Lynne Heatley
Forum Replies Created
-
What I learned doing this assignment is: My play needs to be largely deconstructed and redone, carefully working on all that I’ve leaned, one lesson at a time.
TITLE: Of Stigma and Grace
WRITTEN BY: Lynne Heatley
What is Your Profound Truth? Secrets are destructive. Love is infinite. People want to know who they are.
2. What is the Transformational Journey?
A teacher’s marriage ends after ten years when her husband finds out she had a son adopted out at birth; a son whose parallel story of early fatherhood culminates with mother and son being reunited after nearly thirty years.
The Old Ways:Social mores in 1956 dictate that a pregnant girl yield her child to adoption. Desperation/hiding/secrecy/trying to find a way to keep her child/learning to hide pain/constant internal silence/suffering with subsequent childlessness/concentrating on her career.
The New Ways: Adoption Act 1985 allows searching/love of own flesh and blood/joy in discovery of another/breaking silence/expanded lifestyle/extended family/expanded outlook.
3. Who are Your Lead Characters?
A young teacher who loses her son to adoption. The son. The husband.
The Change Agent is the son. He provides answers for his natural mother. He also needs to satisfy the silent connection that he feels. His life with his adoptive parents disintegrates and his need for his natural mother grows in proportion to his parents’ rejection.
A Transformable Character is the natural mother whose life changes through pregnancy. My character enters a world of unrequited pain, total silence, (friends and colleagues) and people pleasing (the future husband). Her recreated world collapses with the end of her marriage.
Betraying character — several.The person who recognizes Ros thirteen years later and leaks her secret/The husband who reacts without even asking his wife if the hearsay is true/Her son’s adoptive parents who love him initially but then despise him.
The Oppression for the Transformable Character is to be coerced into yielding her child for adoption. The attitude of her husband when they were engaged means she can never tell him her secret and thus she lives with the oppression of daily silence.
4. How Do You Connect With Your Audience in the Beginning of the Movie?
Ros -Transformational Character.
Relatability: This script is consciously created for the thousands of unmarried mothers who for many decades were coerced/forced into giving up their children for adoption in countries all over the world. Today unmarried girls can choose to keep their babies and the day will come in the not too distant future when all those bereft mothers will have died. This is their story, of life-long silent grief and impact that can never be undone. We see Ros finding herself pregnant. We learn from her the circumstances and see some of her pregnancy journey.
Intrigue: Ros marries some years later. A chance discussion makes her future husband’s views on the subject very clear and Ros chooses to stay silent. We wonder if the secret will remain so forever.
Empathy: We have seen the forces of society conspire to force Ros to yield her child against every instinct in her body. We have seen the judgement and treatment of medical staff.
Likability: Ros is an ordinary girl whose life changes forever in one night. She blames herself for accepting the lift home from a dance that results in her rape (days before contraception) and her reasons for not choosing to force accountability. We can see ourselves in situations where we have chosen not to battle an issue. We see her trying to challenge the system and losing.
Matthew -(son) Transformational Character and Change Agent
Relatability: We meet him as a small child with an older brother, being told by his adoptive parents how he was ‘chosen’. We see Matt with his little boy language and way of understanding, his reactions, and the reactions and questions of his older (natural born) brother. Cute children.
Intrigue: We wonder what changes will happen as he grows and how the family story will end. We realize he’s Ros’s son and wonder whether they will ever meet -by chance or choice.
Empathy: We watch on several occasions as the family dynamic changes during Matt’s childhood following the arrival of a third son -whose birth was deemed impossible. Matthew is no longer needed as a playmate for the first born son.
Likability: We see Matt unable to please his adoptive parents. He understands instinctively that since his younger brother’s birth his place in the family has changed and he no longer fits the mould. We wonder if things will go from bad to worse or whether they will improve.
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
The “Forced Change” Emotional Gradient
Emotion Denial Ros avoids confronting her rapist.
Action Ros marries without disclosing her secret to her husband.
Challenge/Weakness She must now live with eternal silence and grieve her baby’s loss alone.
Emotion Anger Dave learns about Ros’s baby.
Action He ends the marriage.
Challenge/Weakness He asked no questions and seeks to rectify his childless marriage by remarrying, to no avail.
Emotion Bargaining Matt seeks parental support for his coming fatherhood.
Action He is thrown out of home.
Challenge/Weakness He finally realizes his parents have lost all feelings for him. Even at 18, he’s determined to create his own loving family.
Emotion Depression Dave receives a letter from (sister) Helen.
Action Dave realizes he has treated Ros badly, and denigrated his mother at the same time.
Challenge/Weakness He is contrite and seeks to make amends.
Emotion Acceptance
Action Matt arrives on Ros’s doorstep.
Challenge/Weakness To create a relationship and negotiate difficult questions.
The “Desired Change” Emotional Gradient
Emotion Excitement Ros meets a man she wants to marry.
Action She marries him.
Challenge/Weakness Disquiet that a scathing comment made about unmarried mothers during their engagement means Ros must keep her son’s birth three years prior a secret.
Emotion Doubt The marriage remains childless after ten years. Ros has realized the problem is with her husband.
Action Ros determines never to reveal her son’s existence.
Challenge/weakness Becomes a people pleaser and support for a controlling, ambitious husband.
Emotion Hope A background hope that one day she may know her son.
Action Throws a party for a new male staff member.
Challenge/weakness She realizes she’s been recognized by the man’s wife, from the time she gave birth. She wonders whether to confront her later to beg for her silence.
Emotion Discouragement Ros faces her husband’s fury when he’s told.
Action Moves several suburbs away and continues her career.
Challenge/weakness She has little to fill the void that the marriage papered over.
Emotion Courage Ros supports a fellow teacher whose child has found her.
Action Ros’ twenty-nine year old son finds her. They meet.
Challenge/weakness Having to fill in the missing years. Fear of ‘putting a foot wrong.’
Emotion Triumph The void inside her is filled.
Action Ros meets unknown extended family, including two grandchildren.
Challenge/weakness Sorrow that her son’s adoption had become a loveless match.There is now the challenge of presently living some distance apart.
6. What is the Transformational Structure of Your Story?
MM#1 Ros is raped following a dance, becomes pregnant and leaves town to have her baby and give him up for adoption. Baby Matthew is adopted by a couple with one son.
Turning Point: Call to Adventure. A move to start life anew amongst strangers.
MM#2 Ros marries in a town far away. Matthew is told he is ‘chosen’ by his adoptive parents.
Turning Point: Locked In. Doesn’t tell her husband about her child. Continues her career. Lives the secret.
MM#3 The couple feel the social pressure of the times but become tired of trying for a baby after 5 years.
Turning Point : Failure to solve problems. Decide that the focus on conceiving a child needs to go. Matthew’s hunger for his natural mother grows in proportion to his parents’ rejection of him with the birth of another son.
MM#4 Ten years childless, Ros and David welcome a new staff member. Ros is recognized non verbally. Ros resolves to follow up.
Turning Point: Plan backfires. The new wife tells Ros’s secret before Ros can talk to her.
MM#5 Husband learns of the baby, and ends the marriage.
Turning Point: The hero retreats, the antagonist wins. Ros’ carefully constructed world has collapsed. Ros moves from the home. Matthew asks a Social Worker about tracing his mother but is told it is impossible. At 18 Matthew’s girlfriend becomes pregnant. Her parents are supportive. They marry.
MM#6 (NZ 1986) Ros contemplates searching for her son now that the Law permits. She supports another teacher whose child has found her.
Turning Point: Hero’s bigger, better plan. Matthew (son) finds Ros. Her void is filled. Layers of anguish settle within her.
MM#7. David, ex husband receives correspondence showing his mother had also lost a child to adoption.
Turning Point: Crisis and climax. David (adores his mother) realizes how he dismissed Ros without allowing an explanation.
MM #8 Ros makes peace with David. Ros and Matt meet.
Turning Point: New status quo. Ros travels to Matt’s hometown to meet his wife and her two grandchildren. She gains an extended family. Ros is sad that Matt’s adoptive parents were unable to sustain their initial love for him, and hopes that one day they might reconcile.
7. How are the “Old Ways” Challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause a main character to shift their perspective…and make the change?
Fiancé discussing unmarried mothers at dinner party (1960)
‘Who’d marry one of those girls?’
Discovers wife was ‘one of those girls’.
‘What have you done to me? What have you done to my name?
Counter: learns his own parents had lost their first child to adoption. He is no longer the eldest of four. Dave realizes how badly he treated Ros, states he must apologize, understands his mother is still the same mother, and agrees to meet with his older sister.
Helen (sister) has already met with their mother. Whilst Dorothy (mother) was delighted to meet with the daughter she had lost, the old ways might have asked that she didn’t tell the children (from the marriage). Born in 1913, she’s of a generation that would find even more shame in her secret being known, so she’s the ‘counter’ to the mores of the times, and also the means to Dave changing his judgmental ways.
Questioning: Wife of Dave’s new staff member has brought in paperwork needed for her husband’s wages. Tells wages’ clerk she recognized Ros from living in a Church hostel in another city thirteen years ago and Ros had been there waiting for her baby to be born.
Libby: ‘Why are you telling me this? Have you said this to Ros?’
Begs her to get in touch with Ros and begs her not to repeat this to anyone.
Linda (on teaching staff) asks for the next day off. Admits she has a child who has found her and who will be in her city the following day.
Counter: Ros grants the day off and then lets Linda in on her own secret ‘There are a lot of us about.’ She’s taking a risk sharing this with Linda especially after her marriage ended because of her secret being told.
Matthew (29) finds Ros. He tried via social workers about ten years prior; was told the records were sealed forever. He drives eight hours without letting her know he’s coming, fearing rejection if he phoned or wrote first. Counter -his inner turmoil is calmed when he is welcomed -and Ros can see and touch her never forgotten only child.
Should work but doesn’t :
Ros chooses silence over her pregnancy and the adoption of her child. Ros marries expecting to keep her secret forever. Ros expects to have other babies when she marries.
Dave finds out 13 years later. The pivotal moment is him ending the marriage without asking for an explanation.
Matt and his adoptive parents. In the old ways they adored him, but after the birth of a second natural child, Matt’s genetic differences infuriate them. The adoptive parent/child relationship was expected to be life long but Matt is loathed more and more. At a young age Matt seeks help to find his natural mother but the Court documents are sealed. Matt knows he will find his own way in life when he grows up and leaves home.
Living Metaphors:
Matt -unable to please parents. Thrown out of home as a young apprentice. Contrast of being welcomed by pregnant girlfriend’s family.
Matt invites his parents to his ‘shotgun’ wedding. They don’t acknowledge.He pleads with them to get to know their grandchild but told ‘no grandchild of ours.’He attempts to engage them over the next ten years, but they maintain silence. Matt uses the opportunity for change and growth with Louise’s parents becoming his surrogate parents, encouraging and supportive of the young couple’s dreams.
Ros -has filled her life after divorce with a teaching career. She’s living alone when Matt knocks on her door.There is the unexpected moment when nearly thirty years of pain and anguish and wondering is dispelled in an instant. She’s been mentally imprisoned and now is the time for rebirth and growth and connection.
Dave receives a letter from an older sister born to his parents before their marriage. The letter allows him to realize that his saintly mother was also an unmarried mother (1930) who’d lost her firstborn to adoption. He’s stepped into a maze.
Dave had remarried and hoped to have children, but there are none. His moral compass has reset -he realizes how badly he treated Ros. He resolves to embrace his new sister, reassure his mother he loves her as much as he ever did, and to make some kind of amends to Ros – who has not been in his life since the divorce.
8. How are You Presenting Insights through Profound Moments?
A. Action delivers insight
Insight – Life goes on. (Flatmate) Margie’s dead fiancé’s family members are upset that she has moved her engagement ring to her right hand, a year after his death. She needs them to understand that she will never forget Pete but needs to have a social life.
Insight – Their marriage wasn’t worth enough to Dave to even ask Ros if a rumor was true; instead he reacted in anger and violence. She collects necessary documents and photos and hides them in her car.
Insight- Sometimes your best will never be good enough when prejudices are to the fore. Matt begins an independent life at 18, but over a decade later he’s still trying to gain acceptance from his adoptive parents.
Insight – the fear (1970s, 80s ) of a gay son being ‘outed’ and the deceit needed to keep up a facade. Rory’s parents are still waiting for him to meet the ‘right’ girl. Matt spends time with both his brothers and supports Rory one hundred per cent, but the adoptive parents don’t know that the three boys spend time together.
Insight – Do not presume, judge, or put people into boxes. Dave discovers his parents also lost a child to adoption before they married. Dave does end up ‘getting it,’ talks with his mother, meets and begins an ongoing relationship with his elder sister, and seeks out Ros (still in the same city -just a few suburbs away) to try and make amends for his cruel and judgmental ending of their marriage.
B. Conflict delivers insight
Insight -Sometimes we need to write a new page for ourselves to appreciate that life is beautiful.
Conflict is that Ros’ flatmate has moved her engagement ring to her right hand a year after her fiancé has been killed, and Margie being out and about socially is angering her dead fiancé’s family of multigenerational townsfolk. Conflict to be delivered with conversation between Margie and her fiancé’s upset sister who feels Margie must have forgotten her fiancé.
Insight -Violence of any sort is abhorrent, and sexual violence is not a separate category.
Conflict delivered by Ros’s non-consensual pregnancy. Conflict is delivered by Ros choosing not to report her rapist at a time when Courts proceeded with the view that somehow a girl provoked sexual assault.
Insight -There’s no ‘one size fits all.’
Conflict is the doctor delivering Ros’s baby referring to ‘You girls’. Conflict delivered by the doctor telling the nurse not to provide pain relief to Ros and the nurse quietly delivering relief after the doctor has left.
Insight -Tremendous devastation and havoc can destroy lives when a few words are spoken out of turn.
Conflict is someone recognizing Ros from her pregnancy days 13 years prior. Conflict is delivered when the woman tells her husband who in turn tells Ros’s husband (his new boss).
Insight -Every challenge is a chance to learn something new.
Conflict is Matt knowing his schoolgirl girlfriend is pregnant. Conflict is delivered when Matt tells his parents that he and Louise are to marry, with her parents’ permission and blessing, and wants his parents to accept Louise’s parents’ invitation to dinner for the two sets of future grandparents to get to know one another; and the total reaction is to demand Matt’s disconnection from the family.
C. Irony delivers insight
Insight: Death has a finality, closed adoption has no finality.
Irony – Margie loses her fiancé in an accident, Ros loses her child to the process of adoption. Margie comments that losing Pete was easier for her than Ros losing her son, because Pete’s death has a finality to it, wheres the loss of her son will leave Ros wondering for the rest of her days.
Insight: There’s more than one way to lose your child.
Irony – Matt’s adoptive parents who ‘chose’ him as a playmate for their natural born son have little interest in him after another ‘miracle’ son is born. They see Matt as different and hurl an accusation that he’s probably gay – (pure anathema to them). Their oldest (natural) son is in fact gay and knows he can’t reveal this.
Insight: Sometimes we choose whether we gain or lose.
Irony – Matt is petrified he will lose his own first child to adoption. His pregnant girlfriend’s parents are supportive. His parents disown him. Her parents gain two grandchildren, his lose enrichment.
Insight: Things are not always what they seem.
Irony – Dave accuses Ros of preventing pregnancy while they were married. When his second marriage is childless we can guess that it’s not Ros’s ‘fault’ that there was no baby.
Insight: Words can come back to haunt you.
Irony – Dave receives a letter that forces him to realize that the words he used with Ros apply also to his own, adored, Mother.
9. Profound Dialogue
Pattern A: Height of the Emotion. What are the Most Profound Lines of the Movie?
It is 1956 in a small town. Ros has had pregnancy confirmed -the conception was non consensual, having accepted a lift home from a social evening at an Air Force base outside of the town.
‘Who I am is forever changed.’
Thirteen years later and in another city some distance away, Ros’s husband of ten years learns of her pregnancy. They’re childless and his first reaction includes accusing her of deliberately avoiding having a ‘substitute’ child with him.
‘Every day of our marriage has been a lie.’
Matt at 18 and his girlfriend Lou, 16 and in her final year at school, discover there is a baby on the way. His parents refuse to accept an invitation from Lou’s parents to meet as the prospective grandparents.
‘We’re honorable people and won’t be meeting with any family whose schoolgirl daughter rolls in the hay.’
With a law change in 1985 Matt at 29 is able to search for his birth mother. He drives 8 hours on a Saturday to her current address, and Ros opens the door.
‘I’ve been aching for you all my life.’
Also with the law change Dave receives a letter from a sister born when his parents were 17 and 20 year olds and forced to adopt their baby out. He is wailing when he reads this, explaining to his (second) wife:
‘I called Ros the most vile names when I was telling my Mother why I was ending my marriage.’
Pattern B: Build Meaning Over Multiple Scenes
Line 1. ‘You ask me why I say I’m lucky?’
Talking to a friend about having given birth -Ros has no stretch marks.
Talking to her father about her husband on her wedding day.
Talking to Lou’s mother when she meets Matt’s family.
Line 2. ‘Girls like you….’
Huey after raping Ros and dropping her home. ‘…expect to flirt all night and be dropped at the door with a handshake.’
The doctor at the time of Matt’s birth. ‘…expect to have your babies whisked away in some nebulous kind of environment and then get back to your lives.’
Dave to Ros when ending their marriage ‘…are a scourge on everything that’s decent in womanhood.’
Line 3. ‘You can’t defend other women for fear of giving yourself away.’
Engagement party with talk of difficulty of getting the Pill before marriage(1956). Fiancé Dave is saying that boys sow their wild oats before marriage but he’d never marry any girl who’d got pregnant, describing them all as tramps, while another young man at the table says that can’t be so. Ros, v/o, tells herself to stay silent, as above.
Linda, a teacher on Ros’s staff needs a day off to meet a 31 year old child she’d lost to adoption.
Ros speaks of her own baby, now 29, but tells Linda they must keep each other’s secret as telling people can cause untold problems. As above.
Dave’s mother tells him about the baby she and his father had lost to adoption before they married -explaining that even when Dave was ridiculing Ros at the time of him ending the marriage, she couldn’t tell him, as above.
10. How Do You Leave Us With A Profound Ending?
A. Deliver The Profound Truth. Secrets cause pain. Extended family discover that love isn’t like butter -it doesn’t have to be spread more thinly as families, both natural, adopted and blended find and mix with one another. You cannot ‘lose’ someone when other family members are added to the mix. Family love isn’t about exclusivity. The final scene is a gathering at Matt’s in-laws that demonstrates this.
B. Lead Characters Ending Represents The Change
Ros has found her son. The son has found his mother. The husband realizes that his judgement destroyed his marriage and now becomes a better and less judgmental person, seeking to make amends.
C. Payoff Key Setups Folk overcoming feelings of shame/abandonment/failure in finding acceptance.
D. Surprising, but Inevitable
The adoptive parents have no idea their eldest son is gay. They cannot accept Matthew becoming a father at 18. Their view of life is inflexible.
E. Leave Us with a Profound Parting Image/Line
Ros has arrived to meet and stay with Matt’s extended family. She and Matt’s mother in law are in the garden.
Ros: I’m so lucky, so unbelievably lucky.
Louise’s mother: So are we all, dear Ros.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is to think about the deep meaning that needs conveying in a pivotal scene.
It is 1956 in a small town. Ros has had pregnancy confirmed -the conception was non consensual, having accepted a lift home from a social evening at an Air Force base outside of the town.
‘Who I am is forever changed.’
Thirteen years later and in another city some distance away, Ros’s husband of ten years learns of her pregnancy. They’re childless and his first loud and violent reaction includes accusing her of deliberately avoiding having a ‘substitute’ child with him.
‘Every day of our marriage has been a lie.’
Matt at 18 and his girlfriend Lou, 16 and in her final year at school, discover there is a baby on the way. His parents refuse to accept an invitation from Lou’s parents to meet as the prospective grandparents.
‘We’re honorable people and won’t be meeting with any family whose schoolgirl daughter rolls in the hay.’
With a law change in 1985 Matt at 29 is able to search for his birth mother. He drives 8 hours on a Saturday to her current address, and Ros opens the door.
‘I’ve been wanting you all my life.’
Also with the law change Dave receives a letter from an older full sister born when his parents were 17 and 20 year olds and forced to adopt their baby out. He is wailing when he reads this, explaining to his (second) wife:
‘I called Ros the most vile names when I was telling my Mother why I was ending my marriage.’
What I learned doing this assignment is that a feeling can be reinforced through repetition.
Line 1. ‘You ask me why I say I’m lucky?’
Talking to a friend about having given birth -Ros has no stretch marks.
Talking to her father about her husband on her wedding day.
Talking to Lou’s mother when she meets Matt’s family.
Line 2. ‘Girls like you….’
Huey after raping Ros and dropping her home. ‘…expect to flirt all night and be dropped at the door with a handshake.’
The doctor at the time of Matt’s birth. ‘…expect to have your babies whisked away in some nebulous kind of environment and then get back to your lives.’
Dave to Ros when ending their marriage ‘…are a scourge on everything that’s decent in womanhood.’
Line 3. ‘You can’t defend other women for fear of giving yourself away.’
Engagement party with talk of difficulty of getting the Pill before marriage(1956). Fiancé Dave is saying that boys sow their wild oats before marriage but he’d never marry any girl who’d got pregnant, describing them all as tramps, while another young man at the table says that can’t be so. Ros, v/o, tells herself to stay silent, as above.
Linda, a teacher on Ros’s staff needs a day off to meet a 31 year old child she had lost to adoption.
Ros speaks of her own baby, now 29, but tells Linda they must keep each other’s secret as telling people can cause untold problems. As above.
Dave’s mother tells him about the baby she and his father had lost to adoption before they married -explaining that even when Dave was ridiculing Ros at the time of him ending the marriage, she couldn’t tell him, as above.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that there are some natural places to add irony into my script.
Insight: Death has a finality, closed adoption has no finality.
Irony – Margie loses her fiancé in an accident, Ros loses her child to the process of adoption. Margie comments that losing Pete was easier for her than Ros losing her son, because Pete’s death has a finality to it, wheres the loss of her son will leave Ros wondering for the rest of her days.
Insight: There’s more than one way to lose your child.
Irony – Matt’s adoptive parents who ‘chose’ him as a playmate for their natural born son have little interest in him after another ‘miracle’ son is born. They see Matt as different and hurl an accusation that he’s probably gay – (pure anathema to them). Their oldest (natural) son is gay and knows he can’t reveal this.
Insight: Sometimes we choose whether we gain or lose.
Irony – Matt is petrified he will lose his own first child to adoption. His pregnant girlfriend’s parents are supportive. His parents disown him. Her parents gain two grandchildren, his lose enrichment.
Insight: Things are not always what they seem.
Irony – Dave accuses Ros of preventing pregnancy while they were married. When his second marriage is childless we can guess that it’s not Ros’s ‘fault’ that there was no baby.
Insight: Words can come back to haunt you.
Irony – Dave receives a letter that forces him to realize that the words he used with Ros apply also to his own, adored, Mother.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that some ‘incidental’ events/conversations in my play need their own scenes, and some scenes have too much dialogue and not enough action.
Insight -Sometimes we need to write a new page for ourselves to appreciate that life is beautiful.
Conflict is that Ros’ flatmate has moved her engagement ring to her right hand a year after her fiancé has been killed at work.It’s a small town in the 1950s and Margie out and about socially is angering her dead fiancé’s family of multigenerational townsfolk.
Conflict to be delivered with conversation between Margie and her fiancé’s upset sister who feels Margie must have forgotten her fiancé.
Insight -Violence of any sort is abhorrent, and sexual violence is not in a separate category.
Conflict delivered by Ros’s non-consensual pregnancy.
Conflict is delivered by Ros choosing not to report her rapist at a time when Courts proceeded with the view that somehow a girl provoked rape, or had a sexual history (so she definitely provoked the assault ) in a society with an atmosphere of ‘Boys will be boys.’
Insight -There’s no ‘one size fits all.’
Conflict is the doctor delivering Ros’s baby referring to ‘You girls’.
Conflict delivered by the doctor telling the nurse not to provide pain relief to Ros and the nurse quietly delivering what her job allows in terms of relief, after the doctor has left.
Insight -Tremendous devastation and havoc can destroy lives when a few words are spoken out of turn.
Conflict is someone recognizing Ros from her pregnancy days 13 years prior.
Conflict is delivered when the woman tells her husband who in turn tells Ros’s husband (his new boss) and the marriage ends somewhat violently.
Insight -Every challenge is a chance to learn something new.
Conflict is Matt knowing his schoolgirl girlfriend is pregnant.
Conflict is delivered when Matt tells his parents that he and Louise are to marry, with her parents’ permission and blessing, and wants his parents to accept Louise’s parents invitation to dinner for the two sets of future grandparents to get to know one another; and the total reaction is to demand Matt’s disconnection from the family.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that I need to alter some parts of my screenplay with action not dialogue.
I also see that sometimes there can be pivotal things that are left unanswered eg The story takes place over many years. Did Red ever see his parents again? Where did they go? Doesn’t he look towards his siblings? Don’t his parents come back to find him years later?
The dead child’s mother leaves but there’s not enough background to this conclusion to her grieving eg does she blame her husband for the death of their son?
Did Red spend and repay the money he borrowed from Mr Bridges?
Seabiscuit -profound moments
Life can change in the twinkling of an eye. Watching families with a daily banquet losing everything in the Depression. The huge change in material comfort is about as far apart on a continuum as you could get.
People are not what they may seem on the surface. Red’s parents leave him, but have found him work in a safe and secure environment. His father hands him just his books -he has had a love of the classics instilled in him. It is meaningful that the books are what the father chose for Red to take with him, and they are his comfort, his solace in his loneliness.
The manifestation of grief -feelings are not uniform. Mr Bridges’ child dying – doing what his father had pushed him to do -leaving his (preferred) reading and going outside into the fresh air. The mother handled her grief by furiously scrubbing the deck, although this wasn’t something that she would normally do in her genteel life. She can’t cope and leaves permanently.
Be open to checking possibilities out. Mr Bridges meets his future trainer -getting to his ‘level’ by sitting on the ground and drinking his awful coffee, asking him about his methods and impressed by Tom being so frank.
Consider things from a different perspective. The moment when Tom sees the frantic horse on one side with three men trying to hold him, and Red trying to fight a group of attackers on the other, he makes the connection that these two might possibly fit well together.
Trust someone until they let you down. Red asks Mr Bridges for money and is given it, showing that the Boss is willing to trust that Red wouldn’t have asked him if he didn’t need it.
No man is an island. The change in Seabiscuit’s demeanor when a companion horse arrives to share his stall.
Handicaps aren’t necessarily a determining factor. The fact that Red is blind in one eye is discovered/revealed. He has managed to keep this secret -one wonders how over all that time.
My script.
Insight – Life goes on. (Flatmate) Margie’s dead fiancé’s family members are upset that she has moved her engagement ring to her right hand, a year after his death. She needs them to understand that she will never forget Pete but needs to have a social life.
Insight – Their marriage wasn’t worth enough to Dave to even ask Ros if a rumor was true, instead he reacted in anger and violence. She collects necessary documents and photos and hides them in her car.
Insight- Sometimes your best will never be good enough when prejudices are leading. Matt begins an independent life at 18, but over a decade later he’s still trying to gain acceptance from his adoptive parents. (Unresolved at the moment in my script. Not sure what I’ll do, but not everything in life has a happy ending.)
Insight – the fear (1970s, 80s ) of a gay son being ‘outed’ and the deceit needed to keep up a facade. Rory’s parents are still waiting for him to meet the ‘right’ girl, accepting Rory’s partner as his friend. Matt spends time with both his brothers and supports Rory one hundred per cent, but the adoptive parents don’t know that the three boys spend so much time together. (At the moment this isn’t resolved with an action that reunites the adoptive parents with Matt and his children -nor Rory’s sexuality. I had planned to leave it unresolved but will think if it needs a happy ending.)
Insight – Do not presume, judge, put people into boxes. Dave discovers his parents also lost a child to adoption before they married. Dave does end up ‘getting it,’ talks with his mother, meets and begins an ongoing relationship with his elder sister, and seeks out Ros (still in the same city -just a few suburbs away) to try and make amends for his cruel and judgmental ending of their marriage.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that my transformable female character is too foggy, acquiescent. Needs to be revved up.
Should work but doesn’t :
Ros chooses silence over her pregnancy and the adoption of her child. (1957)
Ros marries expecting to keep her secret forever.
Ros expects to have other babies when she marries.
Dave finds out 13 years later. The pivotal moment is him ending the marriage without asking for an explanation.
Matt and his adoptive parents. In the old ways they adored him, but after the birth of a second natural child, Matt’s genetic differences infuriate them.
The adoptive parent/child relationship was expected to be life long but Matt is loathed more and more.
At a young age Matt seeks help to find his natural mother but the Court documents are sealed.
Matt knows he will find his own way when he grows up and leaves home.
Living Metaphors:
Matt -unable to please parents.
Thrown out of home as a young apprentice.
Contrast of being welcomed by pregnant girlfriend’s family.
Matt invites his parents to his ‘shotgun’ wedding. They don’t acknowledge.
He pleads with them to get to know their grandchild but told ‘no grandchild of ours.’
He attempts to engage them over the next ten years, but they maintain a silence.
Matt uses the opportunity for change and growth with Louise’s family becoming new surrogate parents, proactive, encouraging and supportive of the young couple’s dreams.
Ros -has filled her life after divorce with a teaching career and finding pleasure in her friend’s children.
She lives alone when Matt knocks on her door as a twenty-nine year old. (Law changes in 1985.)
There is the unexpected moment when nearly thirty years of pain and anguish and wondering is dispelled in an instant.
She’s been mentally imprisoned and now is the time for rebirth and growth and connection.
Dave receives a letter from an older sister born to his parents before their marriage. The letter allows him to realize that his saintly mother (so worried she’d hear the marriage breakup was because he’d married an ‘immoral’ girl) was also an unmarried mother (1930) who’d lost her firstborn to adoption. He’s stepped into a maze.
Dave had remarried and hoped to have children, but there are none.
His moral compass has reset -he realizes how badly he treated Ros. He resolves to embrace his new sister, reassure his mother he loves her as much as he ever did, and to make some kind of amends to Ros – who has not been in his life since the divorce.
-
What I learned is that my old ways becoming new ways and counter examples are largely made possible with the change in law in NZ in 1985 allowing natural parents and adopted children to have access to their records.
Fiancé discussing unmarried mothers at dinner party (1960)
‘Who’d marry one of those girls?’
Discovers wife was ‘one of those girls’.
‘What have you done to me? What have you done to my name? And worst of all, you gave somebody else a baby and not me.’
Counter: Dave receives a letter with a copy of a birth certificate – his own parents had lost their first child to adoption before he was born. He is no longer the eldest of four. Dave realizes how badly he treated Ros, states he must apologize, and realizes his mother is still the same mother, and agrees to meet with his older sister.
Helen (sister) has already met with their mother. Whilst Dorothy (mother) was delighted to meet with the daughter she had lost, the old ways might have asked that she didn’t tell the other children (from the marriage) as she had been forceful in decrying sex before marriage, for obvious reasons.
Born in 1913, she’s of a generation that would find even more shame in her secret being known, so she’s the ‘counter’ to the mores of the times, and also the means to Dave changing his judgmental ways.
Libby (wage clerk) is with the wife of a new staff member. The wife has brought in tax numbers and so on -paperwork and records needed for her husband’s wages. Tells Libby she recognized Ros at a staff welcoming function. Asks if Ros and Dave have children. When told there are no children wife announces it must be Dave’s problem as she had recognized Ros from living in a Church hostel in another city thirteen years ago and Ros had been there as an unmarried mother waiting for her baby to be born.
Libby: ‘Why are you telling me this? Have you said this to Ros?’
Begs her to get in touch with Ros and begs her not to repeat this to anyone.
Linda (on teaching staff) asks for the next day off.
Admits she has a child who has found her and who will be in her city the following day. Says she could have lied and called in sick but would prefer to be honest.
Counter : Ros grants the day off and then lets Linda in on her own secret ‘There are a lot of us about.’ She’s taking a risk sharing this with Linda especially after her marriage ended because of her secret being told.
Matthew at 29 finds Ros. He had tried via social workers about ten years prior and was told the records were sealed forever. He drives eight hours without letting her know he’s coming, fearing rejection if he phoned or wrote first. Counter -his inner turmoil is calmed when he is welcomed -and Ros can see and touch her never forgotten child where the bonding took place in the womb.
-
Sorry -did in two parts.
Ros’ flatmate. Margie. Fiancé killed in work accident. Small town. 1955. Challenge is to resume a social life within an environment that judges her as having forgotten her fiancé too soon.
Ros. 1956. Challenges -to get through the ordeal of a non consensual pregnancy. To remain anonymous. To challenge the system that has no way to allow her to keep her child. To keep the birth and adoption from her parents. To keep silent when she marries in yet another city. Challenge to live with childlessness in a society that expects couples to reproduce. To rebuild her life and stay with her career when her husband is told about her baby and ends their marriage -nastily. Ros loves all children without resentment. Challenge -to be prepared to acknowledge Matthew when he re-enters her life as a nearly thirty year old.
Doctor delivering baby. Prejudicial attitude and judgmental comments. Challenge for Ros not to carry these remarks with her.
Ellie, Ros’s friend since moving after the birth and throughout her married years and after. Challenge -when she is told by Ros that the marriage is over, and is told about the baby, to support Ros. She does this unconditionally.
Matthew -Ros’s son. Challenges -To accept he will never please his adoptive parents. To understand why. To do all he can to keep the peace. To work towards leaving home and living independently. 1976. To face his girlfriend’s parents when Louise becomes pregnant after a one night ‘mistake.’ To keep trying to reconcile throughout the following decade with his adoptive parents. Challenge -to work out how to find Ros, then how best to contact her.
Adoptive parents – Challenged to accept Matt being different in so many ways from their natural born sons, culminating in the parents being unable to accept the humiliation of Matt’s girlfriend’s pregnancy. Challenge of waiting for the oldest boy to find the ‘right’ girl, while the son’s challenge is to hide the fact that he’s gay in the environment of the day.
Louise’s parents -Challenge to make a positive outcome for their schoolgirl daughter’s pregnancy. Challenge to ignore the social climate and to focus on being the family support.
Dave -Ros’s ex husband. Challenge to find that his parents lost their first born, his elder sister, (1930) to adoption. Challenge to accept the ‘unmarried mother’ treatment he foisted on Ros. Challenge that his biggest fear was his ‘saintly’ mother finding out about Ros’s baby, forbidding Ros to contact his mother again, giving his mother another version of why the marriage had ended, and challenged to work out how to undo the wrongs.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that in creating an exceptionally powerful movie every word and tone of voice is crucial. Even though it’s set in a single room with the adjacent bathroom being the only place to go to avoid any fellow jurors you dislike for their approach and attitudes, every movement, standing/pacing/ leaning over a shoulder/ sitting down has been orchestrated to carry the powerful narrative in this tiny bleak environment.
The different personalities are quickly shown and are a fascinating cross index of reality, barring the problem of it being an all white male, middle class jury. We discover initially that 11 are ready to convict without discussion. The challenge is in one of the twelve disagreeing.
The testimony of the old man downstairs, initially accepted verbatim, is challenged with an actual demonstration of space/time, pacing it out, with the reminder that the old man had to be helped into a witness chair.
The woman across the street who supposedly sees the murder is challenged by the revelation she wouldn’t be wearing her glasses in bed so would have hazy vision.
The juror claiming the boy’s guilt because the boy couldn’t remember details about the movie he said he was at, is challenged by another juror to give his personal recollection of his own recent TV viewing and was shown to have incomplete recall.
The juror with baseball game tickets wanting to set a time limit, and not wanting discussion is challenged as to a baseball game being worth more than someone’s life.
‘A man may die because of us’ (challenge is not to take this lightly) provokes the response ‘Whose fault is that?’ – returning to the original old ways that the boy must be unquestionably guilty.
One juror, not having decided the boy’s guilt or not, argues the concept of ‘reasonable doubt’ as the major challenge the judge had reminded them of when summing up.
Historical prejudice abounds – the juror stating the boy’s environment is a ‘breeding ground for criminals….’ is challenged by another juror saying ‘I’ve lived in a slum all my life.’ The response by the first juror in the old ways ‘Nothing personal here’, is challenged by the second juror. ‘There IS something personal.’
Old ways prejudice continues with ‘He don’t know how to speak English,’ as a point towards the boy’s guilt. This is challenged by another juror who corrects the first juror’s own grammar. There’s continued prejudice by referring to the accused’s family as ‘these people’ …that everybody knows how these people lie, are violent, indifferent to killings, have no feelings…
The challenge to this is positive (but equally prejudiced.) ‘Only an ignorant man could believe that.’
A juror telling another that if he opened his mouth again he’d ‘split his skull’ is challenging the beliefs the first juror had, ironically by an equally inappropriate response ( remembering they called the accused’s culture violent), so the second juror, in trying to point out that prejudice obscures truth seeking, is at the same time himself demonstrating a similarly prejudiced belief -that violence can be used to settle an argument.
The old ways are superficial and flippant. (‘I don’t know -when you look at it, what more can I say?’) and prove hard to change. (‘Not here to go into why…’)
When a secret ballot shows a second ‘not guilty’ an incorrect assumption is made as to who changed their vote. The juror who changed did it because ‘he (the lone wolf) gambled for support and I gave it to him.’ This provides the challenge for further discussion with it’s ultimate ending of a ‘not guilty’ verdict.
The boy being supposedly heard to say ‘I’ll kill you’ as a reason for his guilt is challenged by the words ‘You don’t mean that do you?’ when a juror himself yells ‘I’ll kill you.’ There’s recognition that this is an expression often used with nuances in different settings and isn’t usually literal.
The boy claims the knife dropped through a hole in his pocket: Old ways state ‘We know what happened,’ that ‘he knife is the only one of its kind.’ This is challenged when an identical knife is produced and the jurors have to acknowledge the murder weapon is not unique and ‘it’s possible the boy lost his knife.’
‘If the kid didn’t kill him, who did?’ later provides a challenge for an assumption that the role of the jurors is to come up with an alternative attacker if they acquit the boy, that somehow acquittal doesn’t stand alone. There’s a discussion of ‘Too many questions left unasked’ and to the direct question ‘Do you think he’s guilty?’ we have the challenge of the response ‘I don’t know whether he’s guilty or not – let’s talk, supposing we’re wrong; no man can declare a man guilty unless he’s sure.’
The initial assumption that the witnesses were accurate has the old man’s testimony challenged where a train going past meant he couldn’t have heard everything he claimed, and to thinking about the reasons why the old man might have believed his own testimony- (recognition).
The competency of the Defense Attorney is challenged. As a young publicly appointed defense lawyer he’s not the best or most experienced and there’s the suggestion that some Defense lawyers don’t ask questions because they believe they already know the answer. The challenging comment ‘Or they’re just plain stupid’ relates in this case to the Defense relying only on challenging the two witnesses for the prosecution and nothing else. He failed to challenge motive or to ask why the boy would have come back home after killing his father, or whether the witnesses were lying or mistaken. The challenge to the jurors is to recognize these gaps as a failure of defense. ’There are 12 of us in this room concentrating on this…’
‘He can’t hear you -he never will,’ challenges one juror to give up on asking a closed mind to consider anything new. In the end the closed mind does yield.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is there are a couple of tangents (smaller stories) left dangling but perhaps they need to be unresolved -that is, in limbo and not contrived to be a happy ending.
What is your profound truth and how will it be delivered powerfully in your ending?
My profound truth is as Alex Haley in “Roots” wrote:
‘In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are, and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning, no matter what our attainments in life, there is a vacuum, an emptiness, and a most disquieting loneliness.’
My profound truth is delivered when an adopted son and his natural mother are reunited nearly thirty years after his adoption.
How do your lead characters (Change Agent and Transformable Characters) come to an end in a way that represents the completed change?
The means to this happening is the altering of the law (NZ 1985 ) that allowed adopted children access to their birth records, and parents the right to search, with both sides having the right to ten years of veto — renewable if wished every ten years. Ros, the mother had decided she didn’t feel she had the right to search, but neither would she place a veto and block her son’s searching for her if he wanted. Matt has wanted to find his mother since he was a child as his relationship with his adoptive parents deteriorated over the years. He drives eight hours to (hopefully) meet with, and (hopefully) to be accepted by, his mother.
What are the setup/payoffs that complete in the end of this movie, giving it deep meaning?
Ros loses her baby.
Ros doesn’t have another child.
Her husband ends their childless marriage after ten years.
Ros discovers Matt’s story -his expulsion from his home when his 16 year old girlfriend is pregnant, her supportive family and the life of the young couple that has progressed happily. Ros learns she is a grandmother.
Matt’s brothers keep in touch -unbeknown to their parents.
One brother is gay and has to hide his life from his parents who are still waiting for him to bring home the ‘right’ girl.
The righteous husband has a second childless marriage. The problem is his.
Husband (David) opens a letter. It is from his full sister born before his parents married. Her adoption was a happy one. He realizes his treatment of Ros was cruel.
The adoptive parents refuse contact – wedding invitation, annual Christmas cards returned unopened. Moral and righteous, they are yet to discover (in the 1980s) that their oldest son is gay and has a gay partner.
How are you designing it to have us see an inevitable ending and then making it surprising when it happens?
We watch Matt try to navigate a way to find his mother before the law change – and told it can never happen.
We can see the potential risks in this reunion. Matt takes a chance driving to his mother’s current address and knocking on the door without contacting her first. She may have other children or a partner who don’t know about him. She may reject him — have just not got around to lodging a veto.
What is the Parting Image/Line that leaves us with the Profound Truth in our minds? The final image is Ros traveling for a few days to meet Matt’s wife and children and the extended family. The final image is a family gathering with Ros and Louise’s mother (the two grandmothers) bonding and Ros expressing her intense happiness.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that my main character is too bland. Trauma pushes her into the background, makes her passive. Not enough layers.
Ros -Transformational Character
Relatability: This script (beginning in 1956) is consciously created for the thousands of unmarried mothers who for many decades were coerced/forced into giving up their children for adoption in countries all over the world. Today unmarried girls can choose to keep their babies and the day will come in the not too distant future when all those bereft mothers will have died. This is their story, of life-long silent grief and impact that can never be undone. In the first thirty minutes we see Ros finding herself pregnant. We learn from her the circumstances and see some of her pregnancy journey.
Intrigue: Ros marries some years after losing her firstborn child to adoption. A chance discussion makes her future husband’s views on the subject very clear and Ros chooses to stay silent. We wonder if the secret will remain so forever.
Empathy: We have seen the forces of society conspire to force Ros to yield her child against every instinct in her body. We have seen the judgement and treatment of medical staff.
Likability: Ros is an ordinary girl at the start of a teaching career, whose life changes forever in one night. She blames herself for accepting the lift home from a dance that results in her rape (days before contraception) and her reasons for choosing not to force accountability. We can see ourselves in situations where we have chosen not to battle an issue. We see her choosing her fight – trying to challenge the system and losing.
Matthew -(son) Transformational Character and Change Agent
Relatability: We meet him as a small child with an older brother, being told by his adoptive parents how he was ‘chosen’ and therefore very special. We all love cute little children and we see Matt with his little boy language and way of understanding, his reactions, and the reactions and questions of his older (natural born) brother.
Intrigue: We wonder what changes will happen as he grows and how the family story will end. We realize he’s Ros’s son and wonder whether they will ever meet -by chance or choice.
Empathy: We watch on several occasions as the family dynamic changes during Matt’s childhood following the arrival of a third son -whose birth was deemed to be medically impossible. Matthew is no longer needed as a playmate for the first born son.
Likability: We see Matt unable to please his adoptive parents. He understands instinctively that since his younger brother’s birth his place in the family has changed and he no longer fits the mould. We wonder if things will go from bad to worse or whether they will improve.
-
What I learned from this assignment is there’s a passive, quiet, non action part for my main transformable character where her weakness is acceptance, non fighting, non proactive. She takes a submissive background role as another transformable character, her son who was adopted out, has his own journey. He’s also a change agent but there’s also another change agent -the ex husband who has to confront his treatment of his ex wife when a secret emerges in his own family.
Transformational logline:
A career teacher’s involuntarily childless marriage ends after ten years when her husband finds out she has an ex nuptial son adopted out at birth; a son whose parallel story of early fatherhood culminates with mother and son being blissfully reunited after nearly thirty years.
Change agent is David the husband. Also the adoptive parents.
Transformational characters are Ros (Mother) and Matthew (son.)
MM#1 Pages 1-15 Ros, in her first year of teaching (1956) is raped following a dance, becomes pregnant and leaves town to have her baby and give him up for adoption. She tries desperately to find a way to keep her child. (1957.) Does not tell the father and doesn’t prosecute as Court cases in the day usually ended with blaming and shaming the girl.
Baby Matthew is adopted by a couple with one son. The adoptive mother for medical reasons is told she cannot have another child.
Turning Point: Call to Adventure. A move to start life anew amongst strangers.
MM#2 Pages 15-30 Three years later Ros meets Dave and marries in a town far away from the original. Matthew is loved and told he is ‘chosen’ by his adoptive parents.
Turning Point: Locked In. Doesn’t tell her husband about her child. Continues her career. Lives the secret.
MM#3 Pages 30-45 The couple are financially robust. Both feel the social pressure of the times but become tired of trying for a baby after 5 years.
Turning Point : Decide that the focus on conceiving a child needs to be ‘let go’ -they won’t let it define them. Matthew’s adoptive mother has another child against the odds. Matthew now ‘surplus to requirements’ and his life is miserable. Matthew’s hunger for his natural mother grows in proportion to his parents’ rejection of a son they no longer have a need for.
MM#4 Pages 45-60. Ten years of marriage and still childless, Ros and David host a party for the husband’s business staff, to welcome a new staff member. Ros realizes she knew the new staff member’s wife from the time she was pregnant. Neither acknowledges this in the moment. Ros resolves to talk to her.
Turning Point: Plan backfires. The new wife tells other staff in the office, a day later, before Ros can talk to her.
MM#5 Pages 60-75 Husband learns of the baby, becomes violent, and ends the marriage.
Turning Point: The decision to make a change is forced, again. Ros’ carefully constructed world has collapsed. Ros moves from the home and focuses on her career, continuing to transfer her nurturing skills to all the children in her care. These are the years of weakness for her with a void that her marriage had papered over. Matthew sees a Social Worker to ask about tracing his mother but is told it is impossible. At 18 Matthew (now working) meets Louise. She becomes pregnant during her last year at school. Her parents are supportive. They marry.
MM#6 Pages 75-90 (NZ 1986) Ros contemplates searching for her son now that the Law has changed.Ros chooses not to actively search but neither to block the path if her child is looking for her. (Waives the right to lodge a 10 year veto.) She supports another teacher whose child has found her.
Turning Point: Matthew (son) finds Ros. Her void is filled. Layers of anguish settle within her.
MM#7 Pages 90-105 David, ex husband receives a letter with a birth certificate attached showing his own mother had also lost a child to adoption. He and his ‘new’ sister also share their (deceased in WW2) father.
Turning Point: Apparent victory David (adores his mother) realizes how he dismissed Ros without even looking for an explanation.
MM #8 Pages 105-120 Ros makes her peace with David and introduces Matt (on his initial visit) to her friends. She can let go her secret.
Turning Point: New status quo. Ros travels to Matt’s hometown to meet his wife and her two grandchildren. She gains an extended family. Ros is sad that Matt’s adoptive parents were unable to sustain their initial love for him, and hopes that one day they might reconcile.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that I needed to choose one transformable character to flesh out when I have two, whose stories weave in and out over three decades. I also learned that I can see weak bits in the journey of this character.
The emotional gradient I will use is Desired Change.
Emotion Excitement Ros meets a man she wants to marry.
Action She marries him.
Challenge/Weakness Disquiet that a scathing comment made about unmarried mothers during their engagement means Ros must keep her son’s birth three years prior a secret.
Emotion Doubt The marriage remains childless after ten years. Ros has realized the problem is with her husband.
Action Ros determines never to reveal her son’s existence. Continues with her teaching career.
Challenge/weakness Becomes a people pleaser and support for a controlling, ambitious husband.
Emotion Hope A background hope that one day she may know her son.
Action Throws a party for a new male staff member who has joined her husband’s business.
Challenge/weakness She realizes she’s been recognized by the man’s wife, from the time she gave birth. She wonders whether to confront her later to beg for her silence.
Emotion Discouragement Ros faces her husband’s fury when he is told by new staff member.
Action Ros finally confides in another person -her friend of many years. Moves several suburbs away and continues her career.
Challenge/weakness She has little to fill the void that the marriage papered over.
Emotion Courage Ros supports a teacher on her staff whose child has looked for, and found her when the law is changed to allow previously sealed information to be accessed by natural children/natural parents.
Action Ros’ twenty-nine year old son finds her also. They meet.
Challenge/weakness Having to fill in the missing years. Fear of ‘putting a foot wrong.’
Emotion Triumph The void inside her is filled.
Action Ros meets unknown extended family, including two grandchildren.
Challenge/weakness Sorrow that her son’s adoption had become a loveless match and that he’d been originally wanted, but then rejected. There is now the challenge of living some distance apart.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is that in a story with several strings it’s hard to isolate one character to fit a criteria.
Transformational journey logline.
A career teacher’s involuntarily childless marriage ends after ten years when her husband finds out she had an ex-nuptial son adopted out at birth; a son whose parallel story of early fatherhood culminates with mother and son being blissfully reunited after nearly thirty years.
The Change Agent is an adopted son. He fits the role as he provides answers for the trauma of his natural mother. His vision has always been to look for her as he also needs to satisfy the silent connection that he feels. His life with his adoptive parents disintegrates and his need for his natural mother grows in proportion to his parents’ rejection of a son they no longer have a need for.
My Transformable Character is the natural mother whose life changes through an unplanned and non consensual pregnancy (1956). My character enters a world of unrequited pain, total silence, (friends and colleagues) and people pleasing (the future husband). Her recreated world collapses with the end of her marriage.
The Oppression for the Transformable Character is to be coerced into yielding her child for adoption at a time when no benefits were available for unmarried mothers and where families, churches, social workers and society’s expectations demanded she relinquish her child. The attitude of her (unknowing) husband when they were engaged means she can never tell him her secret and thus she lives with the oppression of daily silence.
Betraying character — several
The person from the time of the Transformable Character’s pregnant past (in hiding) who recognizes her thirteen years later and tells the husband’s staff about his wife’s baby.
The husband who reacts without even asking his wife if the hearsay is true.
Her son’s adoptive parents who love him initially but then despise him amidst his ongoing attempts over many years to please them.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is to think hard about description, particularly of emotions.
Logline
A career teacher’s involuntarily childless marriage ends after ten years when her husband finds out she had an exnuptial son adopted out at birth; a son whose parallel story of early fatherhood culminates with mother and son being blissfully reunited after nearly thirty years.
The Old Ways
The social mores in 1956 dictate that a young pregnant girl will yield her child to adoption.
desperation
hiding
secrecy
trying to find a way to keep her child
learning to hide pain
constant internal silence
suffering with subsequent childlessness
concentrating on her career
The New Ways
Adoption Act 1985 allows searching.
Love of own flesh and blood
Joy in discovery of another
accommodating breaking silence
expanded lifestyle
expanded extended family
expanded outlook
-
What I Learned Doing this Assignment is
I am beginning to understand that I need more than the words of my story -I have to learn how to create character layers, intrigue, and momentum, to make it captivating and memorable.
What is Your Profound Truth?
The separation of parents and children through death, divorce, adoption, abandonment or catastrophic national events causes grief and pain. My story deals with the impact of adoption on the three sides of one adoption triad.
What is the change your movie will cause with an audience?
That devastating life long grief can be changed with changed human outlooks, and altered social mores and laws. Some of the audience will identify and understand and may be comforted that they are not alone. Those never touched by any such event and thus have never lived the consequences, will reflect on their advantage in not being impacted.
What is your entertainment vehicle that you will tell your story through?
Historical embellishment of a (non personal) situation.
-
What I learned about this assignment is to watch a movie and examine it -not just let it ‘flow over me.’
The Change this movie is about
The story is of a man tired of his repetitious job and who initially sees himself as better than the assignments he is asked to do.
The Transformational Journey of this movie takes the main character from boredom and repetition (wishing someone would make him a better offer) through chaos to accepting and indeed welcoming sameness when he has Rita as his partner, being prepared then to step away from chaos into simplicity.
Lead Characters
Who is the Change Agent (the one causing the change) and what makes this the right character to cause the change? Rita. Phil is as rejecting of her as everyone he meets -initially dismissed without a glance. She’s amenable, lets much roll off her, but has her limits (‘Suit yourself’ when he turns down dinner with her and Larry, the camera man, on their first night away.)
Who is the Transformable Character (the one who makes the change) and what makes them the right character to deliver this profound journey? Phil. Recognized as on TV. Arrogant. (‘People are morons’), thinks no one is worth getting to know or their opinion of any relevance; despises the minutiae of the small town his assignment’s in. A character with plenty of room to become more human.
What is the Oppression? The sameness of the daily work grind and being forced annually to cover a local event that’s beneath him in a small town environment that’s also beneath his notice. The repetition of the day on assignment when even the smashed alarm clock comes back again.
The characters he comes across – the Insurance agent who leeches on to him, the disturbing sight of the old man begging in the cold, the decor and life at the BandB that is itself trapped in time.
How are we lured into the profound journey? What causes us to connect with this story?
As soon as the first repetition occurs we enter a world of unreality, of strangeness.
Looking at the character(s) who are changed the most, what is the profound journey? From ‘old ways’ to ‘new ways of being.’ Identify their old way. Identify their new way at the conclusion.
Phil goes from being a ‘glass half empty’ to having a ‘glass half full’ outlook.
Rita realizes she loves Phil but he makes her come to him, so she can be sure.
Larry goes from doing his job without question, automatically (even when the car goes over the cliff) to accepting rejection at the bidding for men, to surprise when a changed Phil brings him a coffee (and knows how he likes his coffee) and offers him a favorite raspberry pastry.
What is the gradient with the change? What steps did the Transformational Character go through as they were changing? From arrogance and sarcasm, dismissal of everyone and everything, and impatience (trying to get out of the blizzard in several ways on the grounds of being a ‘celebrity in emergency’ to subtle changes as the day is repeated. From telling the landlady that it’s 100% certain that he’ll check out to 70-80%….through depression that’s suicidal in his imagination, to the realization that being with Rita is what he wants in life, to yielding to the change of a quieter life.
How is the ‘old way’ challenged? What beliefs are challenged that cause the main character to shift their perspective….and make the change?
Life intervenes by placing him in an environment that he can’t leave as he wants, teaching him that he’s not always in control, that things don’t always go according to his plan.
What are the most profound moments of the movie?
Increased agitation as the day is repeated -the brain is physically normal, the psychiatrist doesn’t have an instant solution. Transference – calling Nancy (initially annoyed with his approach, then impressed because he’s on TV) Rita. He wants Rita to think they have a lot in common, so we see the repetition of scenes where he increasingly adds to this goal -same drinks, French poetry going from a ‘waste of time’ to ‘very bold choice’, learning to play the piano and espousing world peace as a wish.
What are the most profound lines of the movie?
‘That’d be the Home Shopping Network’ (the cameraman keeps things grounded!) He also says after Rita has slapped Phil ‘If you want help with the other cheek, let me know’ -refers to him as a Prima Donna.
‘Keep the talent happy,’ sums up the arrogance of the main character. ‘What’re you doing for dinner?’ ‘Something else.’ and ‘I sell Insurance.’ ‘What a shock.’ pins his dismissive attitude.
‘Do you want to throw up here or in the car?’ ‘I think both.’ shows the realism of living ‘in the moment’ of the small town guys.‘I’m just trying to talk like real people talk. Isn’t this how they talk?’
‘What if there were no tomorrow?’
How does the ending payoff the setups of this movie?
Asks ’What if there were no tomorrow?’ Risk taking on the railway. Escaping depression/suicidal tendencies in car explosion. Phil gaining empathy sets the ending up. Gives to the homeless man. Buys more insurance than needed to help the insurance guy who’s himself working a grinding and thankless job.
What is the profound truth of this movie?
Acceptance of things that can’t be changed. Seeing the best in situations. Accepting the roles of the people you come into contact with (led to Phil realising he loved Rita -he gains empathy, thus setting up a happy ending.) There are no instant answers (psychiatry). Know what’s likely and step over or avoid what you don’t want to land in (the puddle). Those standing at the side are grounded in reality and just keep the camera rolling, (Larry literally) no matter how difficult the situation (car explosion -he just keeps filming.)
-
Lynne Heatley
I agree to the terms of this release form
GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
This completes the Group Release Form for the class.
-
Hi, I’m Lynne,
I’m a former teacher, newspaper feature pages, educational materials, have written a lot of short stories and some longer ones BUT right on the starting line for screenwriting. Looking forward to it.