughtered her looks. My dad was always a lecturer so when amyotrophic lateral sclerosis paralyzed his physical body, his voice still boomed throughout the house, (boom boom through every room though he is in a tomb far from mom’s womb and my gloom and the maid’s broom) like Stephen Hawking screaming at the heavens–until he mercifully choked and croaked.
And me–I love fitness and will teach classes till I shuffle off my Parkinson’s coil. Some of the greats had Parkinson’s, like Mohamed Ali and Michael J. Fox, so I am in good company with good drugs. I look forward to “too much dopamine” when I will have the colorful hallucinations of a schizophrenic as my woody womb pecker stiffens like a saw slicing a tree trunk–yeah, dopamine beats Viagra! Move over for my Jurassic pork! One plus of PD is that, even though I am a guy, I teach my dead wife’s belly dance classes, shimmying with a tremor that looks like a quake. I am shaken, but not stirred. Like Ali and Fox, I will spread my message on earth, and when my release comes, I will transcend my shaking chakras to the world of pure energy and sound because I have always loved music more than bodies and I can’t wait to hear celestial symphonies.
As soon as we succumb to the heat, lose our heartbeat and our meat, and get covered in a sheet, we can dance to the sweet beat of stars as we meet our makers, whoever they may be. No longer an athlete, I can treat myself to all I can eat without getting the flat feet of the effete and elite who pig out and pummel the concrete. My hoofbeat will be with the angels’ fleet in the backseat of God, whoever she may be. Once the heavens open up, it doesn’t matter what creed or greed or need chained us on earth–we are now free! I may even stop rhyming because space and time are infinite and there are no ends to tie up with tone color.
MM
We are amused by your pathetic attempts to control climate change. Climate always changes, the universe expands and contracts, and beings are blown up. We can burn fast through your stories, crackling along to feature caste and class in your clans, but dementia opens up holes in the brain that slow you down and make us cackle with laughter. Natural disasters appear to surge from nowhere, are unpredictable, unjust, irrational, inhumane, undermine security and safety and kill innocents. A dormant volcano is a sleeper cell that can erupt at any time. Earthquakes are big fires at the center of the earth trying in vain to escape through subterranean channels but growing in power and rage until we erupt over your crust of civilization. There is beauty in this finality.
Except that it is never over. Burnt and broken beings still struggle for life. People remember. Stories are repeated. Foaming, roaming, heaving, and swelling, this apocalypse mocks the slow processes of culture formation and history-making. People packed on top of each other create a No Exit sandcastle filled with stink.
Igneous stone is smooth enough to let the noise of the world slide over it yet sharp enough to cut anything when applied with focus. There is no safety in safety but sadness. Sometimes killing is kind. There is a definitive, clean, slippery cruelty to our igneous rock. Even small pieces can be used as knives to cut anything. When lava overflows there is no conscience, no compromise, no controlling. It is a supreme catharsis.
Igneous is apocalyptic. Jake celebrates life.
JAKEThat is why we must get the Bright Space Brain Buffet before it is too late!!! We can’t wait!!!
-
Extreme Emotions
INT. SEWING ROOM
Dr. Joan La Roche has tied a curly, furled sunbonnet around her head and is wearing her husband’s jacket as she knits in her favorite rocking chair, surrounded by a spinning wheel and other colonial furnishings. Snowflakes fly through the window even faster than Jake who bounces in with his usual ebullience, always happy to be soothed by his mother’s calm presence.
JAKE
Beautiful, Mom. My favorite color. Royal blue.But her head is bowed and her fingers too tight for the fluidity of knitting. She looks up with a painful grimace.
JOAN
No, it doesn’t work. Stuck.She keeps going over the same stitch. Jake tries to take the needles away from her, but she fights with an unusual strength.
JOAN
Mine.
He tries to distract her by sitting by the spinning wheel, letting the wheel roll.
JOAN
No.
JAKE
How do you feel Mom?
JOAN
I have that that –what is it called?JAKE
You’re a doctor. Of course you remember.A look of terror twists her features.
JAKE
Alzheimer’s. Strange that this disease that is massacring so many seniors around the world has a German’s family name. Yeah—blame it on him.She goes back to that same stitch. Jake massages her shoulders. She winces and pushes him away.
JOAN
Don’t hurt me.Jake is stunned: She has never had that reaction. He tries again.
JAKE
Are you hungry? Do you want some lunch? Would you like to dress up and get some fresh air?She takes off her bonnet, scratches her head too hard, and screws up her face.
JOAN
My brain is a –jungle – where I can’t find things.Since Jake has no answer for this painful truth, he nervously cleans up, trying to organize her room since he can’t organize her brain. It doesn’t work. She is obsessed with this stitch.
JAKE
Mom, we could dress you warmly and take a nice walk outside.JOAN
I don’t want to go to the funerals.JAKE
You mean the cemetery? Of course not. We would go somewhere fun—anywhere you like.CLOSE ON a text from Delphine who is coming over with Sphinx.
JOAN
Stay. Here.Her hands look worn and tired. Jake tries to sit quietly, softly caressing them.
JOAN
Sweating fur.JAKE
Yeah, Mom. You are making a beautiful sweater for me.Her vacant blue eyes swell with tears and then go vacant.
Suddenly she throws her knitting on the floor and screams at the top of her lungs, stands, shaking, trembling, grabbing other things to throw. Jake catches her too late after a vase crashes against the mirror. He holds her tightly. KNOCK on the door.
JAKE
Come in.Delphine and Sphinx immediately sense their predicament and set up a circle around Joan in the rocking chair. Delphine fills Joan’s flaying arms with her cat. When Sphinx is happy or a bit scared, she PURRS so loudly that she silences everyone’s fears. Dr. Joan looks into Sphinx’ huge almond eyes and strokes her golden fur. Her rage softens. She forgets Sphinx’ name or the name cat. But:
JOAN
Baby with fur.Delphine and Jake laugh gently. Everyone purrs in their own way.
-
My challenge is that I prefer long sentences packed with figures of speech and tone color instead of the shotgun American minimalism favored by the gatekeepers but I acknowledge that in screenwriting, concise description is key, not only for the reader, but to better figure out the page numbers of one page per minute.
Assignment One: My other problem is that I am not naturally visual–my cognitive domains are linguistic and kinesthetic–so I chose the beginning of 2001 because these images rested in my mind for decades. Then I pruned some of the sentences in the script to conform to contemporary American expectations but not enough to make me cringe. I like the depth and breadth of this imagery, the creation of many worlds, attacking time and history in profound ways, using images as symbols and metaphors. But I made myself cut half of his script as well as correct spelling and proofing errors. My problem is that I lack sufficient visual description in my novels while this script is intensely visual.
2001 INT & EXT CAVES – MOONWATCHER
The man-apes of the field were on the long, pathetic road to racial extinction.
About twenty of them occupied a group of caves overlooking
a small, parched valley, divided by a sluggish, brown stream.
The tribe is starving.
As the first dim glow of dawn creeps into the cave, Moonwatcher
discovers that his father has died during the night. He did not know
the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was beyond
his understanding, but as he stands looking down at the emac-
iated body he feels something akin to sadness. Then
he carries his dead father out of the cave, and leaves him for the
hyenas.
Among his kind, Moonwatcher is almost a giant. He is nearly
five feet high, and though badly undernourished, weighs over
a hundred pounds. His hairy, muscular body is quite man-like,
and his head is already nearer man than ape. The forehead is
low, and there are great ridges over the dark, deep-set eye-sockets, but as
he looks out now upon the hostile world, there is already
10/13/65 a2
————————————————————————
A2
CONTINUED
something a dawning awareness
of an intelligence which would not fulfill itself for another
two million years.
10/13/65 a3
————————————————————————
A3
EXT THE STREAM – THE OTHERS
As the dawn sky brightens, Moonwatcher and his tribe reach
the shallow stream.
The Others are already there. There are eighteen of them, and it is impossible to distinguish
them from the members of Moonwatcher’s own tribe. As
they see him coming, the Others begin to angrily dance and
shriek on their side of the stream, and his own people reply
In kind.
The confrontation lasts a few minutes – then the display dies
out as quickly as it has begun, and everyone drinks his fill of
the muddy water. Honor has been satisfied – each group has
staked its claim to its own territory.
10/13/65 a4
————————————————————————
A4
EXT AFRICAN PLAIN – HERBIVORES
Moonwatcher and his companions search for berries, fruit
and leaves, and fight off pangs of hunger,
slowly starving to death in the midst of plenty.
10/13/65 a5
————————————————————————
A5
EXT PARCHED COUNTRYSIDE – THE LION
The tribe slowly wanders across the bare, flat country-
side foraging for roots and occasional berries.
Eight of them are irregularly strung out on the open plain,
about fifty feet apart.
The ground is flat for miles around.
Suddenly, Moonwatcher becomes aware of a lion, stalking
them about 300 yards away.
Defenseless and with nowhere to hide, they scatter in all
directions, but the lion brings one to the ground.
10/13/65 a6
————————————————————————
A6
EXT DEAD TREE – FINDS HONEY
But on the way back to the caves he finds a
hive of bees in the stump of a dead tree, and so enjoys the
finest delicacy his people could ever know. He
also collects a good many stings, but he scarcely notices
them.
10/13/65 a7
————————————————————————
A7
INT & EXT CAVES – NIGHT TERRORS
Over the valley, a full moon rises, and a cold wind blows down
from the distant mountains. This Little Sun, that only shone at night and gave no warmth,
was dangerous; there would be enemies abroad. Moonwatcher
crawls out of the cave, clambers on to a large boulder besides
the entrance, and squats there where he can survey the valley.
and reach out to try to touch the moon’s ghostly face.
He stirs when shrieks and screams echo up the slope from
one of the lower caves, and he does not need to hear the
10/13/65 a8
————————————————————————
A7
CONTINUED
occasional growl of the lion to know what is happening. Down
there in the darkness, old One-Eye and his family are dying,
and the thought that he might help in some way never crosses
Moonwatcher’s mind. Every cave is silent, lest it attract disaster.
And in the caves, in tortured spells of fitful dozing and
fearful waiting, were gathered the nightmares of generations
yet to come.
10/13/65 a9
————————————————————————
A8
EXT THE STREAM – INVASION
The Others are growing desperate; the forage on their side of
the valley is almost exhausted. Perhaps they realize that
Moonwatcher’s tribe has lost three of its numbers during the
night, for they choose this mourning to break the truce. When
they meet at the river in the still, misty dawn, there is a
deeper and more menacing note in their challenge. The noisy
but usually harmless confrontation lasts only a few seconds
before the invasion begins.
The Others cross the river, shrieking threats and hunched for the attack. They are led
by a big-toothed hominid of Moonwatcher’s own size and age.
Startled and frightened, the tribe retreats before the first
advance, throwing nothing more substantial than imprecations
at the invaders. Moonwatcher moves with them, his mind a
mist of rage and confusion. Then he becomes dimly aware that the Others are slowing
10/13/65 a10
————————————————————————
A8
CONTINUED
down, and advancing with obvious reluctance. The further they
move from their own side, the more uncertain and unhappy
they become. Only Big-Tooth still retains any of his original
drive, and he is rapidly being separated from his followers.
As he sees this, Moonwatcher’s slows down his retreat, and begins to make
reassuring noises to his companions– the first faint precursors of bravery and
leadership.
Before he realizes it, he is face to face with Big-Tooth, and
the two tribes come to a halt many paces away.
The disorganized and unscientific conflict could have ended
quickly if either had used his fist as a club, but this
innovation still lay hundreds of thousands of years in the
future. Instead, the slowly weakening fighters claw and
scratch and try to bite each other.
Rolling over and over, they come to a patch of stony ground,
and when they reach it Moonwatcher is on top. By chance,
10/13/65 a11
————————————————————————
A8
CONTINUED
he chooses this moment to grab the hair on Big-Tooth’s scalp,
and bang his head on the ground. The resulting CRACK is
so satisfactory, and produces such an immediate weakening
In Big – Tooth’s resistance, that he quickly repeats it.
Even when Big-Tooth ceases to move for some time, Moon-
watcher keeps up the exhilarating game.
With shrieks of panic, the Others retreat back, across the
stream. The defenders cautiously pursue them as far as
The water’s edge.
10/13/65 a12
————————————————————————
EXT CAVE – NEW SOUND
Dozing fitfully and weakened by his struggle, Moonwatcher is
startled by a sound. He sits up in the fetid darkness of the cave, straining his
senses out into the night, and fear creeps slowly into his soul.
The great cats approached in silence, and the only thing that
betrayed them was a rare slide of earth, or the occasional
cracking of a twig. Yet this is a continuing crunching noise
that grows steadily louder. And then there came a sound which Moonwatcher could not
possibly have identified, for it had never been heard before
in the history of this planet.
10/13/65 a13
————————————————————————
A10
EXT CAVE – NEW ROCK
Moonwatcher comes face to face with the New Rock when he
leads the tribe down to the river in the first light of morning.
It is a cube about fifteen feet on a side, and it is made of
some completely transparent material; indeed, it is not easy
to see except when the light of the sun glints on its edges.
There are no natural objects to which Moonwatcher can
compare this apparition. Though he is wisely cautious
of most new things, he does not hesitate to walk up to it.
As nothing happens, he puts out his hand, and feels a warm,
hard surface.
After several minutes of intense thought, he arrives at a
brilliant explanation. It is a rock, of course, and it
must have grown during the night. There are many plants
that do this – white, pulpy things shaped like pebbles, that
seem to shoot up in the hours of darkness. It is true that
they are small and round, whereas this is large and square.
10/13/65 a14
————————————————————————
A10
CONTINUED
This really superb piece of abstract thinking leads Moonwatcher
to a deduction which he immediately puts to the test. The white,
round pebble-plants are very tasty (though there were a few
that made one violently sick); perhaps this square one…?
A few licks and attempted nibbles quickly disillusion him.
There is no nourishment here; so like a sensible hominid, he
continues on his way to the river and forgets all about the Cube.
10/13/65 a15
————————————————————————
A11
EXT CUBE – FIRST LESSON
They are still a hundred yards from the New Rock when the
sound begins.
It is quite soft, and it stops them in their tracks, so that they
stand paralyzed on the trail with their jaws hanging. A simple,
maddeningly repetitious rhythm pulses out of the crystal cube
and hypnotizes all who come within its spell. For the first
time – and the last, for two million year – the sound of
drumming is heard in Africa.
The throbbing grows louder, more insistent. Presently the
hominids begin to move forward like sleep-walkers, towards
the source of that magnetic sound. Sometimes they take little
dancing steps, as their blood responds to the rhythms that
their descendants will not create for ages yet.
Totally entranced, they gather around the Cube, forgetting
the hardships of the day, the perils of the approaching dusk,
and the hunger in their bellies.
Now, spinning wheels of light begin to merge, and the spokes
fuse into luminous bars that slowly recede into the distance,
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CONTINUED
rotating on their axes as they do; and the hominids watch, wide-
eyed, mesmerized captives of the Crystal Cube.
Then by some magic – Itis as if a cubical block had been carved out of the day and
shifted into the night. Inside that block is a group of four
hominids, who might have been members of Moonwatcher’s
own tribe, eating chunks of meat. The carcass of a wart-hog
lies near them.
This little family of male and female and two children is gorged
and replete, with sleek and glossy pelts – and this was a
condition of life that Moonwatcher had never imagined. From
time to time they stir lazily, as they loll at ease near the
entrance of their cave, apparently at peace with the world.
The spectacle of domestic bliss merges into a totally
different scene.
The family is no longer reposing peacefully outside its cave;
it is foraging, searching for food like any normal hominids.
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CONTINUED
A small wart-hog ambles past the group of browsing humanoids
without giving them more than a glance, for they had never been
the slightest danger to its species.
But that happy state of affairs is about to end. The big male
suddenly bends down, picks up a heavy stone lying at his feet –
and hurls it upon the unfortunate pig. The stone descends upon
its skull, making exactly the same noise that Moonwatcher had
produced in his now almost forgotten encounter with Big-Tooth.
And the result, too, is much the same – the warthog gives one
amazed, indignant squeal, and collapses in a motionless heap.
Then the whole sequence begins again, but this time it unfolds
itself with incredible slowness. Every detail of the movement
can be followed; the stone arches leisurely through the air, the
pig crumples up and sinks to the ground. There the scene
freezes for long moments, the slayer standing motionless
above the slain, the first of all weapons in his hand.
The scene suddenly fades out. The cube is no more than a
glimmering outline in the darkness; the hominids stir, as if
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CONTINUED
awakening from a dream, realize where they are, and scuttle
back to their caves.
They have no conscious memory of what they had seen; but that
night, as he sits brooding at the entrance of his lair, his ears
attuned to the noises of the world around him, Moonwatcher
feels the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion – the urge
to kill. He had taken his first step towards humanity.
P.S. As I kept cutting words and sentences, I realized some must be left because Kubrick chose to film the set up to 2001 in slow motion, zooming in and out, trying to show what the creatures were thinking, using images to evoke their past and fears for the future. So the one page per minute may have worked with the original script. Don’t mess with the greats, but it was a useful exercise for me.
Assignment Two: As I scroll down the rough draft of my screenplay, a huge mess, I realize that it reads like a play with just dialogue and generic sets, because in my youth I acted in plays. There is some physical action but almost no unique description of locations, clothes, cars, houses, or anything. My novel has more description but since it is the third of a trilogy, it is coded, and most of the description is in the first two novels. Oh dear. I can’t cut what isn’t there. If I just insert a few words here and there describing the colors and shapes of objects and locations, that may not work. I may need a huge overhaul. Since the scripts I chose to analyze had things I lack, perhaps I should literally put the Magma Monsters into the script every few pages with VOICE OVERS (Yeah, I know you are supposed to avoid them), trying to imagine landscape in a way that can evoke all these symbols of time and history. Since my script is too short, this might work, but then it is a mess of all genre so it may turn into farce.
-
INT. COLONIAL BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they are sleeping, Jake hits Litonya, screaming and pushing her on the floor. She finishes her night on the spare bed and he returns to his damaged head snoring until morning. The sun struggles to scream sanity through the bay windows.JAKE
I am sorry about last night. It wasn’t me.
Her eyebrows lift in confusion. She has a bruise on her forehead where somnolent Jake hit her.JAKE
I wasn’t conscious. You know, like Lady Macbeth, I was sleep walking. I am really sorry.He kisses her. She doesn’t respond. He pulls out a diamond ring.
She closes the case.
LITONYA
I like rocks in their natural state, not jewels.JAKE
Fine. I will make you a rock ring.
LITONYA
I don’t want to get married.
JAKE
Not yet, I think. But when?
LITONYA
Never is a big word.
Jolly Jake jumps out of the room.JAKE
Okay, let’s get up the kids and I will drive you to work. We have time to let them play in Palisades Park.EXT PLAYGROUND PALISADES PARK
Jake and Litonya let their kids Anahu, four, and Aanadi 6 loose in an empty playground by the Hudson River. Frustrated with the jungle gym, Litonya stands below a solid little igneous pitch.
JAKE
Do you actually talk to rocks?LITONYA
Not in human language, though they understand all languages. They have a deeper understanding of time and space.
JAKE
Is this your god?
LITONYA
Not in the way you think of gods. But these rocks are my transcendence.
JAKE
I prefer the sparkling white butt blast of the Gunks or the gorgeous Manhattan rocks. These Palisades rocks are boring—too ugly for decoration and not good for climbing or construction.
LITONYA
They make sharp tools for cutting. They help us cut things out of our lives.JAKE
That could work. The older we get, the more we must cut things and people out. Cut out the plaque. Declutter. Stop wasting time with useless people and activities. Aanadi and Anahu don’t want to cut anything out on purpose. They are at the greedy, acquisitive, curious stage, eating up the world. We were all like this. What happened? There is an old seesaw!
Aanadi is two years older but about the same weight so they seesaw together. Jake’s ADHD bounces into his silly rhmes.
JAKE
When you hit the ground rebound with hope
Push down and never mope
You can cope with anything
Use soap and never take dope
Nope I am clean and mean
Delphine uses the microscopeKisele the telescope
Don’t be a misanthrope
Dad is stuffing envelopes
But mom is worse than an antelope
Strong legs and small brain
The pain of Alzheimer’s
We need the Bright Space Brain Buffet
I will hold your rope forever
If you marry me Litonya
I gave up beer
For fear of brain damage
Dear family I love you
My ears are going deaf
Anaadi wants to be a doctor
What a great career
Anahu wants to study Shakespeare
A historian like his grandad
Who reminds me of King Lear
What a great year be of good cheer
On the seesaw of hope and fear
Let’s eat cantaloupe
Litonya will you elope with meLITONYA
No social constraints..JAKE
I have heard that before.Aanadi falls when she hits the ground, rolls over, and bangs her head. Not dead. No more rhymes. Jake morphs into his EMS tech persona, disinfecting and bandaging, and checking the vital signs of his beloved child. He picks her up and back pedals to the boat but Litonya helps when he loses his balance. They make it. Delphine hugs Aanadi. She is in good hands. Betty drives the boat upriver while Jake drives Litonya to work at the Earth Observatory.
EXT. JAKE’S CAR – DAY
Litonya and Jake watch the row of igneous rocks along the Palisades as they drive to her workstation.JAKE
Back to the rocks. Do they really talk? Were they trying to hurt Aanadi? Life is a seesaw between hope and fear. Don’t fear. Be sincere. These mean rocks want to make us fear. If they are so powerful, can I make a deal with them to marry you, save my parents and everyone from neurodegenerative diseases, and keep us healthy and fit forever and ever?
MM VOICE OVER
Fate versus Will by MM and JakeOnce the deep,
emotional connection is established, you and your partner may begin to
experience the See-Saw Effect. This occurs when you push down an emotion
within you and it comes up in your partner, much like a see-saw when you touch
the ground and your partner lifts into the air. Somehow this codependent
catastrophe is occurring between Jake and us. -
In real life, I hate uncertainty and the uncertainty over Omicron is driving me nuts because it is sabotaging my ability to make cash with in person fitness. I revisited Sleepy Hollow at the height of autumn foliage a few weeks ago so I read the screenplay against Irving’s densely descriptive, short story. The following section is exhausting and too violent and action-packed for me–I would run out of the theater–but it illustrates the oscillation of hope and fear in the midst of danger. Replete with spinning rotors, windmills on fire, and near misses, the action is choreographed in a big, if cliche way, to keep the audience wondering whether the three good guys will escape Lady Van Tassel’s only too visceral witchery. An academic pedant, I am not used to writing this kind of dramatic strip-tease. And of course the kid is the hero —Young Masbath SMASHES Lady Van Tassel over the head
with the tree limb. and the good guys end up in Manhattan after an ordeal that would exhaust Superman and Batman. It is ironic it takes place in a town that really is the most peaceful around here. I loved Sleepy Hollow and want to go back in the winter.
FLASHBACK -- FOREST BATTLEFIELD (WESTERN WOODS) -- DAY The Girl watches the burial of the Horseman... and his Head dropped into the grave. LADY VAN TASSEL ... I offered my soul to Satan if he would raise the Hessian from the grave to avenge me. INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT Young Masbath, unseen, works his way quietly around behind Lady Van Tassel. KATRINA Avenge you? LADY VAN TASSEL Against Van Garrett, who evicted my family, against Baltus Van Tassel who, with wife and simpering girlchild, stole our home. I swore I would make myself mistress of all they had... (she cackles again) The easiest part was the first -- to enter your house as your mother's sick nurse and put her body into the grave, and my own into the marriage bed. Katrina cries out in horror. LADY VAN TASSEL (CONT'D) Not quite so easy was to secure my legacy... but lust delivered Reverend Steenwyck into my power. Fear did the same for the Notary Hardenbrook. The drunken Philipse succumbed for a share of the proceeds, and the Doctor's silence I exchanged for my complicity in his fornications... Masbath moves into the open, weapon raised. Katrina sees him and stifles a gasp. KATRINA (keeping Lady Van Tassel's attention) Yes! -- you have everything now. LADY VAN TASSEL No, my dear -- you do, by your father's will. But I get everything in the event of your death. (she cackles again) Lady Van Tassel's hand reaches for the Mystic Bauble on Katrina's neck. She rips it free. LADY VAN TASSEL (CONT'D) (as she does so) This pretty bauble, which I so kindly gave you to wear, has done it's work. My sister, by the way, sadly passed away... FLASHBACK -- OUTSIDE CRONE'S CAVE HOME -- DAY The Crone falls to the ground outside her cave, unconscious, beaten and bloodied. A hand -- Lady Van Tassel's hand -- enters FRAME to haul the Crone up by the hair, and WE SEE the Crone's bloodied features face to face with the wicked smile of Lady Van Tassel. INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT LADY VAN TASSEL ... quite recently. FLASHBACK -- OUTSIDE CRONE'S CAVE HOME -- DAY Lady Van Tassel holds a SWORD high, SWINGS DOWN... Then we see the separated Head and Torso... and the severed CORD, which had been around the Crone's neck... and Lady Van Tassel's Hand reaching for the Mystic Bauble, which had fallen free. INT. WINDMILL NIGHT Young Masbath is about ready to bring the mallet down upon Lady Van Tassel's head. KATRINA (keeping Lady Van Tassel's attention) It was the Crone you killed... your own sister... LADY VAN TASSEL She brought it upon herself... Like a whiplash, Lady Van Tassel turns cackling at Young Masbath -- she sensed him by witchery! LADY VAN TASSEL (CONT'D) (to Young Masbath) -- by helping you and your master! Young Masbath shrieks and drops the mallet. LADY VAN TASSEL (CONT'D) You are just in time to have your head sliced off! Katrina and Young Masbath run to each other for mutual comfort. LIGHTNING BRIGHTENS the forest. Lady Van Tassel looks up. LADY VAN TASSEL (CONT'D) The Horseman comes. And tonight he comes for you! EXT. WESTERN WOODS -- NIGHT The Horseman rides Daredevil, a freight train of moldering flesh... INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT Katrina and Young Masbath are holding hands, scared. Lady Van Tassel picks up the Horseman's skull in her gloved hand and puts up her face and gives out a long animal howl. Distantly, Daredevil is heard answering with a scream. Katrina and Young Masbath run. Lady Van Tassel has need to stop them. LADY VAN TASSEL Run! There is no escape! EXT. VAN TASSEL HOUSE, PORCH AND LAWN -- NIGHT Ichabod leaps from the coach, bounds up porch stairs... ICHABOD Katrina! Ichabod stops, sees FIRELIGHT at the Windmill. He runs... leaps back up to the coach and takes off... EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT THUNDER BOOMS. WIND HOWLS. Lady Van Tassel stands in the doorway with the skull in one hand, laughing. EXT. AROUND THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WINDMILL -- NIGHT Katrina and Young Masbath break out into the open. Ichabod drives toward them... KATRINA Ichabod! Ichabod meets them, halts the coach and jumps down (as the coach horses trot away), running to put his arms around Katrina and Young Masbath... ICHAB0D Thank God... Lady Van Tassel's mad laughter is heard. Ichabod and Katrina turn as... Lady Van Tassel rides from around the windmill on her white horse. She shrieks with laughter. ALONG THE TREELINE, the Horseman breaks into the open... Hell on horseback -- full speed ahead... LADY VAN TASSEL (0.S.) Have you come back to arrest him after all?! Ichabod thinks fast, moving to the windmill, leading Katrina and Young Masbath along with him. ICHABOD Quickly... ! Behind, wind tosses Lady Van Tassel's dress and hair. She holds the Horseman's skull high. LADY VAN TASSEL Mind your hat, Constable! Young Masbath scurries up the ladder and in. Katrina's next. Ichabod looks behind... The Horseman is almost upon them. Ichabod follows Katrina, pulling himself up. The Horseman arrives, dismounting, moving forward... INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT Ichabod leaps up, lifts the heavy trap door on its hinges, slams it. The door is POUNDED from outside, buckling. YOUNG MASBATH It won't hold. Ichabod goes to a large GRINDSTONE against a wall. He struggles to roll it... Young Masbath helps him roll it to the trapdoor. It falls on top with a THUD. Masbath jumps back as the Horseman's sword jabs up through the grindstone's center hole. The sword withdraws. POUNDING begins anew. EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The Horseman chops at the door with his axe. INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT POUNDING CONTINUES, Katrina and Young Masbath back away. Ichabod holds his lantern up, desperate for ideas, searching. Above, to the right, is the high MILLING PLATFORM, where grain is ground and bagged, and a ladder leading to it. To the left is the crooked, open STAIRCASE. Ichabod picks up a BAILING HOOK, a plan forming. He gives his lantern to Katrina and points. ICHABOD Get up these stairs. Open the door to the roof and wait. Katrina and Young Masbath obey, heading left. Ichabod crosses to the right, starts climbing the ladder to the milling platform... On the platform, Ichabod grasps a wooden lever, pulling it. The entire windmill CREAKS and GROANS as massive GEARS and COUNTERWHEELS above begin to turn. EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The windmill's rotors slowly begin spinning. UNDER THE WINDMILL, the Horseman keeps chopping... His axe exposes grindstone, throwing sparks. INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT Katrina looks down from the stairway. The POUNDING on the trap door causes the grindstone to jump. KATRINA Ichabod... ICHABOD Keep climbing. I will follow... (under his breath) Hopefully. Ichabod drags large BAGS of GRAIN, lining them up at the edge of the milling platform. ABOVE, Young Masbath throws open the door to the roof. BELOW, Ichabod uses the bailing hook to cut holes into the grain bags, so that MILLED GRAIN SPILLS out and falls to the floor, creating clouds of grain dust. Ichabod grabs one open bag, dumps it. He slices into a sack hanging from a pulley system, pushes it so it swings in circles, grain flooding out... More and more DUST RISES, filling the air... EXT. WINDMILL ROOF -- NIGHT Masbath and Katrina come out. Rotors spin behind them. INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The GRINDSTONE blocking the trap door FALLS THROUGH as wood splinters and gives. A moment, then the Horseman climbs in. KATRINA (looking in from above) Behind you! Ichabod looks down, sees the Horseman, then looks to the staircase adjacent from the high platform. He runs... He LEAPS across the space between the platform and stairs... Ichabod grasps the outer rail of the staircase, hanging on, pulls himself up onto the stairs... Below, the Horseman moves through clouds of billowing dust, runs and LEAPS, incredibly high... The Horseman grasps a hanging chain, swinging, his momentum carrying him in a wide arc... Above, Ichabod runs upstairs, to the roof door. The Horseman's weight swings him toward the stairwell... He releases the chain... airborne momentarily... The Horseman lands high up on the stairwell. EXT. WINDMILL ROOF -- NIGHT Katrina and Young Masbath help Ichabod onto the roof. KATRINA Quickly, close it! ICHABOD No... Ichabod takes the lantern from Katrina. ICHABOD (CONT'D) (points) Get to the crest of the roof and be ready to jump. YOUNG MASBATH Jump? From up here?! INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The Horseman clomps upstairs, axe in hand. EXT. WINDMILL ROOF -- NlGHT Ichabod shepherds Katrina and Young Masbath to the edge, where the rotors spin close. ICHABOD Jump for the sails! Wait till I give the word! KATRINA Ichabod!... I can't... ICHABOD Yes, you can, my love -- hand in hand... Ichabod moves back to the trap door. Katrina and Young Masbath look at the rotors, and down at the long distance between them and the ground. ICHABOD (CONT'D) Be ready... Ichabod DROPS the LANTERN into the windmill and runs... ICHABOD (CONT'D) Now! INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The Horseman continues up. The lantern falls past... EXT. WINDMILL, ROOF -- NIGHT Young Masbath jumps. Ichabod grips Katrina, jumps... They hit one rotor, gripping the frame and cloth as the rotor begins its DOWNWARD TURN... INT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The lantern hits the ground and shatters -- FLAMES EXPLODE! Throughout the windmill's interior, grain dust is consumed instantaneously -- FLAMES ROAR upward... FLAMES engulf the Horseman... EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT The rotor is halfway to its lowest point. Masbath, Katrina and Ichabod hang on as the ENTIRE STRUCTURE TREMBLES... Flames shoot out windows, doors and seams! On the rotor, Ichabod struggles to keep a grip on Katrina. Masbath drops. Ichabod and Katrina fall... They all hit the ground. Ichabod rolls over, gasping, holding his shoulders, getting to his feet... Ichabod, Katrina and Young Masbath run away as smoldering debris rains down. EXT. ACROSS THE FIELD -- NIGHT Ichabod ushers them along as they run, heading uphill. Lightning flashes across the sky. THUNDER RUMBLES. EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT Behind, the WINDMILL begins to CRUMBLE, huge burning sections crashing to the ground. EXT. ACROSS THE FIELD -- NIGHT Ichabod, Katrina and Young Masbath slow, looking back at the incredible conflagration. YOUNG MASBATH Is he dead? ICHABOD He was dead to start with -- that's the problem. KATRINA Look... EXT. WINDMILL -- NIGHT IN THE WINDMILL RUBBLE, the Horseman RISES, shoving off burning debris. His flame-ravaged uniform smolders. EXT. ACROSS THE FIELD -NIGHT Ichabod spins, searching for possibilities... He spots the COACH and HORSES not too far away... ICHABOD Come on! They flee toward the coach. Behind... Daredevil rides to rejoin the Horseman. EXT. THE ROAD FROM VAN TASSEL ESTATE -- NIGHT The coach hits the long straight road, rumbling at top speed away from the Van Tassel Estate, into the forest... Katrina and Masbath hold on as the coach shakes violently. KATRINA Where are we going? ICHABOD Anywhere! YOUNG MASBATH He's right behind! Behind on the trail, the Horseman chases, closing fast. KATRINA Make for the church! ICHABOD We'll never reach it! Young Masbath grabs Ichabod's satchel, offers it... YOUNG MASBATH Here, sir... you must have something in your bag of tricks. ICHABOD Nothing that will help us, I am afraid. Take the reins... Young Masbath takes them. Ichabod gives Van Ripper's rifle to Katrina, then crawls back across the coach roof. Ichabod gets to a baggage area at the rear, struggling to open a storage box. Behind, the Horseman draws his sword, closer. Ichabod opens the box and pulls out a jagged HAND SAW. KATRINA Look out... ! Ichabod looks. The Horseman rides up, SWINGS his sword... Ichabod recoils -- THWACK -- just missed. The Horseman lets the coach get ahead, shifting to the other side of the trail... coming along side again... Ichabod backpedals, looking to Masbath. ICHABOD Keep him off! Block him! Masbath guides the horses over. The Horseman must fall behind to avoid the wheels. One wheel hits a large rock... Ichabod bounces, falling, drops the saw... He hangs off the side of the coach. The saw clatters away on the trail. Ichabod tries for better purchase. He grips the coach door. Katrina climbs to offer her hand. KATRINA Take my hand! Ichabod reaches to her, but the coach door falls open... Ichabod's PISTOL falls from the holster and is lost on the trail. Ichabod clings helplessly to the door as branches slam him. EXT. BEHIND THE TRAIL The Horseman gets to his feet. Ahead, Daredevil stands waiting, giving a SCREECH. EXT. AHEAD ON THE TRAIL NEAR THE TREE OF THE DEAD Katrina and Ichabod rejoin Mashath, climb off the coach to examine the ruined wheel, panicked. ICHABOD This is not good. YOUNG MASBATH We're doomed. ICHABOD We have to get out of the open somehow. Quick, follow me... They turn to run, but suddenly falter, seeing... Riding over the crest of the hill, comes Lady Van Tassel, on her white horse, with Ichahod's lost pistol in her hand... EXT. NEAR FOREST -- NIGHT LADY VAN TASSEL What? Still alive?! Across the distance, the Horseman strides in this direction. ICHABOD Run, Katrina... Lady Van Tassel points her gun at Katrina. LADY VAN TASSEL Yes, do run. And jump. And skip. (she takes aim) And now let's see a somersault! ICHABOD Run! Ichahod makes a move toward Lady Van Tassel, but Lady Van Tassel aims and FIRES -- shoots Ichahod in the chest! Ichahod goes down... KATRINA No! Young Masbath cries out, falls to his knees beside Ichabod. Katrina moves toward Ichahod... Lady Van Tassel rides forward -- GRABS Katrina by the hair, PULLING HER, riding off toward the Horseman... Ichabod lays clutching the smoldering wound in his chest, gasping. Young Masbath holds him... YOUNG MASBATH Oh, God... no... no... Lady Van Tassel drags Katrina by the hair as Katrina screams and struggles and kicks. The Horseman keeps coming... Lady Van Tassel stops her horse, halfway to the Horseman, drops Katrina and starts riding back, shouting... LADY VAN TASSEL There she is. Take her, she's yours! Katrina gets up to run, stumbles, falls... The Horseman strides after... Up the field, Ichabod gets to his knees, feeling his chest with both hands, not quite understanding, struggling to shake off delirium... YOUNG MASBATH Sir, you're... you're not dead... ICHABOD Not... yet... Ichabod looks up, trying to comprehend... Lady Van Tassel had turned her horse, her back to us, keeping her distance from the Horseman. Beyond her, Katrina flees this direction with the Horseman at her heels. Ichabod's focused on something... The black SADDLEBAG slung over Lady Van Tassel's horse. Ichabod rises out of pure determination, runs... Katrina runs... the Horseman is closing on her. Lady Van Tassel watches, grinning, but at the last second something catches her eye and she turns, just as... Ichabod LEAPS... TACKLES Lady Van Tassel off of her horse, taking her down to the ground HARD... her bag falling open... The Horseman's skull rolling out... Ichabod scrambles toward the skull -- but falls, halted. Lady Van Tassel grips his leg, holding him. Young Masbath grabs a heavy, broken TREE LIMB off the ground. The Horseman is mere yards behind Katrina... Ichabod struggles to get free from Lady Van Tassel, can't break her grip when, BANG -- Young Masbath SMASHES Lady Van Tassel over the head with the tree limb. She's out. The Horseman catches Katrina... Ichabod scrambles free, running, reaching for the skull... grasping it... The Horseman holds Katrina ready by her hair as she falls to her knees, screaming and struggling. The Horseman raises his sword... Ichabod rises, THROWS the skull with all his might... ICHABOD (CONT'D) Horseman! The skull spins through the air... The Horseman suddenly drops Katrina, reaches up with one hand... catches the skull. Katrina runs. Ichabod runs to meet her, grabs her as she falls. Together, they back away from the Horseman... The Horseman holds the skull out... brings it to his shoulders, to its rightful place. THUNDER POUNDS. TRANSFORMATION begins -- blood and flesh rise up from the Horseman's throat and grip the skull... Young Masbath watches in awe. The Horseman's reformation continues. Muscle forms. Liquids become solids. He is made whole once more, the same evil, human face we saw in Baltus's stories. The Horseman looks to Ichabod and Katrina, touches his restored face. Daredevil rides up, SCREECHING. The Horseman replaces his sword, climbs into the saddle. He rides toward Katrina and Ichabod, but he does not want them. They are so exhausted they fall down. Young Masbath comes to stand with them. The Horseman leans to grab Lady Van Tassel's unconscious form, pulls her up across Daredevil's back. The Horseman rides away with her. Ichabod and Katrina watch him go. They look at each other, then kiss gratefully. Ichabod looks to Young Masbath... ICHABOD (CONT'D) How are you, Young Masbath? YOUNG MASBATH Weary, sir. Ichabod holds out his arm. Masbath comes over. They embrace. Katrina touches the burned bullet hole in Ichabod's clothing. KATRINA I thought I had lost you. Ichabod reaches into his clothing, takes out a BOOK he kept in an inner pocket close to his heart... The BOOK OF SPELLS with a bullet lodged in it. Katrina wraps her arms around Ichabod. EXT. WESTERN WOODS, TREE OF THE DEAD -- NIGHT HOOFBEATS. The Horseman enters the clearing, holding on to Lady Van Tassel. Ahead, the Tree of the dead awaits. Lady Van Tassel is awakening... The Horseman grips Lady Van Tassel's hair, pulling her face up closer to his, just as she opens her eyes... Lady Van Tassel screams... As the Horseman brings his face to meet hers, about to engage in a KISS, his jagged teeth open wide. Ahead, the twisted tree's wound opens, deep and glowing, as Daredevil picks up speed. EXT. WESTERN WOODS, TREE OF THE DEAD -- NIGHT Daredevil JUMPS in the air just as a LIGHTNING BOLT blasts down from the sky, striking the Horseman... For an instant, Horseman and horse are transformed, SKELETONS OF LIGHT, entering the tree! Silence and smoke. At the tree, Lady Van Tassel's hand sticks out from the tight-shut suture. The sewn wound on her palm seeps blood as her fingers curl. EXT. NEW YORK CITY STREET, ICHABOD'S HOME -- DAY A coach pulls up to Ichabod's home. Ichabod is the driver. He gets off, goes and opens the coach door. He helps Katrina down. Next, Young Masbath sticks his head out. Katrina holds Young Masbath's hand. Ichabod comes to hold Katrina's hand. A STRAY CAT watches them -- Young Masbath looks entranced at the BUSTLING METROPOLIS. YOUNG MASBATH Oh, my! KATRINA (equally impressed) And cobbled streets! ICHABOD (proudly) Yes... New York, New York! Just in time for the new century! It's the modern age, Katrina! KATRINA It's always the modern age, Ichabod ... but the ancient ones endure. Large snowflakes begin to fall upon the scene. Ichabod puts an arm around Katrina and the other arm around Masbath. The CAT is black with one white paw... the Cat from Ichabod's dreams... The CAT turns to look at the trio. ECU -- The CAT'S EYES ARE HUMAN, INTELLIGENT, KINDLY... They are Ichabod's Mother's eyes. Ichabod, Katrina and Young Masbath enter Ichabod's house, as the SNOW continues to fall. -
In my project I am confused about what should be a hook, what anticipatory dialogue, suspense, mystery, surprise etc. and how they differ from set-ups and pay-offs. So I am imagining I am Stanley Kubrick and thinking of a spectacular zoom in and out aerial view of the NJ Palisades igneous rock to personify this rock in a way comparable to the tandem narration I have of these rocks alternating with Jake in the novel. I am playing with using a Voice Over for these rocks to see if I can hook viewers although pushing all these devices into what was a thin thriller script risks making it explode into farce. That might be just fine.
EXT. PALISADES – DAY
We PAN along the flat ridge of the New Jersey Palisades, revealing dark brown, uniform rock sandwiched in between a crown of green forest leaves on top and the reflecting rushing waters of the Hudson River below. The MAGMA MONSTERS are a we chorus of these personified igneous rocks.MM
I know you love to admire us from your Metro North train as you move north up the Hudson River. The Lenape Indians called us a row of trees but we are stacked as steady and stalwart as West Point soldiers bored to death until they shoot. You need some stability in between manic Manhattan (CUT TO NYC skyline) and the Hudson Highlands (up and down rocks with more personality.) Still as stone. Hard as a rock. In your changing world, rocks provide comfort, housing, beauty, climbing….Suddenly a group of rocks break away as they CRASH into the river.
Oops!
In the spring of 2020, you complain about your lockdowns because of the
Coronavirus pandemic. How would you like to be locked down for millions of
years, mistaken for a stagnant row of stone trees instead of the splendid
volcanoes that change lives? We are not monsters. We never blew our tops–we
seeped into sedimentary rock, were uplifted, and by the time Father Sky eroded
the mountain enough to let us breathe, our heads were sawed-off so that our columns
looked to the Lenape First Peoples like a row of trees. Now trees grow out of
our rock giving us a red foliage glow in autumn, meek combined to the luscious
lava that gets attention. In 2020 we stand at attention in between West Point
Academic and Manhattan. We tell this story to get your attention, to express
ourselves, and to see inside your bodies and up and down the Hudson from NYC to
Montreal. Sadly, for us, happily for you, we have been still for eons, stalwart
and steady soldiers, guarding the Hudson River valley, as silent and obedient
as soldiers. We never had a climactic explosion out of the top of our heads
like Vesuvius or Mt. St. Helene. After heating up in our magma chamber, we rose
through our vents and seeped into sedimentary sandwiches, buttering up the
slabs like a hot club sandwich. But then we were smothered by uplifting and
sustained years of eroding before we were exposed as the Palisades. We learned
to see the past and the future and to hear the dances inside your bodies like a
microscope and faraway like a telescope.CUT TO IBRAHIM’s telescope on the SUMMIT ROOF.
The HOOK could be BB pulling a fish out of the East River as he camps disguised as a homeless man. But the overarching hook is the personification of the Magma Monsters as has-been igneous rock, frustrated in the longest lockdown.
-
What I learned is that although I understand this dramaturgy on a theoretical level, I have been eschewing the irritating questions that should begin every scene and chapter and must eventually rewrite everything in my tandem competitive narrative, planting positive expectations for Jake and apocalyptic ones for the Magma Monsters who are linked to BB/Betty and Ibrahim and climate catastrophes.
Meanwhile I focused on a scene after the Feldmans’ funeral.
EXT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
BB is scrubbing a boat. Ibrahim passes by. There is enough space and silence around them for a straight-up conversation.
IBRAHIM
So what happens to their beautiful empty Colonial?
BB
Mine.IBRAHIM
The Feldman parents hated you even more than me. You can’t tell me Rodney gave it to you?
BB
I’ll be sleeping in the master bedroom when I am not building boats with Kisele and then floating in them peacefully on our Hudson River.
IBRAHIM
I don’t see this happening.
BB
But why? I am the boy’s best boat dad and he loves boats more than anything.IBRAHIM
Litonya won’t let this happen. Nor will Jake.BB
In this scenario, Jake is impotent. And Litonya is so wrapped up in rocks, studying earth’s temper tantrums, to take note of that house. She always hated it.IBRAHIM
If your happy dream materializes, do you still work for me, for us?BB
Course. I like the action. But my hours will be mine. Don’t deadline me.IBRAHIM
Does CS still have something to do with Kisele’s trust fund?BB
Yeah. I am on her. Watching. Waiting. She can’t be trusted. I will eventually take care of it.
Meanwhile enjoy your family while everyone is safe and healthy.Ibrahim leaves quickly as he allows has something to do, quickly clicking into his phone.
INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
BB and 11 year old Kisele are cleaning out the master bedroom.
KISELE
We should give their clothes to the poor.
BB
Sure. I will drive them over to the Salvation Army.
Kisele puts some back on the rack.KISELE
I have a better idea.BB
For a new boat design?
KISELE
That too. But we must be philanthropic.BB
That’s why we are going to the Salvation Army.KISELE
Charity begins at home.
BB
But this home is empty and you are staying in the solar house. Do you want to move in?KISELE
Maybe. But I invited their brothers and sister back cuz they are now homeless in Manhattan.BB
You what?
KISELEKeith has a car though he doesn’t have a house so he will drive everyone up this weekend.
BB
They won’t like it here. They are Manhattanites.KISELE
They can go back and forth on our boats.BB
That’s a terrible idea. Of course maybe they will drown.
KISELE
Then we can save them. Jake is teaching me CPR.BB
Great. The Feldmans are takers, not givers. They grab and go as they did in Manhattan. They don’t make their beds, contribute cash to the household, or clean up after themselves. Sometimes they don’t even clean themselves and they stink even when people are wearing masks. Do you think they should be here during a pandemic?KISELE
I am sure they have been vaccinated. We can take care of them. You are great at cleaning and me and the other kids should learn how to cook and take care of people. We aren’t the Me generation.
BB
Whatever kid. You’re the boss. Now let me show you some new boats you would love.He pulls out his phone as Kisele oohs and ahs.
But there is MONTAGE of the housekeeping disaster as Keith, Lana, and Storm storm through the Colonial, causing damage in every way. BB sprays his COVID sanitizer everywhere but the men are vaccinated. However Lana is not because she follows Gary Null and Kennedy and wears an anti-vaxx t-shirt. She is found rigor mortis on the toilet and taken out by Jake and BB’s son Joe the firefighter. One down, two to go.
-
I like the idea of anticipatory dialogue for atypical scenes, i.e. not in the woods hunting for a serial killer because that already creates suspense. I have trouble making the reader turn the page in sweet scenes. In this scene, two forty year old friends have a nightcap Hanukkah 2020 by the fireplace but the talk evolves into making a Will, something anyone can identify with, something that will instantly have the audience or reader worry about their future. There is secret conflict between the men because Rodney later dies of COVID that night and Jake lives with his wife and has a child but succumbs to Parkinson’s as he ages. It is a set-up for a pay-off when Rodney’s parents die of COVID, heart attacks, and mutual orgasms on their bed upstairs forcing the men to perform CPR during COVID and get infected. Needless to say, BB sprayed the COVID sanitizer everywhere around the Colonial during the party but he has a habit of disappearing successfully.
INT. COLONIAL – EVENING
JAKE
My beloved deceased wife Priceless had a suicide note but not a Will.
RODNEY
But she didn’t have a real estate.
JAKE
She never had the sculpture made of her in her prime that was good enough to be in the American Wing at the MET. That was her dream. Now that will have to use her photos and films. You must have a Will.RODNEY
Of course. I have a son and a wife. My parents left everything to me to give to them as I choose, and I choose. I even did my Will with a lawyer. You want my lawyer’s name?
JAKE
Can’t pay him. Virtual fitness doesn’t make as much as the real thing. My parents are still living, and I don’t have any significant assets because I tend to spend money as soon as I make it–I live life. I don’t save for the future. But I have a daughter, I mean, not officially, only by genes and blood.
RODNEY
And rape. I remember. But legally Mina belongs to Fadma, and Ibrahim is there as financial back-up. You don’t want to complicate the kid’s life.
JAKE
I love kids. I wanted Priceless to get pregnant. I feel sometimes like Kisele is my kid.
RODNEY
We appreciate your babysitting, but he is mine. You don’t have to leave him anything in your Will.
JAKE
keep thinking I will marry again or make money or maybe adopt a kid, so it is hard to make Will decisions now.
RODNEY
You never know when you are going to go.
JAKE
I feel badly that you have been alone most of your married life and now Litonya is in jail.
RODNEY
That is life. At least I have my health, sort of. My parents were lucky in a way. I spent a lot of time on my Living Will.Talkative Jake is surprisingly silent for a few minutes.
JAKE
I love life.
RODNEY
I love my family and I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. That is what we spent the most time on–the Living Will. If I can’t take care of my family, forget me.
JAKE
Look at my dad. Everyone takes care of him, and he still lectures.
RODNEY
But he is a history professor–his brain doesn’t need a body. My brain is connected to my hands. For years my brain would barely let me talk.
JAKE
Dude–I am so glad you don’t stutter anymore, even in public with girls and all!
RODNEY
So if I have a heart attack, stroke, or get Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s, terminal cancer, or deadly diabetes, sign me out. DNR. Or I will go to Canada, Oregon, Scandinavia or whatever. I don’t want anyone to diaper my dick.
JAKE
Eventually dicks die down anyway and it’s just another useless piece of meat. But some nurses are so cute, they might revive me. If my hands shake too much, I could be happy just listening to music–
RODNEY
You are already getting a bit deaf.
JAKE
Then I will get a hearing aid. I love fitness but if my legs go, I’ll do wheelchair aerobics; if I go blind, I will finally get that massage license. They have all kinds of cancer treatments so I would fight that motherfucker till the end. No matter how tired I am, I never lose my appetite for life. I would get something out of a coma!
RODNEY
Come on, Dude–you are delusional. But if you really believe all this, you better write a special Living Will that keeps you living because by the time the Baby Boomers exhaust Medicare, we may not be able to afford endless medical treatment.
Jake starts doing push-ups and sit-ups.
JAKE
My parents are leaving me money for long-term care, although their colonial mansion goes immediately to the Huguenot Historical Society. They don’t trust me with that house–never did. Remember our first teenage party?
RODNEY
Yeah. I own my parents’ , antique car garage which Litonya would hate, and that dollhouse that needs new babies. I would love to have more kids.
JAKE
Is there a way to get Litonya pregnant so she can have another kid?
RODNEY
Very complicated. I keep trying.
JAKE
Anyway, you convinced me to see your lawyer to make a Living Will that keeps me living as long as possible. Since you want to “die at the right time,” and leave your best to the next generation, you better have more kids. Would you consider divorcing Litonya?
RODNEY
Never. You know how loyal I am.
JAKE
I wish she were as nice a person as you. But she is so connected to the earth that she is almost otherworldly in her superwoman magnificence. Remember when we first saw her naked in the wilderness climbing that waterfall?
RODNEY
Never forget it.
JAKE
Funny that you had Priceless before me. Did you love her as much as L?
RODNEY
I don’t think about all these things. I loved Priceless when I was with her but figured she might be using me. When I saw you two, I realized that you were more compatible than I was. You have always been my best friend, so I had no problem giving her up. A marriage with Priceless would have been difficult.
JAKE
But a marriage to a prisoner was even more difficult.
RODNEY
At least we have Kisele. She is so busy with her research and then–Look, before your optimism makes you forget that you are theoretically terminal, here is my lawyer’s card.
JAKE
Thanks Dude. And give me your Will on my cell phone–just in case I am there and need to follow it.
RODNEY
Except that how can you unplug me or refuse CPR or antibiotics or even food and water for me if you want eternal care? Wouldn’t that be going against your principles?
JAKE
I also value our everlasting friendship. All friendship is based on accepting differences. What is good for you may not be good for me and vice versa. I am there for you, buddy.
RODNEY
Should we give up alcohol completely?
JAKE
One cold beer is okay on a hot day or a hot toddy to chase the cold away. Yeah, I want to live forever. But pain could be a problem. I would have to become a drug addict if pain got too much. What’s that noise?
RODNEY
Parents having sex on their waterbed.
JAKE
Can’t believe they are doing it in their seventies in the middle of a pandemic and I must satisfy myself at 40. Gotta hand it to them, bro, keepin the flame alive for more than forty years.
RODNEY
Better than me and Litonya.
JAKE
Give yourself a break. She’s only been out of prison six months and she must spend so much time at Lamont finishing her PhD.
RODNEY
True, but I wish I could satisfy her more..His parents’ moans are getting orgasmic.
JAKE
Do they know we can hear them?
RODNEY
I think they think everyone left. We all keep curfews because of COVID.
Suddenly Jen screams, “Help! Help!”
They run upstairs but when they open their bedroom door, she has stopped. They are silenced, wrapped in each other’s arms, naked. Jake uses his CPR skills to look, listen, and feel for a pulse. Nada. Rodney covers his parents’ private parts and begins compressions, sloshing around on the waterbed.JAKE
You gotta put them on a hard surface..Rodney is sweating, looking like he is about to pass out.
RODNEY
Careful. It takes all our strength to move his obese mom whom Jake immediately starts compressing. When they rotate, they bring down his dad and Rodney continues pounding on his mom. Hard and fast. But not hard and fast enough because it is his mom.
JAKE
We need an AED. Calling Joe to see if he can come over. He has fresh ones in his trucks. There aren’t any restaurants open now around here.
RODNEY
Shit. You called 911?
JAKE
Yeah, but this is the country. We should get them into a car and take them there ourselves, but we need Joe and the AED. Joe doesn’t answer. Maybe he is doing something for the FDNY.
They do mouth to mouth without worrying about protective barriers because these are their parents, well, they are like second parents to Jake. After about ten minutes of exhausting work, SIRENS. EMS arrive in space suits, COVID careful, and immediately try to shock them with AED. The four of them succeed in bringing this loving couple, weighing about 500 pounds between them downstairs.
RODNEY
Where are we going?The medics reply
Kingston is closest. There could be traffic on the bridge to Poughkeepsie. -
I chose Bonfire of the Vanities despite its contemporary political incorrectness, it has the stunning jewel opening, overview of Manhattan, and dethroning the rich guys who fall into salmon mousse or reveal their egregious flaws such as sloth, greed, marital infidelity, and always–lying. I like words like “black diamonds spilling into peripheral vision,” “frantic ballet,”
and Judy the fashionable UES woman who abuses exercise because of perfectionism and anorexia. There is a visceral energy that captures NYC and a sense of the aerial views zooming in and out of well-placed symbolic objects such as the kaleidoscopic jewel box and the personification of Sherman the dog. These stereotypes won’t work now but the strong, shotgun boldness of the cinematic writing that adapts a popular novel based on the reality of Wall Street at this time is something to emulate as I struggle to adapt three New York novels to the screen. Glittering, shining, and speeding is what I must do with my elderly brain until I get to the neurodegenerative diseases near the end. Perhaps this energy is more for my second novel, Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan.
ST MOTION — a kaleidoscopic jewel box —
glittering, shining and speeding PAST our eyes.
2 ANGLE 2
MOVING south TO north FROM the Battery and the World
Trade Center, streets and buildings FLIPPING PAST like
black diamonds spilling INTO our peripheral vision and
DISAPPEARING as we SPEED uptown TOWARD…
3 FIFTH AVENUE – NIGHT 3
Cars and people caught in the same frantic ballet of
shining lights as we RACE UP the avenue, and the voice
of Peter Fallow speaks to us…
PETER (V.O.)
Yes. We’re getting closer. Can
you feel it. Can you see it?
The heat. The brilliance. Moving
fast into the heart of it. Buzz.
Buzz. Can you feel the buzz? The
city is pulling you in. The city
of light. The city of diabolical
promise. The city of answered
prayers.
4 OMITTED 4
thru thru
11 11
A11A EXT. STREET – LIMOUSINE – NIGHT A11A
pulls up to the World Financial Center and drives into
the lower garage.
A11B INT. LOADING AREA – LIMOUSINE – NIGHT A11B
pulls up. A male and female aide — both carrying
walkie-talkies — rush to open the door. They pry PETER
FALLOW from the back seat. He is wearing a tuxedo and
dark glasses. He is very drunk, disheveled and cheerful
beyond his means. CONTINUE IN ONE SHOT as…
TWO AIDES
try to lead Fallow into the building. Fallow is clutching a whiskey decanter and a seltzer bottle. He leans
heavily on the aides, stumbles and can barely stay on his
feet.
(CONTINUED)
)T( BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES – Rev. 5/25/90 2. *
A11B CONTINUED: A11B
MINI CART
approaches. The aides flag it down and throw Fallow onto
the cart. The cart carries him past the garbage container into a long tunnel-like corridor.
FALLOW
sways on the cart, trying to mix a drink for himself —
he pulls a glass out of one pocket and some ice cubes out
of another pocket. But he is physically incompetent.
FEMALE AIDE
jumps onto the cart and tries to hold him up. The male
aide runs alongside the cart.
VARIOUS WAITERS
in black tie carry covered silver trays as they trot
through the tunnel.
VARIOUS BUSBOYS
come running in the other way, pushing carts filled with
dirty dishes and glasses.
CART
comes to the end of the tunnel and jerks to a halt.
Fallow loses his balance and sprays the female aide with
soda water.
MALE AIDE
pulls Fallow off the cart and continues to lead him
through a dark, red-lit area. Several security guards
run to meet them. The guards and the aide now escort
Fallow through the area.
A FEW PHOTOGRAPHERS
pop out of nowhere, trying to get a picture. The guards
push them away and lead Fallow into a lighted corridor.
FOREIGN DIPLOMAT
and his wife and daughter join the entourage as they head
for an elevator. The diplomat offers Fallow a pen and a
book to autograph.
Fallow misses the pen and falls face down into the
breasts of the diplomat’s daughter. The guards pull him
into the elevator.
(CONTINUED)MINI CART
approaches. The aides flag it down and throw Fallow onto
the cart. The cart carries him past the garbage container into a long tunnel-like corridor.
FALLOW
sways on the cart, trying to mix a drink for himself —
he pulls a glass out of one pocket and some ice cubes out
of another pocket. But he is physically incompetent.
FEMALE AIDE
jumps onto the cart and tries to hold him up. The male
aide runs alongside the cart.
VARIOUS WAITERS
in black tie carry covered silver trays as they trot
through the tunnel.
VARIOUS BUSBOYS
come running in the other way, pushing carts filled with
dirty dishes and glasses.
CART
comes to the end of the tunnel and jerks to a halt.
Fallow loses his balance and sprays the female aide with
soda water.
MALE AIDE
pulls Fallow off the cart and continues to lead him
through a dark, red-lit area. Several security guards
run to meet them. The guards and the aide now escort
Fallow through the area.
A FEW PHOTOGRAPHERS
pop out of nowhere, trying to get a picture. The guards
push them away and lead Fallow into a lighted corridor.
FOREIGN DIPLOMAT
and his wife and daughter join the entourage as they head
for an elevator. The diplomat offers Fallow a pen and a
book to autograph.
Fallow misses the pen and falls face down into the
breasts of the diplomat’s daughter. The guards pull him
into the elevator.
(CONTINUED)
)T( BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES – Rev. 5/25/90 3. *
A11B CONTINUED: (2) A11B
CART OF FOOD
is in the elevator — a tray of salmon mousse in the
shape of a three-foot salmon. The elevator starts to
move. Fallow falls into the mousse. The aide pulls him
up and tries to clean him off.
ELEVATOR DOORS
open. Fallow is led out of the elevator. Several other
aides approach him and pull off his soiled jacket and
shirt and change them for fresh ones as they move.
SOME BROADWAY AUTOGRAPH HOUNDS
rush Fallow, snapping pictures with little Instamatics
and trying to get an autograph.
FALLOW
is led through the corridor and into…
WINTERGARDEN
A ten story glass atrium. A black tie party. A sixtyfoot banner with Fallow’s name on it. Wild applause.
But before Fallow can get his bearings…
WALL OF FLASHING CAMERAS
obliterate the view. Fallow staggers, clutching his head
and we…
DISSOLVE TO:
11A EXT. PARK AVE. APARTMENT – SKYLIGHT – EVENING 11A
THROUGH the skylight we can see Sherman McCoy on his
hands and knees on the green marble foyer of this lavish
apartment chasing the family dachshund, trying to attach
a leash.
PETER (V.O.)
… And it begins on a rainy
night, only a few months ago.
SHERMAN
Come on, Marshall. Come here.
Stay. Come on. Stay.
12 INT. McCOY APARTMENT – SHERMAN – EVENING 12
The dog escapes. Sherman smacks his perfect WASP knee
on the perfect marble floor.
(CONTINUED)
)T( BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES – Rev. 5/25/90 3A.
12 CONTINUED: 12
PETER (V.O.)
Our hero, Sherman McCoy, was about
to make a simple phone call. And
despite the existence of eleven
telephones and seven different
lines in the fourteen rooms of his
six million dollar plus apartment,
this was a phone call he could not
make at home.
JUDY (O.S.)
What on earth are you doing?
13 ANGLE – JUDY McCOY 13
standing over Sherman, who continues to struggle with
the dog.
(CONTINUED)
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES – Rev. 4/18/90 4.
13 CONTINUED: 13
SHERMAN
I am taking the dog for a walk.
JUDY
You are not taking the dog for a
walk. You are taking ‘Marshall’
for a walk. Marshall has a name.
He is one of our family. And,
anyway, it’s raining.
SHERMAN
I know that.
The DOG GROWLS and snaps at Sherman.
JUDY
So does Marshall. I don’t think
he wants to go. Do you, Marshall? *
SHERMAN
Judy…
JUDY
Alright. Alright.
Sherman gets the leash fastened. He stands up, pulls
on a rubberized British riding mac. Judy flicks a tiny
plastic bag out of a cleverly-concealed container and
hands it to Sherman.
JUDY
Have a nice time.
14 OMITTED 14
& &
15 15
15A INT. McCOY APARTMENT BUILDING – LOBBY – SHERMAN – NIGHT 15A
pulls Marshall out of the elevator. MARSHALL SQUEALS and
drags his nails across the lobby, trying desperately to
avoid this walk.
DOORMAN
He don’t look too happy about it,
Mr. McCoy.
SHERMAN
Neither am I, Bill.
(CONTINUED)
5. *
15A CONTINUED: 15A
DOORMAN
Tony, sir. My name is Tony.
SHERMAN
Yes, of course. Come on, Marshall.
15B EXT. APT. BUILDING – SHERMAN – NIGHT 15B
is dragging Marshall out of the building as a limo pulls
up and the immaculately-dressed POLLARD BROWNING gets
out. He looks at Sherman, Sherman’s clothes and Sherman’s
dog. He doesn’t approve. As they pass each other under
the awning…
POLLARD
Hello, Sherman.
SHERMAN
Good evening, Pollard.
POLLARD
You know it’s raining, don’t you?
SHERMAN
Yes. As a matter of fact, I did
notice.
POLLARD
Ah, Sherman. A true friend to
man’s best friend.
SHERMAN
Pollard, you old phrase-maker.
POLLARD
I beg your pardon.
SHERMAN
I mean, is that the best you can
do? Is that as witty as we get?
As Pollard enters the building and Sherman drags Marshall
away…
POLLARD
I don’t know what you’re talking
about. And furthermore, if you
plan on being wet when you return,
I suggest you take the service
elevator.
16 ANGLE – PHONE BOOTH 16
Sherman drags Marshall to the phone.
(CONTINUED)
6.
16 CONTINUED: 16
They are both
already soaking wet. Sherman dials a number. A woman
answers.
WOMAN (V.O.)
(on phone)
Hello?
SHERMAN
Maria! Hello. It’s me.
WOMAN (V.O.)
Who?
SHERMAN
Oh. Sorry. May I speak to Maria?
WOMAN (V.O.)
Who is this?
SHERMAN
Maria?
Brief pause, then…
WOMAN (V.O.)
Sherman?
Sherman is about to say “yes” when he catches himself.
CUT TO:
17 INT. McCOY APARTMENT – JUDY – NIGHT 17
is on the phone.
JUDY
Sherman, is that you?
18 EXT. PHONE BOOTH – SHERMAN – NIGHT 18
realizes what he’s done. He freezes. Then he hangs up.
SHERMAN
Jesus!
19 INT. McCOY APARTMENT – JUDY – NIGHT 19
looks at the phone, then puts it down.
CUT TO:
20 EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING – SHERMAN – NIGHT 20
is dragging Marshal back into the building.
7.
21 INT. McCOY BEDROOM – JUDY – NIGHT 21
is on her exercise bike, pedaling furiously. She can
hear Sherman coming into the apartment.
SHERMAN (O.S.)
Well, we’re back!
22 ANGLE – DOG 22
comes scampering into the bedroom followed by Sherman.
SHERMAN
Well, you were right. I got
soaking wet and Marshall didn’t do
anything.
He heads for the bathroom, grabs a towel.
JUDY
Sherman, if you want to talk to
somebody named Maria, why do you
call me instead?
Sherman pokes his head into the room.
SHERMAN
If I what? Whatever do you mean?
JUDY
Please don’t lie. It makes your *
forehead crinkle. *
SHERMAN
About what? Wait a minute. What
are we talking about?
JUDY
You should see your face. It’s a *
veritable roadmap of tension and *
deceit. *
SHERMAN
I’m sorry, but I don’t get it.
Have I missed something?
JUDY
Darling, the only thing you’re *
missing is common sense. You’re *
going to stand there and tell me
you didn’t call here and ask to
speak to some Maria?
SHERMAN
Who?
(CONTINUED)
8.
22 CONTINUED: 22
JUDY
You think I don’t know your voice?
SHERMAN
Judy, I was out walking the dog.
I was not on the telephone.
JUDY
Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. *
SHERMAN
I’m not lying. I took Marshal for
a walk, and I come back in here
and wham — I mean I hardly know
what to say. You’re asking me to
prove a negative proposition.
JUDY
‘Negative proposition’?! Oh, God,
Sherman. Listen to the way I
sound. Listen to the stress. Can *
you hear it? I don’t want to be *
this person. I don’t. I am thin.
I am beautiful. I don’t deserve
this.
She gets off the bike, grabs a robe and heads for the
door.
SHERMAN
Judy…
JUDY
There’s the phone. Why don’t you
just call her from here? I don’t
care. I really don’t care. You
are cheap and rotten and a liar, *
and you are dripping on the *
Aubusson carpet. *
She goes. Sherman collapses in a chair. He looks at
the phone.
PETER (V.O.)
She was right, of course. And
Sherman knew it. Christ. How
could he have been so stupid? A
simple phone call…
DISSOLVE TO:
23 INT. McCOY APARTMENT – CAMPBELL McCOY – DAY 23
is running through the apartment toward the front door.
She is seven years old.
9.
24 ANGLE – SHERMAN 24
descending the five-foot wide walnut staircase that leads
from the second floor to the marble foyer. In this view,
we can see that Sherman McCoy — like his surroundings —
is impeccably designed and dressed.
PETER (V.O.)
The next morning, Judy’s words
were still ringing in his ears.
Cheap. Rotten. And a liar.
Alright. But was it really his
fault. In a way she had brought
it on herself, hadn’t she?
He intercepts Campbell at the foot of the stairs.
SHERMAN
Campbell, honey. Are we ready?
CAMPBELL
I’m out of here.
SHERMAN
Slow down. Where’s your mother?
JUDY (O.S.)
Campbell!
CAMPBELL
She’s crying on the lifecycle.
PETER (V.O.)
On the lifecycle again. You see?
Like all those other women she
spends so much time with. So
drawn, so pale. You could see
lamplight through their bones…
As Sherman picks up his briefcase and a copy of the
newspaper, Campbell opens the door and rings for the
elevator.
25 ANGLE – JUDY 25
approaches them looking pale and thin and drawn, dressed
in exercise clothes, sweating and still crying. She
looks like she’s spent a sleepless night.
JUDY
She won’t kiss me because I’m all
wet.
SHERMAN
Campbell, kiss your mother.
-
My crisis scene is not ready yet but I played with the crucible, lies, subtext, conflict, misleads/reveals, hyperbole, understatement, time crunch, and got a surprise for me and the audience so that Litonya had secretly married Ibrahim in Mecca a few months previous though she is Jake’s common law wife.
EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – EVENING
Betty can barely walk and her eyes are rolling as she greets Jake and Litonya who arrive in a rowboat. Ibrahim is conked out on a couch on the deck with the remains of an elegant meal on a table before him.
BETTY
I did what you said. I am not a doc, but he looks gone and I am going. Go ahead. The drugs are downstairs.When Jake’s back is turned, Ibrahim springs from the sofa and grabs him. The fight makes Jake lose his PD balance. Betty is floundering near the table but Litonya rushes towards us. At seventy, she still has the strength of a forty-something woman or even man. She separates them as Ibrahim glares at her.
IBRAHIM
Choose.Litonya backs off. She never liked people enough to be a martial artist. Betty’s southern drawl comes to the rescue.
BETTY
Since it’s the drugs you want, yall can just mosey down to the hull where you’ll find ’em in bright blue boxes labelled Bright Space Brain Buffet..As Jake and Litonya iwalk down those short, rickety stairs, Betty slams and locks the door.
This lab only has four high tech computer stations, no animals of course, and no active vials and tubes. Jake rushes towards that blue door to open it, grabbing two boxes that look purple but are correctly labelled Bright Space Brain Buffet. It opens like a suitcase. He grabs the pills labelled “hormone balancing.” Done. Then he assembles the injection kit for the “plaque clearance.” Suicidal people hit the temple. Did it! Last he applies the non-invasive brain stimulator around his scalp. It is like a vibrator, nothing invasive or painful. Then he sits beside Litonya and open up a computer, looking at sights, listening to sounds, typing almost as quickly as he used to, but gets distracted by her beautiful face, youthfully smooth and cinnamon, her long, straight, silky, newly dyed black hair, and the strong body that makes him feel love in his crotch, a gift from the Bright Space Brain Buffet. He squirms and smiles. Litonya is not distracted. She never is. She is a genius.JAKE
Darling, here they are. Don’t you want your suitcase of precious drugs?
She shakes her head. Always a woman of few words.JAKE
I can inject you.” She shakes no, her eyes stay on her screen.JAKE
Put this fabulous stimulator on your brain to improve whatever you are doing now. Feels great—just like a vibrator..
Then I remember she never needed vibrators. When I first saw her in 1998, she was having orgasms naked while climbing a rock waterfall. So she doesn’t need man-made or woman-made or LGBTQ-made drugs. She is linked to higher spirits in rocks, trees, and water. FLASHBACK.But now Jake wants her so his fingers find the right spot through her clothes, and off they cum. He slips down to the floor under her computer. It doesn’t take long for her orgasms to warm this frigid lab. He stand up with a mastery that melts into making love. Never romantic, Litonya buttons up and returns to her work at the computer.
JAKE
Thank you. I love you. Listen darling, I realize you are in top form now, but these drugs are prophylactics. They are for our future. No human is immortal. You need your brilliant brain for at least another thirty years. Please take something. We risked our lives to get them.
LITONYAI must finish this now.
JAKE
I wonder what they are doing on the deck. The agreement was that Ibrahim was supposed to be poisoned and dead. Betty was supposed to sacrifice herself. IJake goes up the stairs and tries the door, knocking and banging. He screams. Nothing. He looks out a small window to see they are slowly making our way north up the Hudson. Unlike Betty, I am not hypnotized by the gentle rocking of a boat going nowhere.
JAKE
Litonya, where are they? Where are we going? I hear nothing. Shit, I can’t get into my email or social media. Help me.LITONYA
The server’s down. I am doing research. Our phones are dead.Time moves too slowly for Jake’s new drug-infused energy. Litonya’s patience is endless.
JAKE
We need food, water, a place to pee. There is a sanitized toilet, thank God or rather Betty’s obsessive cleanliness. There is a dorm fridge with skim milk and oranges. Here, take one.
You are human enough to eat, drink, and pee. But where will we sleep? Or do these drugs make sleep optional? That would be great if we felt rested. I look around. There is nowhere to lie down. I hate sleeping in a chair like the homeless. I think of the comfortable chaise lounges on the deck. I scream, Betty, and bang again. Have they abandoned ship? Then we’ll crash but maybe we can get out. I realize you often live in Deep Time but where were you when you disappeared for ten months? We need to have a conversation.TIME PASSES with a repetition of shots, taking drugs, having sex three times a day, using the toilet, working at the computer, but they are starving.
Suddenly the door opens, and Betty hands Jake a huge platter of fresh food as well as preserved and packaged goodies. Her eyes say shut up, so he nods gratefully, and she shuts the door. I can only imagine what is going on. Litonya and Jake eat this Mediterranean marvel slowly, savoring everything so they don’t throw up, then put some of the perishable leftovers in the empty fridge.JAKE
It looks like they plan to leave us here for a while, but what are they doing? Now that my brain is functioning on a higher level, we must have an intellectual conversation. I know nothing about the science of climate change, and you could care less about fitness, wellness, popular music, and my interests. I am smarter but not about to take on physics and geology. So darling, now that I am slowly recovering my mental faculties and cleansing my body of the terrible Parkinson’s disease, I think we should marry legally before we die.LITONYA
I am not into social contracts.JAKE
Are you afraid we would have to be married forever if we never die? Do you think these drugs or the new ones they are working on will give us immortality or another century?
LITONYA
We shouldn’t tamper with nature.JAKE
Come on, Litonya. Nature can be a bipolar serial killer worse than small-time Betty or any human..
LITONYA
We will be recycled.JAKE
Into what? I was never good at recycling. I don’t want to be someone or something else. I want to be a better me with perfect you.
“
LITONYA
Just enjoy life.Jake kisses her passionately and twinkles his dimples.
LITONYA
So where were you for the past ten months? You disappeared longer than your Sandy Storm runaway with Kisele.LITONYA
That is the point of these vacations, to vacate. To take a break. To have a recess.JAKE
Yeah, I guess relationships need sabbaticals too. Never thought of it that way. But they publish their books when they come back. What did you learn, see, hear, or do? Anything you want to share?Litonya prefers silence to sharing.
Ideas to continue: Bash in a hole, water comes in and they try to swim out. Betty comes down and says Ibrahim is dead but he jumps up and gets them. A fight with the three of them to throw him overboard. Do Jake and Litonya do this together or singly? The surprise is that Litonya married Ibrahim in Mecca to ensure a better financial future for her kids. Ibrahim would like to divorce her when he finds out she is a traitor. So they must kill him any way they can. If that is what they want. If Litonya really loves Jake. Does she? She liked the sex, now dependent on the new drugs. Betty goes to the Caribbean or should I have them kill her or should she kill herself? -
To increase suspense in the second act, I decided to have Litonya, the geologist and Jake’s wife disappear so that she is not at his mother’s funeral. She doesn’t answer calls or texts, and I can keep planting questions about her whereabouts but have the other narrator tell the reader where she is just before she and Jake are together on the boat and then in their “crucible” at the climax.
) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake, Betty, Orhan, and Nikos are sitting in the living room. Joan is reclining in a chaise longue.JAKE
It’s not too late. I know you have access to secret drugs. Please help.BETTY
I am just a servant. I obey orders. There are limited supplies. But one thing I do know is that she is too far gone. She is 90 and her brain has emptied out. These drugs must be taken early on.JAKE
Then give them to me before I get Lewy Body dementia.BETTY
You are doing relatively well. The drugs are complicated. They have to be taken, all of them, under a physician. We aren’t doctors.Suddenly Joan starts to whimper. She stands up, tries to walk towards them, trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. They fight and Orhan and Nikos intercede, playing the flute and waxing philosophical.
Jake starts crying and begins CPR.
Betty
We must honor her DNR. Don’t torture her.JAKE
Easy for you to let her pass on because if she had died forty years ago, your life would have been different, Nikos.50) EXT. LA ROCHE HOUSE – DAY
Joan is laid to rest in the backyard but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. He has trouble walking around. Betty takes care of the funeral rites in her usual efficient manner. Townspeople show up like shadows on a cold winter day.JAKE This is not how a village doctor should be remembered. Such a contrast to Dad’s party funeral.
JAKE
Strange that Litonya didn’t come. Where is she?AANADI
I want to be the village doctor like grandma Joan.51) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Jake consults with Anahu, Aanadi, Kisele, Astride, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet. Where is Litonya? -
For a change, I decided to make Jake expect a conventional, quiet funeral and be surprised happily by a history party. But at the end, I planted a future seed in his son Anahu who is researching the unsolved crimes in upstate New York. I need more traditional misleads and reveals but didn’t structure things this way originally so it is difficult. I will take small steps.
INT. LA ROCHE BEDROOM – NIGHT
Jake and Nikos as massaging Jean La Roche.
JEAN
I am going to a better place.
He gently shuts his eyes. Jake notes a muted death rattle.
JAKE
We can’t intervene. Dad is right–let him go.NIKOS
No. I will do the CPR.JAKE
Forget it. He has a DNR.
NIKOS
But his brain is still good.
JAKE
He has lived long enough in his paralyzed body. I don’t know why you care. You gave up his body years ago.
NIKOS
Okay, so be it. I’ll see you at the grave.As he leaves, Joan wanders in, kisses her husband, and tucks him in, not realizing he is dead.
JAKE
Mom has the right idea. He is at peace.NIKOS
She doesn’t even know what dead means.EXT. CEMETERY – DAY
JAKE to camera
Hope the funeral is as peaceful as his death.
But as he approaches, there is a huge party going on with the townsfolk dressed as settlers, indigenous people, and African slaves morphed into kings and queens. MUSIC is playing and people are dancing.
JAKE
What a surprise! What a way to celebrate Dad’s legacy as a history professor.Kisele and Delphine organized it and they are dressed hybrid with moccasins, African crowns, shirt, tie, a hodgepodge of clothes from everywhere.
KISELE
We are all humans.DELPHINE
We won’t bash statues, burn books, or badmouth our ancestors but going forward, everyone is equal.JAKE
Your generation rocks! I know Dad was a colonialist but I think he would love this.When the party ends Jake and Anahu walk alone amidst the graves.
ANAHU
History should be studied and respected but it isn’t a party. There are too many unsolved crimes in upstate New York. My high school project is to solve them. Horrible murders and rapes were committed in these woods and erased.JAKE
Go for it, son. Your grandad would be proud of you but be careful because the ghosts might still be here. -
As I changed my location for my climax to a boat instead of a NYC apartment, I accidentally locked my two protagonists below deck in the empty research lab with the precious Bright Space Brain Buffet. The bad guys were supposed to be poisoned and sacrificed but maybe it was just a sedative. After Litonya and Jake kill Ibrahim and throw him overboard (there is an eco argument about that too), Betty recharges and locks them in the basement instead of sweetly sacrificing herself as planned. How long will she or can she live? Will she keep them locked forever? Can she capsize them or abandon ship and escape to the Caribbean? There is no Internet or phones so they can’t contact their kids. So they are stuck in this CRUCIBLE without a bed–just lab materials and a dorm fridge with oranges, skim milk, and water. Jake takes the drugs but Litonya won’t. That could be the first argument. Then they have a different kind of sex as the neurotransmitters take effect and his penis rises to the occasion but maybe she isn’t as eager as she used to be. They review their lives together. Her Green mission has not been fulfilled. Why won’t she take the drugs? This crucible has suddenly created more questions than answers but I guess that is good to get the audience on the edge of their seats between climax and resolution. It is also an opportunity to deepen the relationship between Jake and Litonya, adding conflict I didn’t want them to have because I wanted to live their perfect relationship. Now I must make myself write all this down in the novel BEFORE I let myself come to a conclusion so I can tease the reader.
-
While the climbing pitches increase jeopardy in my first novel, Climb and Punishment, the last novel takes place in NYC, New Paltz, and the boats. I was going to set my Last Supper in Ibrahim’s Tudor Tower overlooking Ft. Washington Park, but by putting it on his yacht, with the science lab below deck, and giving Betty the boat expertise that Jake and Litonya lack, I can up the stakes and protract the pain once they are poisoned. Ibrahim can fake death and rise again to fight with Jake until he is killed by Litonya, and Betty can pretend to lead them to the drugs as she is slowly dying and then do something to capsize the boat or lock them in the lab so they can’t get out. There may have been a sedative in the dinner but not the fast acting poison she claimed was there. Jake and LItonya are now free to take the Brain Buffet they desperately wanted but they can’t get out. But then I must find a way for them to get out and kill Betty so that she dies by the end of this chapter. This would change her transformation because she has made everyone believe she would sacrifice her life for the greater good. I must research boats and figure out how all this can evolve in the novel and then redo the climax. I don’t want to end like Silence of the Lambs with Betty on a Caribbean cruise but that may be the only way to get rid of her and have the good guys keep the Brightspace Brain Buffet. The fact that this exercise is making me question the resolution is good because I tend to be too expository, dogmatic, and tie things up too quickly and neatly instead of putting the audience on the edge of their seats.
-
Objects: Hammock, ski poles, and history books planted throughout with symbolic value.
EXT. HUGUENOT ST. – DAY
Betty is swinging blissfully on a hammock strung between two pine trees beside the boat garage. Jake hobbles over, trying to mitigate his PD shakes by pressing down on ski poles but he tips over as he approaches.
BETTY
You used to be so agile.Even Jake’s fury is slower than it used to be,
JAKE
Fuck Parkinson’s.BETTY
Love to, but he died over a hundred years ago.Jake is not in a good mood this time,
JAKE
We need them..Betty bats her eyes innocently, and amplifies her fake Southern accent,
BETTY
What, sugar? My cookies?Jake’s son Jesse walks by carrying a thick history book.
But Jake does the talking,
JAKE
My son Jess has done the research and we know your past. All of it.
Betty swings silently.
JAKE
You were the infamous serial killer/rapist/arsonist. We almost caught you when you assaulted Priceless, but she was too strong for you. If you hadn’t bought her off and funded her dance career, you would have spent your life in prison..
BETTY
You have no proof of this..
JAKE
Oh yes we do. You were a stalker who sneaked up killing without a sound, a walking match in a sea of gasoline, a rapist who banged from behind after they burnt, and an antiseptic liar who hid your crimes in the icing of immaculate hygiene.
BETTY
My hands are for cooking and cleaning and caretaking.JAKE
Your paws were always weapons.
Jake uses one of his ski poles to tip over the hammock,
JAKE
You can’t row this boat forever. Our evidence will drown you..
Betty falls on the grass gracefully and gets up,
BETTY
Our brain buffet is for the one percent. I only got it because I work for STEMGARCHS and I was hit hard by that gang. I don’t have the power to–
JAKE
They’re in that lab. I can’t have Delphine risk her life, but you can get them. It’s not just us. The world is desperate for this buffet.
BETTY
Let me see the proof you have..
JAKE
We matched your DNA, all over your hammock and our house, with hats and gloves left in the woods years ago near unsolved murders but we have more than this. We can’t tell you but trust us that you have a choice—get us the drugs and we forget, but not forgive, or keep them to yourself and everyone dies.If it were just Jake, Betty might use his ski pole to finish him off, but his strong son is standing by. (This is the crisis.)
-
Twisting reminds me of strangling, what BB did as a man but now he is Betty, an old woman.
EXT. RAIL TRAIL – NIGHT
Betty snickers as she leaves, clearing her head with a moonlit walk on the rail trail. The wind is still, and the path is clear. Moonlight is precious in the country because these parks have no streetlamps. She picks up her skirts and lifts her knees. It’s not easy being a woman. Meanwhile three young men walk behind, slowing down to stalk her. As the rail trail leaves the farms and moves into the forested swamps beside the Wallkill, they pounce, grabbing her body, lifting up her skirts and throwing her onto the dirty path.
But Betty does not shriek, cry, or plead. She winks and coos in a Southern accent,BETTY
Now, boys, you don’t want to bang your grandma. You can do better with those young lovelies at the college.They stop and stare at her. This is not what they anticipated or hoped for. This isn’t fun.
BETTY
Now what do you boys really want to do with me? And why would you need three against one?As one of them tries to hit her across the mouth, she grabs his hand and kisses it, exaggerating her Southern triphthongs,
BETTY
My, what plum gorgeous—finganails! All that dastardly DNA goin to waste!As the other two men move in, Betty suddenly delivers a front push kick to A’s groin and a neat, tight back kick to B’s shin. Then she tips her wig as if it were a hat and lowers her voice,
BETTY
When I was a young un, I committed my crimes alone. Cowards!This is too much. The three men run away. Betty adjusts her wig and walks back to town. Meanwhile Jake is hysterical about a real, helpless woman wandering around the Wallkill woods alone-his demented mother.
-
I love opposites but I wanted to get some comic relief as well.
INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Backstage in the Green Room, Delphine is coaching an older woman.
DELPHINE
You can do it with head resonance. Imagine butterflies bursting out the top of your head. Relax your throat. Stand tall.But the woman’s voice sounds scratchy.
DELPHINE
You need a Southern accent for this scene and that will help. You must ooze your triphthongs. Ho o ow no o ow bro o o co o o!The woman obeys but sounds too New York nasal.
DELPHINE
Open your throat, honey chile.BETTY
Who taught you all this, darlin? You’re only 13!DELPHINE
I have a great future in show biz. I studied dialects with the best.BETTY
I thought your daddy wanted you to be a scientist..DELPHINE
I can do both. After five hours in the lab, I must act, sing, and dance. Jake says so as well. What’s good for the body is good for the brain. Stand taller.BETTY
Okay, let’s do it.JAKE
The woman almost sounds like she is going from death row to an execution.They leave the Green Room for the big living room, partitioned off for a stage. Betty is dressed as Amanda Wingfield and she and Delphine do that famous scene from The Glass Menagerie.
BETTY
Honey, there’s no more room for jonquils.Delphine transforms herself into fragile Laura and they finish to thunderous applause. Then the woman goes to the kitchen and comes out with a tray of goodies.
JAKE
This is the woman I need to help us at home, if only for a few days. Can I borrow her?BETTY
I am great at cleaning, not just acting and cooking.Jake looks her over and mumbles to the audience.
JAKE
She dresses well. But something reminds me of someone else. Except that she has a green still eye, gorgeous dentures, thicker, redder hair, a fuller female body, but….
A few days later, I introduce Betty to mom and dad. Dad isn’t crazy about her but Mom is relieved she is such a good cook and cleaner. I look again. It is BB. What a transformation! Even better. -
EXT. IBRAHIM’S YACHT – DAY
A few months later, Betty is enjoying the beginning of a sunset over the Hudson River, letting the waves rock her gently as she watches YouTube videos about transitioning. CLOSE ON beautiful young women with perfect skin, thick, lustrous hair, and exotic eye make-up as they coo quietly about their transitions, buttressed by a background of soft monotonous meditation music.
VOICE OVER
After penile inversion and shortening and reconstructing of the uretha, the new vulva loses some elasticity and must be dilated twice a day. I tried penetration but do better myself staging my big O. Just a little discharge, a liner rather than a napkin. You can always be clean and smell sweet. As body parts are remapped, the brain is remapped, and an amazing new female butterfly emerges from its male chrysalis.Ibrahim emerges from his basement lab to get some air on the deck and watches silently. Betty looks up. Her red wig is so cemented and strong it doesn’t blow in the breeze.
BETTYNice to see you, boss. I feel great, thanks for asking. Life is better for women, as if silken webs were gently stretched over everything.
IBRAHIM
Until the spider squeezes her prey.BETTY
These You Tube lovelies will help me move through my sixties with beauty and bravery.
Ibrahim shifts uncomfortably as he watches. Betty takes out an arsenal of make-up and begins to redo her face trying to copy the videos.
BETTY
Even in my funeral director days, I was never this creative.Ibrahim watches the setting sun as Betty takes ten years off her life with cosmetics. Suddenly DELPHINE, Ibrahim’s twelve year old skips on to the deck, her silky chestnut hair swinging in the westerly winds. She stops and stares at Betty.
BETTY
Just call me Aunt Betty, darlin, and I will bake you some genderbread.
DELPHINE
You mean gingerbread? That’s my favorite. I can help decorate the gingerhouse.IBRAHIM
You are a scientist, Delphine, and should be spending your time in the lab downstairs.Delphine launches into a quick tap routine.
DELPHINE
I’m also a musical comedienne. My tap dancing is – professional.Betty jiggles her head to Delphine’s rhythm, but puts the finishing touches on her own mauve lipstick.
BETTY
We all have our specialties. I am good at cooking, cleaning, and…Ibrahim grabs her lipstick and smears it across her face before she can complete her alliteration with “killing.” Thankfully, Delphine is now into more dancing as if the sunset could see her. When another YouTube video comes on, he shuts Betty’s computer. She struggles to stand. Betty’s swimming lessons have helped morph Ibrahim into a strong man, much stronger than her. They face off. Betty’s crotch is still sore and painful.
IBRAHIM
This is a disgusting surgery. I should never have allowed it. It is mutilation, torture, a lifelong addiction to hormones, a sacrilege for society. It is haram—BETTY
I thought you give up Islam.As Delphine starts to pay attention to their conversation, Ibrahim’s anger boils,
IBRAHIM
Shut up. Enough. Delphine, go downstairs. I’ll help you with the new project. I’ll be down in a second.Dancing Delphine dusts Aunt Betty’s wig with a casual kiss and runs downstairs. Fathers are still to be obeyed.
IBRAHIM
I should never have paid for your aberration.BETTY
It was a beautiful metamorphosis. I am almost a butterfly.
IBRAHIM
What about your real job? You are weaker than a wilted penis after wicked rapes. Are you trying to make amends for your past?BETTY
No one kills better than a spectacular she-once male!The sun has set. Ibrahim sits in silence.
IBRAHIM
Okay, if like domesticity so much, we will have to work for the La Roches a few days a week. Great way to get their cells. Weekly testing from the same family would help a lot.BETTY
I am in. When? -
Although I am not a film critic or current fan, I should occasionally watch video clips on youtube of anything as cross training for hours spent negotiating print, writing, reading online, and reading books. Sometimes we learn from things we dislike so I am open to that.
I only have a laptop and no subscriptions but after looking at films on Youtube I got frustrated and bored. As an actress, I am aware of all the tricks of slapstick, sex in thunderstorms, physical action, and martial arts to activate scenes so I wanted to go beyond the cliches into how emotions have changed after the pandemic. I have a new appreciation of tight close-ups since that is the world of Zoom and many people still locked down in small rooms. Toenails, strawberries, bra cups on the floor, drains, razors etc. are the metonymy of the visual symbolism that helps weave disparate threads into my tapestry. DPs use close-ups better than I ever could, but I am thinking of new ways to use these objects, make them reappear, and be personified to elicit human emotions. I tried to watch features on neurodegenerative diseases, but they were silly and dated so I watched real neuroscience lectures. One by Gregory Petsco who terrified YouTube viewers simply with numbers—charts of statistics of people with neurodegenerative diseases, population versus aging, and facts that make you feel that a comet will soon crash on earth. Instead, COVID kills off millions of seniors, but it is not enough. We need cures for these diseases, one of the missions of my third novel and screenplay. So my research is well founded and my cures imaginative but now I will play with the numbers tool to frighten people. Halloween 3 blood and gore only goes so far. It is more frightening to see a real brain scan of a healthy brain compared to one emptied out by Alzheimer’s, if I can link it dramatically to the loss of recognition of a precious object and the loss of love. Transgender videos were surprising. Superficially the women look better than women. They give details about the appearance of the new vulva that has lost elasticity, penile inversion, shorten and reconstruct urethra, silicone scar tape, dilating twice and then once a day, discharge, penetration, the big O for orgasm, body parts remapped, brain is remapped but all of this is done in a cheerful, calm, antiseptic way by a perfectly made up women as if she were describing something outside herself like a room in her house. I was struck by how a calm presentation with monotonous music and quiet voices and pretty images can mask dramatic, bloody operations, pain, and strong emotions. Don’t use terms like transgendered, transvestite, tranny, or, he-she — they’re old-fashioned and can be hurtful. Diversity in gender. There are at least seven genders or sexes but they keep growing. Then with the Brain Buffet, BB has transformed completely. I need a post transition scene in a calm place maybe on a boat. But BB wouldn’t broadcast on youtube. She would just watch. I need conflict and arguments. Could someone try to make her calm as she gets hysterical? There were recent rapes in Central Park. How can I link the two rape scenes with conflict between current characters?
There is a difference between real people, memoir where the self-absorbs the other characters, printed fiction that can reveal subtext in linguistic detail as well as unconscious yearnings, and scenes where dialogue must scratch the surface in a profound way.
-
Thanks and one quick note: staying up in the air about your ending is fabulous because it will stretch out your dilemmas and heighten suspense.
No, I travelled to Egypt, Morocco, Turkey etc. for research but have always lived in a tiny room in NYC.
I also have done stand up and improvisation and published a funny public speaking book but I really am snowed under with this project. COVID also killed my jobs so I am glad you are happily retired although as one ages, it might be go back to the church.
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Bob: You are fabulous! I just uploaded a snippet because I was trying to be minimal since my trilogy is over 1500 pages in three drafts of novels. I have hiked the New Jersey Palisades many times and watch them once a week from Metro North but thanks for telling me this was too vague. I will return to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery this week because my serial killer meanders around there in a scene. Al Harbi is based on a real Saudi Arabian I met who worked for Al Qaeda but I already wrote a huge novel about terrorism and in my new trilogy, he gives up Islam to be CEO of STEMGARCHS. I too went to Egypt twice for research and taught Arabic literature as part of global literature so I will not make cultural mistakes in my novels. Kisele is a young native American ten year old boy, and all of them have well-researched histories. I am writing this screenplay to force me to finish my last novel and review the structure but I see it is impossible in snippets out of context. So I am not sure how to make the best of this boot camp. I want to submit my trilogy to Penguin by March 2022 with one accompanying screenplay to enhance marketability but I am getting overwhelmed. I must prioritize finishing my last novel over writing the screenplay because that will keep changing but I also want to participate in the class. I know a lot about screenwriting but adapting this is the most challenging thing I have ever done. Thanks for your input because so far, very few people can help.
But YOU did this assignment perfectly! I love the ironic juxtaposition of the narcissistic frivolity of show biz with its desperate need for survival and the devastating reality of Hitler, how de-Nazification might work, and the sparring between your characters. You have a good ear for dialogue. You introduce your characters well and plant questions in the audience’s mind. What is the relationship with Dietrich and Jannings? Is he lying about his work with the Germans? This is a wonderful project and you have the talent to make it work.
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Exchange scenes with introductions of main characters bursting onto the screen:
EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR arrive to pray as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
His daughter CORAL works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.
KISELE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
SANDRINE, his wife, and DELPHINE, the other triplet, are doing band exercises with JAKE LA ROCHE, a 40 year old trainer.
IBRAHIM
Turn off the music. Prayer time.
Jake switches his phone to loud, resonant call to prayers in Arabic as the women twist and stretch more vigorously.
IBRAHIM
No, bro. Off, now!Jake is a people pleaser, so he salutes and mumbles “rain check,” to the ladies.
JAKE
You’re the boss. They know what to do, or not. Damn Best Butt Ever, they got the wings of angels! I gotta client uptown. Later.Jake flies off the roof like a hornet on speed.
The ladies finish their exercises gracefully as Ibrahim and Omar go through their rituals on the wings of angels because the other four members join them. Ibrahim blows kisses to everyone, avoiding contact, puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage, and drives on the FDR.
EXT. EAST RIVER
Sixty-something BOAT BOB splashes on to the scene at sunrise by decamping his homeless tent beside the East River, Cloroxing everything so the park police won’t take note and smell humanity, and transforming himself into a clean, middle-aged, middle income hiker with a large backpack, expensive sneakers, and fashionable jogging outfit. A fancy electric car slows down and veers off the FDR.INT. CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack.EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net.IBRAHIM
Suicide is haram in Islam unless it is Jihad. You are not alone. Call 911.BB
This is the choice place for non-essential New Yorkers to commit suicide. Falling off this magnificent, famous GW bridge is dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.IBRAHIM
Don’s say commit because you can’t criminalize the desperate acts of the marginalized mentally ill. The politically correct say complete suicide. T
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as I can. But then I flunked out of school with Incompletes.They notice Jake running with his client.
IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who uses every second. He was training my family at dawn on the roof.Once on the Jersey shore, Jake leaps up the side rocks and pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.
BB
Don’t tell me Jake also throws stones.
IBRAHIM
Fermes ta gueule. Fermez la bouche. It’s a pandemic!BB
I realize you are too polite to say shut the fuck up.BB covers his face and soul with a face shield and N95 mask. He pulls sanitizers out of his backpack and refills them with condensed COVID as if he were methodically preparing for a camping trip.
5) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB pick up LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory who gets into the car with a bag of rocks. No hellos, or how are you, this world-class 45 year old rock climber is a woman of direct discourse.LITONYA
I love nature. I would kill my fracking father again. I am not reformed after seven years in jail.BB
After seven months in jail I transformed into a better citizen. By the way, those are beautiful stones—they’d make gorgeous jewelry.LITONYA
I hate jewels and cosmetics.BB
You are naturally beautiful.It is important to
pretend to be honest, matching her on the nose dialogue with his friendly
rejoinders, but the truth is that he deserves to spend seven lifetimes in jail,
or worse. -
1) Sixty-something BOAT BOB splashes on to the scene at sunrise by decamping his homeless tent beside the East River, Cloroxing everything so the park police won’t take note or smell humanity, and transforming himself into a clean, middle-aged, middle income hiker with a large backpack, expensive sneakers, and fashionable jogging outfit. A fancy electric car slows down and veers off the FDR. BB gets in the back seat. IBRAHIM AL HARBI is driving. It is strange that they say nothing as they drive through north Manhattan and on to the GW Bridge where BB’s eyes light up. CLOSE ON You are not alone. Call 911.
2) Insight is revealed through 3) action and dialogue
EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack.
4) EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net.IBRAHIM
Suicide is haram in Islam unless it is Jihad. You are not alone. Call 911. This is the choice place for non-essential New Yorkers to commit suicide.BB
We can help.IBRAHIM
Falling off this magnificent, famous GW bridge is more dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as I can.They notice Jake running with his client.
IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who uses every second. He was training my family at dawn on the roof.Once on the Jersey shore, Jake leaps up the side rocks and pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.
BB
Don’t tell me Jake also throws stones.
IBRAHIM
I hate to be rude and crude but shut the fuck up. Fermes ta gueule. Fermez la bouche. It’s a pandemic!BB covers his face and soul with a face shield and N95 mask. He pulls sanitizers out of his backpack and refills them with condensed COVID as if he were methodically preparing for a camping trip.
5) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB pick up LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory who gets into the car with a bag of rocks. No hellos, or how are you, this world-class 45 year old rock climber is a woman of direct discourse.LITONYA
I love nature. I would kill my fracking father again. I am not reformed after seven years in jail.BB
Jail sucks. I spent seven months in jail and that was enough. By the way, those are beautiful stones—they’d make gorgeous jewelry.LITONYA
I hate jewels and cosmetics.BB
You are naturally beautiful.It is important to pretend to be honest, matching her on the nose dialogue with his friendly rejoinder, but the truth is that he deserves to spend seven lifetimes in jail, or worse. Ibrahim narrows his black eyes in the rear view mirror and BB gets the signal to shut down into servile silence so the two of them can discuss their business for the EvergreenEnergy Company etc.
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I am having a lot of trouble keeping up and working on huge structural documents in failing formats at the same time. I understand that this assignment is an argument and negotiation with subtext so I put it here and will transfer it to the huge outline once I can do the right screenwriting format.
Ibrahim fears the water. He grew up in Mecca, in the Saudi Arabian desert. He never wanted to look foolish flapping in the Summit swimming pool like a baby. BB grew up swimming in city pools, so Ibrahim enlists him for swimming lessons, in part to get his mind off the fire that killed his beloved son. BB is now on top of this relationship, the teacher instead of the servant. They work on Ibrahim’s new eco boat, equipped with a saltwater swimming pool in the early evening when no one is looking. BB has him doing the flutter kick on the sides and with boards or even holding BB’s hands. Sometimes he stands on the deck holding a rope that is tied around Ibrahim’s waist with a flotation device so that he gets used to moving rhythmically in a horizontal position. Like rock climbing, there is an element of trust in this collaboration. Ibrahim panics, swallows water, sinks, and tries again, gently encouraged in BB’s quiet, methodical way. Psychopaths can have a soft side. Then he shows off his crawl, breaststroke, and backstroke as Ibrahim shivers on the deck. They never talk much. This
is<ins cite=”mailto:Julia%20Keefer” datetime=”2021-10-20T13:12″>was never</ins> a linguistic relationship. As they part to shower, Ibrahim goes to his luxurious, private quarters, and BB is left to clean the deck and shower there.
BB looks in the mirror naked. His penis will never rise again. He is disgusted with this useless tool. His shoulders and legs are fine but not the remnants of past crimes. Now is the time for the biggest change of his life. He spent his youth killing and raping women, violating their bodies right after death when they couldn’t fight back. What if he were a woman, more connected to earth, water, food, and maybe, love<ins cite=”mailto:Julia%20Keefer” datetime=”2021-10-20T13:13″>? </ins>.Older women live longer than older men. Their impotency is not as visible.
He lacks the funds for such an expensive surgery, at least forty grand without any frills. Ibrahim will say no or maybe, maybe he could be persuaded, that an elderly hit woman is more effective <ins cite=”mailto:Julia%20Keefer” datetime=”2021-10-20T13:13″>than a</ins> senile hit man. Or could he persuade Ibrahim to send him to Thailand and combine sex reassignment with a sailing adventure? It might be risky, such a long trip. The best surgeons are in Manhattan.
Ibrahim is a Muslim and sex changes are haram in Islam though they didn’t exist during Mohammad’s time. But surely drag and cross dressing existed somewhere. It was popular in Shakespeare’s time. Ibrahim already lost his faith when he lost his wife and son so he might agree. He certainly has the money. It’s all about his goals now. BB must convince him that this change is in the best interests of his service to the STEMGARCHS.
“It is easier for a woman to kill,” BB explains calmly to Ibrahim as they sit over dinner in the backyard of his Tudor mansion. Because of the successful swim lessons, BB has been upgraded to trusted employee, not just servant and secret hit man. There is a long silence.
“I researched it thoroughly. You can send me to Thailand, or we could do it in Manhattan with the best. It is easy to hide anywhere in Manhattan.”
Ibrahim nods thoughtfully, “You did it for years. So did Litonya in a different way.”
BB is uncomfortable with the silence but waits for Ibrahim to make the next move.
“How much?”
“Fifty grand for a man to a woman but age can—”
Ibrahim cuts him off like our rocks cut things. “I will give you a hundred thousand for the surgery, complications, and recovery, but never tell me the details. Let me enjoy the sunset.”
BB nods instead of thanking him because this is a business deal, not charity. Empathy and compassion are not part of their relationship.
“I will email you a billing address and check everything. Guess you get a holiday from the company’s jobs.”
BB winks slightly, “I never take holidays. I will work throughout the rehab so feel free to send me jobs. Next time you see me, call me Betty.”
He disappears into the night. Ibrahim is left alone fiddling with his phone. Then he retires to his office to connect on a desktop where he can open multiple windows and juggle complex projects to empower himself. His job is about money and power, about staying on top, and eventually about the genetic transformations that will put their brains above the others. He puts a genetics book on top of the Koran, a sacrilege he never did before.P.S. I promise to make Ibrahim scream NO the first time and be persuaded in the script. Or maybe BB can ask for forty grand for something else, lying about the sex change, until Ibrahim suspects what it is. Yes, lying is better.
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This is the most overwhelming assignment yet that would take me a year to do properly. Instead of stressing, I will upload a messy draft I have now so I don’t get too far behind. My plan is to keep working on this assignment every day while trying to put more descriptive scenes in the novel and do the other daily assignments. So far it is not working. Part of the problem is the inability to write the screenplay in proper screenwriting software and then the fact that my third novel is still not working, despite all my plotting etc. Just a few scenes are filled in but I understand the need to make the characters playable like Shakespeare’s actors.
The entire outline showing ALL of your scenes in the movie.
1)EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR arrive to pray as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City.IBRAHIM
The Summit brings us closer to God.
His daughter CORAL works on the roof garden with KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old.
KISElE
Nature is our God.Ibrahim clenches his fist with this blasphemy but prepares the prayer mats.
SANDRINE, his wife, and DELPHINE, the other triplet, are doing band exercises with JAKE LA ROCHE, a 40 year old trainer.
IBRAHIM
Turn off the music. Prayer time.
Jake switches his phone to loud, resonant call to prayers in Arabic as the women twist and stretch more vigorously.
IBRAHIM
No, bro. Off, now.Jake is a people pleaser, so he salutes and mumbles “rain check,” to the ladies.
JAKE
You’re the boss. They know what to do, or not. Damn Best Butt Ever, they got the wings of angels! I gotta client uptown. Later.Jake flies off the roof like a hornet on speed.
The ladies finish their exercises gracefully as Ibrahim and Omar go through their rituals on the wings of angels because the other four members join them. Ibrahim blows kisses to everyone, avoiding contact, puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage, and drives on the FDR.
3) EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack.4) EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net.IBRAHIM
You are not alone. Call 911. This is the choice place for New Yorkers to commit suicide.BB
We can help.IBRAHIM
But this magnificent bridge is more dramatic. And it’s like winning the lottery—a tiny chance you will be saved by global attention.
BB
I like death too much to end it forever. I need to keep enjoying it as long as I can.They notice Jake running with his client.
IBRAHIM
Now there’s a man who uses every second. He was training my family at dawn on the roof.Jake pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.
BB
Don’t tell me Jake also throws stones.
IBRAHIM
I hate to be rude and crude but shut the fuck up. Fermes ta gueule. Fermez la bouche. Put on your mask. It’s a pandemic!5) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB pick up LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory.LITONYA
I love nature. I would kill my fracking father again. I am not reformed after seven years in jail.BB
Jail sucks. I spent seven months in jail and that was enough.3) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
They drop Litonya off at her solar house on Huguenot Street so she can prepare her dissertation defense for her PhD in geology.4) EXT. COLONIAL – DAY
Ibrahim leaves BB at the Colonial garage, a huge house with antique cars where BB helps Kisele and the kids design eco boats.5) INT. TUDOR MANSION – EVENING
Ibrahim finishes his day alone in the Green Room of his home on Huguenot St. with Muslim prayers. Out his window he sees Jake covered in turquoise paint. BB watches everything from the woods.6) EXT.TURQUOISE CHURCH – DAY
Jake is painting a pink church turquoise to turn it into a virtual fitness studio. FADMA and MINA pass by, Ibrahim’s former wife and daughter. We learn that four of Ibrahim’s kids have Jake’s sperm.7) INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Jake makes and serves lunch to JEAN LA ROCHE, his dad and a history professor locked in with ALS. His mom, DR. JOAN LA ROCHE stops by on her way to work.8)INT. NEW PALTZ MEDICAL CENTER – DAY
Dr. Joan tests positive for COVID. BB sprays sanitizer everywhere.9)INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
BB is obsessively cleaning the mansion in preparation for her quarantine. Jake morphs into a caretaker for parents.10)INT. CPR OFFICE -DAY
Jake practices CPR on dummies. JOE, BB’s adopted son, helps. Then he puts on his firefighter uniform. BB enters and he and Joe talk about boxing their first loves. FLASHBACK to the funeral of Joe’s first boxing coach in the New Paltz cemetery who died of Alzheimer’s.11)EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID.12)INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. BB helps out as usual.13) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home. Rodney dies that night of a cytokine fire.14) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team. Inciting Incident.15) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with LANA coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.16) INT. BOXING STUDIO – DAY
Joe tries to get his long haul COVID wife CS, Cheering Spear, back into ring shape but it isn’t working. BB and Jake offer suggestions since they are all recovered.12) EXT. SUMMIT ROOF – EVENING
Jake is training clients, including Ibrahim. As NIGHT approaches, Jake leaves and BB slips in for a secret discussion and an exchange of goods and services.13)EXT. OUTDOOR RESTAURANT – NIGHT
Ibrahim is having dinner with his wife and triplets. When they leave, BB drops a match on the wood bungalow that instantly blows up, burning SENIORS in a nearby tenement in NYC’s UES. Then he sprays the sanitizer on others in the Plexiglas cubicles.19) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.20) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Ibrahim can’t trust God anymore. Fate versus human will. BB helped prepare the corpses because they were too burnt for Ibrahim to look.A few days later, eyes look upward.
STOCK FOOTAGE of Blue Origin Space Trip.
CLOSE on Ibrahim smiling with a thumbs up.
EXT. FELDMANS’ GARAGE
Litonya and Ibrahim stand 12 feet apart amidst ecoboats in construction.
LITONYA Traitor. Do you know how much gas it takes to blast off into outer space?
IBRAHIM It gave me more appreciation for the earth.
LITONYA Bullshit.
IBRAHIM You were never more than a consultant for the EvergreenEnergy Company. Rodney is gone and I am too tired and busy to–
LITONYA What about Kisele?
IBRAHIM At eleven years old, he can’t run the company but I will hire environmental engineers to help with his ecoboats or whatever dream.
LITONYA What are you going to do? Cheat on Bezos with another space venture?
IBRAHIM I am focusing on science and engineering in a bigger way to save the earth.
LITONYA Bullshit. I don’t trust you.
IBRAHIM We have the same mission but different ways of going about it. I promise to help your kids. At least you have kids of your own.
LITONYA I am sorry about your loss. The Summit collapse was so unexpected.
IBRAHIM Nature is the worst terrorist. We must fight her. We can’t be pawns in her bipolar madness.
LITONYA Look, I don’t argue. I don’t care enough about people to fight with them.
21) INT. TUDOR TOWER – EVENING
Ibrahim warms himself by his historic Tudor fireplace. He dyed his hair black last night to hide his senior salt. Time to put more pepper in his life. He wears enormous orange slippers in honor of Halloween evening. As he opens the door, Aaanadi is the first one in, waddling in an orange jumpsuit with a puffy pumpkin hat topped by a green stalk and a golden halo. She flaps golden wings and smiles joyfully.
AANADI
I’m one and a half and I can light up and fly!
CS is dressed as a witch, looking like a kid because she is 4’9” and around 90 pounds ever since she got long haul COVID. She hides her portable oxygen under her Halloween mask. She wears a skeleton pant suit that used to be tight. Their costumes make Ibrahim smile.
IBRAHIM
CS, you look as young and happy as your trick or treating toddler.
CS puts down a knapsack and adjusts the oxygen in her nose to breathe better.
CS
I am not playing like a kid, but I like this disguise. Just don’t give me or Aanadi candy.”
IBRAHIM
Joe?
CS
He must cover today, tomorrow, and all week because thirty percent of the firefighters will be put on unpaid leave since they won’t get the vax. Joe is double vaxxed and recovered so even though he theoretically left in summer 2020, he is always ready to get paid overtime.
IBRAHIM
Heroes. Front line workers. He worked so hard on the Summit condo collapse. I’m sorry for your loss. People never get over stuff like that. I would die if I lost Joe.
CS
I still have a lot to live for but you are right, the loss was devastating. Hurricane Ida killed Sandrine, Omar, and my faith. I want to divest completely from the EvergreenEnergy Company.
CS
Big mistake. The future is in renewables. You set that company up with Rodney. It is Kisele’s and we are talking about his trust fund.
IBRAHIM
I thought your belligerence was limited to boxing. Litonya and I discussed it. She was never more than a consultant for EE. Her heart is made of stone and her body is glued to her rocks. I will get mentors in environmental engineering to help Kisele with his ecoboats but my portfolio goes completely to STEMGARCHS.”
CS fidgets with the black lace over her witch eyes. “They are a new and controversial company. They may have helped start the pandemic.”
Ibrahim breaks out of his formal prose, “Shit! Don’t tell me you are persuaded by Internet misinformation.”
“Most people agree that COVID was a bioweapon and companies like STEMGARCHS are at fault. I want nothing to do with anyone or anything that would spread this horrific virus that has ruined my life and others.”
As she finishes her sentence, Ibrahim opens the door. Her husband Joe bursts in, dressed as a real firefighter, accompanied by his adopted father, BB, who ironically has spread the virus with his special sanitizer, but that is a secret he and Ibrahim will never confess. Joe picks up his cute little orange pumpkin and covers her round face with kisses. BB winks at Ibrahim, a little out of character.
Ibrahim takes control, “Happy Halloween everyone. BB help me organize some treats.” As CS and Joe pay attention to their little darling, Ibrahim and BB prepare pumpkin pie with whipped cream and hot apple cider. Everyone sits by the fire indulging in these treats.
Joe looks at his watch, “I gotta go back to the firehouse tonight. On call for the next week. The city is short of ambulance drivers, EMS technicians, police, sanitation workers—you name it.”
Ibrahim shakes his head, “We are lucky to have these vaccines. Long live Big Pharma.”
Joe objects, “I agree, sort of, but many of my colleagues think there are long term bad effects of getting vaccinated every six months. Not sure how I will feel after my fourth booster.”
BB watches, listens, and cleans up, a man of few words. “If you have to work for the next week or so, I will drive CS and Aanadi back to New Paltz tonight. We should leave soon.”
Ibrahim brings out books and toys. Aanadi is magnetic enough to focus attention on her needs and wants, hiding the nefarious underbelly of what is really going on. Joe gulps down a second piece of pie, kisses his family goodbye and leaves to serve the city. BB packs CS and Aanadi into the back of the car and is as quiet as a chauffeur, driving quickly and carefully for the next 90 minutes, until he delivers them to their solar house and parks himself in the huge garage where he makes his nest inside a boat they are working on. He hasn’t slept in a real bed for years. Even in his dreams, he never feels guilty.
22) INT. BOAT – DAY
Jesse is born. CS and Joe are godparents.23) INT.TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Delphine coaches her dad to talk more American with yeah, ya know, ha ha ha in an amiable monotone.
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of Fadma, his former wife, and their daughter Mina, also an artist. Ibrahim argues CS his financial advisor still recovering from long haul COVID. BB enters and they have an argument about CS. Ibrahim says CS knows too much.22) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.FLASHBACK
EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.23) A SERIES OF SHOTS Beginning of Plot Point One
His wife NATALIA crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls watch.24) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS, but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house.25) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave.
BB
A hero. No one can replace him. What the fuck was he doing here?
IBRAHIM
His duty. Fight fire. Your timing was off. You are good but your timing is flawed.DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully. Forceps violently pull him out of the womb into the tomb.
INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially Litonya Lenape, the top climber and a geology prof at the college. SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Leo/Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence.26) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park where they keep vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. Ibrahim must be convinced.27) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman. Plot Point One28) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn.29) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods.30) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill. FLASHBACK to Leo’s rapes and murders where cadavers disintegrated into nature. Ironically, she feels more empowered, but her perpetrators run away scared because of her unexpected reaction.31)EXT. NEW PALTZ MAIN STREET – DAY
Betty struts through the street a bit like Priceless did years ago after he as Leo tried to rape her. FLASHBACK to Priceless dancing in Muddy Mansion and the younger Leo tying her up near the French church.32} INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Betty and Jake care for Jean and Joan La Roche, seriously disabled by ALS and Alzheimer’s.33) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
Betty sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Delphine, one of Ibrahim’s daughters, is a brain scientist.34) EXT. TUDOR TOWER
Ibrahim and Betty fight about the STEMGARCHS drugs.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY Midpoint
Betty is given a precious vial of drugs called the Bright Space Brain Buffet.
A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Betty helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with his kids. He may have Parkinson’s and is desperate to find cures for him and his mom.39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake argue about the EE Company, saving the planet, and their degenerative diseases. She feels she will be recycled like rocks but is Jake still a Christian?40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later
SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi, a yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42)FLASHBACK to Leo’s time in jail for assault, a short one because he was a model prisoner, always cleaning.
43) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – NIGHT Plot Point Two
Betty is raped by a gang like the gang who beat her up as teenage boy and wiped out his right eye. FLASHBACK to the bloody eye and ZOOM BACK to the present glass eye.44)EXT. BOAT – DAY
Delphine nurses Betty’s bruises but as the gang tries to attack her, she throws them overboard into the river with Betty’s help. Betty has too much strength and power for a woman in her eighties and Delphine wants to know why.45) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for the Alzheimer’s drug to get the sticky glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.46) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?47) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet.48) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT Crisis
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless.49) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim is depressed because he lost his position as CEO and billions of dollars and has the last supply of Brain Buffet drugs. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa, so they think. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Suddenly Ibrahim awakes and takes a weapon out of his pocket for a final, dramatic struggle that he loses when Jake is forced to finish him off. Jake takes the drugs right away, but Litonya refuses.
50) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Conclusion Fate marries Will.
51) EXT. HUDSON RIVER – DAY
We transform to survive. We transform as we die.FINIS
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Jake and BB and Ibrahim
Protagonist and Antagonists
I need more dialogue and actions from these prompts that fit into my chapters, and this is not easy. I chose to merge all three under each category so I can make them work together.
Trait A positive Test positive be negative no test negative be positive Make people test positive and be negative. Is your conversation an exclamation point, a question, a period, a colon, or a dangling participle like a dangling dick? Jake deliberately makes his dialogue like a cheerleader but BB talks in a monotone, methodically listing things that must be done. Ibrahim thinks American optimism is silly, preferring the more satirical European approach.
Trait B fit and fun versus anal and robotic. Jake is paid to be fit and fun, it is a chore for Ibrahim, and BB uses fitness to survive and work on boats. As Ibrahim and Betty take the precious Bright Space brain buffet drugs, their physical performance exceeds Jake’s in old age.
Trait C insecure about his ADHD no, really it is an advantage. Jake fills time with music, fitness, EMS, and his family. When BB experienced the boredom of homelessness, he plots a better future with boats. Ibrahim is superficially confident but insecure about his height of 5 feet 6 inches, his sterility and Jake’s sperm for kids. All men are insecure in their own ways.
Trait D Jake is cute and charming while BB is basically ugly and marginalized and needs plastic surgery. BB has two broken teeth left in his smelly, toothless mouth, one glass eye while Jake has perfect teeth, sparkling turquoise eyes, wavy golden hair, and a fit body. They are both 5 feet 10 inches, but BB’s age and bad posture shrink him to 5 feet 8 inches most of the time. As time progresses, this changes because BB becomes a woman, wears a red wig and a padded, push-up bra, gets dentures and eye surgery and eyeglasses that improve her sight. At midpoint when she gets the Brain Buffet and Jake’s good looks and brain are sabotaged by Parkinson’s, the seesaw is tipped unexpectedly, making Jake frustrated and depressed although he tries to hide it. Ibrahim dyes his hair black, works out and dresses expensively, but doesn’t like aging and wants to look and think better as well as have more money. This makes him bitter and sarcastic.
Flaws Jake Has trouble listening in part because of his ADHD, but BB is a great listener. BB is a psychopath, but Jake loves people, especially when he is the center of attention. BB manipulates Jake by facilitating his performances. Ibrahim used to be the ideal citizen but after nature betrayed him with Hurricane Ida, he gave up his faith and veering towards his own psychopathy. Jake is kind and wants to forgive but Ibrahim and BB/Betty lack his ethics.
Secrets and Subtext: Jake has committed crimes in his youth like plagiarism, statutory rape, and sexual harassment, and has a temper when he is boxed in instead of boxing out. BB as a serial killer has a huge secret record that he has meticulously erased until it is uncovered by Jake’s kids. “Secrets must be kept. They are sacred.” Both agree. Ibrahim has exploded twice in his life, once in the first novel when he finds out his child is not his, and in the third novel when the Summit collapse kills his wife and son. He is great at covering his feelings with generous action, polite, formal discourse, and competent actions. A funny scene occurs when Delphine teaches her dad to talk more American with ya know, like, ha ha ha, and other gems punctuated in his conversation is an amiable monotone because the point is not to threaten people.
Motivation/want/need: Jake needs people to listen to him, to lead a disciplined wellness program, and to have a happy family around him. BB needs to kill people for ultimate control. Jake’s true love is Litonya who was BB’s secret fantasy when he was a serial killer in the Gunks but she was too strong for him. “I will do anything to get my own boat,” BB promises. Ibrahim wants to be king of the highest castles and needs some social conformity for this to work. As he ages, he is desperate for the Brain Buffet drugs especially when he loses his position and privileges as CEO.
Special BB has been closer to death than anyone as a funeral director and serial killer/rapist/arsonist and hit man. Jake can twist himself around people to have a comfortable life. When BB helps Jake and Litonya give birth to Jesse, he says, “Birth is much more violent than death.” Jake admits that “I am afraid of death because I love life too much and figure out religion.” What does BB believe? Is death peaceful? Maybe BB was never afraid of death. Ibrahim is a brilliant engineer and used to have a deep faith. He has exceptional leadership skills.
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Halloween Scene. Characterization. CS is normally an obedient China doll so she surprises Ibrahim. There is an underbelly and irony of secrets between Ibrahim and BB. The messy format is messing up my mind. I tried to bring it in from free Arc, it didn’t work, and so I ended with a short excerpt from my novel. I better use these character assignments to improve and finish the novel and then write the screenplay properly in the right format. I do understand the necessity of “bursting onto a scene” and adding costume and character for visual effects and will keep working on it.
INT. TUDOR TOWER – EVENING
Ibrahim warms himself by his historic Tudor fireplace. He dyed his hair black last night to hide his senior salt. Time to put more pepper in his life. He wears enormous orange slippers in honor of Halloween evening. As he opens the door, Aaanadi is the first one in, waddling in an orange jumpsuit with a puffy pumpkin hat topped by a green stalk and a golden halo. She flaps golden wings and smiles joyfully.
AANADI
I’m one and a half and I can light up and fly!
CS is dressed as a witch, looking like a kid because she is 4’9” and around 90 pounds ever since she got long haul COVID. She hides her portable oxygen under her Halloween mask. She wears a skeleton pant suit that used to be tight. Their costumes make Ibrahim smile.
IBRAHIM
CS, you look as young and happy as your trick or treating toddler.
CS puts down a knapsack and adjusts the oxygen in her nose to breathe better.
CS
I am not playing like a kid, but I like this disguise. Just don’t give me or Aanadi candy.”
IBRAHIM
Joe?
CS
He has to cover today, tomorrow, and all week because thirty percent of the firefighters will be put on unpaid leave because they won’t get the vax. Joe is double vaxxed and recovered so even though he theoretically left in summer 2020, he is always ready to get paid overtime.
IBRAHIM
Heroes. Front line workers. He worked so hard on the Summit condo collapse.
I’m sorry for your loss. People never get over stuff like that. I would die if I lost Joe.
! CS
I still have a lot to live for but you are right, the loss was devastating. Hurricane Ida killed Sandrine, Omar, and my faith. I want to divest completely from the EvergreenEnergy Company..
CS
Big mistake. The future is in renewables. You set that company up with Rodney. It is Kisele’s and we are talking about his trust fund.
Ibrahim wonders why and how CS got so opinionated. He thought her belligerence was limited to boxing.
IBRAHIM
Litonya and I discussed it. She was never more than a consultant for EE. Her heart is made of stone and her body is glued to her rocks. I will get mentors in environmental engineering to help Kisele with his ecoboats but my portfolio goes completely to STEMGARCHS.”
CS fidgets with the black lace over her witch eyes. “They are a new and controversial company. They may have helped start the pandemic.”
Ibrahim breaks out of his formal prose, “Shit! Don’t tell me you are persuaded by Internet misinformation.”
“Most people agree that COVID was a bioweapon and companies like STEMGARCHS are at fault. I want nothing to do with anyone or anything that would spread this horrific virus that has ruined my life and others.”
As she finishes her sentence, Ibrahim opens the door. Her husband Joe bursts in, dressed as a real firefighter, accompanied by his adopted father, BB, who ironically has spread the virus with his special sanitizer, but that is a secret he and Ibrahim will never confess. Joe picks up his cute little orange pumpkin and covers her round face with kisses. BB winks at Ibrahim, a little out of character.
Ibrahim takes control, “Happy Halloween everyone. BB help me organize some treats.” As CS and Joe pay attention to their little darling, Ibrahim and BB prepare pumpkin pie with whipped cream and hot apple cider. Everyone sits by the fire indulging in these treats.
Joe looks at his watch, “I gotta go back to the firehouse tonight. On call for the next week. The city is short of ambulance drivers, EMS technicians, police, sanitation workers—you name it.”
Ibrahim shakes his head, “We are lucky to have these vaccines. Long live Big Pharma.”
Joe objects, “I agree, sort of, but many of my colleagues think there are long term bad effects of getting vaccinated every six months. Not sure how I will feel after my fourth booster.”
BB watches, listens, and cleans up, a man of few words. “If you have to work for the next week or so, I will drive CS and Aanadi back to New Paltz tonight. We should leave soon.”
Ibrahim brings out books and toys, “Here are some Halloween treats for the ride. Drive safely.”
Aanadi is magnetic enough to focus attention on her needs and wants, hiding the nefarious underbelly of what is really going on. Joe gulps down a second piece of pie, kisses his family goodbye and leaves to serve the city. BB packs CS and Aanadi into the back of the car and is as quiet as a chauffeur, driving quickly and carefully for the next 90 minutes, until he delivers them to their solar house and parks himself in the huge garage where he makes his nest inside a boat they are working on. He hasn’t slept in a real bed for years. Even in his dreams, he never feels guilty.
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I formatted this in a free Arc but it won’t translate here. It is on the nose because that is how Litonya behaves but the deepest secret is that Ibrahim’s new company STEMGARCHS is not for the nature Litonya wants and needs.
Competing Agendas between Litonya and Ibrahim
STOCK FOOTAGE of Blue Origin Space Trip.
CLOSE on Ibrahim smiling with a thumbs up.
EXT. FELDMANS’ GARAGE
Litonya and Ibrahim stand 12 feet apart amidst ecoboats in construction.
LITONYA Traitor. Do you know how much gas it takes to blast off into outer space?
IBRAHIM It gave me more appreciation for the earth.
LITONYA Bullshit.
IBRAHIM You were never more than a consultant for the EvergreenEnergy Company. Rodney is gone and I am too tired and busy to–
LITONYA What about Kisele?
IBRAHIM At eleven years old, he can’t run the company but I will hire environmental engineers to help with his ecoboats or whatever dream.
LITONYA What are you going to do? Cheat on Bezos with another space venture?
IBRAHIM I am focusing on science and engineering in a bigger way to save the earth.
LITONYA Bullshit. I don’t trust you.
IBRAHIM We have the same mission but different ways of going about it. I promise to help your kids. At least you have kids of your own.
LITONYA I am sorry about your loss. The Summit collapse was so unexpected.
IBRAHIM Nature is the worst terrorist. We must fight her. We can’t be pawns in her bipolar madness.
LITONYA Look, I don’t argue. I don’t care enough about people to fight with them.
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I was about to map out a new arc when I realized that irritating questions may be more useful for now.
Serial killers and hit men/women are known for their extraordinary actions, but what is his/her daily life like? Sleep, hygiene, food, grooming, sex on any level, aches and pains and gains. The homeless man I modeled the older character on is always plotting, fantasizing, organizing successful enterprises for the future that may seem practical but won’t work. Although there will be pertinent flashbacks, this screenplay charts BB/Betty from age 60 to age 85, a time when seniors usually look back on their lives. He may have occasional nightmares but is he still driven into the future and if so, what is his projectile?
Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty’s character arc was initially flat because psychopaths aren’t supposed to transform for the better in real life.
But then I turned BB into a Betty and she began to transform.
Now I must redo all the scenes with minor characters and kids so that he/she is there somewhere, making tiny changes throughout. He can’t just be an OCD cleaning cliiche or an obsequious cook, serving his bosses. I must go deeper inside his original need to kill and what end-of-life fantasies he has as a woman. Does he get religious? Does he look forward to his own death? A former funeral director, what are his final wishes? He likes the boat but he knows his corpse will be removed. What kind of afterlife would he believe in? Will he join Joe and Natalia?
BB teaches Ibrahim how to swim and I need more activities like this that can be metaphors for the shifts in knowledge and power.
He never liked Jake but he stalked his wife Litonya for years when she climbed rocks in the Gunks. What does he think of them now? He has a boat bond with their son Kisele, so what does Kisele do when he finds out BB/Betty was a serial killer?
He kills by infiltrating homes during COVID and then later by getting DNA as a part health aid at Jake’s house. He cleans and cooks but why does Jake trust him? Because Jake forgives everyone and looks on the bright side?
How does he feel when he is raped by the Wallkill river where he raped women as a serial killer, and by the East River by the same kind of gang that beat him up as a teenager, destroying his right eye? Does he develop any feelings for victims?
When he is transformed again by the Bright Space Brain Buffet after midpoint, he gets the memory of a college student with critical and creative thinking although his female body continues to fall down. How can he hide his cognitive improvement from Ibrahim? How does this enable him to understand his final dilemma with Jake and Litonya? Does his enhanced cognition complicate his second rape at PP2?
Ibrahim begins to get frontotemporal dementia, and greedily takes the Brain Buffet to clean out plaques but his unpredictable behavior causes him to be fired from STEMGARCHS. This means the drugs are even more precious to both of them.
The final scenes are fine for now but is there a parting epiphany that would relate to the theme of fate versus will and give a stance on climate catastrophes as well as the neurodegenerative cures?
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Since film is usually flat and visual, it leaves out the three dimensionality, smells, and tastes of real life and what I must describe in fiction. But I need to imagine better chemistry between characters since the pandemic has perched me on a lonely pedestal.
Five couples
1) Litonya and Jake
2) CS and Joe
3) Sandrine then Fadma then BB/Betty and Ibrahim
4) Jean and Joan La Roche
5) Orhan and Nikos1) Litonya and Jake
A. Common Ground/Similarities — Once Rodney dies, Litonya and Jake create baby Jesse and become a couple devoted to nature, the community, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine, and fitness/wellness.
B. Differences that create conflict — Ever since the first novel they had conflicts about the environment and lifestyle but these have diminished as they aged and had children. But new conflicts will develop about STEMGARCHS verus EE, rocks versus water, and what to do about aging and degenerative diseases.
C. Playing the same game / Competing agendas — These conflicts can grow into competing agendas as Jake struggles with neurodegenerative diseases but eventually they play the same game to defeat the genocidal STEMGARCHS.
D. Need fulfillment — Jake needs Litonya’s grounded strength and academic genius and she is comforted by his attention to domestic things like cooking and caring for the kids. They were always attracted to each other sexually but now they are making love.
2) CS and Joe
A. Common Ground – Boxing and rock climbing brought them together in college.
B. Differences – CS became a financial analyst for Sam Stern, Litonya’s millionaire father, and kept Joe secret. But in the second novel, Stern is killed by a falling tree during Sandy Storm, aided by a push into Turtle Pond by his daughter, so Joe and CS get married. Then COVID creates conflict with CS’ long haul disease. Joe wants to adopt Aanadi but CS is too exhausted. He wins.
C. Competing Agendas – CS wants to get well and get back to boxing and finance with a clear head. Joe wants more kids and to live upstate more than in NYC. When CS finds out the real mission of STEMGARCHS, she is killed and Joe dies trying to save her so they play the same game at the end.
D. Joe is a strong, handsome firefighter and CS is tiny so she makes him feel bigger and better. Over the years they sparred with boxing, he trained her for Golden Gloves in the second novel, and their sex life was seasoned with violence. COVID killed that.
3) Ibrahim and his women Fadma, Sandrine, and BB/Betty
A. Common ground – Islam, environment, living space, children, Middle Eastern food, French culture, later–STEMGARCHS.
B. Conflicts – When Fadma becomes an artists and paints and hangs mutilated nudes, Ibrahim feels she is an apostate. When he finds out Mina is Jake’s baby, not his, he goes ballistic but learns to accept this and hires Jake to fertilize his next wife Sandrine to have the triplets. They love French and Arabic culture and have an ideal family life until Hurricane Ida demolishes the Summit and kills Sandrine and Omar. Ibrahim gives up his faith and Fadma comes back as a kind of filler in his big Tudor home. BB was his hit man but when he becomes Betty the female chef, a secret conflict grows as STEMGARCHS becomes elitist in a way that excludes Betty.
C. Competing Agenda – This escalates into a war between STEMGARCHS and EE where Betty is a kind of double agent leading to the crisis/climax and murder of Ibrahim.D. At first Ibrahim used others to fulfill his needs for power and control but as women and nature sabotage his plotting, he changed from a respected family man and hard working millionaire to a psychopathic billionaire who gradually lost that money as well and then his life. Therefore Ibrahim did not succeed in fulfilling his women nor his business.
4) Jean and Joan La Roche
A. Superficially the La Roches love the same things–American history, New Paltz, Huguenot Street, horses, corn, barley, beans, and beef, and professional life.
B. Conflicts – After giving birth to Jake, an ADHD disappointment, they stop having sex and Jean takes on a secret lover, Nikos, a Greek professor at the college. But it is the twentieth century and not time to come out so Jean fires Nikos and stays with Joan in a loving but sexless marriage. Joan is the local doctor, he is chair of history at the college, and community life trumps the void in their personal life. In the third novel where this screenplay begins, Jean contracts ALS and Joan slowly succumbs to Alzheimer’s, so they are locked in and locked out, the ultimate in estrangement.
C. Competing agendas – As they degenerate with neurological diseases, Jean and Joan must learn of the research that STEMGARCHS is doing as well as some of the horrible things they have done so that they can have arguments. Then Joan’s mind goes and others must step in. As Jean gets more disabled and Jake is busy with his kids, his former lover Nikos occasionally takes care of him, something that brings back memories of infidelity through Joan’s eyes.
D. Fulfillment – Their sexual tragedy was a perennial source of frustration, but aging allowed them to fulfil each others’ needs in daily living. But when Jean’s body is crippled by ALS and Joan’s mind is emptied with Alzheimer’s, they are so frustrated that only Jake and his kids can inject optimism with their buoyant enthusiasm. Then when Betty steps in to cook and clean, all hell is secretly breaking loose as she steals DNA and other things for STEMGARCHS research.
5) Orhan and Nikos
A. They are both gay men, artistic and intellectual, whose sexuality was sabotaged by the strict Greek and Turkish family culture. They love Huguenot St, the Gunks, middle eastern food, music, sex, reading, writing, and a few days in Manhattan for work and culture.
B. They playfully fight about Orhan’s Sufi mysticism versus Nikos’ classical enlightenment. When Nikos cares for his former lover Jean, Orhan is jealous, but rises above it with Sufi whirling and comes over to play the flute. They are all there when Jean passes on.
C. This exercise reminds me that I must use these characters in the competing agendas and link them to BB, Ibrahim, STEMGARCHS, EE, and the ecoboats. They need more physical and mental flaws.
D. Orhan and Nikos fulfill each other’s needs in every way from the first novel but again, I must inject more flaws and setbacks to fit them into the overall jigsaw puzzle. Maybe they can interact with the Feldmans, do something at the funerals, and have an assigned project for EE or STEMGARCHS. They must also age.
Other characters: There are other couples, like Jen and Eliot Feldman, an obese couple who code having sex on their waterbed with a mutual orgasmic heart attack exacerbated by BB’s COVID squirter at their Hanukkah party, the Lees, CS’ parents, who die in the Windows on the World restaurant on September 11, and the Nafisis, the Iranians who sabotage Ibrahim’s academic career in the first novel and have a secret affair with Jake’s former wife, Priceless, a gorgeous dancer who commits suicide when she gets multiple sclerosis by having her last dance doing aerial moves in the salmon waterfalls of Trump Tower Manhattan. But these are in the first two novels. My screenplay must focus on the last novel because it is not written yet.
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Since Jake and Litonya are married, I am working with them as the third person to see if this improves my scenes.
A. BB. Traits are clean, conscientious, careful, and helpful. Subtext is a hatred that dissociates into psychopathy. Need is to kill. Logline: BB/Betty is a hit man/woman who wants to live peacefully on boats but must serve his/her boss Ibrahim and help Jake, Litonya, and the kids so no one uncovers his/her crimes.
B. Ibrahim is polite, educated, generous, rich. Subtext is a depression that hides his impotency, his loss of faith after the condo collapse that killed wife and son, his betrayal of Litonya and the EE Company, and his greed. Logline: Ibrahim al Harbi is CEO of STEMGARCHS who must overcome the milk of human kindness and compassion to maintain his position with its perks.
C. Litonya is strong, brilliant, beautiful, connected to the earth as a rock climber and geologist. She has no social skills so she will be the one character on the nose or silent. Her mission is to save the earth from humans. Jake is positive, performative, fit, and cheerful. He is afraid he will lose his perky personality when he gets PD and his mom Alzheimer’s and Dad ALS. His mission is to get Ibrahim’s Brain Buffet drugs for these neurodegenerative diseases. He may be forced to kill but not illegally so he must get the FBI or CIA on his side.
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What I learned: Although I have lived for years as a novelist with my characters trying to finish this trilogy, I am starting to see and hear them in visual scenes, but I am not there yet.
Character Name: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty the serial killer/rapist/arsonist
1. Basic character traits:
Clean, conscientious, conformist, organized, careful listener
2. Want/Need
What does this character want throughout this story? He wants to live on boats with more money than he has had in the past. He still likes to kill but not to rape.
3. Paradoxes (Warring elements)
Normally he is not affected by the pain and pleasure of others but when his son is burnt in a fire he had to set, embers of guilt and sadness flicker in his unconscious.
4. Secret: He vows never to tell anyone about his crimes as a younger man.
5. Flaw:
What weakness or dysfunction does this character have that makes
them human?6. Special: Longevity. Few serial killers enjoy freedom as long as he has in part because he changes identities with skill and commitment.
IBRAHIM’S CHARACTER PROFILE
Character Name: Ibrahim al Harbi a Saudi engineer and technologist and businessman
1. Basic character traits:
– well-spoken and polite– ruthlessly ambitious
– religious
– super educated and accomplished2. Want/Need:
– Wants to be a respected member of community, family etc.
– Needs to be in control with power and money3. Paradoxes (Warring elements):
–ethics of Islam and society versus his need for power even if it is illegal or immoral4. Secret:
– Ibrahim is sterile, so Jake has fertilized his four kids. Later, he is CEO of STEMGARCHS, a dangerous company with genocidal secrets.5. Flaw:
– When stressed, his temper explodes out of his polite exterior like a volcano.6. What is special about this character?
– Ibrahim is very smart and connected and has helped develop and hide the Bright Space Brain Buffet, drugs to improve mental illnesses and neurodegenerative diseases but he is not free to distribute them to everyone.7. Subtext. Ibrahim is not scared of things and not overtly or covertly immoral till later, so he is in an even better position to do harm. He can fool the audience for a while. Nice exterior, refined, tactful, polite, smooth, discreet, with formal, educated language.
Nice exterior – Political – Withholding – Diplomatic
– Refined – Tactful – Discreet – Smooth
– Modest – Discreet – Bashful – Reserved
– Politically correct – Self-CensoringWhile he is plotting:
– Manipulative – Secretive – Underhanded – Tricky
– Conspiring – Weaselly – Immoral – Sly
– Sneaky – Undercover – Scheming – Devious
– Concealing – Crafty – Treacherous – Deceitful
– Conniving – Unethical – Underhanded – Evasive
– Corrupt – Shady – Slippery – ShiftyCharacter Name: Litonya Lenape a Native American geologist
1. Basic character traits:
Super strong physically
Brilliant in science and technology as a geologist
Blunt talker even when it hurts her
Can be silent for hours2. Want/Need
Litonya wants to be connected viscerally to nature through rocks, sex, love, and her men and boys.
3. Paradoxes (Warring elements)
She loves her sons and husband but doesn’t share some of their social interests.
4. Secret:
Litonya spent seven years in jail where she learned to hate humans even more than she did when she killed her father during Sandy Storm for being a fracker. But she doesn’t keep it a secret.
5. Flaw:
Litonya lacks humor, some warmth, social skills etc.
6. Special:
Litonya is a genius geologist and the best rock climber in the country.
7. Subtext Character Traits
She surprises by blurting out truths when everyone else is lying. If she weren’t so gorgeous, she would be invisible. She is not afraid to talk but she often could care less. She doesn’t seduce, flatter, say thank you, and will tell everyone about her prison term. Her on the nose personality is a sharp contrast to other characters so she can create surprises, shock, or humor in scenes. -
Janeen Johnson’s Condensed Outline
I love the story because of its profound timeliness and the unique twist of involving the wealthy fashionista since people often lump abused women in with the poor and the homeless the way they do around here.Concept, dilemma, conflicts on a personal and societal level, and character arcs are clear but other than thoughts and prayers, what is YOUR stand on the theme?
Your plot points are clear but what is the WORLD of your opening? Do you have a unique place, urban or rural?
I understand the objectives of Plot Point One and Midpoint, but could you specify a dramatic activity to be filmed, not just agreement and discussions?
Since your plot choice is maturation, could you add a clause precisely describing her transformation?
I am intrigued by your outline and look forward to how these characters will lie, hide, flatter, and cajole to develop subtext.
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Hi Janeen, Since I occasionally eat food with abused women from the Armory, I am intrigued by your story. Do you want to exchange? Julia
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If I understand Hal’s emails correctly, our final condensed outline, sans sluglines, should be posted here before we move to characters and subtext.
Concept: Confronted with the obstacles of adoption, psychopathic genes, bad luck, and characters smart enough to uncover his crimes, Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a serial killer/rapist/arsonist, transitions into a hit man and then a female chef who sacrifices her life to save others.
Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim, Jake and Litonya, and rocks
Theme: Fate versus WillPlot/Structure: Transformation. Horror or Drama with Fantasy, Fun, Fitness, and Fear
1. Set-Up. BB poses as a helpful, clean guy during the COVID pandemic, secretly squirting sanitizers filled with condensed COVID and lighting up outdoor restaurants near rent-stabilized tenements, hiding his crimes as he helps kids construct eco boats and IBRAHIM, LITONYA, and RODNEY take care of their lives, businesses, and loved ones.
2. Inciting Incident: DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist as he sleeps peacefully on a docked boat in 2020 on Huguenot Street beside the place where he secretly squirted COVID sanitizer to expedite COVID deaths among the older or weaker Feldmans.
3. The main conflict is between BB/Betty, himself, herself, genes, fate, climate disasters, and the good guys Jake, Litonya, and the kids, and a powerful good guy turned bad, Ibrahim al Harbi.
4. First Turning Point: BB becomes Betty after setting the fire that killed Joe, his/her adopted son and his wife CS, convincing Muslim Ibrahim to pay for this expensive sex change since he was the one who ordered the fire to kill CS who knew too much.
5. Mid-Point: Betty convinces Ibrahim to give her the Bright Space Brain Buffet to improve their aging brains and avoid the neurodegenerative diseases that are plaguing the La Roche family and others.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: Betty is attacked by a gang from East Harlem, similar to the (FLASHBACK) gang that beat him up as a teenager where he lost his right eye as Bobby. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia that he becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty.
7. Crisis: If Betty doesn’t give Jake and Litonya the Bright Space Brain Buffet, they will reveal his criminal past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist.
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. Ibrahim fakes death and struggles physically with Betty but is saved by Jake who finishes him off with a sharp basalt rock he keeps in his pocket.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes.
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Julia’s Pass 10
A. Your logline. A funeral director turned hospitality chef hides his secret life as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist by changing into a hit man and finally a female chef who sacrifices her life to save others.
B. Dramatic Question. Will Bobby/Leo/BB/ Betty’s crimes be exposed?
C. Main Conflict. Aging humans battle neurodegenerative diseases, climate catastrophes, and their innate flaws because this is the last novel of a trilogy.
D. Dilemma. Will BB/Betty betray her boss Ibrahim to give the precious drugs to Jake or will he/she let Jake expose his past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist?
E. Theme. Fate versus Will.F. The entire outline showing ALL of your scenes in the movie.
1)EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR finish the Muslim prayers as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City.2) INT. SUMMIT PENTHOUSE – DAY
Ibrahim and Omar join SANDRINE, his wife, CORAL and DELPHINE the other triplets, and KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old as they do online education. He puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage and gets on the FDR.3) EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack.4) EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net, they discuss suicide and watch trainer JAKE LA ROCHE jog across the bridge with a client. Jake pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs.5) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB pick up LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory who says she was released from jail early after 7 years because of COVID. She is not reformed—she would kill her fracking father again.3) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
They drop Litonya off at her solar house on Huguenot Street so she can prepare her dissertation defense for her PhD in geology.4) EXT. COLONIAL – DAY
Ibrahim leaves BB at the Colonial garage, a huge house with antique cars where BB helps Kisele and the kids design eco boats.5) INT. TUDOR MANSION – EVENING
Ibrahim finishes his day alone in the Green Room of his home on Huguenot St. with Muslim prayers. Out his window he sees Jake covered in turquoise paint. BB watches everything from the woods.6) EXT.TURQUOISE CHURCH – DAY
Jake is painting a pink church turquoise to turn it into a virtual fitness studio. FADMA and MINA pass by, Ibrahim’s former wife and daughter. We learn that four of Ibrahim’s kids have Jake’s sperm.7) INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Jake makes and serves lunch to JEAN LA ROCHE, his dad and a history professor locked in with ALS. His mom, DR. JOAN LA ROCHE stops by on her way to work.8)INT. NEW PALTZ MEDICAL CENTER – DAY
Dr. Joan tests positive for COVID. BB sprays sanitizer everywhere.9)INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
BB is obsessively cleaning the mansion in preparation for her quarantine. Jake morphs into a caretaker for parents.10)INT. CPR OFFICE -DAY
Jake practices CPR on dummies. JOE, BB’s adopted son, helps. Then he puts on his firefighter uniform. BB enters and he and Joe talk about boxing their first loves. FLASHBACK to the funeral of Joe’s first boxing coach in the New Paltz cemetery who died of Alzheimer’s.11)EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID.12)INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. BB helps out as usual.13) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home. Rodney dies that night of a cytokine fire.14) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team. Inciting Incident.15) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with LANA coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.16) INT. BOXING STUDIO – DAY
Joe tries to get his long haul COVID wife CS, Cheering Spear, back into ring shape but it isn’t working. BB and Jake offer suggestions since they are all recovered.12) EXT. SUMMIT ROOF – EVENING
Jake is training clients, including Ibrahim. As NIGHT approaches, Jake leaves and BB slips in for a secret discussion and an exchange of goods and services.13)EXT. OUTDOOR RESTAURANT – NIGHT
Ibrahim is having dinner with his wife and triplets. When they leave, BB drops a match on the wood bungalow that instantly blows up, burning SENIORS in a nearby tenement in NYC’s UES. Then he sprays the sanitizer on others in the Plexiglas cubicles.19) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.20) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Ibrahim can’t trust God anymore. Fate versus human will. BB helped prepare the corpses because they were too burnt for Ibrahim to look.21) INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of Fadma, his former wife, and their daughter Mina, also an artist. Ibrahim argues CS his financial advisor still recovering from long haul COVID. BB enters and they have an argument about CS. Ibrahim says CS knows too much.22) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.FLASHBACK
EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.23) A SERIES OF SHOTS Beginning of Plot Point One
His wife NATALIA crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls watch.24) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS, but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house.25) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave.DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully. Forceps violently pull him out of the womb into the tomb.
INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially Litonya Lenape, the top climber and a geology prof at the college. SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Leo/Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence.26) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park where they keep vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. Ibrahim must be convinced.27) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman. Plot Point One28) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn.29) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods.30) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill. FLASHBACK to Leo’s rapes and murders where cadavers disintegrated into nature. Ironically, she feels more empowered, but her perpetrators run away scared because of her unexpected reaction.31)EXT. NEW PALTZ MAIN STREET – DAY
Betty struts through the street a bit like Priceless did years ago after he as Leo tried to rape her. FLASHBACK to Priceless dancing in Muddy Mansion and the younger Leo tying her up near the French church.32} INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Betty and Jake care for Jean and Joan La Roche, seriously disabled by ALS and Alzheimer’s.33) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
Betty sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Delphine, one of Ibrahim’s daughters, is a brain scientist.34) EXT. TUDOR TOWER
Ibrahim and Betty fight about the STEMGARCHS drugs.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY Midpoint
Betty is given a precious vial of drugs called the Bright Space Brain Buffet.
A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Betty helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with his kids. He may have Parkinson’s and is desperate to find cures for him and his mom.39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake argue about the EE Company, saving the planet, and their degenerative diseases. She feels she will be recycled like rocks but is Jake still a Christian?40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later
SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi, a yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42)FLASHBACK to Leo’s time in jail for assault, a short one because he was a model prisoner, always cleaning.
43) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – NIGHT Plot Point Two
Betty is raped by a gang like the gang who beat her up as teenage boy and wiped out his right eye. FLASHBACK to the bloody eye and ZOOM BACK to the present glass eye.44)EXT. BOAT – DAY
Delphine nurses Betty’s bruises but as the gang tries to attack her, she throws them overboard into the river with Betty’s help. Betty has too much strength and power for a woman in her eighties and Delphine wants to know why.45) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for the Alzheimer’s drug to get the sticky glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.46) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?47) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet.48) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT Crisis
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless.49) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim is depressed because he lost his position as CEO and billions of dollars and has the last supply of Brain Buffet drugs. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa, so they think. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Suddenly Ibrahim awakes and takes a weapon out of his pocket for a final, dramatic struggle that he loses when Jake is forced to finish him off. Jake takes the drugs right away, but Litonya refuses.
50) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Conclusion Fate marries Will.
51) EXT. HUDSON RIVER – DAY
We transform to survive. We transform as we die.FINIS
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When I reread my outline, my first ten pages seemed like the worst so I walked around Manhattan in the sun today along the river looking at the homeless and the rich joggers and reimagined it. I must pretend I am the DP since I lack visual skills.
1)EXT. SUMMIT – GARDEN ROOF- SUNRISE
IBRAHIM AL HARBI and his ten year old son OMAR finish the Muslim prayers as the sun rises behind the crowded skyline of Long Island City. The 40 story UES high rise has gorgeous gardens, solar panels, and an elegant swimming pool with 360 degree views of Manhattan. [Setup]2) INT. SUMMIT PENTHOUSE – DAY
Ibrahim and Omar join SANDRINE, his wife, CORAL and DELPHINE the other triplets, and KISELE FELDMAN, also ten years old as they do online education. Ibrahim says goodbye in French after a discussion about virtual versus in-person boat building.
SERIES OF SHOTS:
He puts on an N95 mask, takes the elevator, gets his car out of the garage and gets on the FDR.3) EXT. IBRAHIM’s CAR – DAY
Ibrahim picks up Boat Bob, quickly transformed from a homeless man camping out by the East River Esplanade to a clean, sixty-year-old hiker with a big backpack. They drive up the FDR, past the hospital for the criminally insane on Randall’s Island and head west to the George Washington Bridge.4) EXT. GW BRIDGE – DAY
Looking at the signs and the net, they discuss suicide. Traffic is slow so they watch trainer JAKE LA ROCHE jog across the bridge with a client. Jake pockets a small sharp basalt rock from the Palisades cliffs. [Setup.] They wave but he is jogging back to Manhattan.5) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim and BB pick up LITONYA LENAPE, a geologist at the Earth Observatory. Litonya wonders why Ibrahim and BB are already vaccinated because the trials barely started. She says she was released from jail early after 7 years because of COVID. She is not reformed—she would kill her fracking father again.3) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
They drop Litonya off at her solar house on Huguenot Street so she can prepare her dissertation defense for her PhD in geology.[Setup]4) EXT. COLONIAL – DAY
Ibrahim leaves BB at the Colonial garage, a huge house with antique cars where he will help Kisele and the kids design eco boats.5) INT. TUDOR MANSION – EVENING
Ibrahim finishes his day alone in the Green Room of his home on Huguenot St. with Muslim prayers. Out his window he sees Jake covered in turquoise paint.6) EXT.TURQUOISE CHURCH – DAY
Jake is painting a pink church turquoise to turn it into a virtual fitness studio. Since he is covered in paint, BB helps him clean. FADMA and MINA pass by, Ibrahim’s former wife and daughter. We learn that four of Ibrahim’s kids have Jake’s sperm. [Setup]7) INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Jake makes and serves lunch to JEAN LA ROCHE, his dad and a history professor locked in with ALS. His mom, DR. JOAN LA ROCHE stops by on her way to work.8)INT. NEW PALTZ MEDICAL CENTER – DAY
Dr. Joan tests positive for COVID.9)INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
BB is obsessively cleaning the mansion in preparation for her quarantine. Jake and Joan arrive. Jake morphs into a caretaker for parents.10)INT. CPR OFFICE -DAY
Jake wears masks and goggles as he practices CPR on dummies. JOE, BB’s adopted son, helps. Then he puts on his firefighter uniform. BB enters and he and Joe talk about boxing their first loves. FLASHBACK to the funeral of Joe’s first boxing coach in the New Paltz cemetery who died of Alzheimer’s. Terrible disease.11)EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID. [Setup]12)INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. Since they are obese it takes all their strength to get them in the ambulance.13) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home. Rodney dies that night of a cytokine fire.14) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team. Inciting Incident.
15) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, Lana, Keith, and Norm, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with Lana coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.16) INT. BOXING STUDIO – DAY
Joe tries to get his long haul COVID wife CS, Cheering Spear, back into ring shape but it isn’t working. BB and Jake offer suggestions since they are all recovered. [Setup]12) EXT. SUMMIT ROOF – EVENING
Jake is training clients, including Ibrahim. As NIGHT approaches, Jake leaves and BB slips in for a secret discussion and an exchange of goods and services. BB’s eyes light up as he tests a sanitizer secretly filled with condensed COVID.13)EXT. OUTDOOR RESTAURANT – NIGHT
BB drops a match on the wood bungalow that instantly blows up, burning SENIORS in a nearby tenement in NYC’s UES. Then he sprays the sanitizer on others in the Plexiglas cubicles.19) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. BB and Joe are working hard. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.[Payoff]20) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Everyone is there but Ibrahim is hollow, silent, devastated by this loss. He can’t trust God anymore. Fate versus human will. BB helped prepare the corpses because they were too burnt for Ibrahim to look.21) INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of Fadma, his former wife, and their daughter Mina, also an artist. This time he doesn’t protest. He works harder. Litonya and Jake pass by with their new baby Jesse, all theirs. Ibrahim is cold to them, out of character. He has an argument with CS his financial advisor still recovering from long haul COVID. Joe picks her up. BB enters the back way and they have an argument about CS. Ibrahim says CS knows too much.22) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB is designing a deluxe boat for Ibrahim with expert architects. He also toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.FLASHBACK
EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.23) A SERIES OF SHOTS Beginning of Plot Point One
His wife NATALIA crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls watch.24) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS, but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house. [Payoff]25) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave.DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully. Forceps violently pull him out of the womb into the tomb.
INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially Litonya Lenape, the top climber and a geology prof at the college. SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Leo/Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence. [Payoff]26) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park. There are vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. He would be more potent as a hit woman. Ibrahim must be convinced.27) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman. Plot Point One28) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn. Betty’s first transformation is to develop a sense of humor and domesticity.29) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. Betty occasionally helps out because she is stronger than most women. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods. [Setup]30) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill the way he did it as Leo years ago. FLASHBACK to Leo’s rapes and murders where cadavers disintegrated into nature. But her body is only raped, not murdered, and she has no idea who the masked gang was. Ironically, she feels more empowered, but her perpetrators run away scared because of her unexpected reaction.31)EXT. NEW PALTZ MAIN STREET – DAY
Betty struts through the street a bit like Priceless did years ago after he as Leo tried to rape her. If a victim isn’t scared, the perpetrator sometimes gets impotent. FLASHBACK to Priceless dancing in Muddy Mansion and the younger Leo tying her up near the French church.32} INT. LA ROCHE STONE HOUSE – DAY
Betty and Jake care for Jean and Joan La Roche, seriously disabled by ALS and Alzheimer’s. They discuss the past. Jake says that human flaws must be forgiven. What we need now is cures for human diseases since wellness only goes so far. But Jake is blocking Betty on one level because he knows too much about his past.33) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
Betty sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Ibrahim consults with them on the brain buffet. We see huge screens with radiographs. Delphine, one of his daughters, is a brain scientist.34) EXT. TUDOR TOWER
Ibrahim and Betty discuss STEMGARCHS on the nose and with subtext. He shows him a stash of drugs in the closet.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY Midpoint
This time Betty’s surgery is on her brain. Then she is given a precious vial of drugs called the Bright Space Brain Buffet. A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Tapes of former history lectures are playing. Betty helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. His wife, doctor Joan, Jake’s mom, is so beset by Alzheimer’s she doesn’t realize her husband has died. Betty is even better at mortuary duties, a woman of all trades. After the service, Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with Coral, Delphine, Kisele et al. He hears more from the kids about Ibrahim’s research because they are also computer experts. He says he may have Parkinson’s and is desperate to find cures for him and his mom.39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake are walking along the cliffs to the boat where Betty and the kids are working. Litonya has pulmonary fibrosis with that horrible chest cough. They discuss the physiology of getting rid of the plaques and clots that make humans miserable, especially in old age. She isn’t afraid of aging. She is more committed to the EE Company and saving the planet. She feels she will be recycled like rocks but is Jake still a Christian?40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone. Our mission is to get rid of as many people as possible. They have an argument over who is entitled but Betty backs down because she is now a submissive woman or so she says.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later Beginning of Plot Point Two Uncovering Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty’s secrets
Jesse is taking an interest in history, after his late grandfather Jean La Roche, and is intrigued by the unsolved crimes in the area, more cadavers and disappearances to which perpetrators are not attached.
SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi, a yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42)FLASHBACK to Leo’s time in jail for assault, a short one because he was a model prisoner, always cleaning.
43) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – NIGHT Plot Point Two
Betty is raped by a gang like the gang who beat her up as teenage boy and wiped out his right eye. FLASHBACK to the bloody eye and ZOOM BACK to the present glass eye.44)EXT. BOAT – DAY
Delphine nurses Betty’s bruises but as the gang tries to attack her, she throws them overboard into the river with Betty’s help. Betty has too much strength and power for a woman in her eighties and Delphine wants to know why.45) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for at least the Alzheimer’s drug to get the sticky glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.46) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. His wife Litonya coughs so badly she cannot run and hike the way she did. They need and deserve that brain buffet. But Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?47) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet. Arguments erupt about nature, nurture, and how far humans can go with science.48) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT Crisis
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. At first, she denies, but as the proof mounts, Jake hits her with a barrage of evidence. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless. Why would Betty confess?49) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim sits by the fire overlooking the Hudson River, a little sleepier than usual. He is depressed because he lost his position as CEO and billions of dollars. He has the last supply of Brain Buffet drugs. Betty talks on the phone to Jake. The food is carefully poisoned. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa, so they think. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Suddenly Ibrahim awakes and takes a weapon out of his pocket for a final, dramatic struggle that he loses when Jake is forced to finish him off. Jake takes the drugs right away, but Litonya refuses. She has more confidence in natural processes. Betty is delirious. Nothing can save her.
50) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to a shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Conclusion Fate marries Will.
51) EXT. HUDSON RIVER – DAY
Jake and the kids get on their boat and sail to the Palisades. Jake greedily gobbles the Bright Space Brain Buffet to improve his PD, but Litonya refuses to take man-made or woman-made drugs and prefers to die naturally. She falls rock climbing during an earthquake at age 85. Jake dies with her as he tries to help. Magma rocks slide into the Hudson as the rock cycle continues. We transform to survive. We transform as we die.
FINIS
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I will use Hal’s great technique as soon as I start writing screenplay scenes but I went over my outline for an originality pitch. Because of my stand-up background, I can twist verbal cliches into laughs or poetry or something else. I have no car chases, no guns to kill because I use more innovative ways with COVID sanitizer, rocks, sticks, poison, very few scenes in bars and restaurants–just setting an outdoor restaurant on fire, and no standard NYC tourism shots in this last novel/film. I will need stock footage of outer space but I am twisting that Blue Origin so my Muslim character who lost his wife and son in the Summit condo collapse because of Hurricane Ida loses his faith and becomes CEO of STEMGARCHS, a genocidal company after he sees the blue below and black above. I am twisting common news events in unusual ways. My homes are not typical American–or rather they are historic American on the oldest street in America but I do diversity and inclusion by going against type. My Muslim character from Saudi Arabia marries a French woman and lives in a Tudor mansion, a Jewish and Black couple live in a confederate white colonial with the miniature dollhouse, and an Italian firefighter marries a Chinese banker. A Huguenot marries a Native American although they were enemies during colonial times. The serial killer/rapist/arsonist turned hit man turned female poisoner is Scottish. Scenes take place on boats, labs, libraries, mosques, churches, temples, but also caves and forests near rivers. I must imagine these locations better because they are unique because novels require this kind of specific description although screenwriters must be flexible about more generic locations.
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My bad: I am so obsessed with action/reaction I posted a new version of it in this forum instead of the SP chains.
I lack visual/spatial talents so I am deliberately finding visual symbols for SP chains connected to the setups and payoffs.
SP CHAIN 1: Igneous rocks: Basalt chips from the Palisades can be used as weapons.
Setup: Jake puts a sharp piece of the brownish rock in his pockets as a souvenir when he jogs across the GW bridge to the Palisades and back with a client.
Payoff 1: Litonya collects these rocks as a geologist.
Payoff 2: Jake pulls out the rock as he struggles with Ibrahim during the climax, using it to cut his throat.Payoff 3: When the Palisades rocks slide because of an earthquake in 2060, Jake and Litonya fall to their natural deaths, absorbed by the earth.
SP CHAIN 2: Trees can kill or be killed.
Setup: Flashback to the tree during Sandy Storm that killed Litonya’s father causing her to drown him in Turtle Pond and serve 7 years in prison.
Payoff 1: Jake picks apples and peaches from trees to bake pies for his mom when she gets COVID, a new domestic direction for him.
Payoff 2: A violent t-storm decapitates a thick green tree in Jake’s backyard, foreshadowing the mind body split of his mother’s Alzheimer’s but the tree survives and is lovely.
Payoff 3: After the solar house is burnt, a surviving chestnut tree is the memorial for Joe the firefighter. Every Thanksgiving they make roasted chestnuts, Nutella, and pie from this fruit.
Payoff 4: The kids plant a lilac tree at Jake’s and Litonya’s grave.SP CHAIN 3: There are many ways of sitting.
Amoeba like sandbags in Jake’s turquoise church
Park benches Homeless bend in two to sleep on park benches
Rocking chairs Jake rocks his dad to death from ALS
Toilets Lana dies of COVID and is found rigor mortis on the toilet
Ibrahim wrestles with Jake and falls to his death on the sofaSP CHAIN 4: Beds tell other stories.
The first novel ends with a sleep medley moving through all the bedrooms on Huguenot St.
Setup for third novel: Jake’s bed turned into an EE core and meditate bench
Mom’s COVID bed
The Feldmans code on their waterbedBB and Julie never sleep in a real bed, only the boat, a floor, a bench etc. except in the hospital
Jake must refrain from giving his mom CPR on her four poster because of her Living Will.
This is a good exercise for my novel that should have at least twenty SP chains of visual symbols or stimuli connected to action and activity so I can describe better.
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A sustained action/reaction is my weak point because I personally run from these confrontations in real life though I teach kickboxing. I must do it in every scene because as a former actress, I know the director always says, “What is your objective and who or what is stopping it?” After imagining fights throughout my story, I abbreviated the basic outline with a one-two punch and a few hooks and upper cuts, focusing only on BB/Betty but I will keep the sub-plot stories and the visual symbol setups and payoffs for the long slugline outline.
Concept: Confronted with the obstacles of adoption, psychopathic genes, bad luck, and characters smart enough to uncover his crimes, Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a serial killer/rapist/arsonist, transitions into a hit man and then a female chef who sacrifices her life to save others.
Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim, Jake and Litonya, and rocks
Theme: Fate versus WillPlot/Structure: Transformation. Horror or Drama with Fantasy, Fun, Fitness, and Fear
1. Set-Up. BB poses as a helpful, clean guy during the COVID pandemic, secretly squirting sanitizers filled with condensed COVID and lighting up outdoor restaurants near rent-stabilized tenements, hiding his crimes as he helps kids construct eco boats and IBRAHIM, LITONYA, and RODNEY take care of their lives, businesses, and loved ones.
2. Inciting Incident: DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist as he sleeps peacefully on a docked boat in 2020 on Huguenot Street beside the place where he secretly squirted COVID sanitizer. Will BB’s past and present crimes be discovered?
3. The main conflict is between BB/Betty, himself, herself, genes, fate, climate disasters, and the good guys Jake, Litonya, and the kids, and a powerful good guy turned bad, Ibrahim al Harbi.
4. First Turning Point: BB becomes Betty after setting the fire that killed Joe, his/her adopted son and his wife CS, convincing Muslim Ibrahim to pay for this expensive sex change since he was the one who ordered the fire to kill CS who knew too much.
5. Mid-Point: Betty convinces Ibrahim to give her the Bright Space Brain Buffet to improve their aging brains and avoid the neurodegenerative diseases that are plaguing the La Roche family and others.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: Betty is attacked by a gang from East Harlem, similar to the (FLASHBACK) gang that beat him up as a teenager where he lost his right eye as Bobby. She hobbles to the boat where DELPHINE, Ibrahim’s and Jake’s daughter is fishing with other kids. The gangsters try to attack her, but she defends herself and Betty. As Betty is dozing off with pain killers, she has FLASHBACKS of her secret career as a serial kller/rapist/arsonist for fifteen years in the Shawangunk Mountains. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia that he becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS versus the EvergreenEnergy Compnay. If Betty doesn’t give Jake and Litonya the Bright Space Brain Buffet, they will reveal his criminal past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist. How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. Ibrahim fakes death and struggles physically with Betty but is saved by Jake who finishes him off with a sharp basalt rock he keeps in his pocket.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes.
P.S. This isn’t enough. I will need to manufacture conflict at every level in every scene.
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Because this is a trilogy, I have tons of sub plots and back stories but this exercise forced me to link three main sub plots to the antagonist’s through line or character arc.
The main plot of this screenplay is BB/Betty. Will everyone find out about his criminal past?
Three subplots: Jake’s transformation into a caring essential worker committed to wellness of all kinds, social, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and medical. This includes his parents with ALS and Alzheimer’s as secondary characters. Betty has the drugs he needs to save them, himself, and Litonya from horrible diseases. This is clouded when Jake finds out that BB/Betty killed Felice, almost killed his former wife Priceless, was partly responsible for the deaths of the Feldmans, Joe, Julie his grandmother. Yet he must make friends with BB to get these drugs and stop Ibrahim.
Beginning, middle, end: The first novel was Jake’s coming-of-age story as a rebellious, drug addled, ADHD teenager who plagiarized in Ibrahim’s class and was thrown out of college to a NYC fitness star in the second novel and finally a loving family man and essential health care worker in the third novel. When Jake discovers BB’s past crimes, will he collaborate with a criminal who has killed many of his loved ones to potentially save his life? Will he forgive BB as he usually does or put enough pressure on him to get the precious drugs?
Litonya’s Green activism and ecoterrorist history. This includes Kisele and the kids as secondary characters. BB hides her true self by helping with ecoboats but he never cared about the environment or humans.
Beginning, middle, end: Litonya opens the trilogy with her spectacular free climbing in the Shawangunk mountains as a young geologist, secretly stalked by Leo/BB/Betty. She is too strong for him but marries Rodney Feldman and gives birth to Kisele in Central Park Valentine’s Day 2010. Her Green activism for their EE Company escalates into ecoterrorism when she deliberately pushes her fracker father Sam under a falling tree during Sandy Storm, hauling him into Turtle Pond, and becoming MIA for months with her baby Kisele, camping in caves in Inwood Manhattan until she is caught and convicted and sent to prison in Beacon upstate. Spring 2020 Litonya is released from jail because she gets COVID. She finishes a PhD at Columbia where she does research on seismology and hydrogeology and marries Jake and gives birth to Jesse when her husband Rodney succumbs to COVID. (BB is responsible for that.) When she gets pulmonary fibrosis from toxins, past COVID, and other fracking methane, Jake wants BB to give her the Brain Buffet. Will she take it or die naturally?
Ibrahim’s transformation from a true believing Muslim, loving family man, and brilliant eco engineer to a billionaire CEO of STEMGARCHS, a ruthless global company whose plan to save the earth kills millions and establishes another oligarchy of STEM people. When his wife and son die unexpectedly in the Summit collapse caused by Hurricane Ida, he goes to war with fate, god, nature and everyone else, trying to grab as much money, health, and power as possible, and the afterlife be damned. This makes Ibrahim even more willing to associate with a stealthy criminal like BB/Betty.
How can I make this better? Ibrahim does something after PP2 that causes him to lose his CEO position and billions of dollars so he grabs hold of the limited supply of drugs.
Is he given a last minute choice for redemption? What would he lose?
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What I learned: For the past week I have been torturing myself trying to make my main characters constantly thwart each other’s objectives secretly, verbally, or physically. Even though I have taught martial arts most of my life, I personally avoid this interpersonal conflict. As I write scenes, I must put in little conflicts even if it is lovers arguing. I hate this but realize it is necessary. It helped clarify my basic outline from the POV of the antagonist.
Concept: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a serial killer/rapist/arsonist, transitions into a hit man and then a female chef who sacrifices her life to save Jake and Litonya, matured into loving family people and Green activists, killing Ibrahim the CEO of STEMGARCHS who has devolved into genocidal evil as rocks narrate and recycle through climate catastrophes.
Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim, Jake and Litonya, and rocks
Theme: Fate versus Will
Plot/Structure: Transformation. Horror or Drama with Fantasy, Fun, Fitness, and Fear
1. Set-Up. Introduction to the world of NYC and New Paltz with eco boats sailing up and down the Hudson River from the perspective of the Palisades igneous rock since this is an adaptation of the third novel of a rock trilogy. BB poses as a helpful, clean guy during the COVID pandemic, secretly squirting sanitizers filled with condensed COVID and lighting up outdoor restaurants near rent-stabilized tenements as he helps kids construct eco boats. IBRAHIM, LITONYA, and RODNEY run the EvergreenEnergy company. JAKE LA ROCHE is a fitness and wellness expert.
2. Inciting Incident: DREAM to NIGHTMARE of his Bobby/Leo/BB’s past as a serial killer rapist as he sleeps peacefully on a docked boat in 2020. Will BB’s past and present crimes be discovered? CDQ
3. What is the movie is about. The main conflict is between the secret STEMGARCHS who have unleashed viruses but are also developing vaccines and cures for neurodegenerative diseases and a Bright Space Brain Buffet (Ibrahim and his servant BB then Betty) and the Green activists (Litonya, Jake, and their kids) who respect nature and natural phenomena, exacerbated by years of injury and personal vendettas and current and forthcoming climate catastrophes. Theme is Fate versus Human Will.
4. First Turning Point: BB becomes Betty after setting the fire that killed Joe, his/her adopted son and his wife CS.
5. Mid-Point: Betty and Ibrahim get the Bright Space Brain Buffet to improve their aging brains and avoid the neurodegenerative diseases that are plaguing the La Roche family and others.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: While walking down the East River Esplanade, Betty is attacked by a gang from East Harlem, similar to the (FLASHBACK) gang that beat him up as a teenager where he lost his right eye as Bobby. She hobbles to the boat where DELPHINE, Ibrahim’s and Jake’s daughter is fishing with other kids. The gangsters try to attack her, but she defends herself and Betty. As Betty is dozing off with pain killers, she has FLASHBACKS of her secret career as a serial kller/rapist/arsonist for fifteen years in the Shawangunk Mountains. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia and Litonya’s fibrosis is worse. Jake becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty. Betty is older and sicker on her eightieth birthday. Jake tells her she must choose exposure over getting on the side of EvergreenEnergy and betraying her boss Ibrahim, head of STEMGARCHS. But Betty has a secret weapon because she is still the chef of the CEO of STEMGARCHS. She agrees to cooperate. Her dilemma is whether to expose her past crimes and go to jail or to keep taking Brain Buffet but risk sudden death by stealing the drugs from Ibrahim.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS and must make a choice about Ibrahim and the drugs. If Betty doesn’t give Jake and Litonya the Bright Space Brain Buffet, will reveal his criminal past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist. How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs? Is human will so strong that they can delay or overcome death?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. The passive-aggressive conflict between master and servant is exposed and resolved with a final fight. Ibrahim fakes death and struggles physically with Betty but is saved by Jake and Litonya who must face his demons before death. Looks like his Brightspace Brain Buffet cannot save him, and he could roast in hell.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes. The Resurrection is the resumption of the rock cycle and the legacy of the kids to work on the imperfect human brain and ecoboats to tackle climate catastrophes and save humanity. Fate and will are married.
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Yeah, Pablo, I am also plagued by these irritating questions that I have a compulsion to answer too quickly. It’s probably good to have them all churning in the viewer’s mind to increase suspense and intrigue. Your story is set up for this but I didn’t do the action/reaction right so I am in trouble. Even though I taught martial arts for thirty years, I unconsciously protect my characters from the relentless conflict and competition that combust drama. Your mother is kind and sympathetic but keeping her dilemmas open and churning may help. But don’t cut anything yet!
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Thanks Pablo. I can exchange here because your email bounced into spam on my NYU server. Say what you want about mine here.
I was immediately drawn into your timely concept, convincing research, structural clarity, and authoritative story telling about an important topic always in the news.
I love the irony of turning the delinquent drone into a guardian angel, something that could be filmed beautifully.
Irma is sympathetic and her plight universal. The antagonistic forces are complex because of the Ultranationalists’ gambling plot, drones, and Dark Web layered on top of a border crisis we hear about every day.
Characters transform in a convincing way and you orchestrated the crisis/climax/conclusion in a satisfying way.
I would work on phrasing the Dilemma and Theme in more original ways before you pitch it.
I can’t find anything wrong with it so the next challenge would be to develop excellent sequencing of scenes, dialogue, subtext etc. that we will do later on. Since it is such a hot topic, anything to make it as original as possible will help you get first bid of production.
Congratulations on developing an important story worth telling!
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Julia’s critique of Quincy Cooke. Hal said to pick three outlines and critique them so I do what I told like your female killers hypnotized by Bellerophon the malevolent shrink. (Great name.)
Your plot/structure is so clear and abbreviated I wasn’t sure what was going on but some confusion heightens intrigue with horror and mystery. Everything is clear but the dilemma that should be at least two unacceptable either/or choices.However, once you start writing your sluglines, I sense a master at work with directing or DP experience. Your sequencing is excellent and you choose focused actions for each scene that escalate your drama.
I understand the need for killing sprees that are not “subtle,” especially at the end, but to orchestrate the dynamics, I wonder if you can add fragile, vulnerable, or happy homemaker scenes only to make the horror more poignant.
Helen and Cassie are powerful, dramatic, and somewhat hysterical as they should be but I am curious about the men. Besides being a “cliched” psychiatrist, what is driving Bellerophon to do this? What is his past? What is his subtext? Same with the detective. I knew a real serial killer up in New Paltz and a secret psychopath here in Manhattan and they had complex personalities, long histories, and multiple ways of interacting with different people to conceal their thoughts.
No matter what, I hope you can direct your film as well! It will be produced.
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Julia’s critique of Rob Bertrand. Based on Hal’s latest email, I decided to pick three outlines to critique. You don’t have to exchange or read. I am just following option D. 🙂
I like the world of your project and imagine a huge audience of teenagers and their parents. You have diversity/inclusion elements with the lesbian relationship and Danny who pretends to be the mother. It is universal but unique.
Your plot points are clear, well chosen, and dramatic. The dad’s drinking is to blame in part for the mom’s death as well as his horrible behavior at the funeral. I would develop his character more throughout the scenes presenting him with the dilemma of giving up drinking or losing his life and family. I didn’t see an either/or for your dilemma.
Annie’s perception of her monster in the walls is fantastic but who else sees him but the audience? I am intrigued by the character of her obsessive stalker boyfriend. I wonder why Danny is a high school dropout. What mental problems does he have? What does he see in this unavailable little girl? Does he have schizoaffective disorder? Or does he temporarily become a real monster?
I love the way the horror ends with the break-up, coming out, moving away, and abstinence of the drunken dad in a happy American family scenario, especially because the premise of a rejected lover turning into a monster who lives in the walls of your bedroom.
Your outline is crystal clear and your budget super low. To craft a riddle that takes 90 minutes of screen time, I wonder what other layers, shots, situations you will add to complicate it enough so that smart audiences have to solve your intriguing puzzle.
This movie could be made soon–maybe next spring? BTW–I see the house but what is the outside world like? The school? What was the mother like? How does Danny resemble the mother? The fact that I am asking so many questions means that you are creating intrigue. Good luck!
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Julia’s critique of Jim Peacock. Based on the email I just got from Hal, he said to try to critique three outlines. If you don’t want to read this, no problem. It was a good exercise because I like your project.
I also have a character called Jake who matures but your guy is much smarter and his transformation is more dramatic. I think Undercover and the Love story mesh well together because Mary has many sides that you milk throughout the script. I like her twinkle at the end and her strength and assertiveness when she shoots Jean Claude.
As you continue, I would clarify specific dilemmas that are either/or options so that you can escalate beats with Hal’s methodical magic.
Your stakes are high with the dirty bomb plot connected to the cyberterrorism. I recently finished a sci fi thriller novel by Riddle who also has a tech background like your Jake and I was overwhelmed but then bored by non-stop action and violence. You add dimension with your mirror-geek relationship. This also expands your audience.
I like the unique environment in the Canadian wilderness. I have tons of relatives in B.C. near Pender, Texada, and further north and a DP nephew who shoots documentaries up there. It brings originality to a film that could be cliche if filmed in Hollywood in the typical way.
I was curious about the Middle Eastern group and their objectives. How similar are they to Isis, Al Qaeda, Taliban? Where does reality intersect with your imagination and vision? Is this more of a high tech thriller with sci fi elements or is everything naturalistic? My Ibrahim al Harbi is a Saudi based on terrorists I knew and researched and I traveled to the Middle East after 9/11 but he gives up Islam in favor of his STEMGARCHS because he loses his faith. And then I depart into speculative fiction or fantasy. How religious are your antagonists? More research in this area would develop your high concept conflict on a sociological level.
These questions would leave to how you want to sequence scenes since you have a love story, transformational drama, as well as a thriller. I love that kind of tapestry but some producers want a more narrow focus. But at this stage, I would keep opening up, not narrowing down. 🙂
It looks like you have a good feel for the combustion of crisis/climax/conclusion.
Fantastic job so far!
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Don’t feel obliged to read the whole thing. I am in a labyrinth because I am adapting literary novels that I wrote and am writing. Anything you say is fine.
Concept: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a funeral director turned into a secret serial killer/rapist/arsonist, transitions into a hit man as his testosterone wanes with age, and then a female chef when he is forced to set a fire that accidentally kills his son, sacrifices her life to save Jake and Litonya, matured into loving family people and Green activists, killing her boss Ibrahim the CEO of STEMGARCHS who has devolved into genocidal evil as rocks narrate and recycle through climate catastrophes.
Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim al Harbi a brilliant billionaire engineer professor and then CEO, Jake LaRoche a fitness star, health care worker, and family man and Litonya Lenape a geologist and Green activist, and rocks that narrate my three novels–sedimentary for Climb and Punishment, gneiss, marble, and schist for Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan, and igneous for the Seismic Seesaw between Jake and the Magma Monsters.I have four main dilemmas for each character but it is a dramatic triangle with the three men relating to Litonya and Litonya and Jake as a married couple often acting together.
Adaptation of the third novel, not yet written completely, to the screen using the first two novels as backstory and flashbacks. No, I will not write the adaptations of the first two novels for this class because the first novel has a rough screenplay attached and the second novel would be an audiobook because of its poetry and episodic structure. I am going nuts using this class to adapt the third novel but it is what I must do to finish and survive.
Theme: Fate versus Will as humans battle aging, diseases, pandemics, and climate catastrophesPlot/Structure: Transformation.
Genre: Horror or Drama with Fantasy, Fun, Fitness, and Fear
1. Set-Up. BB squirts sanitizers around the UES and lights matches to blow up outdoor restaurants in NYC spring 2020 during the pandemic. He gets in IBRAHIM AL HARBI’s electric car, crosses the GW bridge, and takes a boat up the Hudson to New Paltz, while Ibrahim picks up LITONYA LENAPE a brilliant, beautiful geologist working at the Earth Observatory before driving up to New Paltz where Ibrahim joins his wife Sandrine in their Tudor Mansion, Litonya stays with her husband RODNEY and her son KISELE
2. Inciting Incident: Hanukkah 2020. BB watches as Jake’s parents succumb to COVID and survive but Rodney and his parents die, despite the valiant CPR efforts of his son JOE and Jake. BB helps prepare the three corpses for burial in the New Paltz cemetery. Who is to blame for all this death and suffering—genetic and environmental fate or human will?
3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about. The main conflict is between the secret STEMGARCHS who have unleashed viruses but are also developing vaccines and cures for neurodegenerative diseases and a Bright Space Brain Buffet (Ibrahim and his servant BB) and the Green activists (Litonya, Jake, and their kids) who respect nature and natural phenomena, exacerbated by years of injury and personal vendettas and current and forthcoming climate catastrophes.
4. First turning point at end of Act 1: BB now a hit man for Ibrahim’s STEMGARCHS watches helplessly as Hurricane Ida demolishes Ibrahim’s condo, killing his wife and son, but BB and Joe help clean up. Cleaning and money cover climate catastrophes sometimes but cannot bring back loved ones so Ibrahim changes for the worse as he loses his religious faith and holds desperately on to life through the STEMGARCHS company. Where is human will in a climate catastrophe? Ibrahim works harder on the Bright Space Brain Buffet, using BB for his dirty work.
5. Mid-Point: Ibrahim wants BB wants to kill CS because she knows too much, and BB wants to kill filthy Norm and Keith. But the explosion in the antique car blows up the solar house and kills his son the firefighter. Since he adopted Joe as a teenager, he lived through this handsome, brave, kind, hard-working, sexy man. Now he is gone, and it is his fault. He wants to become a woman. He is sick of his dangling impotent penis that abused cadavers. After arguing with Ibrahim, he transitions to Betty to . become a better cook. Her gender dysphoria has cleared up. But she still works for Ibrahim who is now a full-fledged sociopath, ready to kill millions of humans to save the planet or his people. Now that Betty no longer has that weasel between his pants, she has no admiration for Litonya’s body. Jake and BB always hated each other but Jake is getting desperate about his mom’s Alzheimer’s and his recent Parkinson’s diagnosis. His dad dies. He makes friends with Betty and they work together. Litonya is brought in as well to spy on Ibrahim and his STEMGARCHS because she has pulmonary fibrosis. They must get these drugs. More floods, more landslides, more diseases exacerbate the CONFLICTS between the STEMGARCHS and the EE Company and the desperate need for the BRIGHTSPACE BRAIN BUFFET.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: While walking down the East River Esplanade, Betty is attacked by a gang from East Harlem, similar to the (FLASHBACK) gang that beat him up as a teenager where he lost his right eye as Bobby. She hobbles to the boat where DELPHINE, Ibrahim’s and Jake’s daughter is fishing with other kids. The gangsters try to attack her, but she defends herself and Betty. As Betty is dozing off with pain killers, she has FLASHBACKS of her secret career as a serial kller/rapist/arsonist for fifteen years in the Shawangunk Mountains. The last image is of him stalking Litonya climbing rocks naked. Back to the present and Jake, Litonya, and their families are desperate for the drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia and Litonya’s fibrosis is worse. Jake becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty. Betty is older and sicker on her eightieth birthday. Jake tells her she must choose exposure over getting on the side of EvergreenEnergy and betraying her boss Ibrahim, head of STEMGARCHS. But Betty has a secret weapon because she is still the chef of the CEO of STEMGARCHS. She agrees to cooperate. Her dilemma is whether to expose her past crimes and go to jail or to keep taking Brain Buffet but risk sudden death by stealing the drugs from Ibrahim.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS and must make a choice about Ibrahim and the drugs. Whose side is he on—EE with the kids and their eco-boats or Ibrahim with his money, power, and the STEMGARCHS? What are the options? How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs? Is human will so strong that they can delay or overcome death?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. The passive-aggressive conflict between master and servant is exposed and resolved with a final fight. Ibrahim fakes death and struggles physically with Betty but is saved by Jake and Litonya who must face his demons before death. Looks like his Brightspace Brain Buffet cannot save him, and he could roast in hell.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, so that this main conflict is resolved, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes. Jake and Litonya die naturally with a seismic seesaw as they are trying a little climb in the Palisades and the igneous rock, the Magma Monsters who narrate half my last novel, slips into the Hudson. The Resurrection is the resumption of the rock cycle and the legacy of the kids to work on the imperfect human brain and ecoboats to tackle climate catastrophes and save humanity. Fate and will are married as life and death continue.
I am not sure if the Set Up of shots from previous novels should be fused into FLASHBACKS
1) INT. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully.
2) EXT. STREET IN EAST HARLEM – DAY
A gang beats up Bobby until his right eye turns blue and bloody.3) INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.4) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially LITONYA LENAPE, the top climber and a geology prof at the college.5) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – NIGHT
SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence.6) INT. MUDDY MANSION – EVENING
Priceless is dancing in an exotic outfit on the stage of Leo’s new venue, a renovated barn for Gunkies, Junkies, and Gutter Punkies as Joe, JAKE, RODNEY, and his buddies watch. Leo cleans and serves food and drinks but his left eye is glued to her delicious, writhing body.7) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Leo stalks Priceless as she walks home drunk and stoned but as he begins to grab her, she flirts with him, and agrees to be tied up. This is the first time a woman has reacted like this so he is confused. After a while, Rodney and Jake come by, fight, and untie her. A deal is made to give Priceless money for her dancing, but Leo is still arrested.8) INT. PRISON – DAY
No one cleans like Leo. He is released for good behavior. He never confessed to his real crimes and only served for assault.9) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – DAY
Leo, aka, BB, has changed his identity to Boat Bob. He cleans his tent under the Asphalt Green sanitation dump. He chats with IBRAHIM, a millionaire from New Paltz, who lives in the Summit penthouse nearby. Papers are exchanged and they return to their different worlds, poor and rich.9) INT. LAUNDRY ROOM – DAY
BB puts lint and lighter fluid in laundry bags. MC, a NYC tour guide, returns to find the room in flames.10) A SERIES OF SHOTS
BB lights a match in the boiler room but leaves quickly. There is a natural gas explosion that decimates the building.
MC and her cat end up in the streets, the subways, the shelters, and finally the basement of an upscale pet store as BB stalks them.
BB studies boats on computers at the senior centers.
BB meets Ibrahim in his penthouse at the Summit and leaves with a package.
BB has the best sanitizers as the pandemic begins and uses them everywhere because they are secretly filled with condensed COVID, helping the old, sick, fat, and weak die faster.11) INT. PET STORE BASEMENT – NIGHT Could be INCITING INCIDENT
BB enters the store to find MC dead from COVID. He mounts her but it doesn’t work this time. He is too old. Later, his son Joe, now a firefighter, comes to the rescue to bring her cadaver to NYU Langone for COVID research. Joe never suspects BB of anything because he is too naïve and busy being an essential worker.12) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim drops BB off near the wharf on his way to picking up Litonya who is a geologist at the Earth Observatory.13) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT
BB sails up the Hudson to Kingston, blissfully nursed by the water.14) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
The Feldmans’ huge garage for antique cars now has a place to build boats. Ten year old KISELE, OMAR, CORAL, and DELPHINE are working with BB on a new boat. After cleaning exhaustively, he sleeps blissfully in the boat on dry land.15) EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID.16) INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. Since they are obese it takes all their strength to get them in the ambulance.17) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home.18) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY INCITING INCIDENT
A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team.22) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, Lana, Keith, and Norm, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with Lana coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.23) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. BB and Joe are working hard. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.24) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Everyone is there but Ibrahim is hollow, silent, devastated by this loss.25) INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of FADMA, his former wife, and their daughter MINA, also an artist. This time he doesn’t protest. He works harder.
FLASHBACK to when he used a knife to cut up her paintings over twenty years ago when he found out she was pregnant with Jake’s child.26) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB is designing a deluxe boat for Ibrahim with expert architects. He also toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.7) A SERIES OF SHOTS – FLASHBACK
His wife Natalia crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls like PRICELESS watch.27) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house.28) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave. Or is this PP1?29) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park. This time there are vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. He would be more potent as a hit woman. Ibrahim must be convinced. Their master/servant relationship is changing with conflict.30) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman.31) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn. Betty’s first transformation is to develop a sense of humor.32) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. Betty occasionally helps out because she is stronger than most women. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods.33) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT Is this Midpoint?
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill the way he did it as Leo years ago. But her body is only raped, not murdered, and she has no idea who the masked gang was. Ironically, she feels more empowered.FLASHBACK to the murders and rapes Bobby/Leo committed in the nineties in the same place.
34) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
BB sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Ibrahim consults with them on the brain buffet. We see huge screens with radiographs. Delphine, one of his daughters, is a brain scientist.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
This time Betty’s surgery is on her brain. Then she is given a precious vial of drugs. A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Tapes of former history lectures are playing. BB helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. His wife, doctor Joan, Jake’s mom, is so beset by Alzheimer’s she doesn’t realize her husband has died. Betty is even better at mortuary duties, a woman of all trades. After the service, Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with Coral, Delphine, Kisele et al. He hears more from the kids about Ibrahim’s research because they are also computer experts. He says he may have Parkinson’s andis desperate to find cures for him and his mom.
39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake are walking along the cliffs to the boat where Betty and the kids are working. Litonya has the beginnings of pulmonary fibrosis with that horrible chest cough. They discuss the physiology of getting rid of the plaques and clots that make humans miserable, especially in old age. They sail to Inwood where Betty gets off to go to40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
As they consult, it is evident that Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone. Our mission is to get rid of as many people as possible. They have an argument over who is entitled but Betty backs down because she is now a submissive woman.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later
Jesse is taking an interest in history, after his late grandfather Jean La Roche, and is intrigued by the unsolved crimes in the area, more cadavers and disappearances to which perpetrators are not attached.SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi who is a health care worker and yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for at least the Alzheimer’s drug to get the stick glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.43) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. His wife Litonya coughs so badly she cannot run and hike the way she did. They need and deserve that brain buffet. But Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?44) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet. Arguments erupt about nature, nurture, and how far humans can go with science.45) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT Crisis
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. At first she denies, but as the proof mounts, Jake hits her with a barrage of evidence. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless.46) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim sits by the fire overlooking the Hudson River, a little sleepier than usual. Betty talks on the phone to Jake. The food is carefully poisoned. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa so they think. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Suddenly Ibrahim awakes and takes a weapon out of his pocket for a final, dramatic struggle that he loses when Jake is forced to finish him off. Jake takes the drugs right away but Litonya only takes one. She has more confidence in natural processes. Betty is delirious. Nothing can save her.
47) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to the opening shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Jake and the kids get on their boat and sail to the Palisades. Magma rocks slide into the Hudson as the rock cycle continues. We transform to survive. We transform as we die.
FINIS
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Pass for Emotional Dilemma and Theme is always a useful exercise so I did it but as I started the sluglines, I felt like I was slugged because I still must finish the third novel before the final screenplay. I am trying to juggle them together but it doesn’t work. Now I see why people go nuts doing adaptations of literary novels to the screen but I will keep trying.
Tell us your Emotional Dilemma and the answers to these questions:
BB must choose between honesty and punishment or more stealing and lying that may result in certain death or sacrifice. Ibrahim must choose between Islam and a lonely, humble life or more power and money as CEO of STEMGARCHS even if it means killing millions of humans to save the planet but really to save him. Litonya doesn’t choose—she documents and accepts natural events and human love after being a Green activist who killed her fracker dad during Sandy Storm by pushing him into Turtle Pond after a tree fell on his head. Jake must choose between forgiveness and compromise to get what he needs to make lives of family members better or revenge and retaliation against BB whom he hates now that he knows all his crimes.
A. How does the Emotional Dilemma first show up? Could these four dilemmas be summarized as fate versus will in the theme?
B. How are both sides of the issue built up? I must find little activities that are visual that symbolize these ideas since I can’t be expository and didactic.
C. When does the protagonist make the choice? BB decides at Crisis but the final action is not until the Climax. Ibrahim slowly lets go of Islam but Hurricane Ida sweeps it out of his brain. Jake must transform into a detective before he knows the extent of the evil he would have to forgive so he puts his foot down around PP2.
D. What do they lose in making that choice? Life, health, or freedom.
3. Tell us your Theme and the answers to these questions: My theme was transform, but that is too vague because everyone and everything transforms. That is just one of the plot elements.
A. What are both sides of your theme? Fate versus will.
B. How will both sides show up throughout your story? Fate is shown with climate catastrophes, aging, diseases, death and will with good actions, kindness, EMS, health care, parenting, the STEM brain research and drugs, but also crimes escalating to genocide.
C. How does the climax of the story demand your message? I am in favor of STEM research and human improvement but not the kind of genocide the STEMGARCHS does because I am afraid of natural phenomena like climate catastrophes and neurodegenerative diseases.
4. In the current version of your outline, fill in the events you’ve discovered during this process. List out your outline as you did in Day 7, with slug lines and the essence for each scene. I must have Betty raped just as he raped women years ago as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist. I need more cemetery scenes with surprising drama. I need to develop and perfect the Bright Space Brain Buffet and decide when Ibrahim and BB take it and how it changes them.
1) INT. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully.
2) EXT. STREET IN EAST HARLEM – DAY
A gang beats up Bobby until his right eye turns blue and bloody.3) INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.4) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially LITONYA LENAPE, the top climber and a geology prof at the college.5) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – NIGHT
SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence.6) INT. MUDDY MANSION – EVENING
Priceless is dancing in an exotic outfit on the stage of Leo’s new venue, a renovated barn for Gunkies, Junkies, and Gutter Punkies as Joe, JAKE, RODNEY, and his buddies watch. Leo cleans and serves food and drinks but his left eye is glued to her delicious, writhing body.7) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Leo stalks Priceless as she walks home drunk and stoned but as he begins to grab her, she flirts with him, and agrees to be tied up. This is the first time a woman has reacted like this so he is confused. After a while, Rodney and Jake come by, fight, and untie her. A deal is made to give Priceless money for her dancing, but Leo is still arrested.8) INT. PRISON – DAY
No one cleans like Leo. He is released for good behavior. He never confessed to his real crimes and only served for assault.9) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – DAY
Leo, aka, BB, has changed his identity to Boat Bob. He cleans his tent under the Asphalt Green sanitation dump. He chats with IBRAHIM, a millionaire from New Paltz, who lives in the Summit penthouse nearby. Papers are exchanged and they return to their different worlds, poor and rich.9) INT. LAUNDRY ROOM – DAY
BB puts lint and lighter fluid in laundry bags. MC, a NYC tour guide, returns to find the room in flames.10) A SERIES OF SHOTS
BB lights a match in the boiler room but leaves quickly. There is a natural gas explosion that decimates the building.
MC and her cat end up in the streets, the subways, the shelters, and finally the basement of an upscale pet store as BB stalks them.
BB studies boats on computers at the senior centers.
BB meets Ibrahim in his penthouse at the Summit and leaves with a package.
BB has the best sanitizers as the pandemic begins and uses them everywhere because they are secretly filled with condensed COVID, helping the old, sick, fat, and weak die faster.11) INT. PET STORE BASEMENT – NIGHT Could be Inciting Incident
BB enters the store to find MC dead from COVID. He mounts her but it doesn’t work this time. He is too old. Later, his son Joe, now a firefighter, comes to the rescue to bring her cadaver to NYU Langone for COVID research. Joe never suspects BB of anything because he is too naïve and busy being an essential worker.12) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim drops BB off near the wharf on his way to picking up Litonya who is a geologist at the Earth Observatory.13) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT
BB sails up the Hudson to Kingston, blissfully nursed by the water.14) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
The Feldmans’ huge garage for antique cars now has a place to build boats. Ten year old KISELE, OMAR, CORAL, and DELPHINE are working with BB on a new boat. After cleaning exhaustively, he sleeps blissfully in the boat on dry land.15) EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID.16) INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. Since they are obese it takes all their strength to get them in the ambulance.17) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home.18) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY INCITING INCIDENT
A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team.22) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, Lana, Keith, and Norm, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with Lana coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.23) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. BB and Joe are working hard. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.24) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Everyone is there but Ibrahim is hollow, silent, devastated by this loss.25) INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of FADMA, his former wife, and their daughter MINA, also an artist. This time he doesn’t protest. He works harder.26) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB is designing a deluxe boat for Ibrahim with expert architects. He also toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.FLASHBACK
EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.7) A SERIES OF SHOTS
His wife Natalia crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls like PRICELESS watch.27) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house.28) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave. Or is this PP1?29) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park. This time there are vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. He would be more potent as a hit woman. Ibrahim must be convinced.30) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman.31) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn. Betty’s first transformation is to develop a sense of humor.32) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. Betty occasionally helps out because she is stronger than most women. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods.33) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT Is this Midpoint?
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill the way he did it as Leo years ago. But her body is only raped, not murdered, and she has no idea who the masked gang was. Ironically, she feels more empowered.34) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
BB sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Ibrahim consults with them on the brain buffet. We see huge screens with radiographs. Delphine, one of his daughters, is a brain scientist.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
This time Betty’s surgery is on her brain. Then she is given a precious vial of drugs. A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Tapes of former history lectures are playing. BB helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. His wife, doctor Joan, Jake’s mom, is so beset by Alzheimer’s she doesn’t realize her husband has died. Betty is even better at mortuary duties, a woman of all trades. After the service, Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with Coral, Delphine, Kisele et al. He hears more from the kids about Ibrahim’s research because they are also computer experts. He says he may have Parkinson’s andis desperate to find cures for him and his mom.
39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake are walking along the cliffs to the boat where Betty and the kids are working. Litonya has the beginnings of pulmonary fibrosis with that horrible chest cough. They discuss the physiology of getting rid of the plaques and clots that make humans miserable, especially in old age. They sail to Inwood where Betty gets off to go to40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
As they consult, it is evident that Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone. Our mission is to get rid of as many people as possible. They have an argument over who is entitled but Betty backs down because she is now a submissive woman.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later
Jesse is taking an interest in history, after his late grandfather Jean La Roche, and is intrigued by the unsolved crimes in the area, more cadavers and disappearances to which perpetrators are not attached.SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi who is a health care worker and yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for at least the Alzheimer’s drug to get the stick glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.43) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. His wife Litonya coughs so badly she cannot run and hike the way she did. They need and deserve that brain buffet. But Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?44) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet. Arguments erupt about nature, nurture, and how far humans can go with science.45) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT Crisis
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. At first she denies, but as the proof mounts, Jake hits her with a barrage of evidence. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless.46) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT Climax
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim sits by the fire overlooking the Hudson River, a little sleepier than usual. Betty talks on the phone to Jake. The food is carefully poisoned. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part, but Ibrahim wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former, but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa so they think. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Suddenly Ibrahim awakes and takes a weapon out of his pocket for a final, dramatic struggle that he loses when Jake is forced to finish him off. Jake takes the drugs right away but Litonya only takes one. She has more confidence in natural processes. Betty is delirious. Nothing can save her.
47) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to the opening shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Jake and the kids get on their boat and sail to the Palisades. Magma rocks slide into the Hudson as the rock cycle continues. We transform to survive. We transform as we die.
FINIS
P.S. The above is a mess, it isn’t long enough, and I need more definitive plot points and a lot more action. But I realize the need for sewing dilemmas, themes, CDQ, plot points, and character arcs together.
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Julia Keefer’s PASS 3: As of October 1, 2021, I think my screenplay must be confined to my third novel instead of slashing through all three, but with focused flashbacks. I snipped the 9 point outline into this new time and space with renewed focus on the CDQ and the Main Conflict, trying to imagine visual action in the present tense, a critical exercise for adaptations.
Concept: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a serial killer, transitions into a hit man
and then a female chef who sacrifices her life to save Jake and Litonya, matured into loving family people and Green activists, killing Ibrahim the
CEO of STEMGARCHS who has devolved into genocidal evil as rocks narrate
and recycle through climate catastrophes.Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim, Jake and Litonya, and rocks
Theme: TransformPlot/Structure: Horror or Drama with Fantasy and Fear
1. Set-Up. BB squirts sanitizers around the UES and lights matches to blow up outdoor restaurants in NYC spring 2020 during the pandemic. He gets in IBRAHIM AL HARBI’s electric car, crosses the GW bridge, and takes a boat up the Hudson to New Paltz, while Ibrahim picks up LITONYA LENAPE a brilliant, beautiful geologist working at the Earth Observatory before driving up to New Paltz where Ibrahim joins his wife Sandrine in their Tudor Mansion, Litonya stays with her husband RODNEY and her son KISELE
2. Inciting Incident: Hanukkah 2020. BB watches as Jake’s parents succumb to COVID and survive but Rodney and his parents die, despite the valiant CPR efforts of his son JOE and Jake. BB helps prepare the three corpses for burial in the NP cemetery. Who is to blame for all this death and suffering—genetic and environmental fate or human will?
3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about. The main conflict is between the secret STEMGARCHS who have unleashed viruses but are also developing vaccines and cures for neurodegenerative diseases and a Bright Space Brain Buffet (Ibrahim and his servant BB) and the Green activists (Litonya, Jake, and their kids) who respect nature and natural phenomena, exacerbated by years of injury and personal vendettas and current and forthcoming climate catastrophes.
4. First turning point at end of Act 1: BB now a hit man for Ibrahim’s STEMGARCHS watches helplessly as Hurricane Ida demolishes Ibrahim’s condo, killing his wife and son, but BB and Joe help clean up. Cleaning and money cover climate catastrophes sometimes but cannot bring back loved ones so Ibrahim changes for the worse as he loses his religious faith and holds desperately on to life through the STEMGARCHS company. Where is human will in a climate catastrophe? Ibrahim works harder on the Bright Space Brain Buffet, using BB for his dirty work.
5. Mid-Point: Ibrahim wants BB wants to kill CS because she knows too much, and BB wants to kill filthy Norm and Keith. But the explosion in the antique car blows up the solar house and kills his son the firefighter. Since he adopted Joe as a teenager, he lived through this handsome, brave, kind, hard-working, sexy man. Now he is gone, and it is his fault. He wants to become a woman. He is sick of his dangling impotent penis that abused cadavers. After arguing with Ibrahim, he transitions to Betty to . become a better cook. Her gender dysphoria has cleared up. But she still works for Ibrahim who is now a full-fledged sociopath, ready to kill millions of humans to save the planet or his people. Now that Betty no longer has that weasel between his pants, she has no admiration for Litonya’s body. Jake and BB always hated each other but Jake is getting desperate about his mom’s Alzheimer’s and his recent Parkinson’s diagnosis. His dad dies. He makes friends with Betty and they work together. Litonya is brought in as well to spy on Ibrahim and his STEMGARCHS because she has pulmonary fibrosis. They must get these drugs. More floods, more landslides, more diseases exacerbate the CONFLICTS between the STEMGARCHS and the EE Company and the desperate need for the BRIGHTSPACE BRAIN BUFFET.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: Jake, Litonya, and their families are desperate for the drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia and Litonya’s fibrosis is worse. Jake becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty. Betty is older and sicker on her eightieth birthday. Jake tells her she must choose exposure over getting on the side of EvergreenEnergy and betraying her boss Ibrahim, head of STEMGARCHS. But Betty has a secret weapon because she is still the chef of the CEO of STEMGARCHS. She agrees to cooperate.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS and must make a choice about Ibrahim and the drugs. Whose side is he on—EE with the kids and their eco-boats or Ibrahim with his money, power, and the STEMGARCHS? What are the options? How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs? Is human will so strong that they can delay or overcome death?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. The passive-aggressive conflict between master and servant is exposed and resolved with a final fight. Ibrahim fakes death and struggles physically with Betty but is saved by Jake and Litonya who must face his demons before death. Looks like his Brightspace Brain Buffet cannot save him and he could roast in hell.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, so that this main conflict is resolved, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes. Jake and Litonya die naturally with a seismic seesaw as they are trying a little climb in the Palisades and the igneous rock, the Magma Monsters who narrate half my last novel, slips into the Hudson. The Resurrection is the resumption of the rock cycle and the legacy of the kids to work on the imperfect human brain and ecoboats to tackle climate catastrophes and save humanity. Fate and will are married as life and death continue.
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I understand the wise logic of this assignment but as I add elements the diagrammatic simplicity of these paradigms gets cluttered.
Central Dramatic Question: Your end punishes your beginning or is it the other way around? What is the space between the sound of birth and the sigh of death?
Character Arc: Addition: Develop Ibrahim’s transformation. Giving up Islam is powerful but how does this change the way he looks, talks, and acts? What would an American actor like about his change? How would he lie now? How would he deal with BB, Betty, Jake, and Litonya?
Theme: alchemize, convert, make over, metamorphose, transfigure, transmute, transpose, transubstantiate <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Words Related to transform adjust, alter, modify, recast redefine, redesign, redo, reengineer, refashion, regenerate, remake, remodel, revamp, revise, rework, vary deform, disfigure, distort, mutate, transmogrify displace, replace, substitute, supplant
3. DISCOVERIES and IMPROVEMENTS: Explore synonyms for transform, develop Ibrahim’s character arc, and revisit the beats in terms of his arc. BB’s gender affirming transformation is easy to film, but Ibrahim’s loss of religious faith is more challenging. What is the scene before the Summit condo collapse? What does he miss most about losing his wife and son? How does his behavior change? Suspense to Horror, Dread to hysteria, Fear to Anguish. He never had an imagination before but is the religious void filled with nightmares and if so, how can they be filmed? How does he lie now? Is he more afraid of death? After taking the brain buffet, how do Ibrahim and Betty change? Since they are more mentally acute, do they take on other projects? What do they want from La Roches? The kids? The boats? How can I coordinate Ibrahim’s spiritual fall with BB’s gender affirming transition? Another pass would be to do the same character arc with Jake in a different way than Profound so his beats sync with Ibrahim and BB/Betty. Then I must revisit Litonya’s arc so that the three men fight over her in some way to improve scenes.
4. AFTER:
Concept: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, a serial killer, transitions into a female chef who sacrifices her life to save Jake and Litonya matured into loving family people and Green activists, killing Ibrahim the CEO of STEMGARCHS who has devolved into genocidal evil as rocks narrate and recycle.
Lead Characters: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty, Ibrahim, Jake and Litonya, and rocks
Plot/Structure: Transform
1 SERIES OF SHOTS
)Bobby is pulled from his womb with forceps and after losing his right eye in a gang fight grows up to be a funeral director, pleasuring himself after hours over the corpse in a tomb.
Ibrahim is born in a tent in Mecca and performs hajj every year until he marries Sandrine in the 96<sup>th</sup> St. Mosque in Manhattan who gives birth to triplets that genetically belong to Jake
Litonya is born in a cave near Rainbow Falls to native parents and later climbs these rocks as a geologist.
Jake is born to a history prof father and a doctor mother in a stone house on Huguenot St., plagiarizes and is expelled from college, secretly inseminates Ibrahim’s wives because he is impotent, and becomes a fitness star in Manhattan.2. Inciting Incident: He watches from the woods and does nothing as EMS arrives, but later Bobby aka Leo pleasures himself as he prepares his wife’s casket. The problem is that the other characters’ II’s are at different times in the novels.
3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about. CLIMB AND PUNISHMENT. Thus begins Leo’s double life—the restauranteur who now owns Muddy Mansion as well as his 16-6 condo and devoted father of Joe who becomes a frat president and successful boxer and student at the college and the other Leo who stalks beautiful strong young women, climbers, dancers, or gutter punkies, He is careful. No evidence. No trails. Bodies are found in the wilderness absorbed by nature. Nevertheless, he is booked for assault. After serving a short term because of excellent behavior in prison, (no one cleans like Leo) he sells Muddy Mansion to get money to send Joe to John Jay EMS Masters in Manhattan and Priceless to Ballet Arts and Steps for training. Crime is covered up with cleaning and money. As the first novel ends, Jake has married Priceless the dancer who dissed Leo, Litonya is pregnant with Rodney’s baby, and Ibrahim is courting Sandrine and has bought a penthouse in the Summit in Manhattan.
4. First turning point at end of Act 1: COME TO MAGNIFICENT METAMORPHIC MANHATTAN. Leo moves to Manhattan to become BB. He is pushing fifty and his testosterone is waning, so he no longer needs to rape corpses or have any kind of sex. But he is still a psychopath. He switches back to his Bobby identity, but this time calls himself BB or Boat Bob because he has had it with rocks and wants to spend the rest of his life near water, preferably on boats, rocking gently the way he did in the womb before his life was turned into a tomb. For ten years he hides out in homeless shelters, abandoned boats, sheds, and senior centers where he uses their computers to learn as much about boats as possible. He does odd jobs, still expert at cleaning, cars, construction, cooking, and yes, mortuary procedures, and a side gig secretly burning rent stabilized tenements with natural gas explosions. but he doesn’t get a real job on the books. He lives on the dole and saves whatever money he can to eventually buy a boat. He stays away from his son Joe who ends up marrying the Chinese girl Cheering Spear when Sam Stern is killed by his daughter Litonya and/or a tree during Sandy Storm. He was there as well, stalking, watching, and getting the spoils from his pockets in Turtle Pond. When Jake, Priceless, and the Feldmans are swamped by Sandy Storm in the basement apartments, BB helps clean up. Important to make friends. Although he feels his raping days are over, he befriends and stalks a tour guide MC he meets at the senior centers, giving her little presents like market coupons, umbrellas, shampoo, and bus tickets he gets from the city when she becomes homeless because of a fire that he secretly set as his first hit job in NYC for her landlord. At least she and her cat Sphinx survived. She takes fitness classes, walks a lot, and is more attractive than most seniors. But when he tries to rape her spring 2020 in the abandoned pet store where she is squatting, (his last try he swears to himself), he loses his energy and leaves. Nevertheless, she dies a few weeks later because BB was a carrier of COVID. He had flu symptoms, but nothing life-threatening. When he spends the night there, his son Joe comes to take the body to NYU Langone for research. Joe is too busy as an essential worker to process any of this especially since his wife CS is now in ICU with COVID.
Around page 40: SEISMIC SEESAW narrated by Jake and the MAGMA MONSTERS begins. BB now a hit man for Ibrahim’s STEMGARCHS. But he never confesses, and his son Joe is a good front because he is “perfect.” BB sprays COVID sanitizer at super spreader events like the Feldman’s 2020 parties thereby killing the parents and the son, Ibrahim’s business partner, a necessary act because he must abandon the EE company to go in another direction. BB kills more seniors in Manhattan, including Jake’s grandmother, and sets fire to outdoor restaurants near rent stabilized apartments. BB secretly contaminates the La Roches during Back to School 2020 events and kills the Feldmans with the condensed COVID sanitizer at their Hanukkah party. Ibrahim wants him to kill CS, Joe’s wife, because she knows too much about STEMGARCHS.
Last pinch around 55 has Hurricane Ida demolish Ibrahim’s condo, killing his wife and son, but BB and Joe help clean up. Cleaning and money cover climate catastrophes sometimes but cannot bring back loved ones so Ibrahim changes for the worse.
5. Mid-Point: The Feldmans’ siblings, Norm and Keith, are filthy. They stink and they are ruining the Colonial. It is impossible to clean up after them. They hustle coeds in local bars, hoard food, scavenge in garbage, and have bad hygiene. They fight about everything from food to money to girls to housework, politics, and the pandemic. BB is an OCD cleaner. At first, BB cleans up after them but then he can’t stand it. He wants to kill them. Surely they qualify as non-essential. Ibrahim agrees but he has another request. CS, Joe’s wife, knows too much. They need something sure and sophisticated like a burning car. BB is good at cars. He killed his wife that way. But this must be timed. They are going to the racetracks in the last antique car. It will be their last ride. Ibrahim never wants to know the details.
BB had to click the timer when CS came out of her house and the car was parked in the driveway. The explosion was bigger than planned. The men were killed instantly but CS rolled and lay choking. Since he adopted Joe as a teenager, he lived through this handsome, brave, kind, hard-working, sexy man. Now he is gone, and it is his fault. He wants to become a woman. He is sick of his dangling impotent penis that abused cadavers. After arguing with Ibrahim, he is sent to Thailand to enjoy gender affirming on boats. If a person has undergone an orchiectomy or vaginoplasty, they can stop taking testosterone blockers. BB opts to get rid of his penis and testicles but the vaginoplasty need not be perfect. He isn’t crazy about hormones. So he spends money on fashion. Keep it external. But he transforms internally. He is still a psychopath but hates physical violence, preferring poison, sanitizers, drugs, a match here and there. She becomes a better cook. The name Betty suits her better than Bobby, Leo, or Boat Bob. Betty Cocker if she were in a comedy show. But she stopped laughing when Joe died. Her gender dysphoria has cleared up. But she still works for Ibrahim who is now a full-fledged sociopath, ready to kill millions of humans to save the planet or his people. Now that Betty no longer has that weasel between his pants, she has no admiration for Litonya’s body. Jake and BB always hated each other but Jake is getting desperate about his mom’s Alzheimer’s and his PD. His dad dies. He makes friends with Betty and they work together. Litonya is brought in as well to spy on Ibrahim and his STEMGARCHS. They must get these drugs.Pinches in between: Jake’s dad dies of ALS, his Mom’s Alzheimer’s is worse. Jake is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Litonya with pulmonary fibrosis. Ibrahim and his family have medical and environmental challenges, but they are privy to the best research. More floods, more landslides, more diseases. The Magma Monsters of the Palisades narrate half the last novel and their presence is visual in cinematic montages.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: Jake, Litonya et al are desperate for the drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia and Litonya’s fibrosis is worse. Jake becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty. Betty is older and sicker on her eightieth birthday. Jake tells her she must choose exposure over getting on the side of EvergreenEnergy and betraying her boss Ibrahim, head of STEMGARCHS. But Betty has a secret weapon—access to drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. She is still the chef of the CEO of STEMGARCHS. She agrees to cooperate.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS and must make a choice about Ibrahim and the drugs. Whose side is he on—EE with the kids and their eco-boats or Ibrahim with his money, power, and the STEMGARCHS? What are the options? How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. Ibrahim dies but she struggles as she opens the door.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes. Jake and Litonya die naturally with a seismic seesaw as they are trying a little climb in the Palisades and the igneous rock, the Magma Monsters who narrate half my last novel, slips into the Hudson. The Resurrection is the resumption of the rock cycle and the legacy of the kids to work on the imperfect human brain and ecoboats to tackle climate catastrophes and save humanity.
I think there is a graceful way to sew the arcs of the four characters into a 9 point structure but I must also keep the stories because they will feed individual scenes. The narrative structure of the novels is different from the dramatic structure of the screenplay but all this detail may help better sequencing between scenes when writing the actual screenplay.
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What I learned is that another story and structure emerge when my language is emptied out and the other characters shoved into the background but for this class, focusing on this one character may help me finish my last novel.
Horror or drama with streaks of red. TRANSFORMATION. Bobby transforms into Betty to erase his serial killer/rapist/arsonist/COVID spreader past and becomes such a good chef to Ibrahim, the CEO of STEMGARCHS, that she poisons him to steal drugs for neurodegenerative diseases to give to needy friends who are blackmailing her about her past.
Greatest Fear: A strong woman who castrates him. Must kill them first to make them obedient. Gets excited when they are scared. But he is attracted to strong women. And hides behind his strong son. His power comes from controlling death first as mortician, then serial killer, then hit man, then hit woman. No, he is more afraid of life than death.
Here is an abbreviated outline, focusing on Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty’s character arc.
1) INT. BABY IN WOMB rocking blissfully.
2) EXT. STREET IN EAST HARLEM – DAY
A gang beats up Bobby until his right eye turns blue and bloody.3) INT. FUNERAL PARLOR- DAY
Bobby’s right eye is made of glass as he beautifies the corpse. His right hand slips under the table as his shoulder vibrates him to an ecstatic explosion.4) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – DAY
Bobby has transformed into smiling LEO, the hospitality guy, selling food and drink to BEAUTIFUL BUFF CLIMBERS, especially LITONYA LENAPE, the top climber and a geology prof at the college.5) EXT. CLIMBING PITCH – NIGHT
SCREAMS as gorgeous climbers collapse on the ground. Bobby mounts them, then hides the evidence.6) EXT. CAR – DAWN
Leo putters with a car fixing brakes.7) A SERIES OF SHOTS
His wife Natalia crashes the car on a snowy road. It blows up killing her.
Leo lovingly prepares her body for burial.
Leo lustfully satisfies himself after hours.
People come and cry, especially his handsome adopted son JOE.
Leo and his son JOE go to the funeral of Floyd Patterson at the same New Paltz cemetery.
Leo watches him box in his boxing conditioning studio as beautiful girls like PRICELESS watch.8) INT. MUDDY MANSION – EVENING
Priceless is dancing in an exotic outfit on the stage of Leo’s new venue, a renovated barn for Gunkies, Junkies, and Gutter Punkies as Joe, JAKE, RODNEY, and his buddies watch. Leo cleans and serves food and drinks but his left eye is glued to her delicious, writhing body.9) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Leo stalks Priceless as she walks home drunk and stoned but as he begins to grab her, she flirts with him, and agrees to be tied up. This is the first time a woman has reacted like this so he is confused. After a while, Rodney and Jake come by, fight, and untie her. A deal is made to give Priceless money for her dancing, but Leo is still arrested.10) INT. PRISON – DAY
No one cleans like Leo. He is released for good behavior. He never confessed to his real crimes and only served for assault.11) EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE – DAY
Leo, aka, BB, has changed his identity to Boat Bob. He cleans his tent under the Asphalt Green sanitation dump. He chats with IBRAHIM, a millionaire from New Paltz, who lives in the Summit penthouse nearby. Papers are exchanged and they return to their different worlds, poor and rich.12) INT. LAUNDRY ROOM – DAY
BB puts lint and lighter fluid in laundry bags. MC, a NYC tour guide, returns to find the room in flames.13) A SERIES OF SHOTS
BB lights a match in the boiler room but leaves quickly. There is a natural gas explosion that decimates the building.
MC and her cat end up in the streets, the subways, the shelters, and finally the basement of an upscale pet store as BB stalks them.
BB studies boats on computers at the senior centers.
BB meets Ibrahim in his penthouse at the Summit and leaves with a package.
BB has the best sanitizers as the pandemic begins and uses them everywhere because they are secretly filled with condensed COVID, helping the old, sick, fat, and weak die faster.14) INT. PET STORE BASEMENT – NIGHT
BB enters the store to find MC dead from COVID. He mounts her but it doesn’t work this time. He is too old. Later, his son Joe, now a firefighter, comes to the rescue to bring her cadaver to NYU Langone for COVID research. Joe never suspects BB of anything because he is too naïve and busy being an essential worker.15) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Ibrahim drops BB off near the wharf on his way to picking up Litonya who is a geologist at the Earth Observatory.16) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT
BB sails up the Hudson to Kingston, blissfully nursed by the water.17) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
The Feldmans’ huge garage for antique cars now has a place to build boats. Ten year old KISELE, OMAR, CORAL, and DELPHINE are working with BB on a new boat. After cleaning exhaustively, he sleeps blissfully in the boat on dry land.18) EXT. LAWN OUTSIDE COLONIAL MANSION – EVENING
During the Feldman’s super spreader academic event, BB sprays his sanitizer, secretly laced with COVID.19) INT. FELDMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
As they have sex on their waterbed, JEN and ELIOT FELDMAN code. Jake and Rodney rush in to perform CPR. Then Joe arrives with two stretchers. Since they are obese it takes all their strength to get them in the ambulance.20) INT. HOSPITAL—NIGHT
The Feldmans are DOA. Rodney is detained for testing positive for COVID, low oxygen saturation and fever, but Jake and Joe go home.21) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A service is held for Jen, Eliot, and Rodney. Litonya, Jake, and Kisele stay longer at Rodney’s grave and leave together. BB is immaculately dressed as part of the morticians’ team.22) INT. COLONIAL MANSION
A series of shots inside shows BB cleaning and doing construction for the Feldman relatives, Lana, Keith, and Norm, filthy homeless rejects from Manhattan. This montage ends with Lana coding from COVID on the toilet from BB’s squirter but also because she was anti-vax. Jake and Joe enter but it is too late for CPR because rigor mortis has set in.23) EXT. SUMMIT HIGH RISE – DAY
BB and others watch as Hurricane Ida pummels the East River and the Summit pancakes down.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
The pile transforms for search and rescue. BB and Joe are working hard. Remains of OMAR and SANDRINE, Ibrahim’s wife and daughter are found.24) EXT. NEW PALTZ CEMETERY – DAY
A Muslim service for Omar and Sandrine. Everyone is there but Ibrahim is hollow, silent, devastated by this loss.25) INT. TUDOR MANSION – DAY
Ibrahim meets BB in his office. Papers are exchanged.
A SERIES OF SHOTS
as his home is transformed into a modern art gallery with the return of FADMA, his former wife, and their daughter MINA, also an artist. This time he doesn’t protest. He works harder.26) EXT. GARAGE – DAY
BB is designing a deluxe boat for Ibrahim with expert architects. He also toys with the last antique car, fixing the brakes.27) EXT. SOLAR HOUSE – DAY
The antique car blows up in the driveway instantly killing Norm and Keith. CS, Joe’s wife, runs out and passes out from flames. SIRENS scream and Joe arrives to pick up CS but the geothermal basement explodes, killing him and demolishing the house.28) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are screaming at each other. Then BB is left alone crying at Joe’s grave.29) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Ibrahim and BB are consulting in his new office overlooking Fort Washington Park. This time there are vials for neurodegenerative diseases. BB talks about sex reassignment. He would be more potent as a hit woman. Ibrahim must be convinced.30) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
A SERIES OF SHOTS in various hospital rooms as BB slowly emerges as Betty, a sixty-something woman.31) INT. COLONIAL MANSION – DAY
Betty cooks as well as cleans for Jake, Litonya, Kisele, and their little ones, Aanadi, his granddaughter, and Jesse, their newborn. Betty’s first transformation is to develop a sense of humor.32) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
But Jake is no longer laughing because his dad is locked in with ALS and his mom is locked out with Alzheimer’s and he is desperate for something to help them. Betty occasionally helps out because she is stronger than most women. It takes both Jake and BB to bring his mom back from the woods.33) EXT. WOODS – NIGHT
Betty goes for a moonlit canoe ride and is raped by the banks of the Wallkill the way he did it as Leo years ago. But her body is only raped, not murdered, and she has no idea who the masked gang was. Ironically, she feels more empowered.34) EXT. IBRAHIM’S BOAT – DAY
BB sails down the Hudson venturing into a secret lab with masked scientists looking as anonymous as the men who raped her. Ibrahim consults with them on the brain buffet. We see huge screens with radiographs. Delphine, one of his daughters, is a brain scientist.35) INT. HOSPITAL – DAY
This time Betty’s surgery is on her brain. Then she is given a precious vial of drugs. A FEW MONTHS LATER. She reads more quickly and holds a zoom conference talking faster and with bigger words than ever before like a STEM college student.36) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – NIGHT
Jake is helping his father, Jean, pass on to a better place with a massage. Tapes of former history lectures are playing. BB helps take out the corpse.37) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Jean La Roche’s service is attended by townspeople, the kids, Litonya, and Jake but there is no sign of Ibrahim. His wife, doctor Joan, Jake’s mom, is so beset by Alzheimer’s she doesn’t realize her husband has died. Betty is even better at mortuary duties, a woman of all trades. After the service, Jake pleads with Betty to find out about Ibrahim’s research because he heard Delphine talking about it with Coral and Kisele.38) INT TURQUOISE CHURCH GYM – DAY
Jake loses his balance and drops weights because of his tremor as he works out with Coral, Delphine, Kisele et al. He hears more from the kids about Ibrahim’s research because they are also computer experts. He says he may have Parkinson’s andis desperate to find cures for him and his mom.
39) EXT. PALISADES – DAY
Litonya and Jake are walking along the cliffs to the boat where Betty and the kids are working. Litonya has the beginnings of pulmonary fibrosis with that horrible chest cough. They discuss the physiology of getting rid of the plaques and clots that make humans miserable, especially in old age. They sail to Inwood where Betty gets off to go to40) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
As they consult, it is evident that Ibrahim and Betty have successfully turned back time with their secret brain buffet. Ibrahim says that the STEMGARCHS control the distribution and we cannot give it to anyone. Our mission is to get rid of as many people as possible. They have an argument over who is entitled but Betty backs down because she is now a submissive woman.41) INT. NEW PALTZ LIBRARY Years Later
Jesse is taking an interest in history, after his late grandfather Jean La Roche, and is intrigued by the unsolved crimes in the area, more cadavers and disappearances to which perpetrators are not attached.SERIES OF SHOTS
For Haunted Huguenot Street, Jesse attends all the events, talks to people of all ages, pores through books, and tries to uncover what happened years ago. He has a hunch that BB might be connected because of his arrest for assault and the way he or she is now. He finds a way to hypnotize Betty with the help of Aanadi who is a health care worker and yoga/meditation/hypnosis expert. The screams, details, visions, nightmares, and actions make them think Leo might have been the killer. The kids are good actors and follow Betty around, making notes. Delphine pretends it is a play they are rehearsing for a ship performance.42) INT. LA ROCHE STONE MANSION – DAY
Jake pleads with Betty for at least the Alzheimer’s drug to get the stick glue out of his mother Joan’s brain. Betty feigns ignorance because she is just a cook. They struggle with Joan and eventually she trips and falls because Betty secretly arranged the carpet that way. Her Living Will says DNI, DNR, no antibiotics, so Jake must refrain from giving her CPR.43) EXT. CHURCH CEMETERY – DAY
Joan is laid to rest beside her husband Jean, but their son Jake will not rest. His Parkinson’s is worse, and he is terrified it will progress to Lewy Body dementia. His wife Litonya coughs so badly she cannot run and hike the way she did. They need and deserve that brain buffet. But Betty didn’t come to this funeral for the first time. Where is she?44) INT. LA ROCHE LIBRARY – DAY
Litonya and Jake consult with Jesse, Aanadi, Kisele, Coral, and Delphine about Betty and the brain buffet.45) EXT. BOAT – NIGHT
Jake confronts Betty with his crimes as Leo. At first she denies, but as the proof mounts, Jake hits her with a barrage of evidence. She then confesses to the COVID murders, the tenement and outdoor restaurant torches, and other non-sexual crimes. Jake makes a deal for secrecy in exchange for the precious drugs that Ibrahim will not give him, always pretending to be powerless.46) INT. TUDOR TOWER – NIGHT
Betty cooks a delicious Mediterranean meal. Ibrahim sits by the fire overlooking the Hudson River, a little sleepier than usual. Betty talks on the phone to Jake. The food is carefully poisoned. As they sit down to eat, Betty tries to give Ibrahim the poisoned part but he wants to share everything. Torn between a possible death with him now or exposure of her past crimes and imprisonment, Betty chooses the former but eats more slowly.TIME SLOWS DOWN.
Ibrahim sinks forever into his sofa. Betty wobbles to the door opening for Jake and the kids who run in and up to Ibrahim’s office to get the secret drugs. Jake and Litonya take them right away. Betty is delirious. Nothing can save her.
47) EXT. INWOOD COVE – NIGHT
Jake, Litonya, and the kids put Betty on her boat as her lights are going out. She gently rocks herself to death.FLASHBACK to the opening shot of Bobby rocking in the womb.
Jake and the kids get on their boat and sail to the Palisades. Magma rocks slide into the Hudson as the rock cycle continues. We transform to survive. We transform as we die.
FINIS
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What I learned is that while producers want clarity and simplicity my brain is a jungle where I must not snip the synapses but sculpt them into workable labyrinths for the screen and the global literary world.
Create a structure for your story. While I endorse the Campbell/Vogler/Voytilla Hero/Heroine Archetypal Journey, my screenplay will be a streak of red slashed through three complex literary novels from the point of view of a psychopath who is always in his Special World and presents in the Ordinary World as an OCD cleaner, hard worker, listener. At Midpoint when he, BB has a gender affirming operation to become Betty, it may be like the Journey to the Inmost Cave. Betty is forced into a Resurrection because Jake and Litonya find out her crimes and force her to confess or get on their side, so she does some good, giving neurodegenerative drugs to them, her Elixir, just before she sacrifices her life and dies on the rocking boat she loves.
But I will obey the traditional three act structure although I realize I must also work on some level with Truby’s structure (that I don’t know and must research) because adapting three novels is extremely complex even though Hollywood producers want everything simplified and I must finish my third novel this fall or I personally will turn into a monster.
My individual scenes must encompass visceral dramatic beats that move characters and audience from Surprise to Panic
Suspense to Horror
Dread to hysteria
Fear to Anguish
I am not naturally good at this so I must focus more.Present your story, showing each part of the 9-beat structure as I did
in the two examples. Give us each of these:1)Set-Up: Opening: The first image is that of a baby rocking in a womb looking like a happy fish or a boat floating nowhere on water. Then its mother gives him away as a montage of turfing the child ends with his losing his right eye in a street fight in East Harlem. As an adolescent, Bobby works for his adopted parents in a funeral home, embalming corpses. After hours, alone with these cadavers, we hear him moaning, his hand moving rapidly under the table. Then the tombs of his parents in Greenwood Cemetery. He inhales fresh air, so he moves upstate. A new identity—no longer Bobby but Leo, king of the mountain is serving food and drinks on the climbing pitches of the Shawangunks. The climbers are stronger than he will ever be. He watches them intently. He stalks them at night back to their cars, around the village, and on the campus. He can only control his business, not women, so he works harder, buys a two bedroom condo in Town and Country condos, and marries Natalia who has a handsome teenage son called Joe. He pays for Joe to get boxing lessons with the best, Floyd Patterson. A juvenile delinquent in Brooklyn, Patterson excelled at sports at the New Paltz high school like Joe, Leo’s son. Leo is financially reliable and hard-working but his sex life with Natalia or lack there of, leads to fights, so devastating that Leo “fixes” the brakes on her car so it crashes as she drives up to Mohonk one morning.
2. Inciting Incident: He watches from the woods and does nothing as EMS arrives, but later Bobby aka Leo pleasures himself as he prepares his wife’s casket.
3. By page 10, you know what the movie is about. CLIMB AND PUNISHMENT. Thus begins Leo’s double life—the restauranteur who now owns Muddy Mansion as well as his 16-6 condo and devoted father of Joe who becomes a frat president and successful boxer and student at the college and the other Leo who stalks beautiful strong young women, climbers, dancers, or gutter punkies, He is careful. No evidence. No trails. Bodies are found in the wilderness absorbed by nature. He is methodical: he kills silently from behind with a rock or branch, suffocates to be sure, and then sodomizes and rapes once the body is still. He meditates for a few minutes afterwards on his power, complete god-like power, that can energize him for days, weeks, or months because serial killing is a risky business and he has a lot to lose. His secret crimes make him work harder and Muddy Mansion becomes the place to go for gunkies, junkies, and gutter punkies, college students and professors, and even mothers who bring their kids for afternoon story hour. Leo was never a pedophiliac. He spends more time stalking and fantasizing than killing because only five corpses are found, and he killed at least ten. He has dreams and nightmares about the strongest rock climber, a Native American geologist born 1975 called Litonya Lenape because she free climbs without ropes he can cut and has a way with the wilderness that eludes him. He also obsesses about Priceless, the top dancer in his shows at Muddy Mansion, but he needs her to draw crowds. He sells 16-6 Huguenot to a gay couple, Orhan and Nikos, and uses the money to improve Muddy Mansion, a renovated barn, and make an apartment in the attic so he can live where he works. But his real play is in the wilderness where the rocks are the only witnesses. Leo wishes he were as strong, tall, handsome, athletic, and successful as his adopted son Joe. He watches him box at Patterson’s studio and eventually sets up a conditioning studio of his own in the village beside Muddy Mansion. Patterson suffered Alzheimer’s in his final years. He died at home in New Paltz, on May 11, 2006 at the age of 71. His body is buried at New Paltz Rural Cemetery in New Paltz, This is an important scene for Joe, Leo, Jake, and some who will cause conflicts. In 2009 Leo takes chances with Priceless, an exotic dancer in his club, and is about to make her a victim, but she surprises him by flirting and brazenly playing his game of tie up and burn until her buddies, Jake and Rodney come by to save her. She agrees to shut up if Leo will give her money to start a pro dance career in Manhattan the following year. But the men want him booked for assault. Jake and Leo have a big fight, refereed by Rodney. Then Joe arrives, shocked and humiliated. They wonder if Leo is the serial killer/rapist/arsonist, but he dismisses these thoughts because he is so busy. Nevertheless, he is booked for assault. After serving a short term because of excellent behavior in prison, (no one cleans like Leo) he sells Muddy Mansion to get money to send Joe to John Jay EMS Masters in Manhattan and Priceless to Ballet Arts and Steps for training. Crime is covered up with cleaning and money.
4. First turning point at end of Act 1: COME TO MAGNIFICENT METAMORPHIC MANHATTAN. Leo moves to Manhattan to become BB. He is pushing fifty and his testosterone is waning, so he no longer needs to rape corpses or have any kind of sex. But he is still a psychopath. He switches back to his Bobby identity, but this time calls himself BB or Boat Bob because he has had it with rocks and wants to spend the rest of his life near water, preferably on boats, rocking gently the way he did in the womb before his life was turned into a tomb. For ten years he hides out in homeless shelters, abandoned boats, sheds, and senior centers where he uses their computers to learn as much about boats as possible. He does odd jobs, still expert at cleaning, cars, construction, cooking, and yes, mortuary procedures, and a side gig secretly burning rent stabilized tenements with natural gas explosions. but he doesn’t get a real job on the books. He lives on the dole and saves whatever money he can to eventually buy a boat. He stays away from his son Joe who ends up marrying the Chinese girl Cheering Spear when Sam Stern is killed by his daughter Litonya and/or a tree during Sandy Storm. He was there as well, stalking, watching, and getting the spoils from his pockets in Turtle Pond. When Jake, Priceless, and the Feldmans are swamped by Sandy Storm in the basement apartments, BB helps clean up. Important to make friends. Although he feels his raping days are over, he befriends and stalks a tour guide MC he meets at the senior centers, giving her little presents like market coupons, umbrellas, shampoo, and bus tickets he gets from the city when she becomes homeless because of a fire that he secretly set as his first hit job in NYC for her landlord. At least she and her cat Sphinx survived. She takes fitness classes, walks a lot, and is more attractive than most seniors. But when he tries to rape her spring 2020 in the abandoned pet store where she is squatting, (his last try he swears to himself), he loses his energy and leaves. Nevertheless, she dies a few weeks later because BB was a carrier of COVID. He had flu symptoms, but nothing life-threatening. When he spends the night there, his son Joe comes to take the body to NYU Langone for research. Joe is too busy as an essential worker to process any of this especially since his wife CS is now in ICU with COVID.
Around page 40: SEISMIC SEESAW narrated by Jake and the MAGMA MONSTERS begins. BB now a hit man for Ibrahim’s STEMGARCHS. But he never confesses, and his son Joe is a good front because he is “perfect. BB sprays COVID sanitizer at super spreader events like the Feldman’s 2020 Chanukkah thereby killing the parents and the son, Ibrahim’s business partner, a necessary act because he must abandon the EE company to go in another direction. BB kills more seniors in Manhattan, including Jake’s grandmother, and sets fire to outdoor restaurants near rent stabilized apartments.
Meanwhile BB and Ibrahim have prematurely been vaccinated with Pfizer. BB secretly contaminates the La Roches during Back to School 2020 events and kills the Feldmans with the condensed COVID sanitizer at their Hanukkah party. Since the virus is spreading anyway, there is no way to know how he has intensified it and targeted certain people. Ibrahim wants him to kill CS, Joe’s wife, because she knows too much about STEMGARCHS.
Last pinch around 55 has Hurricane Ida demolish Ibrahim’s condo, killing his wife and son, but BB and Joe help clean up. Cleaning and money cover climate catastrophes sometimes but cannot bring back loved ones so Ibrahim changes for the worse.
5. Mid-Point: The Feldmans’ siblings, Norm and Keith, are filthy. They stink and they are ruining the Colonial. It is impossible to clean up after them. They hustle coeds in local bars, hoard food, scavenge in garbage, and have bad hygiene. They fight about everything from food to money to girls to housework, politics, and the pandemic. BB is an OCD cleaner. At first, BB cleans up after them but then he can’t stand it. He wants to kill them. Surely they qualify as non-essential. Ibrahim agrees but he has another request. CS, Joe’s wife, knows too much. They need something sure and sophisticated like a burning car. BB is good at cars. He killed his wife that way. But this must be timed. They are going to the racetracks in the last antique car. It will be their last ride. Ibrahim never wants to know the details.
BB had to click the timer when CS came out of her house and the car was parked in the driveway. The explosion was bigger than planned. The men were killed instantly but CS rolled and lay choking. Fires caught the wood of the house. Alarms were sounded and Joe arrived quickly. He ran into the flames and pulled CS out but as he returned to look for others, the geothermal basement exploded, killing him and destroying the house. Property can be replaced by four people died. Since the house is on its little hill, nothing else was touched. If his beloved son Joe had not died, it would have been a good operation.
BB has never felt like this. Since he adopted Joe as a teenager, he lived through this handsome, brave, kind, hard-working, sexy man. Now he is gone, and it is his fault. He wants to become a woman. He is sick of his dangling impotent penis that abused cadavers. After arguing with Ibrahim, a good scene I must write well, he is sent to Thailand to enjoy gender affirming on boats. People over the age of 50 may have a higher chance of developing blood clots, diabetes, and cancer after starting hormone therapy. Taking estrogen through the skin, such as using a patch, might be safer than other forms of hormone therapy. A doctor may recommend that transgender women over the age of 50 who still have testicles only use testosterone blockers or use lower doses of estrogen. If a person has undergone an orchiectomy or vaginoplasty, they can stop taking testosterone blockers. BB opts to get rid of his penis and testicles but the vaginoplasty need not be perfect. He isn’t crazy about hormones. So he spends money on fashion. Keep it external. But he transforms internally. He is still a psychopath but hates physical violence, preferring poison, sanitizers, drugs, a match here and there. She becomes a better cook. She works with Nikos to expand her repertory to Middle Eastern cuisine. The name Betty suits her better than Bobby, Leo, or Boat Bob. Betty Cocker if she were in a comedy show. But she stopped laughing when Joe died. Her gender dysphoria has cleared up. But she still works for Ibrahim who is now a full-fledged sociopath, ready to kill millions of humans to save the planet or his people. Now that Betty no longer has that weasel between his pants, she has no admiration for Litonya’s body. Jake and BB always hated each other but Jake is getting desperate about his mom’s Alzheimer’s and his PD. His dad dies. He makes friends with Betty and they work together. Litonya is brought in as well to spy on Ibrahim and his STEMGARCHS. They must get these drugs.Pinches in between: Jake’s dad dies of ALS, his Mom’s Alzheimer’s is worse. Jake is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Litonya with pulmonary fibrosis. Ibrahim and his family have medical and environmental challenges, but they are privy to the best research. More floods, more landslides, more diseases. The Magma Monsters of the Palisades narrate half the last novel and their presence is visual in cinematic montages.
6. Second turning point at end of Act 2: Jake, Litonya et al are desperate for the drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. Jake is so depressed about having to let his mom die of Alzheimer’s and the knowledge he may be getting Lewy Body dementia and Litonya’s fibrosis is worse. Jake becomes a detective with the help of his kids to uncover the crime history of Bobby, Leo, BB, and now Betty. Betty is older and sicker on her eightieth birthday. Jake tells her she must choose exposure over getting on the side of EvergreenEnergy and betraying her boss Ibrahim, head of STEMGARCHS. She is in trouble. Humanity is in trouble. But Betty has a secret weapon—access to drugs to cure neurodegenerative diseases. She is still the chef of the CEO of STEMGARCHS. She agrees to cooperate.
7. Crisis: BB has a fight with Litonya and Jake about STEMGARCHS and must make a choice about Ibrahim and the drugs. Whose side is he on—EE with the kids and their eco-boats or Ibrahim with his money, power, and the STEMGARCHS? What are the options? How can she kill Ibrahim? Where are the best drugs?
8. Climax: Betty cooks a poisoned dinner that she and Ibrahim eat. Ibrahim dies but she struggles as she opens the door.
9. Resolution: Betty gives the drugs to Litonya and Jake, helping save their lives, but as she is dying, they put her on a boat near Inwood saltmarshes so she can rock herself to death as the rocks slide into the Hudson and humanity now has another arsenal of cures for neurodegenerative diseases and another fleet of ecoboats like Noah’s arcs for floods and other climate catastrophes. Jake and Litonya die naturally in 2060 with a seismic seesaw as they are trying a little climb in the Palisades and the igneous rock, the Magma Monsters who narrate half my last novel, slips into the Hudson. The Resurrection is the resumption of the rock cycle and the legacy of the kids to work on the imperfect human brain and ecoboats to tackle climate catastrophes and save humanity.
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What I learned is that I will twist my trilogy by morphing a background antagonist into the major character who drives the screenplay story into a streak of horror, something that will necessitate my humanizing the real-life model Curtis who raped and murdered my neighbor and burned down the condo (don’t worry because he is Sing Sing) but my characters never confesses so he lives to become an 85 year old woman based on a woman I know as well as homeless men who have stalked me in soup lines. To put it simply, I must not create a cardboard serial killer but a real person who is repulsive for reasons and genes.
a. Concept: Adopted abused child becomes a funeral director then a hospitality food and drink guy, secretly a serial killer/rapist/arsonist turfed into a homeless boat lover, evolving by necessity into a hit man who is gender affirmed into a female chef who sacrifices her life to poison the CEO of STEMGARCHS to give drugs to people to cure neurodegenerative diseases.
b. Dramatic Question: What will Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty do next to assuage his troubled psyche and return to the soothing waters before his miserable life began?
c. Main conflict: Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty is the APD villain protagonist or antagonist against the world he tries to control and failing that, prefers them dead for his pleasure and function except for his beloved adopted son, firefighter Joe, whom he “accidentally” kills in a fire.
d. Dilemma: There will be dilemmas all characters face throughout but the crisis/climax dilemma will be whether Betty eats the poisoned food with the CEO and dies or whether she lets others die who may eventually kill her because she didn’t give them the drugs they need.
e. Theme: The theme is transformation, whether it is Bobby/Leo/BB/Betty’s identity changes, Jake’s maturation, Ibrahim’s descent into a kind of genocide, Litonya’s physical changes with pregnancy and love, and the changes that rocks undergo in the rock cycle because this screenplay is the streak of blood slashing through three literary novels to make them more marketable. -
What I learned is that I will try to write smart horror, per Cheryl’s brilliant suggestion after phone pitch, and therefore work on transformation as my modus operandi.
My two choices from the last ten are transformation and sacrifice but I must use all twenty plots in the chapters of my three novels to jazz them up and give them narrative thrust.
I am imagining how horror would differ from satirical noir thriller, eliciting disgust, terror, laughter, and a more visceral catharsis than the carefully planned fear of a suspense thriller. Since I published short fiction in three Doubleday anthologies that were literary horror, suspense, and fantasy, I may be able to integrate this in my novels, like a streak of red slashing through all three.
Horror is about excess so I must exaggerate my characters’ flaws into violent actions and activities and find a way to weave in the more intellectual aspects of the drama and environmental/medical mission of my trilogy in ways that are not pedantic or so labored that they wreck the screenplay.
I must review my three novels from the POV of the funeral director turned hospitality food guy turned serial killer/rapist/arsonist turned homeless boat lover turned hit man turned female chef who sacrifices her life to poison the CEO of STEMGARCHS to give drugs to people to cure neurodegenerative diseases.
Are people allowed to laugh in horror films?
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What I learned is all these plots are useful in scenes and as usual, I am not making my characters fight, stand off, and hurt each other. I am too nice because I choose characters who are younger, richer, more successful, and more powerful than me so I can live their lives so unconsciously I keep trying to make their lives better instead of worse.
My two plots are Quest and Temptation.
BB is tempted by beautiful, strong, young women, usually climbers and dancers, but he is so insecure he must kill them before he can cum. Then his quest is to live on boats in a unconscious desire to return to a better womb. Ibrahim is on a quest to save the earth but really to enhance his money and power. Jake is on a quest for a more essential career and then for treatments to help him and family survive. Jake was tempted by drugs and women as a teenager, but I need him to be tempted now. I need more temptation. Then I need to fuse temptation with quest with through lines with concept.
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What I learned is that our hard work nailing the concept must immediately be applied and glued to the main characters’ through lines or we will not have that seamless fusion of plot and character that satisfies everyone.
Dramatic Triangle
Satirical Noir Thriller or Drama with Suspense
As his testosterone wanes with age, a serial killer/rapist/arsonist becomes a hit man for a STEMGARCHS global network burning outdoor restaurants near rent stabilized apartments, poisoning food boxes destined for homebound seniors, and spraying sanitizer filled with condensed COVID in shelters, but when a fire he had to set accidentally kills his beloved fire fighter son he has a sex change, steals the company’s secret drugs to cure neurodegenerative and infectious diseases to give to his afflicted friends, and sacrifices his life as an old woman chef by eating a dinner with the CEO that he poisoned.
Dramatic Triangle
Bobby, a funeral director, moves upstate to become Leo in the hospitality business, secretly a serial killer/rapist/arsonist in the mountains until his testosterone wanes and his trail gets hot so he hides in NYC in homeless shelters as BB until COVID murders Manhattan and he becomes a hit man forIbrahim al Harbi, a Saudi billionaire brilliant engineer, former professor who becomes CEO of STEMGARCHS.
Jake La Roche has a long, complex history as al Harbi’s college student till he was thrown out for plagiarism and ironically became his sperm donor, babysitter, and personal trainer but because al Harbi is withholding life-saving drugs for him and his family, Jake must woo BB to get the precious drugs to save his mom from Alzheimer’s, his dad from ALS, his wife from pulmonary fibrosis, and him from Lewy Body dementia from his Parkinson’s, the crazy glue that is damaging their brains.
Through lines
Jake wants so badly for people to listen to him that he became a fitness star when he flunked out of college, transforming into an essential loving health care worker, surviving COVID and climate crises, marries the most desirable wives in sequence not simultaneously, and then is challenged by neurodegenerative diseases as he ages.
Ibrahim wants power and money so much that after teaching in college and running the EvergreenEnergy company, he is sucked into STEMGARCHS and forced to choose between horrible crimes, but when he loses his wife and son in Hurricane Ida, he screams out against nature and fate and becomes CEO of STEMGARCHS, a secret global organization that will do anything to save the planet.
BB wants so badly to erase his APD, miserable childhood, and necrophilia, that he keeps changing careers and identities, killing, raping cadavers, and cleaning until he is so devastated by his adopted son’s death in a fire that he had to set that he becomes a woman to ease more gracefully into old age, cooking poisonous meals on his beloved boats and sacrificing his life to help others, including Jake, his wife, and kids.
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I agree to keep colleagues’ creativity safe in the forums but I can only find this confidentiality forum. Are there other ones and if so where? Julia
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What I learned:
To stumble through the jungle of creativity with Hal’s clarity
To write badly as vigorously as I clean badly in my tiny room
To twist everything and be open to change because it is good for screenwriting (and the hippocampus)
To myth-bust the NE Assumptions about evil Hollywood producers and be open to working with everyone to make money to survive
To do things methodically even though my momentum is to rush ahead tripping and falling
To be willing to throw out if only temporarily to imagine new possibilities
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Julia Keefer
I agree to the terms of this release form.
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As I listened to the long but good teleconference, I multitasked with exercise, housework, and other chores related to survival in my tiny NYC room. I have been blocked on a project for the past few months and I hope to recharge my process. Hal has many ways to increase speed, endurance, and focus in the writing process. I agree that too much analytical feedback can sabotage the creative flow and I am fine with this structure. I like the idea of writing badly.
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Hi All, I am enthralled with your brief bios! My name is Julia Keefer. I wrote three screenplays years ago and fiction, poetry, drama, and academic writing but I am taking this course to knock some common sense into my “useless intellectual” brain because COVID killed my jobs and I need to step forth in a new direction. I am also a fitness pro and like the way Hal’s approach reminds me of the kickboxing I taught before the Pandemic.
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I love your story Heather. It looks good in synopsis so now it depends on how the scenes play out. My nephew Vince Arvidson is a DP and director in British Columbia https://www.vincearvidson.com/ He works free lance with the CBC etc. but has his own company Candela Collective. I live in NYC and am out of this loop but your story seems like something that would interest them if you can’t get big Hollywood producers. Good luck! Julia Keefer
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Critique of Chris:
Since Chris is the only entry in this forum I will take the liberty of giving him a brief critique. I do not have to be “nice” because Chris’ project is timely, commercial, heartfelt, and well-organized. I am instantly drawn into the romance between Helen and Peter and inspired by her courageous acceptance of her sexuality. I like the historical setting although as Hal says, it increases the budget, but islands and Massachusetts rural life can be easily filmed. Chris chooses significant metaphors and visuals to symbolize the profound transformations and deep emotions. Have you also done filmmaking? I don’t want to just praise but the synopsis is excellent.
I wonder about the dialogue and whether the subtext is worked out enough to cover the bedrock of betrayal in as interesting verbal ways as Chris is with visual cues. Some of the examples are okay but on-the-nose. Actors will want to play these challenging roles.
His outline is cleaner and more organized than mine but I am writing a trilogy of messy novels. 🙂 Inserting the Hollywood film into the story opens it up in an interesting way, adding a delicious irony when the producers want romance and adventure added to a sad story. Peter’s betrayal comes as a surprise.
For contemporary audiences, can you do more with the kind Black character who helps out? How much license do you have to frame the story today with the inclusion/diversity, social justice, protests, and ableism? Is your market TV film or big feature?
You will be successful or maybe you already are. Excellent work.
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TITLE: Seismic Seesaw, the third novel of a rock trilogy with screen adaptations
WRITTEN BY: Jake and the Magma Monsters aka Julia Keefer
What
is Your Profound Truth? A. High concept: Confronting climate catastrophes to
save the earth requires sacrifice, ingenuity, and collaboration but we
must be compassionate about recalcitrant humans and not make this another
dystopian world order where only some survive. Greed prompts the leaders
to hide fossil fuel investments and the collateral human damage to stay on
top.B. Ibrahim’s truth is that he isn’t what he appears to be and his need for power and money force him to compromise his values to be part of the secret Green Garchs, an ecoterrorist organization that twists the honest values of Good Greenies.
C. The personal truth is Jake’s transformation from a superficial, narcissistic,
fun-loving fitness instructor to a caring health professional and then
someone who can confront death with courage and compassion. His narrative
embraces more dramatic events from victims and villains. But I must link
both so that Jake’s ADHD breaks through to discover Ibrahim’s plot and the kids’ scientific research on the boats.What
is the Transformational Journey? Jake’s transformation is simple, but I
will clarify the high concept journey.Old Ways: Fossil fuelies and frackers have been eliminated in earlier
novels but Ibrahim, who professes to be Green, secretly invests in fossil
fuels. He likes power but wants to save the earth for his progeny. He practices
Islam but has tweaked its dogma so that he can participate in the secret
one percent plot to develop and unleash the COVID virus and its variants,
a pandemic that occasionally goes awry. Research from this venture is used
to develop cures for neurodegenerative diseases related to scarring. It
works both ways like the COVID vaccines. The powers-that-are-hidden fight
about the fine points. Some wanted to get rid of the old, weak, fat, and
hyper. Then there is collateral damage. Then the argument goes that old
people will die at the same age, but a healthy old age is cheaper for
everyone. As the novel erupts, Ibrahim becomes less sure of his will and
their plans and humbler in the face of fate. He can’t seem to bargain with
Allah. But Ibrahim also hires BB, the serial killer/rapist/arsonist from
the first novel who was never convicted of his crimes because he didn’t
confess, to be his agent to squirt sanitizer filled with condensed COVID
and set fires to outdoor restaurants that are near rent-stabilized NYC
tenements where seniors live. In each major city, agents are supposed to get
rid of as many seniors and “unproductive” people as possible since they
are a drain on the earth’s resources. Jake, Litonya, and the kids
eventually discover and bust this high concept plot. <div>Who
are Your Lead Characters? Jake, Litonya, Ibrahim, BB, the serial killer/rapist/murderer from the first novel who never confessed.Change Agent (the one causing the change): Jake’s parents and his wife
Litonya change him, but Ibrahim and BB via the pandemic and their plot
cause him to focus (since he has ADHD), to figure out what it going on, and
to tell Litonya who was collaborating with them. He doesn’t want to commit
a crime. But Litonya kills Ibrahim and Jake’s calling the cops make BB
jump overboard after being confronted with proof.Transformable Character(s) (the one who makes the change): About five
characters change but Jake is the protagonist since he narrates the novel
in tandem competitive sequence with the Magma Monsters.Betraying Character (if you have one): At times, Ibrahim and BB betray
since they are so good at lying. I must get better at lying to create page-turning
suspense and cliffhangers.
Oppression: Aside from the evil deeds of the villains, the oppression is
climate catastrophe, a superhuman force articulated by the three rocks
that narrate the trilogy. </div><div>How Do
You Connect With Your Audience in the Beginning of the Movie? A.
Relatability – They Are Us! A racially diverse and mixed group across ages
and cultures confronts the human challenges of loss, fear, sickness, death
etc. while trying to love other humans and nature.B. Intrigue: I must ask more questions even though I know the answers, I
must suspend action for cliffhangers, and I must mess up things in the fog
of humanity in novel ways to worry the audience
C. Empathy: I have enough death, suffering, disease, and death to
stimulate empathy even with flawed or villainous characters but sometimes
I don’t describe scenes with the right dose of emotion to elicit same in
the reader.
D. Likability: Jake must address the reader in his alternating chapters,
giving them fitness advice, rhyming, charming them, and finding fun ways
to deal with stressors. Ibrahim is always polite, BB clean and
conscientious and considerate even though or because he is a killer, Litonya
is the role model for communing with nature in her strength and
brilliance, and other characters have qualities, talents, and education
that make them interesting.
What
is the Gradient of the Change? Because these are first novels, then screen
adaptations, I must remember to describe gradients in his chapter, the way
movie stars analyze the through line of a script so their transformations
are seamless even when shot out of sequence.What steps do the Transformational Characters go through as they are changing?
Gradient 1. The Emotional Gradient
A. The “Forced Change” Emotional Gradient Because there is a lot of death, natural and forced, Kubler-Ross’ stages of mourning are fine but that there is not always time for denial except before receiving a diagnosis like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. Forced change occurs with flooding, fires, aging, and the high concept plot with the virus.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
B. The “Desired Change” Emotional Gradient
Jake sincerely wants to be a caring health professional. He is excited about EMS and doing house calls with mom the doc, but is challenged with the deaths of loved ones and is own illness.Excitement, Doubt, Hope, Discouragement, Courage, Triumph…or Loss. Loss is more poignant after the height of triumph because people get numb after too much disaster.
Gradient 2. The Action Gradient: My weakness is that I am not good at action movies or describing violence, wars, or other huge high concept actions. Originally a static novel, I am trying to visualize all the actions of characters and nature without words or explanations to get an aerial view to develop the best slug lines for an eventual movie adaptation.
Setup: Everyone is locked down at the Summit, in Manhattan as homeless seniors, or on Huguenot Street as characters we know from the first novels.
Journey: They sail up and down the Hudson from the Manhattan wharves and boat basins or the Summit to the Palisades dock near Litonya’s seismology post in the Palisades to Kingston where they can get to New Paltz. They bike along the rail trail and beside the Wallkill River. In the third novel, there aren’t as many scenes in Mohonk and Minnewaska as there were in the first novel, a climbing thriller. There are some scenes on the streets of Manhattan with soup lines, outdoor restaurants, and protests, but nothing like the tourism of the second novel.
Payoff: Their actions are amplified around the world digitally but their real world includes gyms, labs, restaurants, shows etc. on their ecoboats. Over a long period from 2020 to 2060 the northeast changes as it becomes inundated with water though basic places stay the same. I must improve my visual/spatial descriptive abilities but I don’t want to be all over the place. I hate wars and non-stop violence in movies and am drawn to the pandemic because it made the streets so clean and quiet and deadly. I spend a lot of time in nursing homes and treating PD, ALS, Alz in a massage/PT house call practice and am intrigued by the activity inside the body as cells are clogged, neurons die, dendrites get tangled up etc. A creative way to film it would be to blow the microscopic world up the way they do on newsreels making COVID look like a spiked red and yellow cactus. The rocks also have an internal invisible world under the surface that erupts.
Gradient 3. The Challenge / Weakness Gradient
A: The rocks are challenged by erosion, excessive weathering from rain, ice, winds etc. and they gradually turn to gravel. They cannot control their landslides or earthquakes.
B. Ibrahim’s challenges are that despite his money and power and secret connections, fate surprises them and creates disasters or collateral damage that hurt him. He lashes out at the world, creating evil, although he started my trilogy as a proud pillar of the community.
C. Jake is challenged by the lockdown when he must go virtual, by his need to be essential in EMS, by the deaths of friends and family, and then by his own disabling Parkinson’s. He finds many ways of coping that may seem like he is bouncing over life but when the world is drowning you can survive on the tip of the iceberg. He loves with generosity, humor, and compassion, plays like a kid, teaches kickboxing as fitness fun and self defense but rarely gets into fights. When he does, it is dramatic. 1. What is the Emotional Gradient you’ll use? In my last seismic seesaw novel of my trilogy, Jake was originally a Candide-like optimist in contrast with the Magma Monsters’ ruthless rush to death and destruction, but one note character equals satire, not drama, so I am giving him more dimensions since I have had so much trouble with this project. But he oscillates between desired and forced change because he wants to spring back to the exclamation marks of the wellness/fitness lifestyle!!!
2. For each emotion of that gradient, tell us the following:
A. Emotion: Excitement
B. Action: Jake develops more medical training and dimensions to his fitness career because he wants people to listen to him as they confront more serious health challenges.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Jake’s weaknesses are narcissism and inability to listen to others patiently and carefully in part because of ADHD etc. He wants to jump from excitement to triumph without the stages of doubt, hope, discouragement, although he has courage. He is the opposite of Hal’s methodical approach to the gradients of emotion. He sings and screams and falls off the ladder!!! Then he picks himself up, smiles, and winks.
A. Emotion: Depression about COVID diseases and deaths
B. Action: Jake successfully developed COVID therapy for his mom but failed performing CPR on his buddy’s parents and then his buddy Rodney died despite his efforts.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Jake cannot stand the depression of mourning so he marries his buddy’s widow and has the baby he always wanted, an action that came in part out of weakness and circled back to excitement, his modus operandi. To survive, he must keep forgetting and forgiving and forging ahead before he is dead, something he won’t let himself imagine.
A. Emotion: Denial
B. Action: Although Jake could accept his dad’s ALS and his mom’s Alzheimer’s because he could care for them and they are older, he denies his Parkinson’s when he first gets symptoms of tremors, vertigo, and balance issues, making excuses, but also accelerating his fitness, something that exhausts him and gives him more symptoms as if he were spinning tires in a ditch.
C. Challenge / Weakness: He cannot stand going through the Kubler-Ross gradients but he learns to sublimate rage into kickbox, albeit in a chair or the pool, bargains with the Magma Monsters that he can now access via his Native American wife Litonya Lenape, and exults in the achievements of his kids, but is still frustrated. The Levodopa PD drug temporarily brings him back to his excitement phase with his renewed sexual potency (it can activate men in their eighties but he is only in his seventies). However, the symptoms get worse, the drug less potent, and he is faced with depression. At the end he must get help from his Sufi friend Orhan to release his energy into the cosmos. The main thing is not to get glued to depression like a roach in a roach motel. At the end of the trilogy, he, Litonya, and others of their generation die in 2060 but this loss is a legacy for their offspring who experience some degree of triumph in their battle against climate crises and painful, endless geriatric diseases.
What is the Transformational Structure of Your Story? Three threads A for the Palisades Rocks, MM, B for Ibrahim’s High concept linked to Litonya and BB, and C for Jake’s personal and professional transformation.
Mini-Movie 1 Status Quo and Call to Adventure and Inciting Incidents
A. MM’s status quo is locked into the Palisades since the Jurassic period, stale, stalwart, and steady. Call to Adventure occurs with the landslide into the Hudson when Litonya is walking around, a foreshadowing of their finale and a symbol for these Magma Monsters to be the tandem competitive narrators in alternating chapters. Question: What will happen to the shorelines of the Hudson and everything around New York as the twenty first century progresses?
B. Ibrahim considers himself a religious Muslim, family man, educated professional dedicated to renewable energy and infrastructure via his EvergreenEnergy Company. His persona is perfected with politeness. His Call to Adventure occurs with Pandemic 2020 when he invests more in Pfizer and Moderna stock, joins a secret one percent organization, and gets the vaccine in May. He shows his injection spot to Litonya when he picks her up in his electric chair. What does this mean? If he is in a trial, how does he know it isn’t a placebo?
C. Jake’s status quo is that of a successful Manhattan fitness star. His Call to Adventure is the Pandemic that closes the health clubs and makes training impossible, so he is shown turning a church/art center into his virtual fitness temple 90 minutes upstate in New Paltz on Huguenot Street, where the first novel took place.
Mini-Movie 2 Locked Into Conflict Plot Point One?
A. Rocks tease the reader with a suspense novel structure in their odd number chapters. They tell the reader secrets Jake doesn’t know and disagree with his perspectives. They are omniscient for aerial views and inside cells, but I don’t know how much omnipotence they have or how they submit to fate, Mother Nuclear, Father Sky etc. Finding the right narrative voice for these “we” narrators remains a challenge. I am not sure what their primary objective is other than to express themselves and tell their stories.
B. Ibrahim suspects that “bad people” have deliberately engineered and released the virus to kill the old, weak, sick, fat, hyper etc. and to change the global power structure to divest oily-garchs. He keeps this secret but Litonya guesses. He is locked in despite his more or less ethical past. They must save the planet.
C. Jake’s first conflict, as such, is with his Mom, a doctor who gets COVID. As a change agent, she guides him towards patience and listening on house calls, new techniques of wellness, and the beginning of his EMS training to be more “essential.”
Mini-Movie 3 — Hero Tries to Solve Problem But Fails. Crossing Threshold?
A. Rocks must want the opposite outcome of Ibrahim and Jake so there are three separate throughlines. Because Ibrahim must lie so much, he is not a direct narrator. Rocks must narrate all the scenes without Jake or ones where they want a perspective on Jake. But they must not be always on Ibrahim’s side in order to show the third point of view. I am not sure how this fails.
B. Ibrahim invests more in big Pharma and High Tech due to insider leaks, expands his EE Company, but is forced to work with Boat Bob, formerly a serial killer/rapist/arsonist in the first novel whose testosterone has waned enough to make him prioritize money over necrophiliac sex. Ibrahim enlists him for jobs he must do on the Upper East Side but when he sets the outdoor restaurant Italian Village on fire to burn a nearby rent stabilized tenement filled with old people, it backfires and FDNY, including BB’s son Joe, inspect and survey the area. However, the sanitizers filled with condensed COVID do work to infect and get rid of vulnerable people who are draining the economy. Besides COVID, they are doing research on other diseases to develop bioweapons, cures, and vaccines. He is running out of “Green” money so he gets some Saudi oil money, just this once. Their accountant, CS (Cheering Spear Chinese), finds out so he encourages BB to rig an antique car explosion timed to kill two remaining Feldmans living in the new Colonial as parasites and CS. However, BB’s son Joe dies, the big tragedy of his life. Since BB is a psychopath, Joe’s death is a painful, passing shadow that makes him hate humans more and vow to do anything to kill.
C. Jake does CPR on the Feldmans and they all die. Others would retreat into depression, but he impregnates his deceased buddy’s wife Litonya and works harder to make a home for all the kids upstate and in the Summit in Manhattan. When challenged, Jake tries to be positive like Candide with his ebullient energy and obnoxious rhymes.
Mini-Movie 4 Hero Forms a Plan Digging into the Special World
A. MM, my Palisades rocks, goal is to puncture petty puny people plans driven by power and control and deluded by human imperfection because nature, Father Sky, Mother Nuclear, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes is a fate filled with surprise.
B. Ibrahim contributes to the superior plan with the sanitizers and a few water main breaks or contaminated air conditioners to give a Legionnaires differential diagnosis that New Yorkers handle better than fires. He keeps it secret from his wife Sandrine and triplets and Jake the nanny and fitness trainer and pays BB to do the dirty work. Like Al Qaeda and local and sustainable produce, separate cells around the world spread the virus and do what it takes to clean the air and water. Because NYC future is water, he supports his kids’ and Kisele’s desire to make ecoboats.
C. Jake’s plan remains better wellness and fitness in the face of disease and disaster and now, two new kids–Jesse from Litonya, and adopted Aanadi when Joe is killed in the fire. But he is getting older and his dad weaker with ALS, his mom a bit weaker.
Mini-Movie 5 Hero Retreats & Antagonist Wins
Is this mid-point?
A. Floods sweep through the northeast due to rising sea levels, tropical storms, weak waterfronts, and oppressive humidity. The East River on the UES and the Wallkill River in New Paltz flood causing catastrophe damage. Water is stronger than rocks, water erodes rocks, and MM realize their lives are slowly ending as they morph from igneous to sedimentary and then get dissolved in rivers and oceans—but not yet. So they focus on the human disasters.
B. Despite Ibrahim’s power, his EE company, the ecoboats etc. the superstorm is a surprise and his condo collapses, killing Sandrine his wife and injuring Omar, his son. He is devastated. Like BB and MM, his pain erupts into rage that he unleashes by throwing things around, screaming with BB, and turning away from his religion especially because he became an infidel once he lost compassion. Use rosary beads to strangle someone? Soil the prayer rug? Drown the Koran in the river? Ibrahim’s pain makes him want to control the new research on neurodegenerative diseases.
C. Jake fights the flood on the Wallkill with boats, helps Orhan and Nikos escape from 16 6 Huguenot when the Town and Country condominium goes under. He saves their colonial stone house and his fitness church but brings parents on the boats. While he is dealing with water, his antagonist is neurodegenerative diseases. Jake massages his father as he dies of ALS, saying he is going to a better place. But his main concern is his mother’s progressing Alzheimer’s and troubling symptoms he is getting. Since they all had COVID, he wonders if the scarring has led to these clusters of amyloid plaques and tau tangles. He is desperate for cures.
Mini-Movie 6 Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan!
A. Despite High Tech, Big Pharma, and some fossil fuel divestment, the earth is changing in a way that is not good for humans and the characters who began the trilogy in 1998 are aging and dying. This is the biggest plan of the universe—constant change. Nature is bigger and better than humans.
B. Ibrahim’s Green Garchs are against cures for many neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and other diseases that prolong life in weak people, but his daughter Delphine is working in research, when she isn’t choreographing shows on the ecoboats, and dissolving plaque and enhancing blood brain drainage are her objectives. Kisele has taken over the EE company, married Coral and then are developing ingenious ways to power the world without fossil fuels to clean the air and water. Litonya wants to leave nature alone, but Ibrahim is making millions with the Green Garchs. Earthquakes are cropping up because the bedrock was destroyed for years by fracking. NY groundwater is getting contaminated. Kisele’s EE company is global, and they are concerned with water supplies affected by fracking and earthquakes, his mom’s legacy.
C. Jake’s mom is wandering around with Alzheimer’s and he is shaking with PD. Aanadi and Jesse care for them and are in geriatric health care. Jesse is a lab rat but he is a bit retarded like Steve’s Jesse but not schizo like mine. He might discover the cure in a lab. But if Ibrahim’s company buys these cures to stop their distribution, deliberately withholding them from people. Jake begs Ibrahim for the bigger, better drugs he knows he has. Ibrahim will not give Jake these drugs because it goes against the rules of his organization. But why can’t everyone get these drugs? Chapter 16 is Plot Point Two.
Mini-Movie 7 Crisis & Climax I must remember to prolong and tease readers with the crisis before staging climaxes.
A. Earthquakes happen more frequently in part because of fracking. There are more landslides in the Palisades. Precious New York water is contaminated. Floods are rockier getting close to tsunamic levels.
B. When Jake finds out that BB is the serial killer from the first novel, the one who infected MC the tour guide in the second novel, and the one who killed so many people in the third novel, he is about to kill him when BB fights with one of his kids. Then he remembers the bar brawl, calls the police as they approach the shore, causing BB to jump overboard, dying the way he wanted—in the womb of water since his mother abandoned him as a baby. Before he dies, BB rats on Ibrahim, saying he was his hit man and that Ibrahim’s company has killed millions. Litonya finds a way to kill Ibrahim without getting caught the way she was when she killed her father by pushing him under a tree during the Sandy Storm and then spending 7 years in jail till she was released during the COVID pandemic. Maybe Ibrahim deliberately had her jail infected hoping she would survive and be released?
C. As Litonya is doing her last climb around 2060, there is a slight earthquake, she slips, Jake comes hobbling up from his chair by the river and a rockslide of Palisades igneous rocks kills them quickly and mercifully in old age, holding each other, better than the hospice. Their kids pick up their bodies in the ecoboats.
N.B. These deaths will need better visualization and description and may change.
Mini-Movie 8 New Status Quo not a return to the Ordinary World nor a ResurrectionA. The last chapter is a medley for the three rocks—Sedimentary Shawangunk that narrates the first novel, Climb and Punishment, The Manhattan Prong of Marble, Schist, and Gneiss that narrate my second novel, Come to Magnificent Metamorphic Manhattan, and Igneous from the Palisades that narrate Seismic Seesaw with Jake. These three rocks describe the endless rock cycle. Life is a circle, infinite, even when periodic explosions and blasts seem to hint at apocalypse. There is always new life. Life is inorganic and organic. Rocks are essential and that is why I have studied geology to personify them.
B. With the deaths of Ibrahim and BB, the world order that unleashed the COVID virus is exposed and destroyed. They had bought and hid the cures for neurodegenerative diseases and now these are in the hands of the WHO, CDC, UNESCO, UN etc. for worldwide distribution.
C. Kisele and his tech colleagues hack into the Green Garchs computers that expose how they bought cures and hid them and unleashed viruses with the help of innocent animals like bats. Kisele, Coral, Delphine, Omar, Aanadi, and Jesse, the kids who pursue the environmental, musical comedy, and geriatric care jobs with compassion for diverse humans and nature, living in the stone houses on Huguenot Street when they aren’t sailing on the ecoboats. Orhan, Nikos, and Omar advise them on spiritual and intellectual matters.
How are the “Old Ways” Challenged?
What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change? Ibrahim’s religion is challenged because he cannot obey the five pillars of Islam and be part of this global society that unleashes viruses, harbors cures and vaccines, and kills people supposedly to save the earth.
A. Challenge through Questioning: Jake doesn’t question a lot in the beginning but as life gets heavier, he focuses more to figure out what is really going on, how he is being used, and other others have been abused. Ibrahim and BB don’t question. ThWhat I learned again is something I always knew–the similarity of dramatic structure to argumentation, CDQ to thesis question, and in this case, Old Ways to assumptions that can have fallacies that allow characters to struggle and change.
a) Old Ways Jake races through everything The faster the better, Time is arrow and I am the shooter, New York is a treadmill and I am ahead of the pack. Go fast to flourish. Speed is an essential component of my training programs.
b) Challenge Jake: Except that I am getting PD, slowing down, shuffling, shivering, and shaking.
c)Counterexample Jake: Maybe slowing down has some perks except my smell and taste are muted from PD. They also serve who only stand and wait. At least I am not blind like Milton was. How can I be the exception to the rule when my wellness program of diet, exercise, and meditation is perfect?
d) How it might play out: Something good comes out of this with his kids and patients. Develop the scene on the eco boats. Delphine, Jesse and Aanadi work on vaccines or drugs to put dopamine back into the brain not just via the intermediary of levodopa. To do this, they must be privy to some of Ibrahim’s project or vice versa.
a) Old ways Ibrahim is into power. Religion and science and Green activism can create a new world order but sacrifices must be made and there is collateral damage. The COVID bioweapon also killed healthy young people. He thinks he can control the apocalypse. Personal sacrifices must be made for his high concept plot but pain is for others.
b) Challenge: His wife and only son die in the Manhattan flood of 2028 when the Summit condo collapses into the East River.
c) Counterexample: Their penthouse was supposed to be impervious because Sandystorm only flooded the basement. He and his daughters are on eco boats but now he has more respect for nature’s unpredictability. He is still committed to his international high concept plot but his heart is broken.
d) How it might play out: He gets closer to Jake and confides in him about personal problems, but not the big plot.a) Old Ways: Litonya loves rocks more than humans and her career is geology.
b) Challenge: She gives birth to Jesse on the ecoboat surrounded by humans near PP1.
c) Counterexample: She is exhausted. Jake takes care of their baby and braids Litonya’s hair, a sacred action. Or is this the action exercise?
d) How it might play out: A new kind of love develops based on her dependency and vulnerability to her family. This happened in the first novel but there is more depth in her relationship with Jake than with his COVID-deceased buddy Rodney.a) Old Ways: BB/Leo has APD and is a robot. Old Ways. He changes identities but never himself.
b) Challenge: He set up an antique car to blow up but the fire set a house on fire burning his daughter in law and when his son Joe the firefighter arrived to put it out he succumbed to another geothermal explosion as he took her out.
c) Counterexample: Losing this handsome, brave, successful adopted son was the worst thing that could happen. It depresses him. It breaks the glass of his APD and makes him a bit more vulnerable, but maybe not enough.
d) How it might play out: After talking with Ibrahim about the high concept, he gets over the death enough to go back to killing others because the price is right. This was the turning point. But then Ibrahim loses his son. Should they continue along their path or back off? BB gets closer to the other kids so Litonya and Jake never suspect his true motives. Since BB was born in 1960, he should be dead by 2050 at the latest. Not sure if Jake should push him overboard or if Ibrahim does or Litonya or suicide or whatever.a) Crisis after the deaths of Jake’s parents as he suffers from PD. Litonya and Ibrahim argue about the high concept and Jake makes Litonya give up consulting. But how do Ib and BB die? These questions will break the high concept plot and change the details of the pay-offs but I am not sure what the best choices are.
B. Challenge by Counterexample
C. Challenge by “Should Work But Doesn’t” Ibrahim’s world collapses because his investments are not as stable as he thought. His position on top of the pyramid being polite is shattered. He changes for the worse.
What I learned is that I must hypnotize myself to make my precious characters fight even though I hate conflict of every kind in real life.
Arguments must be more original, not just on-the-nose screaming. Lies, irony, flattery, and changing the subject to heighten subtext can help. Or screaming at someone else who is not responsible, or screaming at the mirror. Or doing something as they argue that enhances activities to create visual symbols. Loudness replaces soundness, revealing the cracks in people’s politeness.
– Competition: Rodney Jake and Joe must compete more in the first two novels even though I don’t like competition. Is this for attention from friends and family, girls, grades, money, jobs or what? This competition will make Jake feel guilty when they die.
– Power struggle is different from competition. Ibrahim seems to have no competition for his power but Litonya disagrees with some of his plans and he needs her expertise so this should ignite a power struggle near the end. I am working on another vaccine or drug related to amyloid clearance so there should be a power struggle around this life-saving secret.
– Dilemma: I must stretch out Jake’s dilemmas to tease the audience. One is to give CPR to his Mom or not but that can’t be stretched too long. I tend to solve problems too quickly instead of presenting the dilemma so the reader/audience can solve it first in their minds. A dilemma in the form of a disjunctive syllogism should frame the entire third novel related to will versus fate in the face of death.
– Physical confrontation Jake beats up Keith and plays with boxing but can anyone logically get into a fist fight? The first two novels have more fights when the testosterone is running more freely but as people age, their ability to fight physically diminishes. I have been idealizing the youngest generation, as grandparents do, but perhaps I should stage at least one fight to be more realistic. Damn. I hate fights although I love teaching cardio kickbox where no one is touched.
– Love triangles occur in the first novel and are resolved in the third when Rodney and Priceless have died. Maybe I need one love triangle with the youngest generation but the last novel is NOT a romantic comedy.
– Verbal abuse is on the nose but it works. Not sure who would use it when. It is different from arguments. In the first novel, Jake’s dad abuses him verbally, one reason he runs away. The Feldman trio abuse people verbally causing stress in the community.
– Public humiliation demands a position, political or communal and Ibrahim seems to be shielding himself from any publicity or politics. Sometimes the most powerful people are invisible. In the first novel, Jake’s father feels that if Jake doesn’t disappear, he will be humiliated by having a son who plagiarized. He is chair of history.
– Loss is necessarily part of the last novel of a trilogy but it must be depicted in terms of fate versus will to enhance choices and dramatic actions. Events that are inevitable don’t make readers turn pages.
– Stakes are raised according to the pressures of time, the escalation of harm as death approaches, and the corrosion of values.
– Plan goes wrong. Not sure how plans can go wrong except when nature does things to the bio weapon that weren’t planned. Young and healthy weren’t supposed to die.
– Falsely accused. Samir could be falsely accused of the serial rapes and murders in the first novel, BB or one of the homeless framed for Sam’s murder instead of his daughter Litonya in the second, and in the third novel, Litonya could be falsely accused of the high concept plot when she wasn’t privy to all the details.
What I learned is to focus on the vicious circle of insight to action to insight fueled by some kind of conflict.
Insights into Action: In novels characters can transform through inner thoughts, dialogue, poetic epiphanies etc. but this exercise reminds me that major scenes must have enough conflict followed by insights followed by ACTION to propel the story forward. In the past I eschewed small, minor actions but arguments over toothpaste, an alarm clock, or even imaginary or past events that create animosity can create narrative thrust. In real life, most scenes are not catharsized in definite action, one reason people like stories and films. I must go through Jake’s 9 chapters to describe one or two actions that can push his throughline. Since aging and climate disasters create deus ex machina actions that traditional dramatists dislike, Jake must do something to change his character right up to his death.
Or do the actions deliver insight with impulsive Jake? 1) Arguments with Keith about sexual harassment of minors in the bar erupt in physical confrontation but the action of hitting Keith gives Jake the insight that he is only hurting himself by breaking the law in a vicious circle. He should have called the cops. 2) The eminent loss of his dad to ALS precipitates Jake’s action of massaging his father’s cold feet, delivering the result his father wanted, a blissful quick death from throwing an embolus, so this becomes an insight as Jake lets his dad keep lecturing as he “goes to a better place.” 3) As his mother is dying of Alzheimer’s, he must curb all action to respect her living will, something that gives him insights into the concept of dying at the right time since we must die. 4) He finds his tremor too bad to hold weights or focus pads (plan gone wrong) so he shovels ice cream into his face and then realizes he is hurting himself. 5) When Jake learns of BB’s past and present crimes, he subdues his action, the desire to throw BB overboard. Instead he calls the cops and as they arrive, BB jumps overboard so the action is the same. 6) At the end of his life, with the stakes raised by age and disaster, Litonya’s screams force him to hobble towards her as she tumbles down and they both die, a mistake but one that avoids more suffering going forward. His final action was to help a loved one despite his PD disability.
Challenge through Living Metaphor
What I learned is that living metaphors have the potential to create filmed analogies and increase symbolism, something I need because I am not naturally visual. When stories get really complex, colorful, and over-the-top, tragedy, drama, and thrillers can turn into comedy, something that seemed to happen as I wrote just now.
Mirror: 1) Old ways have Jake looking at himself in the mirror and his students behind him to correct them. 2) Mirror can be tilted so they look at themselves and not him or he is behind them or like Litonya, they want nothing to do with mirrors. 3) Mirror can be smashed in a moment of rage when he has PD. 4) Mirror is used as a weapon to try to kill BB near the end. 5) Mirror is given to his kids so he no longer has mirrors.
Bed: 1) Old ways: Jake usually jumps out of bed to work or play. 2) His first major challenge is when his mom is dying of COVID in bed in part because she is wearing a mask and is at the busy medical center. He thinks enough about her to bring her home, open the windows, take off the masks, and give her oxygen and food at home but this requires a change in his behavior and attention. 3) When he makes love to Litonya, he becomes less mechanical and sexist, taking care of her needs and then getting swept into a spiritual communion that procreates the first baby that is his legally as well as biologically. This is a blessed bed. 4) When faced with the challenge of his father’s death to ALS in 2030, Jake massages his swollen feet as he gives his last lecture about colonial history revisited for diversity and inclusion. In medias res, he throws an embolus, saying he is going to a better place, better than slowly choking to death, with the attention and drama he likes. Jake always wanted people to listen to him but has compassion for his father’s last lecture and lets him rant and rave. 5) When his mother is dying of Alzheimer’s he faces the agonizing dilemma that no EMT likes of obeying her Living Will for DNR and DNI and letting her die naturally. BB the traitor helps clean up both beds because it is too much for Jake. BB grew up in a funeral parlor so he is good at this.
Chair: 1) Jake has ADHD and hates to sit so he does squat ups with kettlebells. 2) Jake’s dad Jean has a kind of bionic chair once he gets ALS so his voice can boom through the room without demanding too much from him physically. 3) When Keith says vulgar things about women at the bar, Jake swats him, and his face falls into his French fries and ketchup. Jake regrets this action but it helps make his point. Next time he vows to fight through legal channels. 4) Jake finds Lana sitting on the toilet as a chair rigor mortis with a blue butt bruised by lividity after coding from the Delta variant because she refused the vaccine. 5) Litonya squats on the deck in a chair position as her waters break h but when Jake shows Jesse to his great grandma Julie, she keels over at 92 in church dying peacefully. Jake sits at his computer and works harder organizing his career, appreciative of the many uses of chairs.
Garden 1) Jake’s new fitness studio, a church turned into an art studio and now his gym overlooks a garden that he usually ignores. 2) When Mom gets COVID, he picks fresh basil, mint, and rosemary from her garden to stimulate her sense of smell and taste. Eventually it works after he treats her with fresh air, oxygen, exercise, good food etc. 3) He picks wildflowers to give to his partner Litonya when he finds out she is pregnant, waiting for her to decide whether she wants marriage or not, finding ways to serve her and allow her to keep working at the Earth Observatory as a geologist. 4) After BB tweaks the antique car to blow up and it happens too close to the solar house, killing Jake’s friends Joe and CS as well as the targets Keith and Norm, Jake takes the kids to the village garden to ground them in life since they all had to pass the fiery inferno on Huguenot St. 5) To curb some of his mom’s wandering, he sets up an indoor garden on the porch seasoning the activities with enough exercise to tire her out.
Rocks 1) Jake has a tiny piece of the igneous rock of the Palisades that he uses to cut things when he hikes. Otherwise, he hates this rock, preferring the Gunk climbing rock of the first novel, or the Manhattan Prong of the second. 2) Jake lands the ecoboat fall 2021 on the Palisades dock so that Litonya can finish her childbirth on dry land. When she kisses the rocks, he has more respect for them. 3) When Jesse marries Aanadi and Kisele marries Coral on the Palisades instead of on the boats after the big floods, everyone celebrates and Jake is humbled by the rocks’ longevity and the legacy he is leaving his kids. He won’t last forever contrary to his assumptions. 4) Jake finally realizes that BB has been using rocks to knock out victims from the nineties until his last attempt to hurt one of his kids in 2050 who is doing research on geriatric diseases. Jake feels like hitting him with a rock but his PD and morality cause him to call 911 to get him arrested. 5) At 80, Jake wants to accompany Litonya for an easy walk in the Palisades. At first they stay on the wide flat trail. Because of his PD, he is tired and sits on a wedge of igneous rock while Litonya decides to free climb a short pitch. This time her reach exceeds her grasp, in part because of her 85 years and in part because of an unexpected quake, only around 3, but enough to shake the rocks and cause her to slip, fall, and scream, hitting her head on a rock and getting knocked out. Jake tries to help her but the quake continues and with his PD, he cannot perform CPR. He gets so stressed by the falling rocks that he also slips and falls. Fortunately they are both knocked out near the little park beside the dock so their kids can claim the bodies an hour later. Better than a hospice or euthanasia at the end of life. MM says Litonya had cancer cells and was about to get sick at 85 so this death was preferable. Then the rock cycle recycles as humans should.
How
are You Presenting Insights through Profound Moments?Irony delivers insight What I learned is that I must
imagine the split screen or superimposition of cinema to enhance my
linguistic ability to use irony so that I can sequence and juxtapose
scenes that seem like the opposite but that force characters into insights
that transform them. An important element of creativity is Janusian (the
door opens both ways) and is one way to inject comedy, satire, and depth
to events and actions that may just be taken literally otherwise.
Jake’s
transformation from irony occurs in increments. At the beginning his sense
of humor is ebullient but as his optimism is challenged by medical and
environmental and villain disasters he, unlike Candide, makes sarcastic
comments about the beautiful weather during floods and the advantages of
having your buddies die–more kids and a wife. The ultimate irony occurs
when he gets PD and temporarily succumbs to bad habits with food, drink,
and laziness that his clients had over the years. Then he pulls himself up
to the cliff with Litonya’s and his kids’ help and transforms even more to
help himself and others. Irony crystallizing into biting satire may be
more the voices of the Magma Monsters and Ibrahim, master of the high
concept plot. Ibrahim and BB are also victims of doing the right thing for
the wrong reasons, saving the earth to kill the weak, old, fat etc., or
the win/loss of collateral damage when their loved ones die, in part from
their actions or negligence. Since I must develop this high concept plot
as I review the first two novels, it is stressful because I don’t want to
get rid of good things I wrote 15 years ago. Irony provides a window for
things that may not fit in that can lead to originality or humor.
What
are the Most Profound Lines of the Movie?
Make a list of the 5 most emotional moments in your screenplay.I added lines immediately to each action.
1) Jake and Rodney are doing CPR on Feldmans. Fuck this waterbed. Roll em over. They fucked for years on this waterbed. What the fuck? How could they both code at once? Supreme exertion, stress, fear. Then sorrow when his buddy Rodney also dies.
2) Passion when Jake makes love to Litonya, his widowed wife. Their baby Jesse crowns on the boat and comes out on land at the Palisades cliff. He is an amphibian, the new human! Fear, faith, then Joy.
3) Dad dies of ALS while Jake is massaging him. “I am going to a better world. I am a good Christian.” After he dies, Jake realizes he is scared of death and doesn’t want to think about it. He works out harder but is worried about his mom with Alzheimer’s.
4) Jake is desperate for Ibrahim to give him the shot to dissolve plaques but Ib says it isn’t ready although others have received it. Why are they hiding this research, this drug, when so many seniors need it? Jake: Mom’s death. She won’t let me do anything. DNR DNI. Lots of action in Acronyms. EMS is to undress with finesse, not oppress. CPR leaves a scar. DNR parks your car in the bar. DNI lets you die. They also serve who only stand and wait. It is great when your fate makes you lose weight unless it means you are sliding off the cliff of life. She is 90. That is enough time. What is enough? When I must do nothing to obey Mom’s will, I cannot rhyme or speak. Tragedy kills rhyme.
5) Litonya’s pulmonary fibrosis. I won’t take the shot. I don’t trust him or it. Coughing on the cliff. Once scars stick to tissue it’s hard to pry them off. Can you stop further scarring? Aging is the massacre of relentless entropy. Switching back to anabolism will cause cancer. Jake: I am shaking as the earth is quaking and we are aching but our kids are baking and making love.
Profound theme: They want the drugs and research but climate confrontation must be combined compassion, one of the themes of the trilogy. In other words, you can’t just fuck the frackers and drown the fossil fuelies but a new world is needed to survive climate crises.
Three recurring motifs throughout trilogy
1) Jake: Play is work, work is play, do it today, sing don’t say, never obey, don’t be a prey, pain will go away, roll in the hay, fear at bay. Rhyme makes time bounce.
In One, Jake wants to play instead of work, in Two, he makes work play with fitness, in Three, he wants to be more essential so he works until exhausted and decides that life should end with some play.
The Kids love Jake because they like to play.
Ibrahim: I don’t want to waste time playing so Jake is the nanny as well as the stud and seed service.
2) MM: Stay safe is the chant of the news, the way people abuse and use each other.
Jake: Stay safe and strong. It won’t be long before we are okay.
Ibrahim: Safety is a sequence. What comes first–the virus or the vaccine? The vaccine or the virus? It’s all about the dose. Too much or too little at the wrong time is poison; otherwise it is safe and effective. What comes first–the cure or the cause.
BB: Law is based on the sequence of crimes. If you kill before he pulls his gun it is murder but after it is self-defense. Never confess. Safety is in silence.
Joan: Doctors are supposed to keep patients safe but that is impossible.
Jean: People will pay millions for the illusion of safety.
Litonya: Safety is another human delusion.
3) Death
Jake: I am scared shitless of death. Dying sucks and suffering is torture. We must fight it with fitness.
Jean: I am going to a better place. I am a good Christian.
Joan: DNI DNR
Litonya: The earth is taking me back.
Sandrine: Il faut travailler son jardin.
BB: I made love to death my entire life so death doesn’t scare me. (Then his son is burnt to death.) This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Joe was never supposed to die before me. Silence is the only way to mourn him.
Ibrahim: Certain things are outside my control. That is why I submit to Allah. Science only goes so far. For a while I thought I could control fate but this flood that suddenly collapsed my condo, killed my wife, and injured my son was too sudden. But the larger goal is to save the earth with my kind on top. So fuck Allah. Long Live the Green Garchs.
How Do You Leave Us With A Profound Ending? I will review the endings I put in the outline as I rewrite the novel. 1. What is your Profound Truth and how will it be delivered powerfully in your ending? Despite technological advances, life extension, and climate catastrophes, humans are mortal and there comes a time when they must be absorbed by the earth creating a legacy for those left behind. Jake’s profound truth was to morph from self-serving to truly helping people but that must tie into the high concept.
2. How do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change? Litonya and Jake die together as an earthquake rattles their grips in a relatively simple, safe hike in the Palisades. The Palisades or MM rolls into the river as it rises. Jake could throw BB overboard but what is the secret of Ib’s longevity? That prompts the final confrontation between the two.
3. What are the setup/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it deep meaning?
The question of who the serial killer/rapist is is finally confirmed with BB’s confession Or Jake’s discovery before Jake throws him overboard. Jake, Ibrahim, and Litonya have an honest discussion about the high concept plot with the kids Aanadi, Kisele, and Jesse who did research on degenerative diseases. There is now a vaccine to ward off Alzheimer’s and PD. Too late for Joan but the kids can take it so they don’t succumb. But why would Ibrahim and BB keep the vaccine from Jake? Is this part of a plot to kill old people? When and where do Ib and Jake have this conversation? Ib would be crazy old 90 so what is keeping him alive? These vaccines. BB would be 100 so this won’t work. He must be finished off earlier. He is not tied into the structure. How do MM feel about Ib and BB?
4. How are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making it surprising when it happens?
I want to make sure the audience thinks something else might happen to keep them engaged and create surprises. Could Ibrahim keep the vaccines a secret to Jake? They must have them before Joan dies in 2040. It looks like Jean will have to die at 2030 if he gets his diagnosis right after COVID although technology could keep him going longer. The beginning chapters are problematic now if his PD is partly caused by his getting COVID. I will have to give him COVID from Joan. BB is aging. He can’t be younger than 1955 or can he? Maybe 1960 like Chris. What dirty work does he do for Ibrahim? I have more than one CDQ throughout the trilogy but I must write them all down. I need better deaths or diseases for Ibrahim and BB. I had incidental, naturalistic deaths that will destroy my focus. The audience knows Jake is struggling with PD heading towards a wheelchair but fighting all the way and Litonya has cancer cells brewing in her spine from exposure to fracking chemicals–but no, she wouldn’t be near benzene unless she had to investigate the damage in those areas. But why would she sacrifice herself when she hates people?
What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?
The kids and some of the characters are still alive, safe, successful, and happy on the eco boats. Parts of Huguenot Street and central Manhattan around Central Park are okay although the coastline has changed because those buildings couldn’t survive and had to be replaced with oyster beds, salt marshes, berms, etc.
As igneous becomes sedimentary, the rocks are grateful for their recycling because they never die. The image is that life continues- individuals may die but life is immortal on the earth. Then when the earth is eaten up by the sun or hit by an asteroid or destroyed by human stupidity, its materials are released into the universe. There is also an interior world of particle physics and other dimensions that humans cannot see but is there to keep things recycling. Life is a circle not a cliff that you are pushed off even though it seems like that. Maybe looks are deceptive, something sexy Jake learnt as he succumbed to PD.
What I learned from this assignment is to revisit the assumptions, habits, filters, and social values that cement my prejudices and to use a scalpel to peel off similar coatings in my characters.
What makes people change? Inspired. Lust, greed, money, necessity. Creativity. Forced. Threatened. Terrified. Rigid thinking relates to fallacies of presumption, relevance, and ambiguity. Cognitive flexibility is challenging at any age, but particularly when life constricts with aging. However, my doctor sis says patients change the most in hospices. People are often blinded by their limitations or made grandiose by goals that they cannot accomplish. How do you unstick someone, pry them loose? Does it have to be painful? How can problems be reframed with a different perspective? Is it good to end the trilogy with more questions to worry the reader and viewer.
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What I learned is to distinguish the most emotional moments of the protagonist from his confrontation with the two villains, their emotional turning points, and general fear and questioning that precipitate narrative drive related to the high concept plot.
Make a list of the 5 most emotional moments in your screenplay. Just for Jake.
I added lines immediately to each action.
1) Jake and Rodney are doing CPR on Feldmans. Fuck this waterbed. Roll em over. They fucked for years on this waterbed. What the fuck? How could they both code at once? Supreme exertion, stress, fear. Then sorrow when his buddy Rodney also dies.
2) Passion when Jake makes love to Litonya, his widowed wife. Their baby Jesse crowns on the boat and comes out on land at the Palisades cliff. He is an amphibian, the new human! Fear, faith, then Joy.
3) Dad dies of ALS while Jake is massaging him. “I am going to a better world. I am a good Christian.” After he dies, Jake realizes he is scared of death and doesn’t want to think about it. He works out harder but is worried about his mom with Alzheimer’s.
4) Jake is desperate for Ibrahim to give him the shot to dissolve plaques but Ib says it isn’t ready although others have received it. Why are they hiding this research, this drug, when so many seniors need it? Jake: Mom’s death. She won’t let me do anything. DNR DNI. Lots of action in Acronyms. EMS is to undress with finesse, not oppress. CPR leaves a scar. DNR parks your car in the bar. DNI lets you die. They also serve who only stand and wait. It is great when your fate makes you lose weight unless it means you are sliding off the cliff of life. She is 90. That is enough time. What is enough? When I must do nothing to obey Mom’s will, I cannot rhyme or speak. Tragedy kills rhyme.
5) Litonya’s pulmonary fibrosis. I won’t take the shot. I don’t trust him or it. Coughing on the cliff. Once scars stick to tissue it’s hard to pry them off. Can you stop further scarring? Aging is the massacre of relentless entropy. Switching back to anabolism will cause cancer. Jake: I am shaking as the earth is quaking and we are aching but our kids are baking and making love.
Profound theme: They want the drugs and research but climate confrontation must be combined compassion, one of the themes of the trilogy. In other words, you can’t just fuck the frackers and drown the fossil fuelies but a new world is needed to survive climate crises.
Three recurring motifs throughout trilogy
1) Jake: Play is work, work is play, do it today, sing don’t say, never obey, don’t be a prey, pain will go away, roll in the hay, fear at bay. Rhyme makes time bounce.
In One, Jake wants to play instead of work, in Two, he makes work play with fitness, in Three, he wants to be more essential so he works until exhausted and decides that life should end with some play.
The Kids love Jake because they like to play.
Ibrahim: I don’t want to waste time playing so Jake is the nanny as well as the stud and seed service.2) MM: Stay safe is the chant of the news, the way people abuse and use each other.
Jake: Stay safe and strong. It won’t be long before we are okay.
Ibrahim: Safety is a sequence. What comes first–the virus or the vaccine? The vaccine or the virus? It’s all about the dose. Too much or too little at the wrong time is poison; otherwise it is safe and effective. What comes first–the cure or the cause.BB: Law is based on the sequence of crimes. If you kill before he pulls his gun it is murder but after it is self-defense. Never confess. Safety is in silence.
Joan: Doctors are supposed to keep patients safe but that is impossible.
Jean: People will pay millions for the illusion of safety.
Litonya: Safety is another human delusion.3) Death
Jake: I am scared shitless of death. Dying sucks and suffering is torture. We must fight it with fitness.
Jean: I am going to a better place. I am a good Christian.
Joan: DNI DNR
Litonya: The earth is taking me back.
Sandrine: Il faut travailler son jardin.
BB: I made love to death my entire life so death doesn’t scare me. (Then his son is burnt to death.) This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Joe was never supposed to die before me. Silence is the only way to mourn him.Ibrahim: Certain things are outside my control. That is why I submit to Allah. Science only goes so far. For a while I thought I could control fate but this flood that suddenly collapsed my condo, killed my wife, and injured my son was too sudden. But the larger goal is to save the earth with my kind on top.
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What I learned is that I must imagine the split screen or superimposition of cinema to enhance my linguistic ability to use irony so that I can sequence and juxtapose scenes that seem like the opposite but that force characters into insights that transform them. An important element of creativity is Janusian (the door opens both ways) and is one way to inject comedy, satire, and depth to events and actions that may just be taken literally otherwise.
Jake’s transformation from irony occurs in increments. At the beginning his sense of humor is ebullient but as his optimism is challenged by medical and environmental and villain disasters he, unlike Candide, makes sarcastic comments about the beautiful weather during floods and the advantages of having your buddies die–more kids and a wife. The ultimate irony occurs when he gets PD and temporarily succumbs to bad habits with food, drink, and laziness that his clients had over the years. Then he pulls himself up to the cliff with Litonya’s and his kids’ help and transforms even more to help himself and others. Irony crystallizing into biting satire may be more the voices of the Magma Monsters and Ibrahim, master of the high concept plot. Ibrahim and BB are also victims of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, saving the earth to kill the weak, old, fat etc., or the win/loss of collateral damage when their loved ones die, in part from their actions or negligence. Since I must develop this high concept plot as I review the first two novels, it is stressful because I don’t want to get rid of good things I wrote 15 years ago. Irony provides a window for things that may not fit in that can lead to originality or humor.
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What I learned is that I must hypnotize myself to make my precious characters fight even though I hate conflict of every kind in real life.
Arguments must be more original, not just on-the-nose screaming. Lies, irony, flattery, and changing the subject to heighten subtext can help. Or screaming at someone else who is not responsible, or screaming at the mirror. Or doing something as they argue that enhances activities to create visual symbols. Loudness replaces soundness, revealing the cracks in people’s politeness.
– Competition: Rodney Jake and Joe must compete more in the first two novels even though I don’t like competition. Is this for attention from friends and family, girls, grades, money, jobs or what? This competition will make Jake feel guilty when they die.
– Power struggle is different from competition. Ibrahim seems to have no competition for his power but Litonya disagrees with some of his plans and he needs her expertise so this should ignite a power struggle near the end. I am working on another vaccine or drug related to amyloid clearance so there should be a power struggle around this life-saving secret.
– Dilemma: I must stretch out Jake’s dilemmas to tease the audience. One is to give CPR to his Mom or not but that can’t be stretched too long. I tend to solve problems too quickly instead of presenting the dilemma so the reader/audience can solve it first in their minds. A dilemma in the form of a disjunctive syllogism should frame the entire third novel related to will versus fate in the face of death.
– Physical confrontation Jake beats up Keith and plays with boxing but can anyone logically get into a fist fight? The first two novels have more fights when the testosterone is running more freely but as people age, their ability to fight physically diminishes. I have been idealizing the youngest generation, as grandparents do, but perhaps I should stage at least one fight to be more realistic. Damn. I hate fights although I love teaching cardio kickbox where no one is touched.
– Love triangles occur in the first novel and are resolved in the third when Rodney and Priceless have died. Maybe I need one love triangle with the youngest generation but the last novel is NOT a romantic comedy.
– Verbal abuse is on the nose but it works. Not sure who would use it when. It is different from arguments. In the first novel, Jake’s dad abuses him verbally, one reason he runs away. The Feldman trio abuse people verbally causing stress in the community.
– Public humiliation demands a position, political or communal and Ibrahim seems to be shielding himself from any publicity or politics. Sometimes the most powerful people are invisible. In the first novel, Jake’s father feels that if Jake doesn’t disappear, he will be humiliated by having a son who plagiarized. He is chair of history.
– Loss is necessarily part of the last novel of a trilogy but it must be depicted in terms of fate versus will to enhance choices and dramatic actions. Events that are inevitable don’t make readers turn pages.
– Stakes are raised according to the pressures of time, the escalation of harm as death approaches, and the corrosion of values.
– Plan goes wrong. Not sure how plans can go wrong except when nature does things to the bio weapon that weren’t planned. Young and healthy weren’t supposed to die.
– Falsely accused. Samir could be falsely accused of the serial rapes and murders in the first novel, BB or one of the homeless framed for Sam’s murder instead of his daughter Litonya in the second, and in the third novel, Litonya could be falsely accused of the high concept plot when she wasn’t privy to all the details.
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What I learned is to focus on the vicious circle of insight to action to insight fueled by some kind of conflict.
Insights into Action: In novels characters can transform through inner thoughts, dialogue, poetic epiphanies etc. but this exercise reminds me that major scenes must have enough conflict followed by insights followed by ACTION to propel the story forward. In the past I eschewed small, minor actions but arguments over toothpaste, an alarm clock, or even imaginary or past events that create animosity can create narrative thrust. In real life, most scenes are not catharsized in definite action, one reason people like stories and films. I must go through Jake’s 9 chapters to describe one or two actions that can push his throughline. Since aging and climate disasters create deus ex machina actions that traditional dramatists dislike, Jake must do something to change his character right up to his death.
Or do the actions deliver insight with impulsive Jake? 1) Arguments with Keith about sexual harassment of minors in the bar erupt in physical confrontation but the action of hitting Keith gives Jake the insight that he is only hurting himself by breaking the law in a vicious circle. He should have called the cops. 2) The eminent loss of his dad to ALS precipitates Jake’s action of massaging his father’s cold feet, delivering the result his father wanted, a blissful quick death from throwing an embolus, so this becomes an insight as Jake lets his dad keep lecturing as he “goes to a better place.” 3) As his mother is dying of Alzheimer’s, he must curb all action to respect her living will, something that gives him insights into the concept of dying at the right time since we must die. 4) He finds his tremor too bad to hold weights or focus pads (plan gone wrong) so he shovels ice cream into his face and then realizes he is hurting himself. 5) When Jake learns of BB’s past and present crimes, he subdues his action, the desire to throw BB overboard. Instead he calls the cops and as they arrive, BB jumps overboard so the action is the same. 6) At the end of his life, with the stakes raised by age and disaster, Litonya’s screams force him to hobble towards her as she tumbles down and they both die, a mistake but one that avoids more suffering going forward. His final action was to help a loved one despite his PD disability.
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What I learned is that living metaphors have the potential to create filmed analogies and increase symbolism, something I need because I am not naturally visual. When stories get really complex, colorful, and over-the-top, tragedy, drama, and thrillers can turn into comedy, something that seemed to happen as I wrote just now.
Mirror: 1) Old ways have Jake looking at himself in the mirror and his students behind him to correct them. 2) Mirror can be tilted so they look at themselves and not him or he is behind them or like Litonya, they want nothing to do with mirrors. 3) Mirror can be smashed in a moment of rage when he has PD. 4) Mirror is used as a weapon to try to kill BB near the end. 5) Mirror is given to his kids so he no longer has mirrors.
Bed: 1) Old ways: Jake usually jumps out of bed to work or play. 2) His first major challenge is when his mom is dying of COVID in bed in part because she is wearing a mask and is at the busy medical center. He thinks enough about her to bring her home, open the windows, take off the masks, and give her oxygen and food at home but this requires a change in his behavior and attention. 3) When he makes love to Litonya, he becomes less mechanical and sexist, taking care of her needs and then getting swept into a spiritual communion that procreates the first baby that is his legally as well as biologically. This is a blessed bed. 4) When faced with the challenge of his father’s death to ALS in 2030, Jake massages his swollen feet as he gives his last lecture about colonial history revisited for diversity and inclusion. In medias res, he throws an embolus, saying he is going to a better place, better than slowly choking to death, with the attention and drama he likes. Jake always wanted people to listen to him but has compassion for his father’s last lecture and lets him rant and rave. 5) When his mother is dying of Alzheimer’s he faces the agonizing dilemma that no EMT likes of obeying her Living Will for DNR and DNI and letting her die naturally. BB the traitor helps clean up both beds because it is too much for Jake. BB grew up in a funeral parlor so he is good at this.
Chair: 1) Jake has ADHD and hates to sit so he does squat ups with kettlebells. 2) Jake’s dad Jean has a kind of bionic chair once he gets ALS so his voice can boom through the room without demanding too much from him physically. 3) When Keith says vulgar things about women at the bar, Jake swats him, and his face falls into his French fries and ketchup. Jake regrets this action but it helps make his point. Next time he vows to fight through legal channels. 4) Jake finds Lana sitting on the toilet as a chair rigor mortis with a blue butt bruised by lividity after coding from the Delta variant because she refused the vaccine. 5) Litonya squats on the deck in a chair position as her waters break h but when Jake shows Jesse to his great grandma Julie, she keels over at 92 in church dying peacefully. Jake sits at his computer and works harder organizing his career, appreciative of the many uses of chairs.
Garden 1) Jake’s new fitness studio, a church turned into an art studio and now his gym overlooks a garden that he usually ignores. 2) When Mom gets COVID, he picks fresh basil, mint, and rosemary from her garden to stimulate her sense of smell and taste. Eventually it works after he treats her with fresh air, oxygen, exercise, good food etc. 3) He picks wildflowers to give to his partner Litonya when he finds out she is pregnant, waiting for her to decide whether she wants marriage or not, finding ways to serve her and allow her to keep working at the Earth Observatory as a geologist. 4) After BB tweaks the antique car to blow up and it happens too close to the solar house, killing Jake’s friends Joe and CS as well as the targets Keith and Norm, Jake takes the kids to the village garden to ground them in life since they all had to pass the fiery inferno on Huguenot St. 5) To curb some of his mom’s wandering, he sets up an indoor garden on the porch seasoning the activities with enough exercise to tire her out.
Rocks 1) Jake has a tiny piece of the igneous rock of the Palisades that he uses to cut things when he hikes. Otherwise, he hates this rock, preferring the Gunk climbing rock of the first novel, or the Manhattan Prong of the second. 2) Jake lands the ecoboat fall 2021 on the Palisades dock so that Litonya can finish her childbirth on dry land. When she kisses the rocks, he has more respect for them. 3) When Jesse marries Aanadi and Kisele marries Coral on the Palisades instead of on the boats after the big floods, everyone celebrates and Jake is humbled by the rocks’ longevity and the legacy he is leaving his kids. He won’t last forever contrary to his assumptions. 4) Jake finally realizes that BB has been using rocks to knock out victims from the nineties until his last attempt to hurt one of his kids in 2050 who is doing research on geriatric diseases. Jake feels like hitting him with a rock but his PD and morality cause him to call 911 to get him arrested. 5) At 80, Jake wants to accompany Litonya for an easy walk in the Palisades. At first they stay on the wide flat trail. Because of his PD, he is tired and sits on a wedge of igneous rock while Litonya decides to free climb a short pitch. This time her reach exceeds her grasp, in part because of her 85 years and in part because of an unexpected quake, only around 3, but enough to shake the rocks and cause her to slip, fall, and scream, hitting her head on a rock and getting knocked out. Jake tries to help her but the quake continues and with his PD, he cannot perform CPR. He gets so stressed by the falling rocks that he also slips and falls. Fortunately they are both knocked out near the little park beside the dock so their kids can claim the bodies an hour later. Better than a hospice or euthanasia at the end of life. MM says Litonya had cancer cells and was about to get sick at 85 so this death was preferable. Then the rock cycle recycles as humans should.
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What I learned again is something I always knew–the similarity of dramatic structure to argumentation, CDQ to thesis question, and in this case, Old Ways to assumptions that can have fallacies that allow characters to struggle and change.
a) Old Ways Jake races through everything The faster the better, Time is arrow and I am the shooter, New York is a treadmill and I am ahead of the pack. Go fast to flourish. Speed is an essential component of my training programs.
b) Challenge Except that I am getting PD, slowing down, shuffling, shivering, and shaking around midpoint Chapter 12 or 14.
c)Counterexample Maybe slowing down has some perks except my smell and taste are muted from PD. They also serve who only stand and wait. At least I am not blind like Milton was. How can I be the exception to the rule when my wellness program of diet, exercise, and meditation is perfect?
d) How it might play out: Something good comes out of this with his kids and patients. Develop the scene on the eco boats. Jesse and Aanadi work with Ib on vaccines or drugs to put dopamine back into the brain not just via the intermediary of levodopa. To do this, they must be privy to some of Ibrahim’s project.
a) Old ways Ibrahim is into power. Religion and science and Green activism can create a new world order but sacrifices must be made and there is collateral damage. The COVID bioweapon also killed healthy young people. He thinks he can control the apocalypse. Personal sacrifices must be made for his high concept plot but pain is for others.
b) Challenge: His wife and only son die in the Manhattan flood of 2028 when the Summit condo collapses into the East River.
c) Counterexample: Their penthouse was supposed to be impervious because Sandystorm only flooded the basement. He and his daughters are on eco boats but now he has more respect for nature’s unpredictability. He is still committed to his international high concept plot but his heart is broken.
d) How it might play out: He gets closer to Jake and confides in him about personal problems, but not the big plot.a) Old Ways: Litonya loves rocks more than humans and her career is geology.
b) Challenge: She gives birth to Jesse on the ecoboat surrounded by humans near PP1.
c) Counterexample: She is exhausted. Jake takes care of their baby and braids Litonya’s hair, a sacred action. Or is this the action exercise?
d) How it might play out: A new kind of love develops based on her dependency and vulnerability to her family. This happened in the first novel but there is more depth in her relationship with Jake than with his COVID-deceased buddy Rodney.a) Old Ways: BB/Leo has APD and is a robot. Old Ways. He changes identities but never himself.
b) Challenge: He set up an antique car to blow up but the fire set a house on fire burning his daughter in law and when his son Joe the firefighter arrived to put it out he succumbed to another geothermal explosion as he took her out.
c) Counterexample: Losing this handsome, brave, successful adopted son was the worst thing that could happen. It depresses him. It breaks the glass of his APD and makes him a bit more vulnerable, but maybe not enough.
d) How it might play out: After talking with Ibrahim about the high concept, he gets over the death enough to go back to killing others because the price is right. This was the turning point. But then Ibrahim loses his son. Should they continue along their path or back off? BB gets closer to the other kids so Litonya and Jake never suspect his true motives. Since BB was born in 1960, he should be dead by 2050 at the latest. Not sure if Jake should push him overboard or if Ibrahim does or Litonya or suicide or whatever.a) Crisis after the deaths of Jake’s parents as he suffers from PD. Litonya and Ibrahim argue about the high concept and Jake makes Litonya give up consulting. But how do Ib and BB die? These questions will break the high concept plot and change the details of the pay-offs but I am not sure what the best choices are.
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What I learned from this assignment is to revisit the assumptions, habits, filters, and social values that cement my prejudices and to use a scalpel to peel off similar coatings in my characters.
What makes people change? Forced. Threatened. Terrified. Rigid thinking relates to fallacies of presumption, relevance, and ambiguity. Cognitive flexibility is challenging at any age, but particularly when life constricts with aging. However, my doctor sis says patients change the most in hospices. People are often blinded by their limitations or made grandiose by goals that they cannot accomplish. How do you unstick someone, pry them loose? Does it have to be painful? How can problems be reframed with a different perspective?
Pandemics, fires, and floods pry people out of their habits, love and fear expose assumptions that render characters vulnerable, and filters make reality tolerable for that person in their time and space, whether the filter is sunglasses or schizophrenia delusions and hallucinations.
My first two novels have characters growing up, Giving up bad habits and addictions, becoming healthy, and respecting nature by getting rid of fossil fuels when possible, so the third novel begins with habits, assumptions, and filters that must be challenged as diseases, disasters, and deaths strike, presenting the dilemma of compassion versus survival of the fittest.
Ableism can be a way that healthy people marginalize those that are sick or disabled, something Jake must confront with PD, Joan with Alzheimer’s, and Jean with ALS. Wellness can turn into a fallacious assumption when people feel that if you exercise, meditate, and eat right, you will always be healthy. But this doesn’t mean you should get drunk, smoke, and eat cheesecake.
To be successful, fitness regimens must become habits and then you must change and periodize them enough to get training effects. Addictions are bad habits. Good habits like cleanliness can be used to mask evil intentions as in the case of BB, the serial killer or polite manners that hide Ibrahim’s high concept plot to indirectly kill millions.
If the change agent is too dogmatic, the change can be superficial and not transformative, or it triggers the opposite reaction. Adolescents may go on a drinking spree to frustrate parents who keep telling them never to drink alcohol, same with smoking etc.
How do I change the audience? Make them identify with the bad habits or selfish motives of all characters, protagonists and antagonists, and then maintain this relationship through through lines to crises and climax. Entertain them, make them laugh and cry, and create enough intrigue that they don’t know what will happen next. When change is choreographed so that people think the new beliefs and behavior will bring them to the lighthouse of their lives, they can be pushed along towards a better future or led by the nose to enlightenment. At the end of people’s lives, the lighthouse can be delusional, a fantasy that fades into the fog of aging and disease.
As I did research on the homeless and successful multicultural high rise livers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan as well as the village culture of New Paltz over a 15 year period, I became aware of the social values of a culture. All three cultures were upended by the pandemic but incremental changes were made before then. The conformity of the social group has a different rate of change than the individual but helps embed personal drama in high concept premises and a wider world. This may increase the budget so when adapting novels to the screen, I am ready to kill my darlings, delete and change, and cut characters and locations because people can always read my novels.
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What I learned from this assignment is to take an aerial view so I can work backwards and eventually restructure my first novel as well as the third one I am working on.
Forum 8: 1. What is your Profound Truth and how will it be delivered powerfully in your ending? Despite technological advances, life extension, and climate catastrophes, humans are mortal and there comes a time when they must be absorbed by the earth, creating a legacy for those left behind. Jake’s profound truth was to morph from self-serving to truly helping people but that must tie into the high concept.
2. How do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change? Litonya and Jake die together as an earthquake rattles their grips in a relatively simple, safe hike in the Palisades. The Palisades or MM rolls into the river as it rises. Jake could throw BB overboard but what is the secret of Ib’s longevity? That prompts the final confrontation between the two.
3. What are the setup/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it deep meaning?
The question of who the serial killer/rapist is is finally confirmed with BB’s confession Or Jake’s discovery before Jake throws him overboard. Jake, Ibrahim, and Litonya have an honest discussion about the high concept plot with the kids Aanadi, Kisele, and Jesse who did research on degenerative diseases. There is now a vaccine to ward off Alzheimer’s and PD. Too late for Joan but the kids can take it so they don’t succumb. But why would Ibrahim and BB keep the vaccine from Jake? Is this part of a plot to kill old people? When and where do Ib and Jake have this conversation? Ib would be crazy old 90 so what is keeping him alive? These vaccines. BB would be 100 so this won’t work. He must be finished off earlier. He is not tied into the structure. How do MM feel about Ib and BB? After I answer these questions I must still embed them in scenes so the audience asks them to create intrigue.
4. How are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making it surprising when it happens?
I will do the ten exercises to make sure the audience thinks something else might happen to keep them engaged and create surprises. Could Ibrahim keep the vaccines a secret to Jake? They must have them before Joan dies in 2040. It looks like Jean will have to die at 2030 if he gets his diagnosis right after COVID although technology could keep him going longer. The beginning chapters are problematic now if his PD is partly caused by his getting COVID. I will have to give him COVID from Joan. BB is aging. He can’t be younger than 1955 or can he? Maybe 1960 like Chris. What dirty work does he do for Ibrahim? I have more than one CDQ throughout the trilogy but I must write them all down. I need better deaths or diseases for Ibrahim and BB. I had incidental, naturalistic deaths that will destroy my focus. The audience knows Jake is struggling with PD heading towards a wheelchair but fighting all the way and Litonya has cancer cells brewing in her spine from exposure to fracking chemicals–but no, she wouldn’t be near benzene unless she had to investigate the damage in those areas. But why would she sacrifice herself when she hates people?
5. What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?
After their parents die together hiking during an earthquake, their kids and some of the characters are still alive, safe, successful, and happy on the eco boats. Parts of Huguenot Street and central Manhattan around Central Park are okay although the coastline has changed because those buildings couldn’t survive and had to be replaced with oyster beds, salt marshes, berms, etc.
As igneous becomes sedimentary, the rocks are grateful for their recycling because they never die. The image is that life continues- individuals may die but life is immortal on the earth. Then when the earth is eaten up by the sun or hit by an asteroid or destroyed by human stupidity, its materials are released into the universe. There is also an interior world of particle physics and other dimensions that humans cannot see but is there to keep things recycling. Life is a circle not a cliff that you are pushed off even though it seems like that. Maybe looks are deceptive, something sexy Jake learnt as he succumbed to PD.
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Sorry–forgot what makes Ibrahim al Harbi likable. He is polite, well-mannered and well-groomed, and generous. He listens carefully in a different way from BB but also with his own self-interest disguised. He sees the vulnerability in someone and the gap that he can fill in with his money and contacts. His objective is power but on a superficial level, he is likable. He is also likable because he is a family man with an attractive family and the audience knows his limitations because his kids are genetically Jake’s and his wives because he was sterile. He is well-educated and can talk intelligently about a plethora of topics.
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What I learned from this exercise is that I need to develop my antagonists and to craft better endings.
JAKE:
Relatability: Jake gets stuck in situations related to COVID, neurological diseases, death of friends and family, and floods that any human can relate to.
Intrigue: What will he do next? How can he solve this problem? What good is fitness when everyone is dying? What will happen to him when he gets Parkinson’s?
Empathy: Although Jake tries to hide some of his negative feelings, when he cries, the audience feels for him. They also feel joy with the birth of his baby Jesse and other up events.
Likability: Jake has always been likable because he is charismatic, funny, attractive, strong, and increasingly helpful to others.
LITONYA:
Relatability: Litonya has just got off a seven year prison term because of COVID at the beginning of this story. Then she triumphs with her dissertation defense in geology at Columbia. Although she isn’t as expressive as Jake, she confronts the same kind of threatening.
Intrigue: A scene with Ibrahim makes the audience wonder how much she knows about the high concept plot related to COVID, fossil fuels, and the sick and elderly. When she marries Jake so quickly, the audience wonders if it will work out, same with her pregnancy.
Empathy: Litonya is not as expressive as Jake so it is hard to cry and laugh with her. That is part of her foil. But she is one of the mentors for Jake, teaching him how to love and serve her and work for a better environment.
Likability: While she is physically stunning in terms of vigor and strength, she doesn’t care about fashion, conventional social life, “manners,” and other ways of manipulating power. She is a straight shooter, one reason she got into so much trouble legally in the first two novels. The audience may like her mission to save the earth but might prefer to be with other characters.
IBRAHIM:
Relatability: Most of us do not have Ibrahim’s fortune but we might like to fantasize what we do with millions of dollars. His power is fascinating. Yet he is mortal and as he ages and gets sick, despite his money, the audience could relate to his predicaments.Intrigue: It is obvious that Ibrahim is a major player in the high concept plot but he won’t reveal its secrets. This creates intrigue similar to the questions surrounding the origins of COVID and the potential cures for deadly diseases.
Empathy: It is challenging to feel immediate empathy for millionaires because we often feel they are so privileged that they can take care of themselves. This fallacy is gradually unpeeled as Ibrahim is exposed in his human nakedness and vulnerability. Normally Ibrahim doesn’t express his emotions but when something makes him cry, he stands out.
BOAT BOB or LEO CURTIS:
Relatability: Superficially, the audience might relate to a homeless senior thrown out of his hotel as COVID winds down. When he indirectly kills his son Joe in the antique car fire, the audience might relate to his loss.
Intrigue: Because MM as the tandem competitive narrator tells the audience about BB’s past as a serial killer/rapist/arsonist, especially in the first novel, this creates suspense that the other characters do not know. What will BB do next? He is responsible for the car fire. It seems like declining hormones like testosterone and dopamine due to age are curbing the fuel of sexual crimes, but he had this kind of unexpected eruption in the second novel when he attempted to rape MC. The audience wonders how he is connected to Ibrahim who seems to be using him for some kind of dirty work. How much does BB know about the high concept plot?
Likability: As a human, BB is detestable, like many serial killers. But to cover his tracks, and hide his antisocial personality disorder, he adopts a superficial personality–a senior who is cleaner and harder-working than other homeless men, a man who listens carefully, remembers details, unlike other seniors, and who has some know-how and practical experience to help the kids with their boats and clean up messes. BB knows how to be invisible so his crimes are never discovered. It is incredible that he was never caught for multiple murder/rapes in the first novel. When his mask is finally taken off near the end, the audience likes Jake even more in order to really hate BB. But hate is a great emotion too!
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1. Tell us your Transformational Logline. When confronted by the challenges of COVID, fires, floods, and degenerative neurological diseases, Jake morphs from a fitness star to a caring health professional who can help others and leave a significant legacy.
2. Tell us who the main character will be:
Jake, also a narrator as well as the main character, is changed by his mentor doctor Mom who gives him her brain as she loses it with Alzheimer’s, by his wife Litonya who teaches him real love of her, their children, and nature, Orhan, who teaches him Sufi wisdom, his kids, and traitors like Boat Bob and Ibrahim whom he must fight when he discovers the evil they have caused for the high concept thread of the story. He is also challenged by the constant presence of the Magma Monsters, alternating chapters in the novel as the other narrator, who are metaphors for the inexorable forces of entropy, death, destruction, and climate catastrophe.3. List out your Mini-Movie structure, (or whatever structure you’ve chosen) for your story.
Before this class, I tried to plot point all three novels via the Campbell/Vogler/Voytilla Ordinary and Special World as well as the Syd Field plot points or McKee’s Story Structure but it didn’t work, in part because of the linguistic demands, complexity of the project, and my limitations. The first novel may morph into a rock climbing psychological supernatural thriller narrated by the Sedimentary Shawangunks of New Paltz, the second a complex audiobook with a layer of Manhattan tourism too naturalistic about real events like Sandy and COVID for a movie unless it were completely changed, but the third is only a few poems and scenes over a necessarily long period of time from 2020 to 2060. I have tons of research on geology, medicine, and climate change but need more dramatic, relevant scenes. Since this is a trilogy, all the characters are aging and dying and I am not introducing new characters unless I am compelled by inspiration or money. Now I will study the mini movie structure to see if I can use this model for chapters that will form a tandem competitive structure between the two narrators. Since I can’t predict the future, my last novel could be less specific in time and space and location as the other two. So I am not ruling out a movie adaptation. By 2022 I must pitch this trilogy to publishers and if I have two screenplay possibilities, that will enhance marketability, because I need money since COVID killed my jobs as well as many friends and almost me. I am also writing a pandemic memoir in French and am using the emotional gradients to organize that. Escalating challenges are difficult because fate presents certain things like COVID that can kill all at once. Who knows but that may be more merciful than the torture of Alzheimer’s.4. Go back through and make sure you’ve covered each the following:
– The Transformational Journey listed in your logline.
– The Three Gradients.
– It is sequenced in Escalating Challenges. -
What I learned is that despite years of planning and writing and researching my trilogy, it helps to write automatically like this in a forum without notes to release a shorter pitch from my unconscious.
1. What is the Emotional Gradient you’ll use? In my last seismic seesaw novel of my trilogy, Jake was originally a Candide-like optimist in contrast with the Magma Monsters’ ruthless rush to death and destruction, but one note character equals satire, not drama, so I am giving him more dimensions since I have had so much trouble with this project. But he oscillates between desired and forced change because he wants to spring back to the exclamation marks of the wellness/fitness lifestyle!!!
2. For each emotion of that gradient, tell us the following:
A. Emotion: Excitement
B. Action: Jake develops more medical training and dimensions to his fitness career because he wants people to listen to him as they confront more serious health challenges.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Jake’s weaknesses are narcissism and inability to listen to others patiently and carefully in part because of ADHD etc. He wants to jump from excitement to triumph without the stages of doubt, hope, discouragement, although he has courage. He is the opposite of Hal’s methodical approach to the gradients of emotion. He sings and screams and falls off the ladder!!! Then he picks himself up, smiles, and winks.A. Emotion: Depression about COVID diseases and deaths
B. Action: Jake successfully developed COVID therapy for his mom but failed performing CPR on his buddy’s parents and then his buddy Rodney died despite his efforts.
C. Challenge / Weakness: Jake cannot stand the depression of mourning so he marries his buddy’s widow and has the baby he always wanted, an action that came in part out of weakness and circled back to excitement, his modus operandi. To survive, he must keep forgetting and forgiving and forging ahead before he is dead, something he won’t let himself imagine.A. Emotion: Denial
B. Action: Although Jake could accept his dad’s ALS and his mom’s Alzheimer’s because he could care for them and they are older, he denies his Parkinson’s when he first gets symptoms of tremors, vertigo, and balance issues, making excuses, but also accelerating his fitness, something that exhausts him and gives him more symptoms as if he were spinning tires in a ditch.
C. Challenge / Weakness: He cannot stand going through the Kubler-Ross gradients but he learns to sublimate rage into kickbox, albeit in a chair or the pool, bargains with the Magma Monsters that he can now access via his Native American wife Litonya Lenape, and exults in the achievements of his kids, but is still frustrated. The Levodopa PD drug temporarily brings him back to his excitement phase with his renewed sexual potency (it can activate men in their eighties but he is only in his seventies). However, the symptoms get worse, the drug less potent, and he is faced with depression. At the end he must get help from his Sufi friend Orhan to release his energy into the cosmos. The main thing is not to get glued to depression like a roach in a roach motel. At the end of the trilogy, he, Litonya, and others of their generation die in 2060 but this loss is a legacy for their offspring who experience some degree of triumph in their battle against climate crises and painful, endless geriatric diseases.Etc..
3. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” (place at top of your work).
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Does Joe have Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? That is rare. My protagonist gets Parkinson’s and his mom had Alzheimer’s. PD is caused by dopamine deficits in the substantia nigra. End stage PD often has hallucinations from the Levodopa drug that often bring dopamine levels to that of a schizophrenic but Alzheimer’s is usually a slower decline beginning in the hippocampus caused by amyloid plaques that tangle the dendrites leaving neurons to die as the brain empties out. My father had Alzheimer’s and I have treated PD in many patients. Drama doesn’t have to obey medicine especially because you have an enticing spirit world but I was curious about the real diseases. Since people are living so long, perhaps they can get all these diseases.
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Love your story Heather. I was born in Montreal but my siblings now live in British Columbia. Revisiting history from a diversity point of view is timely now that Canada is reeling from the indigenous murders. It is easier to film this kind of period piece because nature continues to pound and pummel the coast and light up the forests no matter what year it is. I too had to think about betrayal but betrayal is everywhere in your story. The problem is that those who betray lie so it may be hard to find them at first.
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What I learned is to occasionally list the change agent or mentor before the protagonist or transformable character and to reconsider the meaning of betrayal in terms of old and new ways since it presents opportunities for lying, and therefore subtext.
The change agent is Dr. Joan La Roche, Jake’s mother, whom he helps when she gets COVID. She is so impressed with his treatment that she invites him to accompany her on house calls, learn about medicine, and train as an EMS technician. As she gets Alzheimer’s it is as if she is slowly giving her brain and experience to her son. Another change agent is Litonya Lenape, a Native American geologist, who becomes Jake’s wife and the mother of his baby Jesse, after his best friend, her husband, and his parents die of COVID, circumstances that teach him how to love his family and nature.
Jake’s through line is that he wants so much to continue his career as a fitness star he is forced to change from a narcissistic, needy performer to a health care professional who listens and loves.
The oppression that challenges Jake’s trajectory is personified or rather “eco-ified” by the magma monsters, the igneous rocks of the Palisades, because they understand and can forecast both the climate catastrophes on the macro scale and the genetic mutations and cell breakdown that will give the characters terminal diseases. They communicate with the reader or viewer from the beginning, something that will enhance suspense because some of the characters don’t know. Litonya could always communicate with rocks throughout the three novels but Jake learns because of her and tries to bargain but this oppression isn’t completely omnipotent.
The betrayal could be Leo Curtis aka Boat Bob, who starts off as a narcissistic needy serial killer rapist arsonist who pretends to transform into a helpful, hard-working super clean senior who helps the kids with their eco boats but secretly continues his evil ways until Jake throws him overboard around Plot Point two. I never liked this guy, who was based on the real Curtis now in Sing Sing and a homeless guy I met in NYC, so I am having trouble with his through line. He must be more connected to Jake’s plot. Ibrahim al Harbi is a Saudi billionaire with a long history throughout the trilogy and he may also betray Jake. He is connected to the COVID bioweapon plot, designed to get rid of the old, weak, fat, and hyper, and to restructure the economy away from fossil fuels. The Green motive is great but Jake could call him on what he did to the vulnerable. Ibrahim’s oppression is silent and connected to a complex network of Big Pharma and High Tech in many countries, not just China, the Kingdom, US etc. Without dumbing down or deleting, I must find a way to weave these plots into the oppression and betrayal because these characters are important in the first two novels.
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What I learned is that although Jake has ADHD, I don’t, and I must focus on the seismic seesaw between Jake and the Magma Monsters with the right timeline despite a plethora of plot lines, minor characters, and action that has developed since the trilogy began in 1998. Screenwriting is good to sharpen focus.
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STEP 1: Write a logline for the transformational journey. Fitness instructor Jake’s optimism is challenged as he must become virtual due to COVID, escape and balance on boats during floods, and help himself and others as he gets Parkinson’s and his parents ALS and Alzheimer’s. His antagonists, the static igneous rocks of the Palisades finally get to express themselves as death angels.
STEP 2: Define the Old Ways of life that the characters live out of at the beginning of the story. In the beginning, Jake was a 40 year old narcissistic fitness star with ADHD, in love with the mirror and his ear buds. Magma rocks are locked down since their eruption 200 million years ago during the Jurassic period, squished between Manhattan and the West Point Military Academy on the Hudson River.
STEP 3: Define the New Way of life the characters take on by the end of the story. Magma rocks develop gradients of evil and hatred of humans as Jake evolves into humanity, creating the seismic seesaw between Jake and the Magma Monsters, the title of my third novel. During COVID Jake learns to listen, become empathic, develop innovative programs, and do house calls with his doctor Mom as she gradually loses her memory. He gets EMS training and learns humility when his buddy and his parents die despite his compressions. He learns a new way of loving and a new approach to wellness that is not ableism or exclusive. As Jake ages and becomes kinder and more loving, the Magma Monsters kill and torture the characters with diseases and the area with floods due to climate crises. MM’s rage against humans increases until the end after Jake and his Native American wife Litonya have died but then they become part of the rock cycle, circling with sedimentary and metamorphic rock so that there is no apocalypse, and the children and grandchildren have the beautiful green earth at the end of the 21<sup style=”font-family: inherit;”>st</sup> century!
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What I learned or was reminded of was the need for the audience or in my case, the reader, to transform, not just characters.
Profound truths are that beauty, love, happiness, and insights exist in dying, in hospices, and in climate catastrophes. I am writing the third novel of a trilogy with adaptations so characters are dying. The entire trilogy goes from 1998 to 2060 in NYC, New Paltz, and the Hudson River with evolving characters and three kinds of rock narrators, sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous.
It is hard to make the end of life entertaining so I was researching fitness classes in hospices since a main character Jake is a fitness instructor who gets PD as his father is dying of ALS and his mom of Alzheimer’s, locked in and locked out. As a trainer and massage therapist, I treated all these diseases and my dad died of Alzheimer’s. So I created kids and grandkids to curb the catabolism. There will be disasters but I don’t want dystopia or apocalypse at the end.
My main character Jake’s optimism is challenged by magma rocks of the Palisades as co-narrators, and they are metaphors of the death angel because they are fiery rocks.
My first two novels are okay in terms of structure and are written in submission drafts, but this last novel is a mess so that is why I am trying to clarify it with screenwriting structure. My market is global and literary so everything doesn’t have to fit in the Hollywood paradigms but they are useful.
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1. Combine the universal themes all humans share with the specifics of these unusual Americans in a fantasy-infused real world.
2. Rita, repetition, fater and other circumstances transform Phil.
3. I don’t personally connect but the themes are universal in terms of job repetition etc.
4. Phil becomes a better person.
5. I agree with the gradients that Julia listed that remind me of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ acceptance of terminal illness something that forces change no matter what.
6. The old ways are exaggerated into vices that have plagued humans for centuries.
7. I too like the suicide and the poem but kept wondering how the structure would have changed if the homeless man had been saved because I have been writing a trilogy in part about homeless people.
8. The weather reports could be turned into poems that symbolize the throughlines of the characters.
9. The camera to the audience frames the entire story from inciting incident to conclusion. The relationships between main characters are twisted upside down usually for the better.
10. With the right choices and action, anyone can become a Jesus, Buddha, Siddhartha, Kisele, Moses, Mohammad etc.
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Julia Keefer
I agree to the terms of this contract.
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Great opening audio about digging beneath the surface and being open to all kinds of change.
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Julia continued: I hope to merge the ability to write meaningful and commercial stories. Unique: I am a senior who teaches kickbox.
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Hi, I am Julia. I wrote four scripts years ago but nothing recently. Nice to read all your posts.