[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Profound Map Version 1

What I learned doing this assignment:

I’ve unearthed more profound moments than I thought were there initially. While there are still many unknowns within this story, I’ve uncovered many interesting insights I didn’t realize before. Seeing the completed Profound Map, with all the discoveries, gives me an appreciation of how much there is to know about this fascinating model.

If someone would like exchange feedback, I’d be happy to do so.

TITLE: LAMIA (working title)

WRITTEN BY: Lauren DeCicco

1. What is Your Profound Truth?

Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

2. What is the Transformational Journey?

Old Ways:
Problem State: With a ruthless, uncaring attitude, she works for the sex trafficking organization as a pied piper, unknowingly gathering children to be sold into sex trafficking rings.

Her Old Way of being can be described as:

Her Main Rule: Help the organization succeed as they are all she knows of family.
Brainwashed
Focused on her own survival
Believes she’s helping children have a better life other than living on the street
Breaks the law, criminal
Unemotional
Heartless
Brutalized, starved by the organization to keep her in check

Journey:
Lamia meets her brother, Asher Young, after many years and he tells her of her true upbringing which flies in the face of all the lies the organization has been feeding her. Asher shows her the real past and also the correct way of dealing with sex traffickers. It’s the opposite of how she’s been living her life. She discovers he was right and the organization has been lying to her. They are actually selling the children instead of providing them comfortable lives in wealthy families.

New Ways:
Solution State: She forgives herself for her crimes, sacrifices herself, saving the victims and destroying the organization.

Her New Way of being can be described as:

Brokenhearted over her evil deeds
Gains her freewill
Loves the kidnapped children and will sacrifice herself to save them
Dies in the process of destroying the organization

Transformational Logline:

An indoctrinated woman, raised by a trafficking organization, kidnaps children but when she discovers they’re being sold across the world, she sacrifices herself to free the children and destroy the organization.

3. Who are Your Lead Characters?

Change Agent (the one causing the change): Asher Young, Lamia’s estranged brother

Transformable Character(s) (the one who makes the change): Lamia

Betraying Character (if you have one): Lamia’s co-worker within the organization

Oppression: The sex trafficking organization

4. How Do You Connect With Your Audience in the Beginning of the Movie?

A. Relatability –
Lamia (Transformational Character): Her instinct to survive no matter what the circumstances are is very strong.

Lamia’s brother, Asher (Change Agent): He wants to save his sister from her hellish life; he won’t give up on her.

B. Intrigue
Lamia (Transformational Character): Why does she do these horrible things? Why doesn’t she run when she’s outside the compound collecting children?

Lamia’s brother, Asher (Change Agent): How did he know how to find her? How did he acquire the skills to hunt down sex traffickers? Why does he care what happens to his sister if she’s a member of this terrible organization?

C. Empathy
Lamia (Transformational Character): Her existence is bleak, she’s horribly mistreated, she’s clearly moved by the visit with her brother. There’s a good human being trapped inside her somewhere.

Lamia’s brother, Asher (Change Agent): He watched the murder of his mother and the kidnapping of his sister. He was too young to stop what happened to them.

D. Likability
Lamia (Transformational Character): She has a similar sense of humor as her brother. She’s somehow retained her humor even after all she’s been through. She shows small acts of kindness to the children: loosens the handcuffs on them when the driver isn’t looking and/or gives a piece of candy/sip of water to another.

Lamia’s brother, Asher (Change Agent): He genuinely loves his sister and has an affable personality despite his past. He’s spent much of his life tracking down and assassinating sex traffickers.

5. What is the Gradient of the Change?

What steps do the Transformational Characters go through as they are changing?

Gradient 1. The Emotional Gradient

A. The “Forced Change” Emotional Gradient

Denial:
She lives within the confines/rules of the organization without question.

Anger:
Lashes out at the organization after discovering they’re trafficking the orphans; runs from her brother even though he can rescue her from the organization

Bargaining:
Thinks there must be a mistake: she tries to change what’s happening and asks the organization to help stop the sale of children; tries to free the children

Depression:
She is unable to find a way to escape as well as rescue the children. Her plan to destroy the organization and save the children is thwarted. Won’t leave her room, she can’t eat or sleep.

Acceptance:
Recognizes her brother is her true kin; Sacrifices herself to defeat the only family she’s known.

Gradient 2. The Action Gradient

Logline: An indoctrinated woman, raised by a trafficking organization, kidnaps children but when she discovers they’re being sold across the world, she sacrifices herself to free the children and destroy the organization.

Setup: Lamia, the brainwashed woman, kidnaps children from the streets believing they will be placed with wealthy families and have better lives.

Journey: She meets her estranged brother who hunts/kills sex traffickers. He tells her she was kidnapped at six years old and their mother was murdered. She discovers from her co-worker the children she’s been kidnapping are being sold into sex slavery across the world.

Payoff: Lamia finds a weakness in the organization and sacrifices herself to destroy the organization and with the help of her brother’s group saves many of the kidnapped children.

Gradient 3. The Challenge / Weakness Gradient

Challenge: The organization keeps her malnourished and abuses her physically, emotionally and psychologically to keep her in check.

Weakness: She’s been brainwashed into believing they care for her and these experiences are normal.

Challenge: Her brother’s information regarding her real family flies in the face of everything she believes about the organization; she’s punished by the organization and has some of her organs harvested, becoming weaker/no longer allowed outside the compound

Weakness: Mistakes her brother as an evil force even more so than the organization; thinks she can convince the organization to change their operations.

Challenge: Tries to discover a weakness in the organization to stop it

Weakness: Goes against the entity she looks up to and who has provided all she’s known of family

Challenge: Has the opportunity to escape and leave her life of pain behind

Weakness: Loves the trafficked children and knows she must sacrifice herself to save them.

Challenge: Must believe her brother is telling the truth, gives up her new dream of having a life with her brother; Destroys the organization she believed was her family;

Weakness: Dies in the process of saving some of the children, hoping to absolve herself for her crimes

6. What is the Transformational Structure of Your Story?

Mini-Movie 1 ­ Status Quo and Call to Adventure
—Lamia lives within the confines/rules of the organization without question. The organization keeps her malnourished and abuses her physically, emotionally and psychologically to keep her in check. She’s been brainwashed into believing they care for her and that these experiences are normal. She collects children off the streets, chains them up in the collecting vehicles, places them in cells at the compound. On the streets she is sweet and generous to lure the children, as she’s been taught. When at the compound she treats them without feeling for their fears and cruel treatment by the others at the organization.

Turning Point: Call to Adventure.

— She lashes out at/questions the organization after discovering they’re selling the orphans; discovers there’s a possibility the children are being sold into sex trafficking across the world instead of being placed with adoptive families. She confronts the organization but they assure her this is false. She continues working the streets, gathering children but she has serious doubts regarding the organization’s true operations.

Mini-Movie 2 ­ Locked Into Conflict

—Her brother finds her working the streets, collecting children. He tells her he’s been searching for her since she was kidnapped by the organization when she was six years old, of her true beginnings and the truth about what the organization is really doing with the children she and the others have been collecting. He tells her it doesn’t matter what she’s done, she is worth saving as much as the children are. Her brother’s information regarding her real family flies in the face of everything she believes about the organization; She runs from her brother even though he can rescue her from her half-life. She doesn’t believe she has self-worth. She doesn’t believe the organization should be destroyed as they’re a force for good.

Turning Point: Locked in.

— Her whole world begins to crumble. Her mind cracks and she relives the encounter with this person who says he’s her brother –Who am I? Am I really helping these children?– Must save the children and returns to the compound with increasing doubts about the org. He must be an imposter: she mistakes her brother as an evil force even more than the organization is; thinks she can convince the organization to change their operations.

Mini-Movie 3 — Hero Tries to Solve Problem ­ But Fails.

—Lamia thinks there must be a mistake: she tries to change what’s happening and asks the organization to help stop the sale of children; tries to free the children. Gets severely reprimanded. She scours the compound looking for clues as to what the true nature of the organization is. She secretly asks her fellow child collectors about what could be going on- Have they heard/seen anything suspicious? Do they have proof of the real operations? Where do the vanishing children really go if not to wealthy families? She tries to discover a weakness in the organization to stop it. She goes against the entity she looks up to and who has provided all she’s known of family. She has the opportunity to escape.

Turning Point: Standard ways fail.

—She escapes and tells the authorities what the organization is doing. They’re in on the whole operation. Her brother and his friends try to take her from the authorities. Her brother tells her the organization must be destroyed. He recounts Lamia’s past to her: the organization killed their mother and kidnaped her. He now hunts sex traffickers and has tracked them back to this organization which is holding her against her will. There’s a fire fight- her brother fails to rescue her as there are too many officers. The authorities return her to the organization.

Mini-Movie 4 ­ Hero Forms a Plan

—The trust the organization placed in her to be able to leave the compound and be an honorable member of the organization is now gone. They no longer allow her to leave the compound.

Turning Point: Plan backfires. (MIDPOINT falls here)

—She tries to overthrow the organization from within. She’s caught. They knock her out, sedate her.

Mini-Movie 5 ­ Hero Retreats & Antagonist Wins

—She wakes transformed, a shadow of her former self, within a secret portion of the compound she never knew existed: The organ harvesting wing. She discovers large portions of her body now have poorly sewn stitches: across her abdomen and lower back. Children are there too- all have similar badly performed surgeries. Living in a nightmare, she realizes everything she’s believed about the people who raised her are lies: these are inhuman criminals. Her brother was right.

Turning Point: The decision to change.

—She sees the dead bodies piled up along the floor and half dead children: children she aided in luring to this horrific place. Her heart aches at the sight, the emotional/physical pain scorches her, it’s unbearable. She loves them and knows only she has a chance to save them. She knows she must sacrifice herself to save them. She’s been given this divine opportunity, placed in this position to save these precious lives. Lives she herself has unknowingly endangered.

Mini-Movie 6 ­ Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan!

—Lamia recognizes her brother is her true kin; She sacrifices herself to defeat the only family she’s known. Contacting her brother and his friends, she’s ready to be rescued. Uses a secret network to reach her brother and provides him with how to enter the compound.

Turning Point: The ultimate failure.

—One of the other child collectors rats her out (Betraying character). As punishment, the organization forces her to choose the next group of children to be sold. She refuses and she’s beaten until unconscious.

Mini-Movie 7 ­ Crisis & Climax

—She finds the weakness in the organization. (Not sure what this is yet.)

Turning Point: Apparent victory.

— Her brother and his friends break into the compound, free some of the children and try to rescue her. She refuses to go with the group to rescue the remaining children. She gives up her new dream of starting over and reconnecting with her brother.

Mini-Movie 8 ­ New Status Quo

— Lamia dies in the process of saving the remaining children, hoping to absolve herself for her crimes.

Turning Point: New status quo.

— She dies yet she has destroyed the organization.

7. How are the “Old Ways” Challenged?

What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?

A. Challenge through Questioning

How her brother, Asher, could work against her and the organization which has raised her and cared for her.
How the organization can lie to her about what is actually happening to the children.

How she could act so coldly and treat the children so poorly all these years.

Why she never suspected the real motives of the organization when they’ve mistreated her all her life.
Why she has only thought about herself and her own survival.

Why it’s never occurred to her the organization has nefarious motives.

B. Challenge by Counterexample
1 Old Way: Lamia is unemotional and heartless in general but especially in how she treats the children.

Counterexample through Character: When she meets her brother, Asher, on the street he says he’s been watching her treatment of the children she takes. He struggles to hold back tears of joy at finding his little sister after a lifetime of searching for her. There is also tremendous sadness from seeing how poorly she treats the children when she places them in the vehicles. Lamia is struck by Asher’s empathy for the kidnapped children.

2 Old Way: She is brutalized, starved by the organization to keep her in check.

Counterexample through Dialogue: Asher tells her of her past and the life she once lived- there’s a better way to live.

Asher: This isn’t the sister I knew when we were little. She was kind to everyone. She loved and cared for even the smallest creature. You were brought up in a loving home. Our mom did all she could to make us happy and feel loved. It isn’t right what they’re doing to you in that place.

3 Old Way: She doesn’t care about the children she kidnaps. This is merely her job.

Counterexample through Experience: The organization performs surgery/removes organs, she wakes to find some of the children she’s taken who’ve gone through the same thing. She sees their pain, the exact pain she is feeling.

4 Old Way: She believes everyone exists at this meager level, this is normal.

Counterexample through Character: Asher confronts her with what a normal life looks like. She takes in his nice clothes and polite manners. He tries to give her money. She refuses for fear of repercussions. His appearance and manners strike her as someone who is well off and kind. Perhaps there is another way of life within her reach.

5 Old Way: Lamia does whatever she’s told by the organization even when it’s wrong, immoral and lawless.

Counterexample through Dialogue: She learns how Asher has dedicated his life to slowing down trafficking and making it more difficult for traffickers.

Asher: I watched our mom die. I was taken and placed in an orphanage. I’ve spent my entire life looking for you. When I learned there was a possibility you were caught up in this lifestyle, I tasked my group to stop at nothing to find you and do anything we can to slow the progress of those who took you. Mom’s final words to me were, Asher, you must find your sister.

C. Challenge by “Should Work, But Doesn’t”

1 Old Way: She doesn’t care about the children she kidnaps. This is merely a job.

Challenge: One child hugs Lamia and doesn’t let go. Hugs are something she hasn’t experienced throughout most of her life. She yells at the child to stop and calls her names but she won’t let go. The child’s tenacity and desperation softens her. She doesn’t reciprocate yet she stops yelling and emotionally abusing the child.

2 Old Way: Accepting the organization as the main controller and decision maker of every aspect of her life without question.

Challenge: She discovers what they’re actually doing with the kidnapped children. She must ask questions, look further into what’s going on and secretively go behind the backs of those she once put all her trust in.

3 Old Way: She only thinks about her own survival without concern for anyone else.

Challenge: She cries over the mangled dead body of the child who hugged her so tightly before. Lamia’s self centered, detached way cracks and she feels deep emotions for someone else.

4 Old Way: She believes her real family abandoned her and sold her to the organization. She was told her real family doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Challenge: Her brother, Asher, takes a chance when Lamia is working the street collecting children to tell her about her beginnings, that she was wanted, their mother was murdered and he suspects the organization kidnapped her. She doesn’t believe Asher yet the information hits her hard.

5 Old Way: Lamia is beaten and starved to keep her in line.

Challenge: She discovers the same marks on one of the children as she has. This begins to bring her out of her brainwashed stupor and see reality.

D. Challenge through Living Metaphor

1 Old Way: Lamia believes her family abandoned her and never loved her.

Living Metaphor: The photograph

Challenge: Asher gives her a photograph he’s been carrying for many years. It’s Lamia as a small child hugging her mother. Her mother looks just like she does now.

2 Old Way: Lamia is clearly malnourished but doesn’t know this isn’t normal.

Living Metaphor: The food

Challenge: A child passes her on the street, looks back at her with sad eyes and whispers to her father. A little while later, the child returns and hands her a sandwich. What’s this for? asks Lamia. You eat it, says the child, you look like you haven’t eaten in days.

3 Old Way: She is heartless and unfeeling toward the children.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s necklace

Challenge: Asher wears a leather necklace with dozens of score marks on it. He explains that each cut on the necklace represents a child he’s saved from sex trafficking.

4 Old Way: She believes the organization treats her okay and she is lucky to be cared for the way she is.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s wounds

Challenge: Asher shows her wounds on his body from his time in an orphanage when he was growing up. He tells her this isn’t how children or any human being should be treated. Later, back at the compound, she considers her own scars as well as the fresh wounds across her body.

5 Old Way: She doesn’t think kidnapping children is wrong because the organization says they place them in wealthy families where they have better opportunities.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s proof

Challenge: Asher shows her his documented research of the true motives of the organization. He asks her why the organization never placed her in a wealthy family after they kidnapped her. She don’t know.

8. How are You Presenting Insights through Profound Moments?

A. Action delivers insight

1 New Way / Insight: 1 Looking outside of oneself and serving others can be the beginning of a transformation into a higher self.

Action: Lamia gives her meager portion of food to three starving children within the compound. She stands a little taller afterwards, a small smile breaks across her face.

2 New Way / Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

Action: She leads the rest of the children out of the compound and tells them to run to Asher. She reenters and destroys the compound with members of the organization inside. Asher and the children watch the compound burn.

3 New Way / Insight: Life can be truly unfair. But there’s usually a reason.

Action: She wakes in the organ harvesting section of the compound. She’s in tremendous pain after the surgery. She discovers other children there that she’s never seen before. She makes the decision to help them. She finds the weakness in the organization.

4 New Way / Insight: Life can change in an instant.

Action: She meets her brother, Asher. He recounts her life with her real family. She suddenly knows where she comes from and learns she wasn’t thrown away.

5 New Way / Insight: Our life’s purpose is usually right in front of us our entire lives.

Action: She comforts a child who’s been recently beaten. She tends to his wounds, helps him eat and drink. She searches the faces of the other children and smiles. She’s determined to change what’s happening.

6 New Way / Insight: Sacrificing oneself for others can begin the healing process.

Action: A child is caught hiding a piece of bread in his pocket and is about to be punished. Lamia rushes the guard, knocking him over. She is beaten in the child’s place.

B. Conflict delivers insight

Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

1: Falsely accused

Lamia believes her family abandoned her and the organization kindly took her in. Asher tells her of her good upbringing and the love he and their mother has for her. She lashes out in a rage. Asher shows her a photograph of the three of them together. He tells her how their mother was murdered in an attempt to prevent her from being taken.

2: Physical confrontation

A little boy attacks a guard. It’s revealed his little sister is being raped by the guards. The boy dies during his punishment but it brings to light the abuse his sister has been enduring. Lamia is able to better protect the little girl after the boy’s sacrifice.

3: Stakes raised

Lamia is placed in solitary confinement for sharing some of her meal with one of the children. She escapes through a passage and discovers dozens of pregnant teenagers in this separate portion of the compound. They are chained to the wall. She finds some are near death. One teen calls Lamia by her name. She asks how she knows her. She says she remembers the day when she took her from the street. The teen dies as she gives birth- A new little life in this terrible world. Lamia holds the baby and is overwhelmed by the scene of so many young girls in this horrifying existence.

4: Argument

Asher and Lamia have a yelling match over her decision to return to the compound to save to children instead of leaving with him. Both have sound points. But she wins out in the end telling him she’s lived her life. The children are merely beginning their lives. They must be given the chance to live a better life. She knows the compound better than he does and believes she can accomplish the rescue.

5: Power struggle

One of Lamia’s rivals tries to outshine her in the number of children taken from the streets. He hates her because he feels she’s treated better than the other Collectors. He attacks her and is severely beaten and reprimanded. He tells Lamia she will not live through the night. As he and Lamia scour the city, in a fit of rage he grabs two children and runs down the middle of the street. The children’s father pulls a gun, threatens to shoot him, gives chase. The collecting vehicle is not there to pick up the stolen children. The rival continues running, the father shoots him in the head. He drops the children. Lamia gathers the children from the busy street and their father points the gun at her. She releases them back into their father’s arm. She lives another day.

C. Irony delivers insight

Insight: Life can change in an instant.

– MOTIVATION: Getting your “need,” but losing your “want.”

Want: to be part of a loving family
Need: to destroy the organization

1: She and her brother are reunited and have the opportunity to be happy after a lifetime of questions and heartache. She gives up her want/lifelong dream. She must sacrifice herself and destroy the organization to stop their hellish reign within the child trafficking world.

Insight: Our life’s purpose is usually right in front of us our entire lives.

– REASONS: Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons:

2: Lamia discovers one of the children she kidnapped has had most of his organs removed and is slowly dying. He begs her to kill him. She suffocates him to end his suffering.

Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

WIN/LOSS: a loss that is really a win:

3: Lamia’s only friend within the organization tries to escape the compound. During the escape, he is trapped and she attempts to help him but he dies in the process. She makes the discovery which reveals the weakness of the organization.

Insight: Life can be truly unfair. But there’s usually a reason.

– CREDIT: Do something amazing, but the credit goes to another:

4: Lamia saves the life of one of the children. Her rival takes the credit and blames her for something he did. She is reprimanded and sent to solitary. The child disappears. Her rival is promoted within the ranks of the organization. Lamia learns from the haughty rival that the children aren’t being placed with wealthy families, they are being sold. This begins her vow to stop the organization.

– CREDIT: Getting credit for something amazing that you didn’t do:

5: An explosion rocks the compound. Some of the higher ups die/are injured in the blast. On the news, her brother Asher and his group are reported to be responsible for the explosion. In the news broadcast, Lamia is seen talking with Asher on the street. She is beaten and interrogated by the organization regarding her knowledge of Asher’s group. They think she is in some way connected to the explosion. She has no prior knowledge of the attack. She didn’t believe Asher was hunting traffickers and searching for her. Now she realizes Asher is telling the truth.

9. What are the Most Profound Lines of the Movie?

Pattern A: Height of the Emotion

1) Lamia is six years old. Her mother is murdered in front of her. She is kidnapped.

Emotion: Lamia is confused, scared and horrified at being taken by strangers who have just shot her mother.

Meaning: Her safety net has been destroyed.

New line- Lamia shouts at her mother: You promised you’d never leave me!

2) The suffering young boy convinces Lamia to suffocate him.

Emotion: Desperation. Both from the young boy and Lamia.

Meaning: This is Lamia’s chance to help someone who she’s had no concern or care for.

New line- The young boy tells Lamia: This is the only way I can leave this place.

3) Lamia meets her brother, Asher. She learns of her true past, her family who wanted her.

Emotion: Shock.

Meaning: Everything the organization has told her has been a lie.

New line- Lamia points to Asher’s face: I haven’t seen this kind of light in anyone’s eyes in a long time.

4) Lamia learns the children she’s been kidnapping are being sold into sex slavery.

Emotion: Sheer horror.

Meaning: She realizes she’s a big part of the reason why so many children have met this fate.

New line- Lamia to herself: I’m one of them. I’m as evil as the organization.

5) Lamia sacrifices herself to destroy the compound and organization.

Emotion: Bittersweet.

Meaning: She wants to be with Asher but the opportunity to end the organization is too great an opportunity to pass up even at the expense of her own life.

New line- Lamia to Asher: Taking all these demons to hell with me is the best thing I’ve done in my life.

Pattern B: Build Meaning Over Multiple Scenes
1
Line- Lamia: Please help me.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She is helpless and afraid.
Ending meaning: She is fearless and brave.

Different meaning:
Helpless: Lamia asks one of the guards at the compound for help when she’s brought there at six years old.
More secure: She asks one of the children to help her when she’s trying to aid the other children.
Fearless: She asks Asher to help her when she’s planning to destroy to compound.

2
Line- Lamia: Please don’t leave me.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She can’t live without her mother.
Ending meaning: She is accepting of her brother and wants to be with him.

Different meaning:
Insecure: She tells her mother not to leave her as she’s kidnapped.
Needs comfort: She asks a child to stay with her after she wakes from her surgery.
Acceptance and belief: She tells Asher to stay with her when she meets him on the street.

3
Line- Lamia: I didn’t know what I was doing.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She makes excuses for her actions and tries to stay in line.
Ending meaning: She defies the authority figures and is sarcastic.

Different meaning:
Submits to authority: She tells a guard this after hitting a child for stealing another child’s food.
Disbelief: She tells herself this when she discovers she’s been aiding an organization in selling children into sex slavery.
Sarcasm and defiance: She tells a higher up within the organization this when they realize she’s going to destroy the entire compound.

10. How Do You Leave Us With A Profound Ending?

A. Deliver The Profound Truth Profoundly

Profound Truth: Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

Lamia is the only person who knows the compound like the back of her hand but she’s the only person within the organization who wants to save the children’s lives. She changes her feelings and thoughts about the worth of the children and herself. She believes she has worth and even after all the horrible things she’s done in her life, she can change the lives of the children.

She sacrifices herself for the children knowing she alone can accomplish this. She aids in rescuing the children within the compound, delivering them to her brother, Asher, and his group. Lamia gives Asher a keepsake she’s been holding onto since she was a little girl. Asher understands when she gives it back to him, she’s not coming back and will die in the compound.

B. Lead Characters Ending Represents The Change

The Change: No matter how awful someone’s beginnings are, people have the ability to transform into their best selves.

Lamia believes all the bad things the organization tells her. But a shift occurs when she’s faced with her brother who tells her of her past, that she was once a good person and she believes she can be a good person again. Saving the children and her sacrifice is her small way of altering some of the evil she’s done in her life.

Lamia (Transformable Character):

From: having no self worth and being taught to feel little if anything for the children she’s been collecting most of her life
To: dying to save them.

Asher Young, Lamia’s brother (Change Agent):

From: searching his entire life for his sister
To: having enough strength to let her sacrifice herself knowing this is what she must do to heal herself.

C. Payoff Key Setups

Profound Truth: Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

Lamia once believed she was a bad person and was doing good in the world by helping children have a better life. Once she discovers the truth: they’re being sold and having terrible lives because of her, she makes a plan to save them and destroy the organization.

It answers the questions:
Will Lamia remain in her state of disbelief about her life?
Will she continue thinking she has no worth?
Will she believe Asher is her brother and have a relationship with him?
Will she discover the true nature of what the organization is doing with the children?
Will Lamia and her brother live happily now that they’ve found one another again?
Will she be able to save the children?
Will she succeed in destroying the compound?

Setup: The organization has taken everything from Lamia.
Payoff: They must suffer and must do so at the hands of the one they took everything from.

Setup: Asher tells her she has self worth and doesn’t have to live this life of crime anymore. She still has goodness inside her and can change.
Payoff: She finally believes him and realizes she can die knowing she did something good for the first time in her life.

Setup: Will Lamia and Asher live in peace and be able to reconnect after so many years apart, each on the opposite ends of child trafficking?
Payoff: They won’t, however, they understand each other and why she must die.

Setup: Can she and Asher get along enough to save her and the children?
Payoff: Lamia dies in the final act of saving the children and delivering them into the safety of Asher and his group.

Setup: Will the organization get away with their crimes?
Payoff: No, they’re destroyed.

D. Surprising, But Inevitable

Asher wants Lamia to escape with the children and live with him. He and his group plan how they’re going to go inside the compound and detonate the explosives. Lamia convinces Asher that she must be the one who takes in the explosives as she knows the compound and where the members are at all times. She must be the one who sets the detonators. She tells him she will be able to get out in time. She secretly knows the only way to destroy the organization is to remain and die with the members. Lamia dies in the explosion.

E. Leave Us with a Profound Parting Image/Line

Profound Truth: Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

Lamia hands Asher a note, grabs the detonator and explosives and runs back into the compound. She turns back, waves to him. Asher reads the childlike handwritten note from his sister: Thank you for showing me my worth. I finally know why I’m alive.

[Lauren DeCicco]

ASSIGNMENT 1

Lauren’s Height of the Emotion

What I learned doing this assignment:

I need a lot more practice with this. This is a tough lesson. I do love the process of delving into the height of emotion within the scene and creating dialogue from there.

Give us a quick explanation of the emotion and meaning of the scene, then the new line that you are going to place there.

1) The woman is six years old. Her mother is murdered in front of her. She is kidnapped.

Emotion: The woman is confused, scared and horrified at being taken by strangers who have just shot her mother.

Meaning: Her safety net has been destroyed.

New line: You promised you’d never leave me!

2) The suffering young boy convinces the woman to suffocate him.

Emotion: Desperation. Both from the young boy and the woman.

Meaning: This is the woman’s chance to help someone who she’s had no concern or care for.

New line: This is the only way I can leave this place.

3) The woman meets her brother, Asher. She learns of her true past, her family who wanted her.

Emotion: Shock.

Meaning: Everything the organization has told her has been a lie.

New line: I haven’t seen that kind of light in anyone’s eyes in a long time.

4) The woman learns the children she’s been kidnapping are being sold into sex slavery.

Emotion: Sheer horror.

Meaning: She realizes she’s a part of the reason why so many children have met this fate.

New line: I’m one of them. I’m as evil as the organization.

5) The woman sacrifices herself to destroy the compound and organization.

Emotion: Bittersweet.

Meaning: She wants to be with Asher but the opportunity to end the organization is too great an opportunity to pass up even at the expense of her own life.

New line: Taking all these demons to hell with me is the best thing I’ve done in my life.

ASSIGNMENT 2

Lauren Builds Meaning with Dialogue

What I learned doing this assignment:

Developing dialogue by building in the meaning and finding the essence can create deeper words for characters to live and speak through.

For each one, tell us the line, the arc, and the different meaning you gave the line in the scenes it appeared.

1
Line: Please help me.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She is helpless and afraid.
Ending meaning: She is fearless and brave.

Different meaning:
Helpless: The woman asks one of the guards at the compound for help when she’s brought there at six year old.
More secure: She asks one of the children to help her when she’s trying to aid the other children.
Fearless: She asks Asher to help her when she’s planning to destroy to compound.

2
Line: Please don’t leave me.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She can’t live without her mother.
Ending meaning: She is accepting of her brother and wants to be with him.

Different meaning:
Insecure: She tells her mother not to leave her when she’s kidnapped.
Needs comfort: She asks a child to stay with her after she wakes from her surgery.
Acceptance and belief: She tells Asher to stay with her when she meets him on the street.

3
Line: I didn’t know what I was doing.

Arc:
Beginning meaning: She makes excuses for her actions and tries to stay in line.
Ending meaning: She defies the authority figures and is sarcastic.

Different meaning:
Submits to authority: She tells a guard this after hitting a child for stealing another child’s food.
Disbelief: She tells herself this when she discovers she’s been aiding an organization in selling children into sex slavery.
Sarcasm and defiance: She tells a higher up within the organization this when they realize she’s going to destroy the entire compound.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren Delivers Irony!

What I learned doing this assignment:
Irony can be tricky to set up. But, utilizing this process of beginning with the insight and delivering it through an opposite experience, can create interesting and intriguing ways to present the new ways.

Insight: Life can change in an instant.

– MOTIVATION: Getting your “need,” but losing your “want.”

Want: to be part of a loving family
Need: to destroy the organization

1: She and her brother are reunited and have the opportunity to be happy after a lifetime of questions and heartache. She gives up her want/lifelong dream. She must sacrifice herself and destroy the organization to stop their hellish reign within the child trafficking world.

Insight: Our life’s purpose is usually right in front of us our entire lives.

– REASONS: Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons:

2: The woman discovers one of the children she kidnapped has had most of his organs removed and is slowly dying. He begs her to kill him. She suffocates him to end his suffering.

Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

WIN/LOSS: a loss that is really a win:

3: The woman’s only friend within the organization tries to escape the compound. During the escape, he is trapped and the woman attempts to help him but he dies in the process. The woman makes the discovery which reveals the weakness of the organization.

Insight: Life can be truly unfair. But there’s usually a reason.

– CREDIT: Do something amazing, but the credit goes to another:

4: The woman saves the life of one of the children. Her rival takes the credit and blames her for something he did. She is reprimanded and sent to solitary. The child disappears. Her rival is promoted within the ranks of the organization. The woman learns from the haughty rival that the children aren’t being placed with wealthy families, they are being sold. This begins her vow to stop the organization.

– CREDIT: Getting credit for something amazing that you didn’t do:

5: An explosion rocks the compound. Some of the higher ups die/are injured in the blast. On the news, her brother Asher and his group are reported to be responsible for the explosion. In the news broadcast, she is seen talking with Asher on the street. She is beaten and interrogated by the organization regarding her knowledge of Asher’s group. They think she is in some way connected to the explosion. She has no prior knowledge of the attack. She didn’t believe Asher was hunting traffickers and searching for her. Now she realizes Asher is telling the truth.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren Delivers Insights Through Conflict

What I learned doing this assignment:

The process of using conflict to reveal insight. Begin with the end / insight in mind and set up the conflict to deliver it.

1. With your list of the New Ways / Insights you want audiences to experience, go through these steps:

Step 1. What is the New Way / Insight you want to deliver?

Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

Step 2. What kind of conflict could that insight show up in?

1 Falsely accused
2 Physical confrontation
3 Stakes raised
4 Argument
5 Power struggle

Step 3. Brainstorm ways you might deliver the insight through the conflict.

Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

1: Falsely accused

The woman believes her family abandoned her and the organization kindly took her in. Asher tells her of her good upbringing and the love he and their mother has for her. The woman lashes out in a rage. Asher shows her a photograph of the three of them together. He tells her how their mother was murdered in an attempt to prevent her from being taken.

2: Physical confrontation

A little boy attacks a guard. It’s revealed his little sister is being raped by the guards. The boy dies during his punishment but it brings to light the abuse his sister has been enduring. The woman is able to better protect the little girl after the boy’s sacrifice.

3: Stakes raised

The woman is placed in solitary confinement for sharing some of her meal with one of the children. She escapes through a passage and discovers dozens of pregnant teenagers in this separate portion of the compound. They are chained to the wall. The woman finds some are near death. One teen calls the woman by her name. The woman asks how she knows her. She says she remembers the day when she took her from the street. The teen dies as she gives birth. A new little life in this terrible world. The woman holds the baby and is overwhelmed by the scene of so many young girls in this horrifying existence.

4: Argument

Asher and the woman have a yelling match over her decision to return to the compound to save to children instead of leaving with him. Both have sound points. But the woman wins out in the end telling him she’s lived her life. The children are merely beginning their lives. They must be given the chance to live a better life. She knows the compound better than he does and believes she can accomplish the rescue.

5: Power struggle

One of the woman’s rivals tries to outshine her in the number of children taken from the streets. He hates her because he feels she’s treated better than the other Collectors. He attacks her and is severely beaten and reprimanded. He tells the woman she will not live through the night. As he and the woman scour the city, in a fit of rage he grabs two children and runs down the middle of the street. The children’s father pulls a gun, threatens to shoot him, gives chase. The collecting vehicle is not there to pick up the stolen children. He continues running, the father shoots him in the head, dropping the children. The woman gathers the children from the busy street and their father points the gun at her. She releases them back into their father’s arm. The woman lives another day.

[Lauren DeCicco]

ASSIGNMENT 1

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Lauren’s Seabiscuit Analysis

What I learned doing this assignment:
The profound moments which were revealed in action were usually more powerful than when delivered in dialogue. This was especially the case when the setups were created well.

1. Watch the movie SEABISCUIT. As you do, look for the Profound Moments (any moment in the story that seems profound to you).

2. List the Profound Moments, then tell briefly what made them profound for you.

Trainer Tom Smith: “Every horse is good for something… You don’t throw a whole life away just ‘cause he’s banged up a little.”
Profound: This mirrors the jockey’s life. As well as every human being deserves a second chance and to be treated kindly.

Seabiscuit is considered no good and taken from his mother.

Profound: Just as Jockey Red Pollard was forced to leave his parents at a young age, so was Seabiscuit. Their lives mirror one another’s.

Jockey Red Pollard and Seabiscuit are both beaten down at every turn by life.

Profound: They represent the underdog. They mirror each other in many ways.

Trainer Tom Smith sees into horses hearts, beyond the outer appearance. He can see their worth.

Profound: He sees the worth in human beings as well and finds two kindred spirits in Seabiscuit and the Jockey.

Trainer Tom Smith asks Jockey Red to run Seabiscuit until he stops.

Profound: Both Horse and Rider rediscover the freedom and joy in life again.

Owner Charles Howard: “Sometimes when the little guy doesn’t know he’s a little guy, he can do great, big things.”

Profound: Perspective is more powerful than anyone can imagine.

After Seabiscuit’s first win, people from lower income levels attend the next race. Everyone loves an underdog.
Profound: Seabiscuit brings people together, lifts a despondent nation, at a time when everyone needed to believe in something more than ever.

Owner Charles Howard: “Sometimes all someone needs is a second chance.”

Profound: This is true for anyone, human beings and animals.

When they discover the Jockey is blind in one eye, Trainer Tom Smith wants to get rid of him. But Owner Charles Howard repeats Trainer’s own words back to him: “You don’t throw a whole life away just because he’s banged up a little bit.”
Profound: This is the Trainer’s philosophy and the Owner now believes it.

Owner Charles Howard: “I’d rather have a horse like this than a hundred War Admirals.”
Profound: He has so much faith in Seabiscuit and Jockey Red Pollard, he refuses to give up on them, no matter what anyone says about them.

Owner Charles Howard: “ Our horse is too small. Our Jockey is too big. Our Trainer is too old. And I’m too dumb to know the difference.”
Profound: The Owner believes in his team. His faith and upbeat attitude is infectious. He sees passed outward appearances and keeps everyone’s hope alive within the sound of his voice.

Seabiscuit and Jockey Red Pollard both acquire severe injuries.
Profound: Both are given the diagnosis that they will never race again.

Seabiscuit and Jockey Red Pollard help each other recover from their terrible injuries.
Profound: They are very much individuals yet, they each need the other to overcome their trials.

Owner Charles Howard doesn’t want Red Pollard to ride because he may never be able to walk again if he has another injury. Jockey George Woolf tells him: “I think it’s better to break a man’s leg than his heart.”

Profound: Even when one is not able to walk, one is still alive. But a broken spirit is the same as death.

Red Pollard referring to Seabiscuit: “We kind of fixed each other.”
Profound: Horse and Rider needed each other. They were stronger together. They brought the entire nation together. They represented that no matter what one goes through, the future can have moments of brightness and hope.

ASSIGNMENT 2

——————-

Lauren’s Turns Insights Into Action

What I learned doing this assignment:

How to present the New Ways through Action.
I need to work on this skill a lot more but I’m really enjoying learning the process of creating profound moments.

1. Create a list of the New Ways and Insights you’d like audiences to experience when they watch your movie.

New Ways:
(Solution State:) She forgives herself for her crimes, sacrifices herself, saving the victims of sex slavery and destroys the trafficking group.

(Her new way of being can be described as:)

Openhearted
Brokenhearted over her evil deeds
Her freewill has returned
Loves the trafficked children and will sacrifice herself to save them
Dies in the process of destroying the ring

Insights:
1 Even after doing horrible things, one can change their life and do something good for others.
2 Looking outside oneself and serving others can be the beginning of a transformation into a higher self.
3 Our life’s purpose is usually right in front of us our entire lives.

4 Forgiving ourselves is the first step in healing.

5 Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

6 Sacrificing oneself for others can begin the healing process.

7 Life can change in an instant.

8 Dreams of the one sometimes must be set aside for the dreams of many innocents.

9 Life can be truly unfair. But there’s usually a reason.

2. With that list, brainstorm ways to turn the New Ways / Insights into Action. Come up with at least five (5) New Ways and the Action that will express them.

1 New Way / Insight: Looking outside of oneself and serving others can be the beginning of a transformation into a higher self.

Action: The woman gives her meager portion of food to three starving children within the compound. She stands a little taller afterwards, a small smile breaks across her face.

2 New Way / Insight: Death and sacrifice can bring life and renewal.

Action: The woman leads the rest of the children out of the compound and tells them to run to Asher. She reenters and destroys the compound with members of the organization inside. Asher and the children watch the compound burn.

3 New Way / Insight: Life can be truly unfair. But there’s usually a reason.

Action: The woman wakes in the organ harvesting portion of the compound. She’s in tremendous pain after the surgery. She discovers other children there that she’s never seen before. She makes the decision to help them. She finds the weakness in the organization.

4 New Way / Insight: Life can change in an instant.

Action: The woman meets her brother, Asher. He recounts her life with her real family. She suddenly knows where she comes from and learns she wasn’t thrown away.

5 New Way / Insight: Our life’s purpose is usually right in front of us our entire lives.

Action: The woman comforts a child who’s been recently beaten. She tends to his wounds, helps him eat and drink. She searches the faces of the other children and smiles. She’s determined to change what’s happening.

6 New Way / Insight: Sacrificing oneself for others can begin the healing process.

Action: A child is caught hiding a piece of bread in his pocket and is about to be punished. The woman rushes the guard, knocking him over. She is beaten in the child’s place.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Living Metaphors

What I learned doing this assignment:

Two ways to create subtle challenges to more easily cause the audience to question their beliefs regarding the subject of the story: 1. Should work, but doesn’t and 2. Living metaphors which challenge the Old Ways.

Brainstorm at least five of each of today’s challenges that you can put in your screenplay.

1. Go through your story outline or script and brainstorm the following:

– 5 Should Work, But Doesn’t challenges

1 Old Way: She doesn’t care about the children she kidnaps. This is merely a job.

Challenge: One child hugs the woman and doesn’t let go. Hugs are something she hasn’t experienced throughout most of her life. She yells at the child to stop and calls her names but she won’t let go. The child’s tenacity and desperation softens the woman. The woman doesn’t reciprocate yet she stops yelling and emotionally abusing the child.

2 Old Way: Accepting the organization as the main controller and decision maker of every aspect of her life without question.

Challenge: She discovers what they’re actually doing with the kidnapped children. She must ask questions, look further into what’s going on and secretively go behind the backs of those she once put all her trust in.

3 Old Way: She only thinks about her own survival without concern for anyone else.

Challenge: She cries over the mangled dead body of the child who hugged her so tightly. She feels deep emotions for someone else.

4 Old Way: She believes her real family abandoned her and sold her to the organization. She was told her real family doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Challenge: Her brother, Asher, takes a chance when the woman is working the street collecting children to tell her about her beginnings, that she was wanted, their mother was murdered and he suspects the organization kidnapped her. She doesn’t believe Asher yet the information hits her hard.

5 Old Way: The woman is beaten and starved to keep her in line.

Challenge: She discovers the same marks on one of the children as she has. This begins to bring her out of her brainwashed stupor and see reality.

– 5 Living Metaphor challenges

1 Old Way: The woman believes her family abandoned her and never loved her.

Living Metaphor: The photograph

Challenge: Asher gives the woman a photograph he’s been carrying for many years. It’s the woman as a small child hugging her mother. Her mother looks just like her now.

2 Old Way: The woman is clearly malnourished but doesn’t know this isn’t normal.

Living Metaphor: The food

Challenge: A child passes her on the street, looks back at her with sad eyes and whispers to her father. A little while later, the child returns and hands the woman a sandwich. What’s this for? asks the woman. You eat it, says the child, you look like you haven’t eaten in days.

3 Old Way: She is heartless and unfeeling toward the children.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s necklace

Challenge: Asher wears a leather necklace with dozens of score marks on it. He explains that each cut on the necklace represents a child he’s saved from sex trafficking.

4 Old Way: The woman believes the organization treats her okay and she is lucky to be cared for the way she is.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s wounds

Challenge: Asher shows the woman wounds on his body from his time in an orphanage when he was growing up. He tells her this isn’t how children or any human being should be treated. Later, back at the compound, the woman considers her own scars as well as the fresh wounds across her body.

5 Old Way: The woman doesn’t think kidnapping children is wrong because the organization says they place them in wealthy families where they have better opportunities.

Living Metaphor: Asher’s proof

Challenge: Asher shows the woman his documented research of the true motives of the organization. He asks her why the organization never placed her in a wealthy family after they kidnapped her.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Lauren DeCicco.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Lauren DeCicco.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Counterexamples

What I learned doing this assignment:

Two challenge techniques: Questioning and Counterexample. The process of creating these techniques. How to create counterexamples by having them occur through character, experience and dialogue.

Brainstorm at least 5 Question challenged and 5 Counterexamples you can put in your screenplay.

1. Go through your story outline or script and brainstorm the following:

– 5 Question Challenges to an Old Way.

Questioning how her brother, Asher, could work against her and the organization which has raised her and cared for her.

Questioning how the organization can lie to her about what is actually happening to the children.

Questioning how she could act so coldly and treat the children so poorly all these years.

Questioning why she never suspected the real motives of the organization when they’ve mistreated her all her life.

Questioning why she has only thought about herself and her own survival.

Questioning why it never occurred to her the organization has nefarious motives.

– 5 Counterexamples to an Old Way.

Old Way: The woman is unemotional and heartless in general but especially in how she treats the children.

Counterexample through Character: When she meets her brother, Asher, on the street he says he’s been watching her treatment of the children she takes. He struggles to hold back tears of joy at finding his little sister after a lifetime of searching for her. There is also tremendous sadness from seeing how poorly she treats the children when she places them in the vehicles. The woman is struck by Asher’s empathy for trafficked children.

Old Way: She is brutalized, starved by the organization to keep her in check.

Counterexample through Dialogue: Asher tells her of her past and the life she once lived, there’s a better way to live.

Asher: This isn’t the sister I knew when we were little. She was kind to everyone. She loved and cared for even the smallest creature. You were brought up in a loving home. Our mom did all she could to make us happy and feel loved. It isn’t right what they’re doing to you in that place.

Old Way: She doesn’t care about the children she kidnaps. This is merely a job.

Counterexample through Experience: The organization performs surgery/removes organs, she wakes to find some of the children she’s taken who’ve gone through the same thing. She sees their pain, the exact pain she is feeling.

Old Way: She believes everyone exists at this meager level, this is normal.

Counterexample through Character: Asher confronts her with what a normal life looks like. She takes in his nice clothes and polite manners. He tries to give her money. She refuses for fear of repercussions. His appearance and manners strike her as someone who is well off. Perhaps there is another way of life within her reach.

Old Way: The woman does whatever she’s told by the organization even when it’s wrong, immoral, criminal.

Counterexample through Dialogue: She learns how Asher has dedicated his life to slowing down trafficking and making it more difficult for traffickers.

Asher: I watched our mom die. I was taken and placed in an orphanage. I’ve spent my entire life looking for you. When I learned there was a possibility you were caught up in this lifestyle, I tasked my group to stop at nothing to find you and do anything we can to slow the progress of those who took you. Mom’s final words to me were, Asher- you must find your sister.

[Lauren DeCicco]

ASSIGNMENT 1

Lauren’s 12 Angry Men Analysis

What I learned doing this assignment:

The Setups and Old Ways were outlined within the first ten minutes. Within acts two and three every Old Way is challenged and the Setups are paid off until the outcome is unanimous for a not guilty verdict.

Old Way:
The person on trial is not my problem and this has nothing to do with me.

Challenges:
This boy may be executed by not discussing it through first.
The witnesses for the prosecution could be wrong.
Juror 8 says: “Suppose you were the one who’s on trial?”
There is honor in serving on a jury to make decisions on a stranger’s life.
One cannot play with another man’s life.

Old Way:
Assumptions about the defendant because of his race.

Challenges:
One juror says that only ignorant people believe they’re liars. w
Why believe one person of this race and not another person of the same race. Putting oneself in the place of the person on trial.
After the juror with a cold says the boy “don’t” speak english, the European juror corrects his grammar.
The racist juror who spews hatred about the boy is now all alone in his hatred during his diatribe.

Old Way:
Being entertained and fighting boredom is more important than the person’s life at stake.

Challenges:
When two jurors are playing tic-tac-toe to pass the time, juror 8 crumples the paper and says, “This isn’t a game.”

Old Way:
The things going on in my life and my time are more important than a person in a life or death situation.

Challenges:
It’s only one night of deliberation.
It’s not too much too ask as a boy’s life is at stake.

Old Way:
Kids from the slums are the worst of humanity.

Challenges:
One of the jurors grew up in a slum and takes offense at the remarks about kids who grew up in slums.
His knowledge of switchblades and that the boy couldn’t have stabbed his father changes the minds of a few other jurors.

Old Way:
Very impressed with the attorneys and their presentation of the case because of how compelling they were. The prosecution witnesses are all believed without question.

Challenges:
Perhaps the prosecution isn’t quite that talented or intelligent.
Testimony should be accurate and perhaps the witness couldn’t have heard the boy say he was going to kill her father because the train was so noisy and he gave false testimony because after living as an insignificant person his entire life, he’s finally getting attention.
Witnesses can make mistakes.
When under stress it’s very difficult to recall details.
The female witness may have been trying to impress everyone by trying to look younger. But the marks on her nose indicates she wears glasses and perhaps didn’t actually see the boy murder his father.

Old Way:
All kids are awful human beings who must be beaten to transform them into adults.

Challenge:
The final hold out juror realizes his problem is with his own child and not this innocent defendant.

ASSIGNMENT 2

Lauren’s Old Ways Challenge Chart

What I learned doing this assignment:

The subtly of crafting challenges which bring the audience along on the journey instead of putting the audience off. The process of delicately revealing the message one is trying to convey within the story.

List of Old Ways and Challenges:

Old Way: unemotional, heartless
Challenge: struck by her brother’s empathy for trafficked children

Old Way: focused on her own survival
Challenge: discovers the plans the organization has for the children, she begins to care for the children, wants to save them, realizes she must care for someone other than herself

Old Way: brutalized, starved by the organization to keep her in check
Challenge: Her brother tells her of her past and the life she once lived, there’s a better way to live

Old Way: doesn’t care about the children she kidnaps
Challenge: the organization performs surgery/removes organs, she wakes to find others who’ve gone through the same thing

Old Way: the children are heading for a better life with wealthy families, this is clearly better than living on the street or in poor environments
Challenge: discovers the children are being sold across the world to other nefarious organizations

Old Way: everyone exists at this meager level, this is normal
Challenge: Her brother confronts her with what a normal life looks like

Old Way: the organization must be obeyed not matter what
Challenge: discovers the children are being sold into sex trafficking and realizes the organization must be stopped

Old Way: does whatever she’s told by the organization even when it’s wrong, immoral, criminal Challenge: Learns how her brother has dedicated his life to slowing down trafficking and making it more difficult for traffickers

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Profound Ending

What I learned doing this assignment:

The process of designing a profound ending. The ending starts with the profound truth and then the four other keys express this in a powerful way: Lead character ending, setups which become powerful payoffs, the surprising yet inevitable and the final image or saying that sticks with the audience.

1. What is your Profound Truth?

Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

How will it be delivered powerfully in your ending?

The woman understands she is the only one who can save the children/destroy the organization. She sacrifices herself for the children knowing she alone can accomplish this. She aids in rescuing the children within the compound, delivering them to her brother, Asher, and his group. The woman gives Asher a keepsake she’s been holding onto since she was a little girl. Asher understands when she gives it back to him, she’s not coming back and will die in the compound.

2. How do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change?

(The Change: No matter how awful someone’s beginnings are, people have the ability to transform into their best selves.)

The woman (Transformable Character):

From: having no self worth and being taught to feel little if anything for the children she’s been collecting most of her life To: dying to save them.

Asher Young, the woman’s brother (Change Agent):

From: searching his entire life for his sister To: having enough strength to let her sacrifice herself knowing this is what she must do to heal herself.

3. What are the setup/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it deep meaning?

Setup: The organization has taken everything from the woman.
Payoff: They must suffer and must do so at the hands of the one they took everything from.

Setup: Asher tells her she has self worth and doesn’t have to live this life of crime anymore. She still has goodness inside her and can change.
Payoff: She finally believes him and realizes she can die knowing she did something good for the first time in her life.

Setup: Will the woman and Asher live in peace and be able to reconnect after so many years apart, on the opposite ends of child trafficking?
Payoff: They won’t however, they understand each other and why she must die.

Setup: Can the woman and Asher get along enough to save her and the children?
Payoff: The woman dies in the final act of saving the children and delivering them into the safety of Asher and his group.

Setup: Will the organization get away with their crimes?
Payoff: No, they’re destroyed.

4. How are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making it surprising when it happens?

Asher wants her to escape with the children. He and his group plan how they’re going to go inside the compound and detonate the explosives. The woman convinces him that as she knows the compound and where the members are at all times. She must be the one who sets the detonators. She says she will be able to get out in time but decides that the only way to destroy the organization is to remain and die with the members.

5. What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds?

Profound Truth: Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

What final image or final line can express that powerfully?

The woman hands Asher a note, grabs the detonator and runs into the compound. She turns back, waves to him. Asher reads the childlike handwritten note from his sister: Thank you for showing me my worth. I finally know why I’m alive.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Connection with Audience

What I learned doing this assignment:

The four ways to connect intentionally with the audience so it ensures they go on the journey and experience the character transformation. The Transformable Character and the Change Agent must be the focus because they experience the purest form of the journey.

1. Tell us which characters you are going to INTENTIONALLY create a connection with the audience.

The woman (Transformational Character)
Her brother (Change Agent)

2. With each character, tell us how you’ll use each of the four ways of connecting with the audience in the first 30 minutes of the movie.

A. Relatability

The woman (Transformational Character): Her instinct to survive no matter what the circumstances are is very strong.

Her brother (Change Agent): He wants to save his sister from her hellish life; he won’t give up on her.

B. Intrigue

The woman (Transformational Character): Why does she do these horrible things? Why doesn’t she run when she’s outside the compound collecting children?

Her brother (Change Agent): How did he know how to find her? How did he acquire the skills to hunt down sex traffickers? Why does he care what happens to his sister if she’s a member of this terrible organization?

C. Empathy

The woman (Transformational Character): Her existence is bleak, she’s horribly mistreated, she’s clearly moved by the visit with her brother. There’s a good human being trapped inside her somewhere.

Her brother (Change Agent): He watched the murder of his mother and the kidnapping of his sister. He was too young to stop what happened to them.

D. Likability

The woman (Transformational Character): She has a similar sense of humor as her brother. She’s somehow retained her humor even after all she’s been through. She shows small acts of kindness to the children: loosens the handcuffs on them when the driver isn’t looking and/or gives a piece of candy/sip of water to another.

Her brother (Change Agent): He genuinely loves his sister and has an affable personality despite his past. He’s spent much of his life tracking down and assassinating sex traffickers.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Day 6 Assignment: Lauren’s Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment:
The Mini Movie Method! I was so happy to see this covered in our lessons. I’d been wanting to learn about this process.
I learned how to choose the character to send on the journey, how to incorporate the Transformational logline into each MM, the process of filling in the different aspects of the Three Gradients and how to escalate the challenges throughout their journey. This assignment was somewhat daunting at first but as I took each MM and the Turning Points, it became easier to see how everything I’ve created thus far worked nicely within the structure.

1. Tell us your Transformational Logline.

An indoctrinated woman, raised by a trafficking organization, kidnaps children but when she discovers they’re being sold across the world, she sacrifices herself to free the children and destroy the organization.

2. Tell us who the main character will be:

Transformational Character: the woman enslaved by the trafficking organization

3. List out your Mini-Movie structure, (or whatever structure you’ve chosen) for your story.

MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.

—She lives within the confines/rules of the organization without question. The organization keeps her malnourished and abuses her physically, emotionally and psychologically to keep her in check. She’s been brainwashed into believing they care for her and that these experiences are normal. She collects children off the streets, chains them up in the collecting vehicles, places them in cells at the compound. On the streets she’s sweet to lure the children, as she’s been taught. When at the compound she treats them without feeling for their fear and cruel treatment by the others at the organization.

Turning Point: Call to Adventure.

— Lashes out at/questions the organization after discovering they’re selling the orphans; discovers there’s a possibility the children are being sold into sex trafficking across the world instead of being placed with adoptive families. She confronts the org but they assure her this is false. She continues working the streets, gathering children but has serious doubts regarding the organization’s true operations.

MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.

—Her brother finds her working the streets, collecting children. He tells her he’s been searching for her since she was kidnapped by the organization when she was six years old, of her true beginnings and the truth about what the organization is really doing with the children she and the others have been collecting. He tells her it doesn’t matter what she’s done, she is worth saving as much as the children are. Her brother’s information regarding her real family flies in the face of everything she believes about the organization; She runs from her brother even though he can rescue her from her half life. She doesn’t believe she has self-worth. She doesn’t believe the org should be destroyed as they’re a force for good.

Turning Point: Locked in.

— Her whole world begins to crumble. Her mind cracks and she relives the encounter with this person who says he’s her brother –Who am I? Am I really helping these children?– Must save the children and returns to the compound with increasing doubts about the org. He must be an imposter: she mistakes her brother as an evil force even more than the organization is; thinks she can convince the organization to change their operations.

MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.

—Thinks there must be a mistake: she tries to change what’s happening and asks the organization to help stop the sale of children; tries to free the children. Gets severely reprimanded. She scours the compound looking for clues as to what the true nature of the org is. She secretly asks her fellow child collectors about what could be going on- Have they heard/seen anything suspicious? Do they have proof of the real operations? Where do the vanishing children really go if not to wealthy families? Tries to discover a weakness in the organization to stop it. Goes against the entity she looks up to and who has provided all she’s known of family. She has the opportunity to escape.

Turning Point: Standard ways fail.

—She escapes and tells the authorities what the organization is doing. They’re in on the whole operation. Her brother and his friends try to take her from the authorities. Her brother tells her the org must be destroyed. He recounts the past: the organization killed their mother and kidnaped her. He now hunts sex traffickers and has tracked them back to this organization which is holding her against her will. There’s a fire fight- her brother fails to rescue her as there are too many officers. The authorities return her to the organization.

MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.

—The trust the organization placed in her to be able to leave the compound and be an honorable member of the organization is now gone. They no longer allow her to leave the compound.

Turning Point: Plan backfires. (MIDPOINT falls here)

—She tries to overthrow the organization from within. She’s caught. They knock her out, sedate her.

MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.

—She wakes transformed, a shadow of her former self, within a secret portion of the compound she never knew existed: The organ harvesting wing. She discovers large portions of her body now have poorly sewn stitches: across her abdomen and lower back. Children are there too- all have similar badly performed surgeries. Living in a nightmare, she realizes everything she’s believed about the people who raised her are lies: these are inhuman criminals. Her brother was right.

Turning Point: The decision to change.

—She sees the dead bodies piled up along the floor and half dead children: children she aided in luring to this horrific place. Her heart aches at the sight, the emotional/physical pain scorches her, it’s unbearable. She loves them and knows only she has a chance to save them. She knows she must sacrifice herself to save them. She’s been given this divine opportunity, placed in this position to save these precious lives. Lives she herself has unknowingly endangered.

MM #6– Pages 75 – 90 – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.

—Recognizes her brother is her true kin; Sacrifices herself to defeat the only family she’s known. Contacts her brother and his friends, she’s ready to be rescued. Uses a secret network to reach her brother and provides him with how to enter the compound.

Turning Point: The ultimate failure.

—One of the other child collectors rats her out. As punishment, the organization forces her to choose the next group of children to be sold. She refuses and she’s beaten until unconscious.

MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!

—She finds the weakness in the organization. Not sure what this is yet.

Turning Point: Apparent victory.

— Her brother and his friends break into the compound, free some of the children and try to rescue her. She refuses to go with the group to rescue the remaining children. She gives up her new dream of starting over and reconnecting with her brother.

MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.

— She dies in the process of saving the remaining children, hoping to absolve herself for her crimes.

Turning Point: New status quo.

— She dies yet she has destroyed the organization.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Three Gradients

What I learned doing this assignment:

-Finding a coping mechanism for each weakness needs to be improved upon. I think I’m getting bogged down with too many details at this point.

-How to build the change into multiple levels of the story.

-The purpose of a gradient in a movie is to take natural steps that keep an audience engaged.

-How the Emotional Gradient reveals itself:
Setup –> Emotional Journey –> Final Payoff

-Old versus New Ways: These were a challenge for me in the MSC. I’m hoping I can improve upon this aspect and create better challenges and traits for the MC, forcing the change.

1. What is the Emotional Gradient you’ll use?

Forced Change.

2. For each emotion of that gradient, tell us the following:

A. Emotion: DENIAL

B. Action: She lives within the confines/rules of the organization without question.

C. Challenge / Weakness:
C: The organization keeps her malnourished and abuses her physically, emotionally and psychologically to keep her in check.
W: She’s been brainwashed into believing they care for her and these experiences are normal.

A. Emotion: ANGER

B. Action: Lashes out at the organization after discovering they’re trafficking the orphans; runs from her brother even though he can rescue her from the organization

C. Challenge / Weakness:
C: Her brother’s information regarding her real family flies in the face of everything she believes about the organization; she’s punished by the organization and has some of her organs harvested, becoming weaker/no longer allowed outside the compound

W: Mistakes her brother as an evil force even more than the organization is; thinks she can convince the organization to change their operations.

A. Emotion: BARGAINING

B. Action: Thinks there must be a mistake: she tries to change what’s happening and asks the organization to help stop the sale of children; tries to free the children

C. Challenge / Weakness:
C: Tries to discover a weakness in the organization to stop it
W: Goes against the entity she looks up to and who has provided all she’s known of family

A. Emotion: DEPRESSION

B. Action: Finds a way to escape but plans to destroy the organization and save the children.

C. Challenge / Weakness:

C: Has the opportunity to escape and leave her life of pain behind
W: Loves the trafficked children and knows she must sacrifice herself to save them,

A. Emotion: ACCEPTANCE

B. Action: Recognizes her brother is her true kin; Sacrifices herself to defeat the only family she’s known

C. Challenge / Weakness:
C: Must believe her brother is telling the truth, gives up her new dream of having a life with her brother; Destroys the organization she believed were her family;

W: Dies in the process of saving some of the children, hoping to absolve herself for her crimes

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Lead Characters

What I learned doing this assignment: There are characters who must do specific things to have a Transformational story- the Change Agent, the Transformable character, the Oppression and the Betraying Character. The Oppression causes the vision of the Change Agent to stand out. All of these characters can change later on as more of the puzzle is discovered.

1. Tell us your transformational journey logline.

An indoctrinated woman, raised by a trafficking organization, kidnaps children but when she discovers they’re being sold across the world, she sacrifices herself to free the children and destroy the organization.

2. Tell us who you think might be your Change Agent and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.

The Change Agent is the woman’s brother. He fits because he is who the woman could’ve been if she’d never been taken by the organization. He grew up free to live his life the way he wanted to.

– Their vision: The woman is worth saving no matter what she’s done in her past. All of the organization must be destroyed.

– Their past experience that fits that vision: The organization killed his mother and kidnaped his sister. He now hunts sex traffickers and has tracked them back to this organization which is holding his sister.

3. Tell us who you think might be your Transformable Character(s) and give a few sentences about how that character or characters fit the role.

The Transformable Character is the woman. She fits the role because she has the most to change. She is the one who can save the children as she grew up in the same situation as they’re in now. She’s deep within the heart of the organization and knows its weaknesses.

4. Tell us who or what you think might be The Oppression and give a few sentences about how The Oppression works in your story.

The Oppression is the organization and the horrifying success of human trafficking. It’s everywhere. They control every aspect of the woman’s life. They’ve brainwashed her to believe she has has no real family. She believes they’ve given her everything. They promote the idea that there is no better life than gathering children from the streets and bringing them into the organization.

5. Tell us who you think might be your Betraying Character and give a few sentences about how that character fits the role.

The Betraying Character is one of her peers in the organization who rats out the woman. They fit this role because there could be jealously involved as to why they turn on her. They believe, or the organization makes them think, she’s treated better than any of them. They can’t shake the lie they’ve been fed and can’t deal with the woman succeeding in her new ways.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Transformational Journey

What I learned doing this assignment:

The process of how to write a transformational logline using the Old Ways, New Ways and the Transformational Journey. It’s okay to not have all the answers or even good answers at this point as this is a puzzle which still needs to be put together.

1. Tell us your logline for the transformational journey.

An indoctrinated woman, raised by a trafficking organization, kidnaps children but when she discovers they’re being sold across the world, she sacrifices herself to free the children and destroy the organization.

2. Tell us what you see as the Old Ways (The Problem State):

Problem State: With a ruthless, uncaring attitude, she works for the organization as a pied piper, gathering children to be used in sex trafficking rings.

Her Old Way of being can be described as:

Her Main Rule: Help the organization succeed as they are all she knows of family.
Brainwashed
Focused on her own survival
Believes she’s helping children have a better life other than living on the street
Breaks the law, criminal
Unemotional
Heartless
Brutalized, starved by the organization to keep her in check

3. Tell us what you see as the New Ways (The Solution State):

Solution State: She forgives herself for her crimes, sacrifices herself, saving the victims and destroys the organization.

Her New Way of being can be described as:

Brokenhearted over her evil deeds
Gains her freewill
Loves the trafficked children and will sacrifice herself to save them
Dies in the process of destroying the organization

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s First Three Decisions

What I learned doing this assignment:

The difference between the profound truth and the change the story will cause with the audience. These seemed very similar at first. Now I realize even though there are elements which are the same, they are two very distinct aspects of the story.

1. What is your profound truth?

Every human being has divine value and a purpose only they can fulfill.

2. What is the change your movie will cause with an audience?

No matter how awful someone’s beginnings are, people have the ability to transform into their best selves.

3. What is your Entertainment Vehicle that you will tell this story through?

The Cause is the Background.

[Lauren DeCicco]

Lauren’s Analysis of Groundhog Day

What I learned doing this assignment:

When I watched Groundhog Day before, I hadn’t noticed the subtleties in Phil’s journey and the gradient of change he experiences. In Hal’s opening teleconference, the point really struck me regarding the Transformable Character- How this character will emulate the Change Agent and become like them. Phil became like Rita. This was more pronounced when I watched it this time through. Phil’s human nature stood out to me more as he becomes worse in his actions before he begins to transform into a better person and learns from his mistakes. If Phil had done everything perfectly right away there would not be much of a story. His learning curve is what makes it more interesting and more profound.

What is the CHANGE this movie is about?
People have the ability to transform into their best possible selves.

What is the Transformational Journey of this movie?
Phil begins as a self-centered egomaniac who lives only for himself to a completely selfless and generous person who cherishes every moment.

Lead characters:

Who is the Change Agent (the one causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the change?
Rita is the Change Agent. She’s the right character to cause the change because she’s the exact opposite of Phil and he wants to be with her the very moment he sees her. Rita is also the most difficult person to sway when Phil is in his Old Ways. To be with Rita, Phil has to transform himself otherwise it will never work no matter what he tries.

Who is the Transformable Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right character to deliver this profound journey?
Phil is the Transformable Character who makes the change. He’s the right character to deliver the profound journey because he is the most extreme character, the worst character, the one who has the most to lose and the most to change.

What is the Oppression?
Not being able to escape experiencing the same day over and over again. Being caught in a perpetual time loop of the same day.

How are we lured into the profound journey?
Will Phil ever be free from the nightmare of reliving the same day?
What is Phil going to do when he must experience the same day over and over again?

What causes us to connect with this story?
Wondering- What would I do in this situation? Would I change? Would I become a better person? Would I learn from my mistakes?
Everyone has weaknesses and difficulties overcoming something. We’re all a little like Phil in some way. He’s like an exaggerated every man.

Looking at the character(s) who are changed the most, what is the profound journey?

From “old ways” to “new way of being.”

Identify their old way: Phil is full of himself, overly confident, inconsiderate of others. He doesn’t have a high opinion of Punxsutawney or groundhogs, he thinks people are morons, he uses sarcasm as a weapon, he can’t spare any change or a warm drink or even a smile for a homeless man. He’s completely self absorbed and habitually takes advantage of others. He’s obsessed with his own betterment even at other’s expense.

Identify their new way at the conclusion:
Phil’s genuinely interested in other people. He cares about others more than himself. He lives in the moment without a care for how he can be benefited. He feels and thinks outwardly.

What is the gradient the change?
Phil is at first incredibly dismayed and disturbed by his predicament of reliving the same terrible day.
A small but positive change occurs when he helps drive his bar friends home because they’re too drunk.
Discovering what it’s like to do anything he wants without consequences is a major breakthrough.
He asks Rita about her interests and learns everything about her.
Then he proceeds to create his vision of the perfect day with her.
When he fails to sleep with Rita, he becomes withdrawn once again.
Reality sets in that living every day repeatedly is a meager existence.
Phil attempts suicide. Every day.
Realizes he can’t die and thinks he must be a god.
Shares his true feelings about Rita.
Shares his money. Brings Rita and Larry breakfast and asks their opinion regarding the setup for shooting the Punxsutawney Phil story.
Phil finds joy in living and takes up many many hobbies.
Phil wants to save the dying homeless man’s life every day yet always fails.
Doing good deeds around town is his passion now.
He lives selflessly, in the moment and tells Rita how he feels without sarcasm and without worrying about tomorrow.

What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing?
Phil first had to experience shock, irritation and depression.
Then acceptance, then the realization that he can live without worrying about the consequences of his actions, which brings excitement, taking advantage of people.
He realizes he can’t win the woman he loves by utilizing these techniques and tries to commit suicide. But after he lives through it, he believes he’s a god.
He truly falls in love with Rita and becomes generous and gives his money away, cares about other people’s thoughts, living for others.
Shedding his learned old ways because they no longer get him what he wants, he adopts his new ways, which mirror how Rita lives her life.

How is the “old way” challenged?
Phil is stuck with people he hates and cannot escape them no matter what he does. He can’t get his wants met. Rita doesn’t accept Phil existing in his old ways.

What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?
Phil’s goal in life is to make himself happy. He believes he’s the most important person on earth. He’ll step on people and take advantage of anyone if it means a better life for himself.

What are the most profound moments of the movie?
Having the opportunity to live free of consequences and what this looks like for Phil.
Phil’s switch from utter depression to supreme joy at the luck of living the same day again and again.
The idea that you only live once- but, what if you could only live once every day?
Phil commits suicide not realizing the good fortune he has fallen into.
He tells Rita he loves her and means it and says he doesn’t deserve her.
Phil gives his money to the homeless man.
He selflessly serves others.
Phil doesn’t care about tomorrow anymore. He lives in the present and is happy.

What are the most profound lines of the movie?
“What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.”
“Sometimes you just have to take the big chances.”
“I don’t worry about anything anymore.”
“Sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes.”
“No matter what happens tomorrow or for the rest of my life, I’m happy now because I love you.”
“Is there anything I can do for you today?”

How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?
The homeless man passing away is very powerful after seeing Phil ignore him before.
All of Phil’s failed attempts at winning Rita over show that all his tricks won’t work. He must break the old ways, become his transformed, new ways self.
To see how badly Phil has acted and ruthlessly treated people and then to see how giving he is and how many people he’s served at the end, packs a powerful punch.

What is the Profound Truth of this movie?

Living only for oneself is a wasted life.

[Lauren DeCicco]

1. Name? Lauren

2. How many scripts you’ve written? Two features, three shorts.

3. What you hope to get out of the class? A better understanding of the Profound model and how to incorporate the skills into scripts.

4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you? Oh goodness. Well, I willingly ate liver as a small child. Is that strange? XD

I’m happy to be finally taking this class! Looking forward to meeting everyone.

[Lauren DeCicco]

I, Lauren DeCicco, agree to the terms of this release form.

GROUP RELEASE FORM

As a member of this group, I agree to the following:

1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.

2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.

I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.

3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.

4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.

5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.

6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.