Marie Jordan
Forum Replies Created
-
Marie’ Stacks Intrigue
What I learned doing this assignment is to build intrigue step by step.
Teaser:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Intriguing World): Emily’s elaborate disguise and break-in set a mysterious tone, suggesting she’s no ordinary woman.
- Intrigue 2 (Secret): The presence of the boys, tied and gagged, adds a layer of mystery. Why are they there, and how does Emily react to them?
- Intrigue 3 (Deception): The falling object and the imminent threat from the armed man introduce an immediate danger, thickening the plot.
- Turning Point: “But invertedly, she causes an object to fall. The man is about to hit her when he is knocked out and she is pulled out of the house without seeing who rescued her.”
- Improve: To deepen the intrigue, hint at a deeper connection between Emily and the boys or the house she breaks into. Perhaps she recognizes something in the room that shocks her or ties back to her past, adding a personal stake to her actions.
Act 1:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Mystery): Emily fainting in front of the bank while a robbery takes place hints at a complex plot afoot.
- Intrigue 2 (Hidden Agenda): The revelation that Emily’s aunt and the bank robbery are connected, through the novel idea, introduces family betrayal.
- Intrigue 3 (Conspiracy): The involvement of Emily’s former governess and her team adds layers of personal betrayal and conspiracy.
- Turning Point: “Emily suspects her aunt and her governess to be connected to the robbery which they deny.”
- Improve: Increase the personal stakes for Emily by having her overhear a conversation or find a symbolic item linking her directly to the robbery or her aunt’s plan, increasing the emotional impact of the betrayal.
Act 2:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Secret Identity): Joseph’s dual identity as a navy officer and a smuggler introduces complex motives and relationships.
- Intrigue 2 (Deception): Florence’s setup of Joseph for a crime he didn’t commit weaves deception into familial ties.
- Intrigue 3 (Conspiracy): The plotting between various characters over the loot and Joseph’s disappearance deepens the network of lies and alliances.
- Turning Point: “Emily identifies the robber who sneaked into the bank while she was fainting. She is one of the women who work with Margaret.”
- Improve: Intensify the personal conflict for Emily by presenting a scenario where she must choose between exposing a loved one involved in the robbery or keeping silent to protect them, thereby increasing her internal conflict.
Act 3:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Hidden Layer): Joseph’s negotiations and true intentions coming to light reveal the complexities of his character.
- Intrigue 2 (Accusation): Charles’s intention to go to the police sets up tension and potential betrayal among characters.
- Intrigue 3 (Wound): Emily finding the loot and being caught by Charles introduces personal risk and vulnerability.
- Turning Point: “Emily steals the money for the loot to pay Charles’ ransom.”
- Improve: Add a twist where Emily’s action to steal the money inadvertently reveals a much larger secret or conspiracy, amplifying the stakes and the moral quandary she faces.
Act 4:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Deception): Emily planting evidence and the complexities of her actions to save Charles create moral ambiguity.
- Intrigue 2 (Secret): Emily’s hidden wound and the danger it poses adds a layer of personal risk.
- Intrigue 3 (Conspiracy): The father’s involvement and his actions to save Emily deepen the family dynamics and deceit.
- Turning Point: “Emily has no choice but to be married to Charles to save him.”
- Improve: To elevate the intrigue, reveal that someone close to Emily has been manipulating events behind the scenes for their own gain, casting doubt on allies and enemies alike.
Act 5:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intrigue 1 (Hidden Agenda): The unfolding of Florence’s and Charles’s mother’s plans adds depth to their characters.
- Intrigue 2 (Mystery): The revelation about the clergyman and the marriage mix-up introduces unexpected alliances and deceptions.
- Intrigue 3 (Secret Identity): Joseph’s final act as the scientist and his violent resolution with his rival climax the intrigue and deception.
- Turning Point: “Emily runs away with Joseph.”
- Improve: Add an element of doubt or a final twist that leaves the audience questioning the true motives of Emily’s decision to run away with Joseph, such as an undisclosed secret between
-
Marie’s Layers and Reveals
What I learned doing this assignment is that by listing the layers, the cover up and making sure the reveals are dramatic enough, it helped me ad a new layer to my story I hadn’t thought about.
I have changed the order of layers and reveals in my pilot structures and I added a new character’s layer: Emily’s father, who is actually aware of what’s happening from the start and is acting on it. This is revealed only at the end.
Teaser:
Essence: In the middle of the night, Emily, disguised with men’s clothes breaks into a black smith shop, holding a laundry bag containing money, watches and bags of coins. She holds a crow bar in her other hand. She hides the contain of the bag in all drawers or shelves she can when she hears a noise, sneaks in a side room where she faces 2 boys tied on a bed, with their mouth covered. One of them sees her and she stops him from screaming. She hides under the bed when an armed man enters. But invertedly, she causes an object to fall.
The man is about to hit her when he is knocked out and she is pulled out of the house without seeing who rescued her.
Act 1:
Essence: Emily faints in front of a bank
Layer beneath: It causes a commotion, diverting the attention of the bank employees while a bank robber sneaks inside.
How the layer is revealed: Emily sees it from the corner of her eye.
Turning point: there is something familiar about that robber.
Essence: A bank robbery stirs the little town. Emily was seen fainting in front of the bank. Could she be linked to the robbery?
Layer beneath: Emily’s aunt, Florence is the master mind of the bank robbery.
How the layer is revealed: The way the robbery is described is similar to an idea of a novel Emily had read in her aunt book-club.
Layer beneath: Emily’s father knows his sister Florence has something to do with the robbery and must have involved Emily without her knowledge.
How the layer is revealed: He questions Emily and forbids her to visit her aunt.
Layer beneath: The bank robbers who committed the robbery are Emily’s former governess, Margaret and her team of 5 women.
How the layer is revealed: Emily is about to faint again and reckons it’s the same smell that caused her to faint in front of the bank. Only her family and her former governess knew about her allergy to it.
Turning point: Emily suspects her aunt and her governess to be connected to the robbery which they deny.
Act 2:
Essence: Emily is courted by a Navy officer, Joseph who turns out to be a smuggler looking for the loot and he believes she knows something about the robbery.
Layer beneath: Joseph is a smuggler
How the layer is revealed: The robbers are trying to smuggle the loot and one of them meet Joseph not knowing he is the navy officer who court Emily as Joseph uses disguises. When at Florence’s ball, the woman recognizes him.
Layer beneath: Emily’s father knows that Joseph is a smuggler and wants to protect his daughter and his sister and have Joseph arrested.
How the layer is revealed: He passes an anonymous note to Florence to warn her that Joseph is a smuggler and should be stopped so Florence plots a way to have him arrested.
Layer beneath: Florence set him up for a crime she knows he didn’t commit
How the layer is revealed: One of the robbers discovers she lied (?)
Essence: Joseph disappears
Layer beneath: he is in hiding in his own house, pretending to be his butler.
How the layer is revealed: a rival of Joseph finds out and Joseph has him killed.
Layer beneath: Charles is seeking the reward for who finds information on the robbery.
How the layer is revealed: Charles is seen by Emily’s father while talking with the detective in charge with the robbery.
Turning point: Emily identifies the robber who sneaked into the bank while she was fainting. She is one of the women who work with Margaret.
Act 3:
Essence: Joseph meets secretly Emily and explains how her aunt has set him up for a crime he hasn’t committed but he needs time to prove it. As Emily’s father wants to marry her at a set date with a clergyman, she asks Charles to pretend to court her to make time. Joseph wants to have Florence pay for what she did, but he needs her so he makes a deal with her. Emily finds the loot hidden in laundry bags at the workhouse but is caught by Charles who is now ready to go to the police to report his discovery and gets the reward.
Layer beneath: Joseph makes a deal with Florence to get Emily and the loot.
How the layer is revealed: Joseph threatens to kill Florence in her own house, unless she is useful to him. He wants 50% of the loot while being the smuggler and he wants her to help him marry Emily.
Layer beneath: Emily’s father is watching and has to stop Charles from going to the police to save his sister.
How the layer is revealed: First, he takes Charles to meet an important personage so he can use the time to plot something. He sends an anonymous note to Joseph warning of a marriage between Charles and Emily and suggests the kidnapping of his little brothers would reveal his debts to his father-in-law.
Layer beneath: Joseph buys an illegal gun from the black Smith shop of the debtor and suggests the kidnapping of Charles’ little brothers.
Turning point: Emily steals the money for the loot to pay Charles’ ransom.
Act 4:
Essence: The kidnapper is arrested by the police in possession of the traceable money of the robbery. This causes Charles to be arrested too but Emily’s father saves him.
Layer beneath: Emily has planted evidence of the robbery at the kidnapper’s house. She had no choice. Charles was going to turn the robbers in.
How the layer is revealed: she nearly got caught that night and has a wound she is hiding and the infection could cause her to die.
Layer beneath: Emily’s father knew what her daughter did
How the layer is revealed: it’s him who saved her when she got caught planting evidence at the kidnapper’s house.
Turning point: Emily has no choice but to be married to Charles to save him.
Act 5:
Essence: A joint marriage ceremony with her sister and the clergyman is about to take place when Emily seems sick again. Florence explains to her organization that the beautiful donation she had planned to give to the movement is now impossible. The money has been stolen by her cousin and there is nothing she can do. This proves that the reform’s movement had no idea about the robbery.
Layer beneath: Charles’ mother and sister will kill Emily. Charles plans to marry in France are over. Charles was supposed to restore his family in France at the court.
How the layer is revealed: Charles’s mother tries to poison Emily as she visits her on her recovery bed. Fortunately, Emily breaks her glass by accident and drinks only a little.
Layer beneath: Emily’s father had it planned all the way.
How the layer is revealed: Emily discovers that the clergyman always knew that he was to marry the sister and not her. She confronts her father who reveals how he knew everything and how he manipulated everybody.
Layer beneath: Charles accepts Emily’s father conditions.
How the layer is revealed: Charles enrolls to oxford to become ordained pretending he found faith.
Layer beneath: Charles buys secretly a land in New Zealand.
How the layer is revealed: The woman of the workhouse who convinced Emily to lead Charles to buy that land nearly dies, losing her baby before birth and to thank Emily for her support, reveals the land sale is a scam. She had no choice. Her father’ life was at stake.
Layer beneath: Florence keeps her deal with Joseph in regard to Emily
How the layer is revealed: Joseph disguised as a butler sells the house as the bills can’t be paid. The new owner of the house arrives. It’s him disguised as a scientist. His rival recognizes him and Joseph kills him just as Florence comes for a cup of tea.
Cliff Hanger: Emily runs away with Joseph.
NOW THIS IS WHAT AI gave me:
Character Layers
<ul type=”disc”>
- Surface: Emily is entangled in a bank robbery plot unwittingly.
- Layer: Secret identity as a romance writer.
- How the layer is revealed: Charles discovers Emily’s manuscripts while spying on her, leading him to understand her deeper desires and motivations beyond the surface.
- Surface: Charles is a struggling aristocrat and music teacher.
- Layer: He’s also a police informant with a hidden agenda to restore his family’s honor.
- How the layer is revealed: Emily stumbles upon Charles in a secretive conversation with a detective, hinting at his deeper involvement with the law and his true motivations.
- Surface: Florence appears to be an eccentric, caring aunt.
- Layer: She’s the mastermind behind the bank robbery, motivated by revenge and reform.
- How the layer is revealed: A confrontation between Florence and Emily reveals Florence’s involvement and true agenda, challenging Emily’s perception of her aunt.
Plot Layers
<ul type=”disc”>
- Surface: The bank robbery seems like a random criminal act.
- Layer: It’s intricately connected to the characters’ lives, especially through the book club and Emily’s accidental involvement.
- How the layer is revealed: As Emily investigates the robbery, clues lead back to her own circle, unveiling the scheme and her aunt’s betrayal.
- Surface: Joseph’s courtship of Emily appears genuine.
- Layer: He is actually after the robbery loot and has a hidden identity.
- How the layer is revealed: Emily and her allies at the workhouse uncover evidence of Joseph’s true motives and background, transforming her view of him and their relationship.
Situation Layers
<ul type=”disc”>
- Surface: A fundraising concert for the workhouse.
- Layer: The event becomes a meeting point for various schemes, including Charles hiding from debt, and the workhouse women’s investigation into Joseph.
- How the layer is revealed: Through interconnected events at the concert, the audience sees the complex web of secrets and schemes each character is involved in.
- Surface: Charles and Emily’s arrangement of fake courtship.
- Layer: It evolves into a real emotional connection and partnership against common enemies.
- How the layer is revealed: Their pretend relationship becomes a crucible for trust and deeper feelings, especially as they face external threats together, showing the growth of their bond beyond the initial deception.
- Surface: Emily’s confrontation with the realities of her aunt’s and Joseph’s actions.
- Layer: Her moral dilemma about whom to save and whom to betray.
How the layer is revealed: Emily’s internal struggle comes to a head as she must choose between saving her aunt, siding with Charles, or running away with Joseph, revealing her priorities and the evolution of her character
-
Assignment lesson 3 module 3
Marie’s plot structure
What I learned doing this assignment is to create a structure for my pilot, using the essence and turning point to get to the core. It’s a great lesson. I couldn’t get AI to do the job. I tried to feed it 3 different way but I finally fed it differently to get to somehting I liked better.
TEASER
Essence: VO Emily while she orchestrates her own scheme to divert the police from arresting her friends and her aunt.She is moving money of the loot to the kidnapper’s house.
Turning point: VO Emily reading a mystery novel to a group of naughty elder women (her aunt’s writing club called book club).
ACT 1
Essence: A bank robbery shakes the peace of the little town.
Turning point: The robbers used an idea she had developped in a writing piece at her aunt’s book club.
ACT 2
Essence: A handsome navy officer courts her. It turns out that he is a smuggler who wants the loot but also falls in love with her.
Turning point: He vanishes just in time to avoid being arrested for a crime he committed years before and that was reported to the police by her aunt to prevent her to marry him and it leaves her in distress.
ACT 3
Essence: Comforted by her music teacher, Charles, she decides on a ruse with him : If he pretends to court her, her father will not rush into marrying her immediately to that boring man of church.
Turning point: She discovers that Charles is a police informant who needs the reward to settle his debts so he can go and marry a French aristocrat and her aunt and her former governess will be arrested.
ACT 4
Essence: Emily plants evidence of the robbery to save her aunt and her friends although it implies Charles’ arrestation.
Turning point: Her father who wants Charles to be his son-in-law, saves him at the condition he becomes a man of church.
ACT 5
Essence: Not only she has to stand the boring life of a woman married to a man of church, she finds herself pregnant, is harrassed by Joseph who doesn’t want to let her go and Charles becomes more and more extravagant, buys a track of land in the new world to start a colony, where he will be king! Emily, her aunt and her friends, all reformers fighting for democraty cannot believe it!
LOCK IN: She finds out the land sale is a scam and the new world is not the paradise she believed. But Charles is on a journey she cannot stop.
AFTER USING AI
Teaser:
Essence: A voice-over about women’s necessity to adopt “Robin Hood” tactics to create a better world for men, while Emily discreetly relocates the robbery’s proceeds to the kidnappers’ house but she gets caught by the owner of the house, a very dangerous man…
Turning Point: The twist is revealed when we understand the voice-over is actually Emily reading a mystery novel to a group of mischievous older women in her aunt’s writing club, humorously dubbing it a “book club.”
Act 1:
Essence: The tranquility of a small town is shattered by a daring bank robbery.
Turning Point: The robbery’s ingenious method shockingly originates from an idea Emily had shared during a session at her aunt’s book club, illustrating the unintended consequences of creative storytelling.
Act 2:
Essence: A charismatic navy officer, who turns out to be a smuggler eyeing the robbery’s loot, woos Emily. His unexpected affection for her complicates his motivations.
Turning Point: His sudden disappearance to evade arrest for a past crime, informed to the police by Emily’s aunt to protect her, leaves Emily distressed and abandoned.
Act 3:
Essence: Seeking comfort and a solution, Emily conspires with her music teacher, Charles. They devise a plan where he would feign courting her to deter her father from marrying her off to an undesirable suitor.
Turning Point: Emily discovers Charles’s ulterior motive: he is an informant for the police, aiming to use information about the robbery to clear his debts and marry into French aristocracy, endangering her aunt and governess in the process.
Act 4:
Essence: In a bold move, Emily plants evidence to implicate Charles in the robbery, aiming to shift suspicion away from her and her allies. Joseph saves her from being killed.
Turning Point: Her father, preferring Charles as a son-in-law, intervenes to save him under one condition: Charles must renounce his current life to become a clergyman and marry Emily, altering both their futures.
Act 5:
Essence: Desperate to live a stifling existence married to a clergyman, pregnant, having to elude Joseph’s persuasive temptations, Emily is astonished when Charles invests in a new beginning in the New World, hoping to fullfill his dreams of a royal life.
Lock-In: Upon discovering the New World settlement is a sham, Emily realizes she’s embarked on a journey with Charles that’s irreversible, setting the stage for a series of challenges and adventures in unknown lands with Joseph who will never give up.
-
Marie’s Amazing Inciting Incident .
What I learned doing this assignment is to understand the connection between mid-point and lock-in.
The Inciting Incident: Emily’s aunt initiated a bank robbery to finance a political movement, using her without her knowledge.
<ul type=”disc”>
- Intriguing Concept: Emily, wrongly accused of being a bank robber and pursued by smugglers and police informants, devises a plan to elude them. However, her scheme backfires, catapulting her into a life that’s the polar opposite of what she had meticulously planned!
- Act 1: A bank robbery stuns the town, and Emily suspects she might be personally linked to the robbers. They pulled off the heist using a unique method that Emily had once devised in a game with her aunt and her book-club, and she suspects she was even used to distract attention, with the complicity of her former governess. Unknown to her, she’s closely monitored by a new, charming suitor with ulterior motives for the loot, and a police informant, her music teacher, burdened with debts to settle.
- Midpoint: Emily realizes she has been manipulated by everyone and decides it’s her turn to outmaneuver them all.
- Lock In: Her act is so convincing that even her father is deceived, leading her into a disastrous marriage that will forever alter her life.”
-
Marie’s big picture Components
What I learned doing this assignment is first to watch the 5 passes of the opening of a TV series (I picked 3 body problem) and it was very good to only focus on something per pass. I enjoyed the process because it made my objectives very clear for my own opening.
For this assignment, I learned to clarify the essence of the pilot.
World: A world (from 1819 on) where women are fighting for men’s rights and for themselves (before even the birth of feminism).
Main Mystery: Who robbed the bank?
Impossible goal: To stop her husband entreprises while pretending to help him.
Main conflict: Protecting the identity of the robbers and the loot of the robbery.
Second mystery: how Charles and Emily will be able to live together after betraying each other and how Emily will prevent him to reach New Zealand?
Season 1 arc: from being a Jane Austen type of daughter to be married, to become the brain organizing a future colony.
Season 1 protagonist internal journey: from hiding her true nature to showing her true potential.
Pilot info:
Pilot conflict: A bank robbery in London remains unsolved. Detectives, informants, smugglers are on the hunt.
Character introduced: Emily, her aunt (reform leader), Margaret, her former governess/robber, Charles, her music teacher/police informant, Joseph, her suitor/smuggler, and a detective.
Inciting incident of season 1: Emily and Joseph are getting married when right on the altar steps, Joseph vanishes.
-
Searching for breakthrough, exploring out of comfort zones…
-
Hi, I am Marie Sanderson Jordan
Scripts completed: several but none to happy completion
I hope to achieve my goals: increasing interaction and familiarity with AI and screenwriting everyday, like a second language.
Something unique about me: I host two identities: one French (European), one New Zealander (Pacific) and I am interacting with you…I am not in my comfort zone!!!
-
1. Marie Sanderson Jordan
2. I agree to the terms of this release form.”
3. 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.
-
Marie’s Visually Appealing Bible
I am ready for exchange.
What I learned doing this assignment is that putting together a TV bible is an amazing process of visualising 40 hours show in a few pages. I haven’t managed to reduce it under 10 pages yet including the images but I will keep on working at it after I have had readers and feedbacks.
It’s a happy feeling to grasp the entire story even when you know that it’s a first draft and subject to many possible alterations. AI was great to help me summary things quickly.
-
Marie’s Edited TV Pitch Bible
What I learned doing this assignment is that the process of editing my TV Pitch Bible brought clarity, essence. I gave more importance to one character and I changed his journey for more interaction.
-
Marie’s Presents Non-Stop Intrigue
What I learned doing this assignment is that the search for intriguing title is also helping improve the content of some of the episodes. I believe they are better.
Episode 1: “Unidentified, really?”
Episode 2: “Evil Courting”
Episode 3: “Symphony of suspicion”
Episode 4: “Shattered wedding”
Episode 5: “Unlocking her distress”
Episode 6: “The woolf in the sheepfold”
Episode 7: “No way out”
Episode 8: “Them or us”
-
Marie’s Presents Non-Stop Intrigue
What I learned doing this assignment is that reducing the content of the TV bible with this set-up – pay off method using intriguing patterns is very efficient. It gave me a different perspective on 2 characters!
What this has done to my pitch bible is:
– It shortened my paragraph, made them clearer.
– It gave more intrigue to the story
– It makes it easier to read and it’s (I hope) interesting in each of the lines. (The image of the producer placing his finger anywhere on the text, stayed with me).
-
Marie’s intrigue Patterns.
What I learned doing this assignment was to change the angle I looked at my story and change it using the pattern suggested. it was an eye-opener. it gave me a new way to approach my story too. Another breakthrough!!! Thank you so much! I can’t believe how much I elevated my story in the last three days!!!
Here is my new concept:
In 1818, an unreliable extravagant music teacher, Charles, becomes convinced that her pupil, the daughter of an archdeacon, Emily, has taken part to a daring unsolved bank robbery in London but who would believe him?
Here is my new show summary:
Emily, the daughter of an archideacon is courted by a marine officer, Robert, right after a visit to London to her aunt where she had been unwittingly entangled in a bank robbery.
But her music teacher, Charles is watching her, and noticed she is hiding something, always writing secretly and he is convinced she is one of the robbers who robbed the bank.
He knows that Robert is a police informant. Why did he suddenly disappear?
But how reliable is Charles? He is riddled with debts, extravagant, unrealistic. His unreliability casts doubts on the proposition that Emily is one of the robbers. Did he not pick up that she is secretly writing for a lady’s magazine? Is it all in his mind? Does it mean he is all wrong? Not neccessarily.
What begins then in the music room turns into a sexual obsession, only to end in the worst kind of betrayal.
If she plays the gentle daughter, it doesn’t mean she is, and she has found out about his race to find money to pay his debts and his intention to report her to the police.
If he thinks she had been a helper in the robbery, it’s even worse. She had been the mastermind of an operation destined to finance the reformers movement and prepare the big demonstration at St Peter to claim universal vote for all men and as Charles is about to walk to the police, she is now orchestrating a set up to save her skin and the skin of all her accomplices even if it involves his arrestation.
-
Marie’s TV Pitch Bible Investigation
What I learned doing this assignment was to follow Hal’s instruction by the book and it was a breakthrough for me as I found a total new depth in my story. I also learned that by formulating my question for AI was actually helping me to find the answer even before presenting it to AI.
I added layers to each of my characters and changed one of the connected characters into a main one. I added more cliffhangers and a twist.
The parts I changed:
I changed my main character Emily from refusing love to being a true romantic.
I changed her from being entangled unwillingly in a bank robbery to being the mastermind of the robbery.
I added two characters: Her aunt who is the leader of the reformer’s mouvement.
I added a new suitor before Charles, an informant for the police who courts her and I gave a pre-story to Charles being an informer as well.
I changed the way Charles’s brothers ransom is paid and created a new plot around the kidnappers who become accused of the robbery.
I believe I really elevated my story. Thanks Hall!
-
Marie’s Show Summary
What I learned doing this is that it saves a lot of times to follow the instruction to prepare the show summary and then using the prompt is incredibly efficient and quick. I again has to learn to let it be and not try to do perfect.
After AI PROMPT:
In the quaint British town of 1818, Emily, daughter of an archdeacon, navigates her predictable life with quiet rebellion. Hiding her secret identity as a romance novelist, she resists societal norms, determined never to marry. But when she becomes entangled in a bank robbery and faces blackmail, her world spirals into chaos.
Teaming up with Charles, her music teacher and a French aristocrat, Emily orchestrates a fake courtship to thwart the blackmailer. However, she soon discovers Charles’s own hidden agenda—he’s embroiled in espionage and debt and plans to marry in France despite their growing love. As they play a dangerous game of cat and mouse, Emily’s facade of control begins to crumble.
Suspicion falls on her former governess Margaret and newcomer Elizabeth, both of whom harbor secrets tied to the robbery and to the reformers movement that leads to Peterloo. Meanwhile, Charles’s disappearance and the threat to his young brothers propel Emily into a dangerous game and she crosses the line to save them, stealing money from the robbers.
In a final twist of fate, Emily and Charles are forced into marriage to avoid scandal, but their union is fraught with resentment and uncertainty. They both think the other one is not in love. Despite their differences, they bond over a shared desire to break free from the constraints of the society, ultimately deciding to embark on a globe-trotting journey to pre-colonized New Zealand in a quest for an utopian world where women and men are equal and romance takes unconventional forms.
But as they set sail towards an uncertain future, from London to France, to America, Panama, the Caribbeans, the Pacific to New Zealand, discovering many different forms of romances and stories of women life all over the worlds, before the birth of feminism, she keeps on publishing serial romance novels to the Lady’s magazine in London, sharing her view on love in the whole world unaware that they are unpublishable and modified by her publisher to fit the Victorian models.
The question remains: Is love better in the new world? will they find the world they seek, or are they merely trading one prison for another? Is there a land waiting for them in New Zealand or was it a scam? Will they be able to create a French colony?
-
Marie’s engaging descriptions.
What I learned was to create and describe episodes in a few lines with the help of AI. That was quite intense and also to not be a perfectionist, the hardest of all!!
Episode 1: The Unwilling robber
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Emily is unwillingly part of a bank robbery.
- Main Character Journey: Emily’s dream of independance is already in jeaopardy due to the pressure of her family wanting her to marry her the same day as her sister when a witness blackmail her into marriage.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: She must counteract the Blackmailer.
- Action/Reaction: Emily asks Charles, her music teacher, an aristocrat, to pretend to court her, knowing that he will have her father’s favor immediatly, being of an upper class than the blackmailer. In exchange, she will help Charles pay some of his debts.
- Cliffhanger: The blackmailer threatens Charles.
Description:
Emily is unwillingly part of a bank robbery and blackmailed to marriage by a witness.
She devises a plan to outmaneuver the blackmailer. She engages Charles, her aristocratic music teacher, in a faux courtship to win her father’s approval and escape her predicament. But the blackmailer confronts Charles, threatening their fragile scheme.
Episode 2: The blackmailer’s move
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Emily realises she was manipulated by Margaret on the day of the robbery.
- Main Character Journey: Emily cannot confront Margaret but wonders what was her involvement in the robbery?
- Major Challenge/Conflict: The blackmailer asks her hand to her father who accepts.
- Action/Reaction: Margaret gathers the mothers of the children she teaches and asks them to investigate the blackmailer’s life. They have to neutralize him.
- Cliffhanger: Emily acts a fake illness to delay the marriage.
Description: Emily realises she was manipulated by Margaret on the day of the robbery. Emily cannot confront Margaret but wonders what was her involvement in the robbery? The blackmailer asks her hand to her father who accepts. Margaret gathers the mothers of the children she teaches and asks them to help her investigate the blackmailer’s life. They have to neutralize him. Emily fakes illness to delay the marriage.
Episode 3: The ruse
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Emily is charmed by a concert given by her music teacher for her recovery.
- Main Character Journey: Emily’s health forces her family to delay the marriage and she pretends to be more unwell than she is.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: The blackmailer is allowed to court her officially despite her recovery and she must find a way out.
- Action/Reaction: Emily asks her music teacher to pretend to court her, knowing that he will have her father’s favor, being of an upper class. In exchange, she will help him escape his debtors.
- Cliffhanger: The suspicious blackmailer threatens Emily that he will not let Charles interfere.
Description:
Emily’s life is saved by her sister but Emily needs time for Margaret to neutralize the blackmailer so she pretends to be so sick that her weakness brings her family to delay the marriage. But as more time is needed, Emily asks her music teacher to pretend to court her, knowing that he will have her father’s favor, being of an upper class. In exchange, she will help him escape his debtors. The suspicious blackmailer threatens Emily that he will not let Charles interfere.
Episode 4: The musical courting
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Emily lets Charles court her in a ball, defying her father, causing the anger of the blackmailer.
- Main Character Journey: Emily navigates the complexities of her faux relationship with Charles, discovering layers to him and herself.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Margaret and her friends expose the blackmailer with a scandal from his past and he loses the right to court Emily.
- Action/Reaction: Emily confronts Margaret on her involvment with the robbery and she has an explaination that clears her but doesn’t give clues on who were the robbers.
- Cliffhanger: Emily’s sister finds out about the ruse and fears for her own marriage so she reports it to her father.
Description:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Emily lets Charles court her in a ball, defying her father, causing the anger of the blackmailer. Margaret and her friends expose the blackmailer with a scandal from his past and he loses the right to court Emily. Emily confronts Margaret on her involvment with the robbery and she has an explanation that clears her but doesn’t give clues on who were the robbers. One of Margaret’s friend see Charles in a shady bar with prostitutes.
Episode 5: The suspicions
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Charles is a different man, surrounded by factory workers, drinking and Margaret’s friends spy with suspicion on his friendly conversation with every one.
- Main Character Journey: Emily struggles to pretend to be in love is a challenge for Emily who fears love and attachment after the death of her favorite sister and brother.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Emily suspects Margaret to have a hidden agenda meanwhile Margaret investigates Charles and discovers he is gathering information on the reformers, the people who fight for the vote for all men.
- Action/Reaction: Margaret warns Emily about Charles double life. She must be careful he doesn’t follow her.
- Cliffhanger: With Elizabeth’s help, Emily discovers that Charles is following her and that he is himself followed by a dangerous looking man.
Description:
Margaret’s friends watch with suspicion Charles’s friendly conversation with factory workers. As Charles continues his courting, Emily struggles to pretend to be in love. Emily suspects Margaret to have a hidden agenda unaware that Margaret investigates Charles. Margaret and her friends discover that Charles is gathering information on the reformers, the people who fight for the vote for all men. Margaret warns Emily about Charles double life. She must be careful he doesn’t follow her. When visiting Margaret who is absent, Elizabeth discovers that Elizabeth is leaving, dressed in different clothes and unaware of her presence. She follows her and she is surprise to see her getting on a train for Cambridge.
Episode 6: The
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: Charles is kidnapped by unidentified people just before telling Emily that they should stop their ruse.
- Main Character Journey: Emily is devastated that Charles isn’t coming anymore and she misses him. She realizes she has fallen in love with him.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: The blackmailer reappears and challenges her again. He can’t marry her but he can make her life a misery. Everyone is looking for Charles, his family, his debtors. Emily’s father is looking for another suitor for Emily as her sister’s wedding date is getting close and they will have combined weddings.
- Action/Reaction: Margaret’s friends kidnapped Charles because he was about to report them to the police. They are reformers. They negotiate: he needs the reward. If they give him the money, he will disappear.
- Cliffhanger: Emily and her sister try their wedding dresses. A new suitor has been chosen for her.
Description:
Charles is attacked and taken away by unidentified people just before telling Emily that they should stop their ruse. Emily is devastated that Charles isn’t coming anymore and hasn’t said goodbye properly and she realizes that she misses him. She is in love. The blackmailer reappears and challenges her again. He can’t marry her but he can make her life a misery. As everyone is looking for Charles, his family, his debtors, Emily realizes something bad has happened. Margaret’s friends have Charles tied to a chair. They are reformers. He was about to report all the local reformers to the police. They negotiate his silence. Emily and her sister try their wedding dresses on. A new suitor has been chosen for her.
Episode 7: The kidnapping
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: François and James, Charles little brothers are abducted by a dangerous debtor who thinks Charles is hiding from him.
- Main Character Journey: Emily meets Charles’family and feels they are hiding something. They seem to be ready to move out of their home.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Charles is given money to clear his debts by an important man whose face stays hidden. He is taken to a ship. His family is on board waiting for him. Margaret’s friends happen to be the robbers. They have to move the money from the robbery. They put it in laundry bags at Maraget’s home just time to organize another hiding place. Emily visits Margaret who is out and finds the money.
- Action/Reaction: Emily steals some money from the bags to save the boys.
- Cliffhanger: The robbers move the money to another hiding place. They remind each other than no one can touch the money until further notice since it is traced. One note spent in a shop will bring the police straight to them.
Description:
Emily discovers Charles’s family planning to flee, sensing secrets. Charles buys his freedom with reformer funds, settling debts before sailing to France with his family, except for his kidnapped brothers, François and James, held by an unpaid debtor. Meanwhile, Margaret’s friends, actually the bank robbers, relocate stolen money. Emily, finding the cash at Margaret’s, takes some to rescue the boys. The thieves caution against spending the traceable money, knowing it could lead police to them.
Episode 8: Unwillingly married
<ul type=”disc”>
- Hook: The police traces the money and arrests Charles but his sister accuses Emily.
- Main Character Journey: Emily is angry when she discovers Charles hidden plan of marrying in France and his spying activity on the reformers.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Emily and Charles are reunited but not only they are accused of association with a bank robbery but she hates him and he is devastated to see his future chattered.
- Action/Reaction: Emily’s father, a powerful man whith many connection offers Charles the choice between letting him go and running the risk to spend many years in jail or lifting the suspicion to the condition they marry and Charles accepts to train to be ordained.
- Cliffhanger: Margaret is the leader of the local reformers and she is the mastermind behind the robbery. The money will finance their movement.
Description:
<ul type=”disc”>
- The police traces the money and arrests Charles but his sister accuses Emily. Emily is angry when she discovers Charles hidden plan of marrying in France and his spying activity on the reformers. Emily and Charles are reunited but not only they are accused of association with a bank robbery but she hates him and he is devastated to see his future chattered. Emily’s father, a powerful man whith many connection offers Charles the choice between letting him go and running the risk to spend many years in jail or lifting the suspicion to the condition they marry and Charles accepts to train to be ordained. It is revealed that Margaret is the leader of the local reformers and she is the mastermind behind the robbery. The money will finance their movement. Emily and the police are unaware of it.
After the prompt with AI
Episode 1: “The Coerced Courtship”
Emily, unwittingly involved in a bank heist, faces blackmail.
Emily is unwittingly involved in a bank heist, then blackmailed into marriage. She conspires with Charles, her aristocratic music teacher, for a fake courtship to escape, but the blackmailer threatens their plan.
Episode 2: “Shadows of Manipulation”
Discovering her manipulation by Margaret, Emily faces her father’s acceptance of the blackmailer’s proposal. Despite seeking for help, she’s driven to desperation, questioning her will to live.
Episode 3: “The Illusion of Wellness”
To delay her forced marriage, Emily feigns illness, then enlists Charles in a pretense of courtship for her freedom, risking the blackmailer’s wrath and her own heart.
Episode 4: “Ballroom Betrayals”
At a defiant ball, Emily’s dance with Charles challenges societal expectations and the blackmailer. Secrets unravel, endangering their delicate facade and revealing unexpected allies.
Episode 5: “Double Lives and Deceptions”
Emily’s facade of love is tested by Charles’s mysterious double life and Margaret’s hidden motives, leading to a shocking discovery of surveillance and danger lurking in their midst.
Episode 6: “Ransom of Affections”
Charles’s abrupt disappearance leaves Emily heartbroken and vulnerable to the blackmailer’s renewed threats. Amidst chaos, a shocking revelation about Charles’s captors threatens her impending nuptials.
Episode 7: “A randsom for freedom”
Emily uncovers a plot involving Charles’s family, reformist blackmail, and hidden robbery funds. Risking everything, she secures the release of Charles’s brothers, entangling further in the criminal web.
Episode 8: “The bonds that bind”
With the police closing in due to traced robbery money, Emily faces accusations and Charles’s hidden agendas. Forced into a marriage to avoid prison, they confront a future filled with resentment. The revelation to the viewers of Margaret’s leadership in the reform movement and the robbery’s true purpose remains unknown from the community.
-
Marie’s Episode List Rough Draft
What I learned is that it seemed full on to start with but I reminded me that it’s a rough draft and I just had to reply the questions and move on without getting overwhelmed. It worked and AI added some little things I hadn’t thought about. It’s great. The way it comes with the prompt opens more doors for future writing and explorations.
Episode 1: A bank robbery disturbs Emily’s plans to escape marriage as she was unwillingly at the scene of the crime and a witness blackmails her to marriage.
Episode 2: To avoid scandal, Emily has to pretend to be courted by her music teacher, actually a spy who needs the reward for who will find the robbers and suspects Emily.
Episode 3: As Charles investigates, his suspicion turns to Elizabeth, a woman rescued by Emily’s former governess but he is confronted by Margaret who then warns Emily that he is a spy.
Episode 4: Emily, Margaret and Elizabeth, play games to trick Charles but they also discovers that he is chased by debtors and one of them is a dangerous man.
Episode 5: Emily finds money hidden at Margaret’s house and questions her about the robbery but Margaret says she had no idea about the money and fears a set up so she moves the money to a safer place Emily suggests for her.
Episode 6: Emily steals some money from the robbery to save Charles brothers who have been kidnapped by the dangerous debtor.
Episode 7: The money is traced by the police and both charles and Emily are suspected but saved by Emily’s father high connections, they avoid scandal but must marry and he will be ordained and they will both have a future they hate.
Episode 8: In a realization that they do love each other, they decide to break free and buy a land in the colonies but while they organize an expedition, the blackmailer resurfaces and ruins their project.
After the prompts with AI
Episode 1: The Unwilling Witness
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Emily is caught in a bank during a robbery, affecting her wish to avoid any arranged marriage.
- Main Character Journey: Emily’s quest for freedom is juxtaposed with her entrapment, both physically in the robbery and socially in her life.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Blackmailed into marriage by a witness, her escape plans are jeopardized.
- Midpoint: The blackmailer’s demands force Emily to reconsider her notions of freedom and captivity.
- Action/Reaction: Emily decides to use her wit and resources to outmaneuver the blackmailer.
- Cliffhanger: Emily discovers her blackmailer is connected to deeper conspiracies, hinting at a path that could lead her to the freedom she desires.
Episode 2: The Spy’s Masquerade
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: To get rid of the blackmailer, Emily must engage in a fake courtship with her music teacher, Charles, who is a better husband in her father’s eyes, unaware that he is secretly a spy.
- Main Character Journey: Emily navigates the complexities of her faux relationship with Charles, discovering layers to him and herself.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Charles’s suspicion of Emily ties into his mission, complicating their relationship.
- Midpoint: Emily and Charles’s relationship deepens under the guise of their pretense, revealing mutual respect and burgeoning feelings.
- Action/Reaction: Emily leverages their fake courtship to gather information, aiding Charles’s mission inadvertently.
- Cliffhanger: Their plan is nearly exposed, forcing them to flee, pushing them closer together.
Episode 3: The Web of Deceit
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Charles’s investigation leads him to suspect Elizabeth, complicating the group’s dynamics.
- Main Character Journey: Emily’s loyalty is tested as she navigates her relationships with Charles, Margaret, and Elizabeth.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Margaret warns Emily about Charles’s true identity, deepening the intrigue.
- Midpoint: The group devises a plan to mislead Charles, strengthening their bond.
- Action/Reaction: Their plan backfires, exposing vulnerabilities within the group.
- Cliffhanger: A surprising revelation about Elizabeth’s past puts everyone at risk.
Episode 4: The Debtors’ Dance
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: The group discovers Charles’s debt and the dangerous individuals pursuing him.
- Main Character Journey: Charles’s vulnerabilities are laid bare, changing Emily’s perceptions of him.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: They must navigate the threats posed by Charles’s debtors while maintaining their facade.
- Midpoint: A risky plan to confront the debtors is hatched, showcasing the group’s growing teamwork.
- Action/Reaction: The confrontation leads to unexpected alliances and revelations.
- Cliffhanger: A debtor’s ultimatum threatens to undo everything they’ve worked for.
Episode 5: Hidden Truths
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Emily finds the hidden robbery money, casting doubt on Margaret’s intentions.
- Main Character Journey: Emily grapples with her trust in Margaret and her own moral compass.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: Confronting Margaret leads to a deeper understanding of the heist’s purpose.
- Midpoint: The decision to move the money tests the group’s loyalty and strategy.
- Action/Reaction: Their actions draw unwanted attention, complicating their situation.
- Cliffhanger: The money’s relocation sets off a chain reaction, endangering the group.
Episode 6: The Ransom
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Charles’s brothers are kidnapped, forcing Emily to make a drastic decision.
- Main Character Journey: Emily’s bold move to save Charles’s brothers redefines her values and alliances.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: The ransom demand ties back to the robbery, intertwining their fates.
- Midpoint: The group must balance moral dilemmas with practical solutions.
- Action/Reaction: Their plan to use the stolen money tests their resolve and ethics.
- Cliffhanger: The police trace the money back to Emily and Charles, framing them.
Episode 7: The Forced Hand
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Emily and Charles face public scandal and the threat of arrest.
- Main Character Journey: Facing a future they dread, they reconsider what freedom and love mean to them.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: They must navigate societal expectations and legal jeopardy.
- Midpoint: A surprising intervention offers a temporary reprieve but at a cost.
- Action/Reaction: The decision to marry under duress reveals their true feelings.
- Cliffhanger: As they plan their escape, an unexpected ally offers a way out.
Episode 8: The New Horizon
<ul type=”disc”>
- Teaser: Emily and Charles plan to organize a British settlement on their land in pre-colonized New Zealand, seeking a fresh start.
- Main Character Journey: Their commitment to each other and their ideals is put to the ultimate test.
- Major Challenge/Conflict: The blackmailer resurfaces, threatening their plans and newfound happiness.
- Midpoint: They must confront their past to secure their future.
- Action/Reaction: Their fight against the blackmailer reveals the strength of their bond.
- Cliffhanger: They are left with debts and no propect of finding the means for an other attempt with British settlers. What about a French colony?
-
Marie’s Five Seasons
What I learned doing this assignment is to design the 5 seasons’ summary and find what links the whole series together. I discovered that my project is now a variation on love seen by different cultures and different perspectives.
Season 1 : British mind – In 1819, Emily, an archdeacon’s daughter and anonymous romance novelist, craves independence, resisting societal pressure to marry within the church. Entangled in a bank robbery linked to her former governess, Margaret and the reformers’ movement, she’s blackmailed into a marriage of convenience with Charles, her despised music teacher turned ordained clergyman. Charles, deeply in love with Emily, defies societal expectations and his father-in-law’s plans, despite their financial needs with their two children, and purchases a land in pre-colonized New Zealand, hoping to offer Emily the freedom and life she desires away from their constricting town. Their attempt to organize a British colony in New Zealand fails due to the blackmailer’s revenge and leaves them with their dream chattered.
Season 2: French intrigues – In Paris, Charles leverages royal connections for a French colony in New Zealand. Emily, inspired by French romance, writes novels that Margaret in England must censor. Their love is challenged by Charles regretting he didn’t marry in France as planned. Their New Zealand dream crumbles when a French admiral reveals Charles’s exaggerated New Zealand land claims. Charles’ association to creating the first Bazar in Paris leads him to bankrupcy while his associate flees to America leading them to a hasty departure from France with their now 3 children.
Season 3: New world experimentations – Margaret joins the family, now comprising Charles, Emily, their four children, as they face life’s challenges in New York, with Charles’ music career briefly thriving. They aim to move to Brazil through François’s connections but end up in a commune promoting gender equality and sexual freedom, which strains their finances and relationship. Emily’s romance writing, influenced by themes of female autonomy, is unknowingly altered by Elizabeth in England to suit Victorian tastes. Their journey for a better life takes them to Panama, where they confront cholera and the family and their now 5 children fight the disease helped by the brave Margaret.
Season 4 – Sailing to the edge of the world – The family’s journey continues as they escape Panama’s cholera outbreak, landing in the Caribbean. Charles, is inspired to pursue the colonization of New Zealand, developing his plans in creating a utopian state through the Darien Scheme, with aims to uplift indigenous peoples. His plans, however, draw in dubious allies and expose the family to the era’s brutal realities of slavery and the plight of women. Emily’s romance writing evolves, touched by these harsh truths, but is sanitized by Elizabeth in England for Victorian sensibilities. The narrative escalates as Charles declares himself king of Nukuhiva and attempts to establish a foothold in Tahiti, recruiting a local army for his New Zealand dream. His actions in the Pacific prompt preemptive political maneuvers by the British in New Zealand, challenging his grandiose ambitions.
Season 5: sailing up to the sun – Charles leads his family and settlers to New Zealand, aiming for a fresh start. They arrive in 1837 to find their claim of land ownership denied as expected. Emily discovers copies of the lady’s magazine and finds her stories altered and even signed by Elizabeth. Despite initial rejection and hardships, Charles’s passionate speech wins them a small plot. However, they face betrayal by a local lord, aiming to expel them to prevent Charles’s ideals of equality from spreading. Amidst adversity, Charles deludes himself and his family about owning vast lands, while his brother François’s efforts to establish a French colony nearly succeed. The family’s unity, buoyed by Charles’s infectious optimism and musical talent, endears them to the natives. The season concludes with Emily’s realization that returning to her old life is impossible, choosing instead to navigate the challenges of their new life with resilience and hope.
-
Marie’s intriguing Concept and World
What I learned doing this assignment is the concept of intriguing world and its importance and the incredible efficiency of AI when it is about giving a more precise and concise exposition of what I wrote!
Present your concept:
A. Engaging and highly proactive hero… Emily Rudge, a skilled romance serial writer for a well-known lady’s magazine
B. …up against a major conflict… afraid of love and pressured to marry in the boring status of women in a quaint British town
C. …goes on a unique transformational journey… finds herself caught into marrying a fantasist adventurer
D. Into an intriguing world… and going on a globe-trotting adventure in a quest for freedom and equality around the world before feminism.
Hook 1: What if a romance writer used her talent to avoid love?
Hook 2: How the British daughter of an archdeacon explores the freedom of early feminism in the new world?
Unique Sub-World: the seeds of the feminism movement.
Previously unexplored: The triggers that will lead to the birth of feminism.
The unknown: How a couple can explore gendre equality in a society where it’s not the norm.
The unseen: The Church of England’s narrow views, the French emigrés restoring needs – both obsessed with reputation.
Unheard of dangers: Being different is not tolerable.
Reason to explore it: fearing the worst life for a women, searching for the best.
Ideas for Enhancement
1. Deepen Character Complexity: Emily Rudge could have a hidden past or a secret that not only influences her fear of love but also adds depth to her character. Perhaps she’s witnessed a tragic love story that has left her scarred.
2. Amplify Conflict: Intensify the societal pressure on Emily to marry by introducing a specific, looming deadline (an arranged marriage, a family debt, etc.) and a formidable antagonist who embodies the societal expectations she’s fighting against.
3. Enrich the Transformational Journey: Emily’s journey could involve her secretly publishing controversial articles under a pseudonym, challenging societal norms, and becoming a symbol of change, which complicates her personal quest.
4. Expand the World: The global adventure could introduce mythical or magical elements tied to the concept of equality and freedom, making the quest not just physical but also a spiritual or mystical journey.
5. Incorporate Historical Figures: Include encounters with historical figures who were ahead of their time in terms of gender equality, offering inspiration and challenging Emily’s views.
6. Elevate the Stakes: The consequences of Emily’s quest could extend beyond her personal freedom, impacting the wider movement for women’s rights, making her journey pivotal to the historical development of feminism.
Rewritten Concept and World
Concept (25 words): Emily Rudge, a secret romance novelist, afraid of love and its constraint, embarks on a daring global quest with a fantastical adventurer to challenge societal norms and discover true freedom.
Intriguing World (3 sentences): In a world on the brink of change, Emily Rudge’s journey from a constrained British town to exotic lands reveals the untold stories of early feminists. Alongside her enigmatic partner, she uncovers mystical secrets that blur the lines between myth and the emerging quest for gender equality. Their adventures not only defy the rigid societal norms of their time but also sow the seeds for a future where freedom and equality begin to blossom.
Enhanced Pitch to TV Producers
Elevated Pitch: Imagine a series where the pen is mightier than the sword, and a woman’s quest for self-discovery ignites the flames of change across the globe. “Emily Rudge’s Odyssey” is not just a story; it’s a journey through the hidden corners of history, where magic and myth meet the early whispers of feminism. As Emily transforms from a reclusive writer to a daring advocate for equality, her adventures with a mysterious adventurer uncover secrets that challenge everything we know about the past. This is a tale of love, rebellion, and the unseen forces that shaped the world before feminism was a whisper on the wind. Join us in bringing to life a series that promises not just to entertain but to inspire a conversation about freedom, equality, and the power of one woman’s pen to rewrite history.
-
Marie has completed the BW Framework and is ready for feedback!
-
Marie’s example show: BRIDGERTON
Big picture – empathy / distress
Across several episodes
DAPHNE AND SIMON
Distress: (undeserved misfortune)
Daphne accepts to marry Simon who cannot have children because she thinks one of them, either Simon or Anthony, will die in a duel. But she thinks Simon doesn’t love her and is forced into marrying her.
Empathy:
Daphne thinking he had no choice but to marry her.
Simon thinking she had no choice but to marry him.
Distress: (undeserved misfortune)
Daphne discovering that he actually can have children. He betrayed her, taking advantage of her lack of knowledge on sex matters.
Empathy: (Forced decision she would never make)
So she creates a situation to become pregnant without his wish.
Distress:
Simon is feeling betrayed by her – He had been clear that he didn’t want children.
Empathy:
How will he deal with the issue if she is pregnant? He is adamant that his vow cannot be undone.
Distress – External character conflict:
(unintentional conflict) Simon not breaking his vow despite the heartbreaking state of his marriage, despite his love for her and her love for him.
Empathy:
We want them to love each other.
Distress – External character conflict:
Antony and Simon fighting over their life decisions, commitments, family legacy.
Empathy: moral dilemma
They are both suffering because of their commitments
Antony = Loving Siena doesn’t fit his role as a head of a family but breaking up with her shows him that he may not even be up to the task anyway.
Simon = to have a child despite his vow and live a miserable life with Daphne or to have no child and live apart.
Distress: undeserved misfortune
Daphne at the concert losing blood.
Empathy:
She will never have a child. She will have a separate life with her husband and this is not what she wanted. She wanted a marriage of love and friendship.
LADY FEATHERINGTON FAMILY
Distress: (undeserved misfortune).
Marina’s pregnancy
Empathy:
The fake letter from the father of the baby is devastating.
Distress: (undeserved misfortune).
Penelope is in love with Colin but Marina wants to trap Colin
Empathy:
Penelope hides her feelings.
Distress: (undeserved misfortune)
Penelope shows how upset she is. Colin is her friend. She cannot do that.
Empathy (moral dilemma):
Marina realizes Penelope is in love with Collin but she has no other choice than to marry Collin. It’s her only way to be happy.
Distress: (undeserved misfortune)
Penelope wants to be loyal to her friend colins and tell him the truth. But he doesn’t even listen to her.
Empathy
She is transparent, he doesn’t see her.
Distress: (external character conflicts)
Colin proposes. Penelope has to do something to prevent the marriage.
Empathy:
Penelope is angry. It’s too late now. Nothing can be done. It is public.
Distress (plot intruding on life)
Marina’s pregnancy public is made public by Lady Whistledown. Shame on her and her family.
Empathy:
But Lady Featherington is a victim of her husband’s gambling habits. The Featherington family is rejected from the Queen luncheon.
Distress:
Eloise is distressed for Penelope’s ruined reputation and wants lady Whistledown to be found and retract what she wrote.
Empathy:
Penelope is more obsessed with the idea that Colin is not marrying Marina anymore.
Distress: (undeserved misfortune)
Colin’s reputation: a fool who proposed too quickly to a stranger.
Empathy:
Love is blind. He sincerely loves her and doesn’t believe it is true.
Distress: (plot intruding on life)
Colin confronts Marina who replies honestly.
Empathy:
It’s true, he has been tricked. He is heartbroken.
Distress:
Marina had no choice and no support.
Empathy:
Daphne helping Marina (empathy about women having to deal with issues they were not prepared for).
Distress:
Colin’s broken heart
Empathy: Antony apologizing to Colin (empathy on losing the love of your life).
Distress: (external character conflict)
Lord Featherington trying to corrupt Simon’s friend, the boxer to save his family.
Empathy:
They both need to care for / save their family.
Added after posting:
After I listed the empathy distress, I looked again at the big picture:
Daphne and Simon
– The scheme: Simon pretending to court Daphne
– The impossible love (Simon made a vow, and Daphne thinks he doesn’t love her).
The Featherington family
– The father gambling and ruining the family
– Marina’s journey finding a father for her baby.
Assignment 2
Marie’s show EMPATHY/DISTRESS
What I learned doing this assignment is that the link between distress causing empathy making the situation and the character relatable and connected to universal experience is so logical now that I can see it!!! And focusing only on the empathy distress gives a guide line to the whole story. It’s brilliant. I had a breakthrough! Using AI simplifies it because it summaries the information and I understood the importance of giving very precise and clear instructions.
Lead Character: Lily
Distress:
A. Undeserved misfortune: Lily discovers her mother’s terminal illness, adding emotional strain as she navigates the challenging real estate market all while being unaware of the impending cyber threats.
B. External character conflicts: Lily faces cyber threats orchestrated by her own romantic interest, Noah, unknowingly endangering her family’s business further complicating her already stressful life.
C. Plot intruding on life: Lily juggles her responsibilities as a student, undercover cyber agent, and caretaker of the family business, and now, the revelation of conflicting missions, creating overwhelming pressure and a constant intrusion of external conflicts.
D. Moral dilemmas: Lily grapples with the choice between saving her family business by betraying Noah or supporting his mission, risking the destruction of her family’s livelihood, introducing a moral complexity that adds to her distress..
E. Forced decisions they’d never make: Lily, forced to choose between revealing Noah’s identity to the agency for the sake of her family business or keeping his identity secret and risking their survival, faces a decision that challenges her values and loyalty, intensifying her emotional turmoil.
Empathy:
A. Put them in distress: Lily’s emotional turmoil, the burden of her mother’s illness, and the escalating conflicts around her make her a character the audience sympathizes with as she faces an undeserved series of misfortunes.
B. Make them relatable: Lily’s struggles with balancing personal and professional life, along with the weight of ethical decisions, and the complexities of love and loyalty make her a relatable figure for viewers dealing with their own life challenges.
C. Universal experiences that are emotional: Lily’s commitment to family, the internal conflict of choosing between love and loyalty, and the moral dilemmas she encounters resonate with viewers who understand the complexity of making tough choices in the face of adversity. The revelation of conflicting missions with Noah adds an extra layer of emotional complexity that resonates universally with the audience.
Lead Character: Noah
Distress:
A. Undeserved misfortune: Noah, fueled by the tragic death of his sister due to a corrupt laboratory, carries the emotional burden of seeking revenge, a motivation that intensifies his distress.
B. External character conflicts: Noah discovers that Lily, the woman he loves, is inadvertently working against his group’s mission, creating internal turmoil as he grapples with conflicting loyalties.
C. Plot intruding on life: The clash between Noah’s hacking activities and Lily’s commitment to her family business not only endangers their budding romance but adds external threats that intrude upon his personal life and goals.
D. Moral dilemmas: Noah faces the moral dilemma of using Lily’s position to further his mission of revenge, raising questions about the righteousness of his actions and the potential consequences for their relationship.
E. Forced decisions they’d never make: Noah, upon learning about Lily’s change of allegiance and the cyber attack on her family’s business, must decide whether to prioritize his revenge mission over his love for Lily or find a way to protect both, adding layers of complexity to his character.
Empathy:
A. Put them in distress: Noah’s tragic past, conflicting emotions, and the revelation of Lily’s unintentional betrayal make him a sympathetic character facing a series of undeserved challenges.
B. Make them relatable: Noah’s pursuit of justice for his sister, the struggle to balance personal vendettas with genuine feelings for Lily, and the internal conflict of choosing between revenge and love make him a relatable and multi-dimensional character.
C. Universal experiences that are emotional: The internal conflict between revenge and love is a universally resonant theme, drawing empathy from viewers who understand the complexity of moral choices and the challenges of navigating relationships amid conflicting goals. Noah’s journey becomes even more relatable with the added layer of complexity arising from Lily’s involvement in the conflict.
Lead Character: Theo
Distress:
A. Undeserved misfortune: Theo, already grappling with the impending death of his mother and the struggle to keep the family business afloat, is also burdened with the dark secret of an accidental death linked to his past actions, amplifying his emotional distress.
B. External character conflicts: Theo faces the external threat of potential police charges for a crime he unwittingly became entangled in, intensifying the challenges to both his personal and professional life.
C. Plot intruding on life: The revelation of a past mistake and the need for a fake alibi not only complicates Theo’s relationships but also intrudes on his attempts to stabilize the family business, creating a web of complications.
D. Moral dilemmas: Theo, torn between protecting his family’s reputation and confronting the truth, is forced into a moral dilemma, knowing that the fake alibi created by Lily might forever cast doubt on his innocence.
E. Forced decisions they’d never make: Theo, faced with the choice of revealing the truth and risking the family’s reputation or perpetuating the lie created by Lily, experiences a forced decision that challenges his moral compass and sense of responsibility.
Empathy:
A. Put them in distress: Theo’s complex situation involving family struggles, the impending loss of his mother, and the accidental death tied to his past actions make him a character for whom the audience feels sympathy.
B. Make them relatable: Theo’s attempt to protect his family from potential scandal, the burden of past mistakes, and the moral dilemma he faces are relatable themes that resonate with viewers navigating their own moral quandaries.
C. Universal experiences that are emotional: Theo’s journey becomes universally emotional as he grapples with the consequences of his past actions, the challenges of family dynamics, and the difficult decisions that arise when trying to shield loved ones from harm.
Lead Character: Lucas
Distress:
A. Undeserved misfortune: Lucas, torn between loyalty to Theo and the dark secret he holds about his brother’s heinous crime, experiences emotional distress as he navigates a situation where the truth could destroy the family.
B. External character conflicts: Lucas faces the external threat of his brother’s criminal actions, which not only endangers Theo but also puts the family business at risk, adding external pressure and conflict to his life.
C. Plot intruding on life: Lucas is forced into a life of crime to protect Theo, leading to internal conflict and external threats that intrude upon his sense of morality.
D. Moral dilemmas: Lucas, burdened by the knowledge of his brother’s crime, is forced into a moral dilemma of choosing between protecting Theo or maintaining his silence to avoid the dangerous repercussions from his gang-affiliated brother.
E. Forced decisions they’d never make: Lucas, aware of the fabricated alibi created by Lily and the potential danger it poses to Theo, grapples with the forced decision of whether to reveal the truth and risk his brother’s wrath or continue to protect Theo while maintaining a dangerous silence.
Empathy:
A. Put them in distress: Lucas’s internal turmoil, caught between loyalty and the burden of a devastating secret, evokes empathy from the audience as he navigates a situation where the right choice is laden with peril.
B. Make them relatable: Lucas’s struggle to protect Theo, the internal conflict between familial loyalty and the moral imperative to expose a crime, and the fear of retribution from a dangerous brother resonate with viewers facing complex family dynamics and ethical dilemmas.
C. Universal experiences that are emotional: Lucas’s journey becomes universally emotional as he grapples with the harsh reality of protecting loved ones, the consequences of keeping dark secrets, and the difficult decisions that arise when facing threats from within and outside the family
-
Marie’s creating irony!
Assignment 1 lesson 12
What I learned doing this assignment is to focus and see the possibilities of ironies through my show. It creates more interesting characters/situations, it brings more inner conflicts.
My example Show: BRIDGERTON
Daphne wants to a marriage of love and friendship and her marriage turns into a prospect of a separate life with her husband.
She is flawless but learns that perfection shouldn’t stop love.
While she respects the constraints of her society by the book, she lies to everyone and knocks Nigel.
Simon and Daphne ruse to fulfill the duties of the conventions but because it’s a ruse, they don’t have to respect the rules of the convention and can talk freely together.
Simon keeps on planning to leave but stay.
Despite his vow, Simon is forced to marry.
Anthony wants to impose rules he doesn’t apply for himself. He is a elder brother acting as a second brother.
Lady Whistledown destroys her own family’s reputation to save the man she loves.
Eloise seeks the Queen’s approval with her quest for Lady Whistledown’s identity but helps Lady Whistledown escape.
Assignment 2 lesson 12
Emily
– Romantic writer, she doesn’t allow herself to fall in love and marry
– Friend to the idea of the universal suffrage, she ends up in love with an ultra-royalist.
– Despite fighting for her independence, she is forced into a marriage of convenience.
She steals from the robbers she blames.
Charles
– He wants to return to his French royalist roots and restore the high social level of his family while playing music in sordid bars to investigate the reformers for the British government for a reward to pay his debts.
– A charismatic orator who fails his ordination because he loses his voice.
Margaret
– So sweet with Children, a killer around men.
– A honest straightforward appearance but has a double life, a hidden identity (Mrs Jenkyl and Mrs Hyde).
-
Assignment 1 – Lesson 9
Marie’s BIG PICTURE OPEN LOOPS
What I learned about this assignment is to list all the situation that are left unanswered and create the need to watch more to get the answers.
My example show: BRIDGERTON
Big picture open loops:
– How the scheme of the Duke and Daphne will work out?
– Will they fall in love?
– Or will Daphne achieve her goal to attract a good suiter that could provide her with a good marriage like her parents?
– Will the duke change his mind about marriage and what is his reason for refusing marriage?
– How Marina will deal with her pregnancy?
– Will Antony marry a lady and recover from his broken heart?
– Who is Lady Whistledown?
All these Open loops create the need to see future episodes.
Assignment 2
BIG PICTURES OPEN LOOPS in my pilot.
Format/Genre: One-hour TV series/drama
Concept: In the Regency era, Emily, the daughter of an archdeacon, finds herself unwillingly implicated in a robbery. She seeks to save her reputation, encountering clues that suggest the robbery was more than a mere heist and begins to suspect those in her close circle.
Conflict: Emily is blackmailed into marriage by a witness to the robbery and seeks the help of her music teacher, Charles, and her former governess, Margaret, to navigate the perilous social landscape.
Lead Characters:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Emily: Desires an independent life away from the expected marriage and domesticity and is waiting for his father’s agreement to become a governess.
- Charles: Emily’s music teacher, a French son of emigres, who plans to leave as soon as his debts are paid to marry in France and is on a mission to spy on the local underground movements of rebellion while teaching music.
- Margaret: Emily’s former governess, who school children at home, who is actualy the mastermind behind the robbery.
Open Loops and Setups for Season 1:Goals:
<ul type=”disc”>
- New Goals: Emily must find who set her up making her part of a robbery and why.
- Big Picture Goals: Avoiding marriage.
Consequences:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Reputation at Stake: The man who wants to marry her promises silence but if she refuses to marry him, her reputation is over and her sister will not be able to marry.
- Past Actions Haunt: one of her sister who died had a terrible marriage and told her to be careful.
Solving Problems:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Major Problems: How to investigate a robbery when one is a woman and was seen at the scene?
- New Problems from Solutions: her disguises and her little night expeditions with her maid lead them in dangerous situations.
Relationships:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Perilous Relationships: When Emily starts suspecting a friend of her former governess, she feels threatened by her; but she will turn to be a friend.Unexpected alliances form as Emily finds support in unlikely places, complicating her social and personal life further.
- New Relationships Forming: Emily and Charles after hating each other make an alliance to solve both of their problems. Emily pays Charles’s debt with the money from the robbery while Charles accepts to officially court her so her blackmailer has no chance. Her father will chose Charles over him.
Danger/Survival/Risks:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Surviving Scandal: the money of the robbery has been traced down and lead to Charles. How can Emily justify she took it from a robbery.
- The blackmailer is not going to give up and Margaret has to find a way to blackmail him…At the end of the pilot, she hasn’t succeeded yet. Will Emily have to marry him
- Dangerous Decisions: Charles who is told he must stay in the country until the investigation is over, tries to embark for France. Will Charles manages to run away ? This mean there was be no other alternative for Emily.
Season Arcs:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Emily’s Arc: Transitioning from a victim of circumstance to a master of her destiny, Emily’s journey is marked by her resilience, cunning, and determination to reclaim her place in society against all odds.
- Charles’s Arc: His intertwined fate with Emily’s quest and his own secret motivations add layers of intrigue and personal growth.
- Margaret’s Arc: Her true intentions and past actions slowly come to light, revealing a character of depth and complexity, whose actions have far-reaching consequences.
MY BIG PICTURE LOOPS
Open loops:
– who are the robbers? Why did they involve her?
– Will Charles and Emily fall in love?
– Why is Charles following her without her knowledge? Will he get caught?
– What is Margaret, Emily’s former governess hiding?
– Will Emily have to marry her blackmailer?
– Will Charles escape the police and board the French ship?
-
Assignment 1 – lesson 8
Marie’s example show : Bridgerton
Mystery type 1: will the duke marry Daphne?
A. Shocking event: Antony forces Daphne to marry Nigel. But Nigel is abusive and Daphne hits him.
B. Secret: Daphne and the duke fake a relationship.
C. Why the duke doesn’t propose? When is he going to propose? How is he going to resolve his dilemma? (love her but not marry her?). What is his secret? Why he doesn’t want to have children.
Mystery type 2: Who is Lady Whistledown?
______________________________________________
Assignment 2 – lesson 8
Marie’s show mysteries
What I learned doing this assignment is that it helped me add many new layers to my story I hadn’t thought about.
Note that I decided to work on a different screenplay for this class from now on.
CONCEPT:
In a world where a woman’s voice is silenced, Emily’s entanglement in a suffragette heist and forced marriage ignites a quest for justice, love, and freedom against Regency era’s rigid norms
PROMPT 1
Episode 1: The Unseen Witness
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: A mysterious figure blackmails Emily into marriage, claiming she was involved in a suffragette robbery. Emily must uncover who the blackmailer is and what their motives might be, all while grappling with her own innocence and the implications of the accusation.
- Stakes: If Emily cannot prove her innocence or find a way out, she faces a loveless marriage that would trap her in the very societal constraints she fights against.
Episode 2: The Governess’s Secret
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: Emily discovers unexpected ties between her former governess, Margaret, and the robbery. Investigating Margaret’s past and her suspicious behavior, Emily seeks to understand why Margaret was at the scene and her connection to the robbers.
- Stakes: Unraveling Margaret’s secrets could expose a larger conspiracy, risking Emily’s safety and the suffragette movement’s future.
Episode 3: The Hidden Fortune
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: After finding money hidden in Margaret’s home, Emily investigates how it ended up there and its connection to the robbery. This leads her to question her allies and her own morality as she uses some of the money to aid Charles, unaware of his true identity.
- Stakes: The source of the money threatens to implicate Emily in the robbery further, risking legal consequences and her growing relationship with Charles.
Episode 4: The Loyalist’s Dilemma
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: Charles’s dual life comes to a head as his mission to spy on the suffragettes and his secret royalist agenda are compromised by his debtors and the kidnapping of his brother. Charles must navigate his divided loyalties to protect his family and his heart.
- Stakes: Failure could mean financial ruin, the loss of his brother, and imprisonment for crimes he didn’t commit, all while betraying Emily, whom he’s grown to love.
Episode 5: The Nighttime Disappearances
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: Margaret’s nocturnal disappearances and her secretive activities come under scrutiny. Emily and Charles, from their respective angles, delve into what Margaret is hiding, revealing a network of activities tied to the suffragette movement and a plot that could change the course of their fight for equality.
- Stakes: Exposing Margaret could dismantle a crucial part of the suffragette movement and endanger all involved, testing Emily’s allegiance and Charles’s undercover operations.
Episode 6: The Final Confrontation
<ul type=”disc”>
- Mystery: The intertwining secrets of Emily, Charles, and Margaret converge as the true architect of the robbery and the blackmailer’s identity are revealed. The protagonists must navigate their complex relationships and conflicting goals to bring the true villain to justice.
- Stakes: The resolution not only affects the personal futures of Emily, Charles, and Margaret but also has far-reaching implications for the suffragette movement and the balance of power in their society.
PROMPT 2
· Mystery 1: The Unwilling Accomplice
· Format/Genre: One-hour TV series, 6 episodes in the first season.
· Shocking Event: A highly successful bank robbery shocks the small town, especially because such crimes are unheard of in this era. The event is intricately planned, leaving the authorities baffled and the town in fear.
· Secret: Emily finds herself unwillingly implicated in the robbery. The twist is that she was set up by unknown individuals who manipulated her presence at the scene. This setup explores the themes of betrayal and innocence, as Emily is a woman who values freedom and justice, now trapped in a scenario against her values.
· Investigation: The investigation unfolds as Emily seeks to clear her name. She delves into the identity of the robbers, questioning her connections and those around her. Her skills in acting and disguises become crucial as she tries to unravel the mystery from the shadows, encountering clues that suggest the robbery was more than a mere heist—it was a statement, possibly tied to the suffragette movement. Emily’s connection to the event seems to be orchestrated by someone who knows her well, leading her to suspect those in her close circle, including her former governess, Margaret.
· Mystery 2: The Hidden Leader
· Cover Up: The twist deepens as it’s revealed that the leader of the organization behind the robbery is none other than Emily’s former governess, Margaret. This revelation is gradual, peeling layers of Margaret’s seemingly ordinary life to uncover her as a mastermind of an international organization aiming to influence reforms for a better life.
· Secret: Margaret’s organization is dedicated to drastic measures to ensure the rights and freedoms of the oppressed. Her role as the leader is a well-guarded secret, placing her in a dangerous game of politics and power. She ordered the robbery as part of a larger scheme to fund and fuel their cause, using her intellect and connections to stay one step ahead of the authorities.
· Reveals: Charles, the government agent posing as a music teacher, investigates the suffragette movement’s local activities, inadvertently getting closer to uncovering Margaret’s role. Emily, in a spur of impulsivity and perhaps affection, uses the robbery money to cover Charles’s debts. This act entangles Charles deeper into the mystery, making him a suspect in the robbery. His investigation, driven by duty yet complicated by his growing feelings for Emily, becomes a pivotal point in their relationship and the series. The police’s interest in Charles, thinking him to be a double agent, adds another layer of tension and urgency to the story.
· As these mysteries unfold over the season, Emily and Charles’s relationship becomes a battlefield of trust, betrayal, and the search for truth. Their journey to uncover Margaret’s secret leadership and navigate the repercussions of the robbery money involves moral dilemmas, personal growth, and the questioning of one’s beliefs and loyalties. The series weaves through these intricate mysteries, leading to a climax that challenges the characters’ understanding of justice, freedom, and love, setting the stage for profound revelations and decisions that will impact their lives and the society around them.
·
-
Marie’s show – Relationship Map
What I learned doing this was that it points out the different ways/layers the characters interact. The AI was a bit more tricky and not so accurate for me this time.
Main character: Lily
Lily with Theo
Surface: sister and brother
Common ground: family ties, real estate business, shared concerns for family’s well-being.
Conflict: Bet with her mum/local gang.
History: fake alibi.
Subtext: hidden cyber missions.
Relationship arc: from being distant to new bond.
Lily with Noah
Surface: Master students in IT in Paris.
Common ground: both geniuses – shared interest – mutual attraction.
Conflict: Her hidden cyber missions / his deception about his true identity –
History: rivals.
Subtext: concealing her undercover hacking activities- Growing romantic tension.
Relationship arc: from lying to trusting, from enemies to romance.
Lily with Lucas
Surface: neighbors in Auckland,
Common ground: grew up in the same street, rivalry in real estate.
Conflict: he takes jobs away from family business/ he stalks her.
History: false alibi
Subtext: he has an obsessive attraction with her
Relationship arc: from neighbor to rival.
Character 2: Theo
Theo with Lily
Surface: brother and sister
Common ground: family ties, real estate business, shared concerns for family’s well-being. They both lie and hide information from their parents.
Conflict: her bet with her mum about not lying when selling a property is one cause of conflict. Her interaction with hackers is another one.
History: because she gave a fake alibi to protect him, he wonders if she thinks he is guilty.
Subtext: 1/ He wants to prove her that he couldn’t be guilty.2/ he suspects something is going on in Paris that she doesn’t want to talk about 3/ he is protective of Lily
Relationship arc: from being distant to teaming up.
Theo with Noah
Surface: his sister’s friend.
Common ground: he is helping saving the family business
Conflict: they don’t understand their world.
History: None
Subtext: what her sister finds in him?
Relationship arc: from strangers to teaming up.
Theo with Lucas
Surface: childhood friends
Common ground: their childhood memories / both work as rival agents in real estate
Conflict: he wants to know how that girl died but Lucas keeps the secret.
History: the tragic accident with the girl.
Subtext: a true friend would trust him, tell him the truth.
Relationship arc: from friends to rivals to friends again.
Character 3: Noah
Noah with Lily
Surface: study together for their master in IT in Paris.
Common ground: both It genius, shared interest – mutual attraction.
Conflict: His target with his group and the necessity to deceive her about his true identity when he realizes they are online enemies.
History: IT genius rivals. Initial attraction that she had stopped when she suspected him to be the bad guy!
Subtext: Noah is conflicted, concealing his true identity while falling in love with Lily – Growing romantic tension.
Relationship arc: from lying to trusting, from enemies to romance.
Noah with Theo
Surface: Lily’s brother
Common ground: helping the family business.
Conflict: Noah is concealing his true identity to Theo and has to act like someone he is not.
History: No history
Subtext: acting as a tourism when he is facing dramatic issues with the hacking
Relationship arc: from distant to trusting.
Noah with Lucas
Surface: Lily’s friend
Common ground: Lily.
Conflict: Lily has fallen in love with Noah and he cannot accept it.
History: none
Subtext: I will not let this guy from Paris take Lily away from me/
Relationship arc:
Character 4: Lucas
Lucas with Lily
Surface: neighbors in Auckland,
Common ground: grew up in the same street, rivalry in real estate.
Conflict: Lucas trying to climb the career ladder is stealing jobs from their family business and she is protective of the business.
History: shared secret about her false alibi, fear he would talk about it and use it to destroy the reputation of the family.
Subtext: he is obsessed with her but she doesn’t pay attention to him. He is just a business rival.
Relationship arc: from distant childhood relationship (friend of her smaller brother) to true friend.
Lucas with Theo
Surface: childhood friends
Common ground: their childhood memories / both work as rival agents in real estate
Conflict: he knows how that girl died but keeps the secret for Theo’s safety.
History: the tragic accident with the girl.
Subtext: he would do anything to protect Theo and Lily from the gang.
Relationship arc: from friends to rivals to friends again.
Lucas with Noah
Surface: Lily’s friend
Common ground: Lily.
Conflict: Lily has fallen in love with Noah and he cannot accept it – he wouldn’t hesitate to use his brother and the gang to stop him/
History: none
Subtext: I will not let this guy from Paris take Lily away from me.
Relationship arc: from enemies to finally friends
-
Marie’s example Show BRIDERTON – Relationship map for one character: DAPHNE
Unable to copy the document so I typed it here.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>DAPHNE with SIMON
Surface: future husband
Common ground: Ruse / friendship / love
Conflict: they both feel rejected.
History: she knows he had a difficult lonely childhood and has difficulty with attachment. He knows she wants a family and that’s precisely what he can’t give her.
Subtext: Love
Relationship arc: from rejection to love
DAPHNE with VIOLETTA
Surface: Her mother
Common ground: values and love – Both want Simon to propose
Conflict: because of the ruse, she lies / mother cannot help as she doesn’t have the clue of what’s going on.
History: her parents’ love and friendship set a criteria for her own mariage.
Subtext: difficulty to keep the secret
Relationship arc: from lying to revealing the truth.
DAPHNE with ANTONY
Surface: brother with father’s power
Common ground: family and social constraints and reputation
Conflict: His disapproval for Simon courting his sister
History: frustration: she knows he knows Simon’s secret and doesn’t want to tell her
Subtext: mistrust
Relationship arc: from love for her big brother to feeling disrespected by him.
-
MARIE’S CHARACTERS EMOTIONS
What I learned doing this assignment is that it helps to build each character’s depth of emotions and the use of AI is mind blowing!!! It brings me the precision that my creative mind tends to lack of!
ASSIGNMENT 1: Example Show : BRIDGERTON
Daphne Bridgerton
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) to marry a man she loves and have a family /( Fear) to have no control over her future.
- B. Motivation: (Want) A life like her parents had / (Need) to marry well for her family’s name and need to maintain a good reputation
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) guilt of misleading everyone / (Public Mask) flawless, maintains a façade, acts as if she is in love.
- D. Weaknesses : powerless, needs to control, fear of losing her reputation.
- E. Triggers : being told the Duke will marry her for sure when she knows it’s a ruse.
- F. Coping Mechanism : uses her duty, her role to mask her true feelings.
Simon, Duke of Hastings
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) to stay unmarried and free / (Fear) to force Daphne into a marriage knowing that he cannot give her children and she wants a family.
- B. Motivation: (Want) to end his family name with his own death / (Need) to love his true friend Daphne and be loved by her.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) guilt of misleading her as their friendship grows, and his love for her and the time is running/ (Public Mask) projects love and dedication as agreed by her to help her find a suitor.
- D. Weaknesses : the memory of his difficulty to talk when he was a child.
- E. Triggers: being reminded of his father, and everything that concerns Daphne’s happiness.
- F. Coping Mechanism: uses his freedom to run away or to threaten to run away, anywhere.
<hr size=”0″ width=”100%” align=”center”>
ASSIGNMENT 2: my Show : BUY A HOME
Lilly Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) Hopes to fulfill her financial commitment to the private security agency and return to Paris without her family knowing the truth/( Fear) Fears failing her family, especially her dying mother, and the consequences of not meeting her commitment to the security agency.
- B. Motivation: (Want) Wants to continue her studies and maintain her relationship with Noah in Paris / (Need) Needs to support her family, especially her dying mother, and the consequences of not meeting her commitment to the security agency.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) Anxiety and fear of being exposed / (Public Mask) Maintains a façade of normalcy and confidence, especially in her interactions with her family and the real Estate business..
- D. Weaknesses : Emotional vulnerability due to her mother’s illness and the pressure to balance her double life.
- E. Triggers : Anything related to her mother’s health or the potential exposure of her undercover mission.
- F. Coping Mechanism : uses her investigative skills to balance her studies, family responsibilities, and the undercover mission.
Theo Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) Hopes to prove himself and modernize the family business / (Fear) Fears his dyslexia and past traumas will hinder his success.
- B. Motivation: (Want) Wants his own home and gain recognition / (Need) Needs to overcome his dyslexia and past traumas to succeed in the real estate business.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) insecurity and fear of inadequacy / (Public Mask) Projects confidence and competence to gain respect in the industry.
- D. Weaknesses : struggles with dyslexia, slow processing and unresolved trauma from a past death.
- E. Triggers: The mention of the mysterious death or interactions with his rival /school friend.
- F. Coping Mechanism: Uses ambition and the pursuit of homeownership to mask his insecurities.
Noah Osbourne
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) Hope to stop the corrupted laboratory and avenge his ex-girl friend’s death /( Fear) Fears Lily’s discovery of his true identity and intentions.
- B. Motivation: (Want) Wants justice and stop the corrupted laboratory’s activities / (Need) Needs to balance his undercover activities with his growing feeling for Lily.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) Guilt and the weight of the past / (Public Mask) Projects an image of a determined and focused student.
- D. Weaknesses : Emotional conflict between his desire for justice and his feeling for Lily.
- E. Triggers : Lily’s increasing suspicions and any reminders of his past girlfriend’s death.
- F. Coping Mechanism : Maintains a façade of focus on studies while secretly working against the corrupted laboratory.
Lucas Jones
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) Hopes to prove himself as the best estate agent but deep down would like to become Theo’s partner /( Fear) Fears the repercussions of the gang knowing he witnessed the mysterious homicide.
- B. Motivation: (Want) Wants success in the real estate business / (Need) Needs to confront his guilt of not telling Theo what he knows about the homicide and find a way to deal with the gang’s manipulation.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) Guilt and fear of the gang / (Public Mask) Projects confidence and ambition in his real estate career.
- D. Weaknesses : haunted by guilt but also his love for Theo’s family and his fear of contributing in destroying their business while succeeding with their rival.
- E. Triggers : Interactions with the gang or his contribution to contributing to destroy Theo’s family business.
- F. Coping Mechanism : Uses ambition in his career to distract from the guilt and fear.
Isabelle Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- A. Situational: (Hope) Hopes to keep her family together before her passing /( Fear) Fears losing control over her family and the real estate business.
- B. Motivation: (Want) Wants to see Lily settled and her family thriving / (Need) Needs to navigate the family dynamics and secure a future for her children.
- C. Mask: (Base Negative Emotion) Fear of loss and desperation/ (Public Mask) Maintains a strong and controlling exterior to guide her family.
- D. Weaknesses : Struggles with the reality of her terminal illness and the fear of leaving her family.
- E. Triggers : Anything related to Lily’s secretive behavior or discussions about the family’s future.
- F. Coping Mechanism : manipulates situations to keep Lily close and tries to secure the family’s future before her passing.
-
Assignment Lesson 4
Marie’s intriguing character layers:
What I learned doing this assignment is the differences between hidden agendas, conspiracies, secret and deception and the layers it creates for the future plots.
Assignment 1 – Example show: BRIDGERTON
Daphne Bridgerton
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: the eldest daughter of the family Bridgerton who attempts to find a husband.
- Hidden agendas: she wants Simon to propose.
- Competition: with Cressy Cooper, rival and a threat to her reputation.
- Conspiracies: to destroy Nigel’s reputation and cancel the marriage (it’s actually her mother who does it).
- Secrets: she falls in love with Simon/ punching Nigel.
- Deception: Ruse: Simon and Daphne pretend to form an attachment to serve their current situation. Daphne pretends to fall in love with the Prince to make Simon jealous
- Wound: she is rejected by Simon with no explanation.
- Secret Identity: Duchesse of Hastings.
Simon, duke of Hastings
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: a bachelor chased by all the mothers of eligible daughters.
- Hidden agendas: Simon will not have an heir so his name and title will be lost forever as a revenge to his father’s rejection.
- Competition: with the Prince.
- Conspiracies: destroying his father’s legacy.
- Secrets: his wow to his father/ his love for Daphne.
- Deception: Ruse: Simon and Daphne pretend to form an attachment to serve their current situation/ Then he pretends he was just playing a game.
- Wound: his father’s rejection, his difficulty to talk when he needs to say something important.
- Secret Identity: a rake, a loner.
Assignment 2 – My show: (working title) BUY A HOME
Lily Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: student on holidays, IT expert, genius.
- Hidden agendas: Lily’s primary goal is to return to Paris quickly to continue her studies and fulfill her secret mission, raising questions about what she’s really involved in
- Competition: Her rivalry with Noah in Paris adds an extra layer of tension, creating potential conflicts and alliances.
- Conspiracies: Employed by a private security agency, Lily is tasked with infiltrating Noah’s international hacking group, introducing a spy element to the storyline.
- Secrets: the private security agency’s financial support for her fourth year at Uni in Paris is a crucial secret that could jeopardize her relationships and trust.
- Deception: Lily’s lie about winning a scholarship to stay in Paris is the first layer of deception, raising doubts about her true intentions and loyalties. Lily’s dual role as both a student and a secret agent creates a tension between her seemingly normal life and the dangerous world, she’s entangled in while helping the family business.
- Wound: The burden of lying to everyone, especially giving her brother an alibi for a homicide investigation, while helping to save the business and the family cohesion.
- Secret Identity: Lily’s overarching mission to “fix the world” hints at a larger purpose and a potential moral dilemma.
Theo Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: Real estate manager aiming to modernize the family business with augmented reality.
- Hidden agendas: Theo’s desire to own his own home at any cost adds a personal motive, making his character more relatable and conflicted.
- Competition: Rivalry with another real estate business in the same area heightens the stakes in the competitive world of Auckland real estate.
- Conspiracies: Theo’s struggle to free himself from the bullying of a school friend and their gang, combined with racketeering, introduces an element of danger and suspense.
- Secrets: His involvement in a mysterious death several years prior, needing Lily’s false alibi, as he had been dating the girl who died after he had left her (of a OD), and this provides a dark secret that could resurface and threaten everything. Only his childhood friend Lucas knows about it.
- Deception: Theo’s pretense of acting in the business’s interest while working for his personal gain creates a dynamic where his loyalty is constantly in question.
- Wound: Feeling worthless in his father’s eyes, less smart than his little sister, enduring persistent bullying, dealing with dyslexia, and ADHD creates a complex and sympathetic character with inner struggles.
- Secret Identity: Theo’s aspiration to become the company’s full owner and be successful adds an ambitious and aspirational layer to his character.
Noah Osbourne
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: IT expert, white hacker, Lily’s friend, born British, raised in France, based in Paris.
- Hidden agendas: Noah’s true identity as a white hacker fighting corruption and the private security agency is concealed from Lily, adding a layer of mystery to his actions.
- Competition: The rivalry between Noah and Lily for the title of the best student adds a competitive edge to their relationship, creating both camaraderie and tension.
- Conspiracies: As Noah suspects Lily’s involvement with the private security agency, he sets traps to uncover the truth, heightening the suspense and danger.
- Secrets: Noah’s dual life as a white hacker and the misunderstandings between him and Lily create a web of secrets that could unravel at any moment.
- Deception: The perception that Noah is a black hacker by day adds complexity to his character, keeping Lily and the audience guessing about his true intentions.s
- Wound: The internal conflict Noah faces between his growing love for Lily and his suspicions about her involvement with the private security agency creates emotional turmoil.
- Secret Identity: Noah’s overarching goal to fight corruption and the shadowy private security agency adds a moral dimension to his character, questioning the ethics of his actions.
Lucas Jones
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: Estate agent working for a rival real estate business – Theo’s primary school friend.
- Hidden agendas: Lucas’s secret involvement in the mysterious death of a girl several years prior, a dark secret that haunts him and made him lie to his best friend Theo.
- Competition: The power dynamics between Theo and Lucas escalate, adding personal conflict to Theo’s professional struggles in the real estate business and their rivalry over a falling market.
- Conspiracies: Lucas’s affiliation with a secret gang creates a layer of danger, potentially intertwining with the cyberattack and real estate plotlines.
- Secrets: Theo’s reliance on Lucas knowing about his false alibi becomes a ticking time bomb as the truth threatens to surface, impacting both characters’ lives.
- Deception: Lucas’s outward bullying behavior contrasts with the hidden vulnerabilities and secrets he harbors, creating a complex and unpredictable character.
- Wound: The guilt and trauma of having witnessed a mysterious death and being involved in a gang weigh heavily on Lucas, adding depth to his character and potential for redemption.
- Secret Identity: Theo’s partner in his family business.
Isabelle Scott
<ul type=”disc”>
- Role: owner of the real estate family business, mother of Theo, Lily and the twins Millie and Rosie, wife of Tom Scott.
- Hidden agendas: She wants her daughter back to New Zealand.
- Competition: The mum’s struggles to maintain the family business between the 20<sup>th</sup> and the 21<sup>st</sup>century and the values of honesty she has lived for while she is competing with PAUL RICH, the owner of the rival local real estate who employs Lucas.
- Conspiracies: Investigating her children as they both lie- A/ into her daughter’s life in Paris after discovering she doesn’t have a scholarship and trying to understand what she is up to and how to make her come back believing she has fallen into a dark crowd, B/ into her son’s life who had lied to clients in a way that doesn’t reflect the spirit of her business. All that despite her husband TOM’s disagreement who think she should let go and trust them.
- Secrets: The hidden debt and the mum’s suspicions about her children’s honesty create tension within the family, adding emotional depth to the storyline.
- Deception: The mum’s attempts to shield her family from outside dangers and the financial struggles of the business create a facade that begins to crack under pressure.
- Wound: Poor health.
- Secret Identity: Grand-mother.
-
Marie’s engaging main characters.
What I learned doing this assignment is that it helps focusing on the essential parts of the characters before fleshing them.
Assignment 1
My example show: Bridgerton
Journey:
Daphne must marry before the end of the year and wishes to find love and friendship in her future husband. The only man that ticks the boxes, Simon cannot get married.
Characters that sell the show: Daphne and Simon
A – Role in the show
Daphne: the diamond of the season, the most beautiful woman ready to be married.
Simon: the most eligible bachelor.
B – Unique purpose / expertise
Daphne: purpose = going through the process of balls and visits to choose one amongst the young men.
Simon: purpose = he is there to sort out his father’s estate after his father’s death but doesn’t want to be chased by the mothers of all the young ladies of the town.
Expertise = he knows what love is.
C – what secrets are beneath the surface?
Daphne: Pretending to love Simon.
Simon: he made a vow on his father’s death to never have a child so his name would die with him.
D – Moral issue, what moral boundaries are they crossing?
Daphne: pretending to be courted by a duke in order to attract other suitors, lying to her own family.
Simon: letting Daphne fall in love with him despite his vow, playing the game a little too long.
E – Empathetic – Why do we care?
Daphne: she found what she was looking for: love and friendship in one man, Simon. But she loses it when he breaks up abruptly.
Simon: he knows Daphne is the right match for him. He is in love with her but he cannot impose her a marriage without children. So he must sacrifice his love and let her marry the prince.
Assignment 2
MY OWN SHOW
WORKING TITLE: HOUSE MARKET
(After the prompt, are my own notes before consulting AI)
PROMPT: For each of the [main characters] for this [genre] about this [concept], please brainstorm the [Character Basics] of that character that fits this TV series well.
Character Basics =
Characters: Kayla and Austin
A – Role in the show:
Kayla: student on holidays, helping the business
Austin: manager of real estate family business
B – Unique purpose / expertise:
Kayla: (purpose) save the business (expertise) It expert
Austin: (purpose) inherit of the business (expertise) manager
C – Intrigue
Kayla: when she is unable to return to Paris, due to her mum’s terminal illness, her possessive boyfriend in Paris, king of a group of international bad hackers, hacks the business to challenge her (as she knows too much about his group’s activities), to destroy the business and to make her come back to Paris.
Austin: was involved in the death of a girl a few years before. Kayla had to give him a false alibi but was he innocent as he claims? When her family’s house is on sale, it triggers new information. His school friend who has always been a bully, knows about it and is now member of a gang.
D – Moral issue
Kayla: around lying – as she bet with her mum, now in a coma, that she wouldn’t lie, she realizes she could not save the business without using lies, and covering her brother.
Austin: around getting the best deal for his company selling the dead girl’s family home while it is the worst deal for the family.
E – Unpredictable
Kayla: If she would return to Paris, the Cyber attack would be resolved but she wouldn’t be there in Auckland to care for her family who need her.
Austin: He believed he could get some help from his school friend and the gang but would this endangered even more the company?
F – Empathetic
Kayla: she thought she was living the dream in Paris but lost her illusion.
Austin: he is manipulated by his school friend, the man who caused the girl’s death.
Genre = 1 hour drama
Concept = In Auckland’s tumultuous real estate scene, KAYLA, bets with her unexpectingly dying mother to never lie to buyers, turning her proclamation into a risky, game-changing strategy amid a cyber attack and an uncertain future for the property market, endangering the small family’s business.
______________________________________________________________
CHATGPT’S ANSWER:
Character Basics for TV Series: “Auckland Lies”
A – Role in the show:
- Kayla:
- Role: Student on holidays, assisting the family business.
- Unique Purpose: To save the family business from a cyber attack and navigate personal challenges.
- Expertise: IT expert, using her skills to counteract cyber threats.
- Austin:
- Role: Manager of the family real estate business.
- Unique Purpose: To inherit and sustain the family business amidst a turbulent real estate market.
- Expertise: Effective managerial skills, striving to maintain the company’s stability.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
B – Unique purpose / expertise:
- Kayla:
- Purpose: Saving the family business from a cyber attack initiated by her possessive ex-boyfriend in Paris.
- Expertise: Proficient in IT, using her knowledge to counteract the hacking attempts.
- Austin:
- Purpose: Inheriting and preserving the family business.
- Expertise: Managerial skills, dealing with the complexities of real estate, especially when faced with personal and ethical dilemmas.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
C – Intrigue:
- Kayla:
- Intrigue: Forced into a predicament when her past in Paris resurfaces, bringing a cyber threat to her family’s business.
- Twist: The involvement of her possessive ex-boyfriend, the kingpin of an international hacking group, creates a dangerous and personal challenge.
- Austin:
- Intrigue: Haunted by a mysterious death, needing Kayla’s false alibi, and discovering unsettling secrets during the sale of a family home.
- Twist: A former school friend, now part of a gang, holds information that could unravel Austin’s life and the family business.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
D – Moral issue:
- Kayla:
- Moral Issue: Struggling with lying, breaking a bet with her dying mother to save the family business.
- Dilemma: The conflict between loyalty to family and the moral values she vowed to uphold.
- Austin:
- Moral Issue: Balancing the best deal for the business against the well-being of a grieving family.
- Inner Conflict: Wrestling with the ethics of exploiting a tragic event for the benefit of the real estate company.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
E – Unpredictable:
- Kayla:
- Unpredictable Element: Choosing between resolving the cyber attack in Paris or staying in Auckland to care for her vulnerable family.
- Consequence: The resolution of one dilemma intensifies another, creating an unpredictable chain of events.
- Austin:
- Unpredictable Element: Relying on a questionable alliance to save the business, unaware of potential dangers.
- Consequence: Every decision made could either salvage or further jeopardize the family business.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
F – Empathetic:
- Kayla:
- Empathetic Aspect: Relating to her disillusionment in Paris and discovering the importance of family during crises.
- Growth: Evolving from a carefree student to a resilient individual facing challenging moral dilemmas.
- Austin:
- Empathetic Aspect: Manipulated and haunted by the past, struggling to redeem himself.
- Redemption Arc: The journey of self-discovery and overcoming manipulation, striving for redemption and familial loyalty.
<ul type=”circle”>
<ul type=”circle”>
This character foundation provides a solid base for “Auckland Lies,” a 1-hour drama filled with suspense, moral complexities, and unexpected twists in the Auckland real estate landscape.
-
Marie’s Three Circles of Characters (assignment 2)
What I learned??? It’s important to brainstorm your own ideas first before feeding AI because you receive so many more ideas you hadn’t thought about!!! My brain cannot think that fast!!! And then the real challenge is to sort out the information quickly so I don’t get overwhelmed and may keep a bit of clarity! It is so powerful!!!
Working title: The house market
Genre: drama
Concept:
In Auckland’s tumultuous real estate scene, Lisbeth, impulsively bets to never lie to buyers, turning her intoxicated proclamation into a risky, game-changing strategy amid a cyber attack and an uncertain future for the property market, endangering her mother’s small family’s business.
A. Main Character Circle:
1. Kayla Wilson
Unique Role: Temporary acting as estate Agent pressured to work for her mum against her wish, responsible for showing properties to potential buyers and facilitating transactions.
- <ul type=”circle”>
- Secret or Intrigue: Concealing the personal motive that led her to bet that estate agents are not liars.
2. Mary-Jane Wilson
- <ul type=”circle”>
- Unique Role: Mother and Business Owner, experienced businesswoman, well-connected.
- Secret or Intrigue: Hiding the motives of her secretly kept dishonest debut in the real estate business.
3. Austin Wilson
- <ul type=”circle”>
- Unique Role: Son (second child), excellent estate agent, innovative, believes he is the one who will elevate the company and inherit of it.
- Secret or Intrigue: Secretly bullied by a local gang.
4. Victor Haines
- <ul type=”circle”>
- Unique Role: Rival real estate agent, trying to gain the upper hand in the property market.
- Secret or Intrigue: Dates Lena, the accountant, online but uses another person to meet her to avoid recognition.
5. Lena Jones
- <ul type=”circle”>
- Unique Role: Accountant.
- Secret or Intrigue: Explores the use of advanced AI algorithms predicting property trends.
B. Connected Characters:
The Wilson Family Not in the Business:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Peter Wilson:
Kayla’s father, mechanical engineer, the backbone of the family, and a
calming force.- Joan Wilson:
Kayla’s grandmother, the town gossip.- Ella Wilson:
Teenage daughter still at school.The Town Environment:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Sarah Anderson:
Business Partner and Friend, seemingly trustworthy but harbors a hidden
agenda.- Paul Mill:
politic, a man of influence in the local Council.The Hacking World:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Detective Emily Turner: Law Enforcement, investigates cybercrime, and
becomes entwined with Kayla’s quest for justice.- Mia Chang:
Underground Hacker, a mysterious figure from the Dark Web Syndicate, with
her own motives. Becomes an unexpected ally to Kayla.The AI World:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Tom Simpson:
Augmented Reality Innovator, creator of cutting-edge Augmented Reality
technology. Offers assistance to the Wilsons in adapting to the digital
landscape. Kayla falls in love with him.C. Environment Circle:
<ul type=”disc”>
- Estate Agents, Administrators,
Property Managers- Buyers, Sellers, Property Owners
- Hackers
- Augmented Reality Technicians
- Journalists
- Politicians, Urbanists
- Property Stagers and Cleaners
-
Assignment Lesson 2
Marie’s example show: Bridgerton’s Three Circles of Characters.
What I learned doing this assignment is that the characters are gathered by “worlds”: Daphne’s world, Antony’s world, Simon’s world, the town’s world that lady Whistledown represents. Their connection to the main character is obvious.
Main characters: Daphne, Antony and Simon, + the voice of lady Whistledown.
Connected characters:
1/The whole Bridgerton family (Violet, the mother, Benedict, Colin, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, Hyacinth the siblings) Siena (Anthony lover), Rose (Daphne’s maid and confident). Mrs Wilson the housekeeper, Humbolt, the butler.
2/The whole Featherington family (Archibald and Portia, the parents, Philippa, Prudence, Penelope, the daughters), their cousin Marina and their housekeeper Mrs Varley.
3/Queen Charlotte, her butler, her secretary Brimsley and Lady Danbury (doyenne of London’s society and Simon basset’s adoptive mother), Jeffrey (the Basset’s butler), Simon’s boxing partner.
4/ Nigel (Daphne’s prospective husband), his mother, his maid. Geneviève de la croix, the dressmaker. Cressida (Daphne’s rival).
5/ Simon’s past: Mother, father, governess.
Environment circle:
Queen Charlotte’s court.
Balls: musicians, waiters, guests
Streets of the town: passersby.
Theater: audience, singers.
Simon’s father household when Simon was a child.
-
My Binge show : Bridgerton
1. Big picture hook:
As the 1813 social season begins, a scandal sheet written by the mysterious “Lady Whistledown” starts circulating London. Daphne Bridgerton makes her debut into society, and Queen Charlotte gives her high praise over other debutantes.
(The narrator says it in the first line of the opening).
2. Intriguing Character
The character of Daphne has three layers.
1<sup>st</sup> layer =
Daphne Bridgerton is introduced as a flawless young woman navigating her debut into Regency London’s high society under her brother’s authority.
As her brother scares all the suitors, she has no opportunity to find anyone and we feel her vulnerability, her fear of a future she cannot control.
2<sup>nd</sup> layer = her conflicting desire: conforming with the rules of the society but keeping her independence (refusing to marry Nigel)
Leads her to play the system in her favor (using the power of the gossip sheet), pretending to be in love with the duke, to avoid an unsuitable marriage imposed by her brother. The duke trains her on how to look in love!
3<sup>rd</sup> layer = her deep desire for a marriage based on mutual respect, understanding, love. She is learning how to be desirable and taking control over it. But how will this play up eventually? As we already know she will fall in love with the Duke.
The contrast between her naïve joy at the beginning of the episode and her determination at mastering her own destiny at the end (knocking out a man!!), makes her really engaging.
3. Empathy/Distress
Once Daphne realized that her brother has scared all the suitors and it could be a total disaster because this season will determine her future forever. (you don’t know what it is to be a woman)
4. Layers/ Open Loops
Layers:
Daphne Bridgeton’s presentation to the queen and eligible for marriage – Antony’s forbidden love story – A secret around the duke, his hate for his father and his refuse to get married – the secret love of Penelope Featherington (close friend to Eloise, Daphne’s rebellious intellectual sister) for Daphne’s younger brother, Colin who falls in love with Penelope’s cousin Marina – Marina’s pregnancy’s scandal.
Open Loops:
Will Daphne find true love? – Will Antony recover from breaking up with the love of his life in order to conform with society and his family? – Will the duke change his mind about marriage? – Will Penelope get Colin to love her? – Will Marina find a solution to her scandalous situation? Who is the whisleblower who writes the gossip sheet?
5. Inviting Obsession
The unpredictable decision made by the Duke and Daphne to pretend to be in love is inviting obsession. What will happen next?”
6. What I learned
All the seeds of the future developments are planted in this first episode. It looks so simple but it is everywhere, in the actions, the behaviours and in the lines of dialogues.
Marie Sanderson Jordan
-
I, Marie Sanderson Jordan
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, my name is Marie Sanderson Jordan.
I have written 3 screenplays. It’s my first experience in writing a TV show.
I am looking forward to achieve a story I have been wanting to tell for many years but could not find the angle and the idea of starting this with a group of highly motivated and driven people with Hal’s inspiring coaching is really exciting! And discovering the use of AI is SO overwhelming!!!
I am a French native but also a New Zealander and I hope I have now included into my writing skills the uniqueness of combining two so different cultures! Thanks to AI, my French way of writing in English will not be anymore a barrier that used to slow me down so much.
-
Assignment lesson 10 Mod 3
Marie’s Beat Sheet
What I’ve learned doing this assignment is to create a beat sheet. First by selecting three main story lines that deliver what’s the story is about and to make a clear list of scenes. I really struggled but I learnt so much. The difficulty was to keep things clear and simple.
Show concept:
What if a Guardian Angel protecting a 13-year-old Cyber prodigy would be dragged down with her into the dark web and fighting to save her life unaware that she is working there undercover and his efforts are ruining her plans.
A STORY
Skyler, the Guardian Angel with the mission of guiding Rose (13) a Cyber prodigy while training at the school of Angels when he is a victim of a murder attempt at school and discovers his God Parents had betrayed the angels.
B STORY
Rose (13), a Cyber Prodigy inspired by her Guardian Angel, Skyler who trains with a Cyber Security Governement Agency when her search for her real father interfere with her work and she is accused of leaking information.
C STORY
Logan (20) a mature prodigy who fears Rose is taking the notoriety away from him so he decides to spy on her to steal her ideas and manipulates the system to have her accused of leaking information.
Pilot as an inciting incident:
Skyler’s past leads him to have to hide on earth despite his mission as a Guardian Angel to protect Rose.
BEAT SHEET
TEASER
EXT. SUBURBAN HOUSE FRONT CARPORT – DAY
SKYLER (13) steals his mum’s car and his brother DYLAN(7) insists on going with him.
EXT – COUNTRY ROAD – DAY
The car gets out of the road into a ditch and hits a tree. Dylan is dead.
ACT 1
EXT. ANGEL PETER’S CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Class = teenager’s behavior 101. How teenager’s brain are rewiring.
EXT. PARADISE LANDSCAPE IN TASMANI – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Peter reports about Skyler’s distracted behavior. Merrill is scared the boy could have memories of earth. No one must notice.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
ROSE (13) asleep in her bedroom receives coded data from Skyler, her Guardian Angel, floating above her.
Other bedrooms, other teenagers, other Guardian Angels, the images multiply.
V.O. Angels are only the messengers, they receive the guidance that they pass on to humans.
EXT. STREET IN A BIG CITY CENTER – DAY
A crowd of pedestrians along a busy street seen from angels POV.
V.O. Explaining the role of Guardian Angels and how they inspire human beings.
Coded Data falls over people who have a glow of light above their heads.
V.O. Not everyone is receptive to the celestial messages.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – ROSE’S HOUSE – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her. She is surrounded by computers, types nonstop on her laptop.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY
Rose is talking in a Cyber conference. She receives an award and cries, sobs, so over reacting that everyone is embarrassed and her mum has to take her backstage.
INT. BACKSTAGE – CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching Rose who fights her mother for not telling her who her father is.
INT. WOMEN’S TOILETS – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her as she meets a cyber psychologist who justifies Rose’s behavior as normal: being successful at such a young age has a price to pay.
EXT. EDEN GARDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
As his friends are playing a game, flying up and down, screaming and laughing like kids, Skyler stands alone, looking petrified. He has a traumatic memory.
EXT. CLIFF ABOVE SEA – DAY
Skyler falls like a stone from a high cliff into the sea. He has no wings.
EXT. EDEN GARDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Merrill gets Skyler to fly away and gets his confidence back.
INT. ARCHIVES – DAY
Skyler and Charlie search books under the supervision of ANGEL DOMINIC who they try to trick. Did Angels have memories in the past? Only Fallen Angels.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her. Rose gets her period.
INT. ROSE’S KITCHEN – DAY
Mia runs to tell her mum about Rose’s period.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – ROSE’S HOUSE – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her. Her mum comforts Rose in pain.
EXT. ROSE’S GARDEN – DAY
Mia runs to inform her father, her brother and the neighbor about Rose.
INT. ROSE’S BATHROOM – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her. Rose complains to her mum that Logan had a bigger award than her.
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – DAY
Skyler shares his traumatic memories from earth with his friends Charlie, Alex, Simone, Nicola. That boy could be his previous assignment and he failed to protect him?
EXT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Class on the Power of energy with Teacher Angel Agnes = how to move objects or people (and even cars) without touching them. Skyler is confronted by Andy in front of half of the class. Andy questions his identity.
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – DAY
Teacher Angel Peter makes a speech about the safety of the school. Unfortunately, there is a rumor about the Fallen Angels who are coming back with a new plan. The 13 year peace is over.
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – 13 YEARS BEFORE
All angels running, escaping, surrounded by a dark smoke.
They are under attack. Their enemies are dark Angels.
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Teacher Angel Peter asks all the angels to report any thing unusual immediately. Andy reports aloud that Skyler is an Angel with memories from earth. Everybody looks suddenly scared of Skyler.
EXT. PARADISE LANDSCAPE – EDEN VOLCANO – DAY
Skyler learns from the teachers that he was found at the gate of Heaven a few months before. He has no memories of that.
EXT. GATES OF HEAVEN – DAY
A group of Guardian Angels find Skyler lying naked and wet at the gate of heaven.
EXT. PARADISE LANDSCAPE – EDEN VOLCANO – DAY
Merrill doesn’t want him to know more. He’s not ready yet. He needs to complete his basic education.
EXT. EDEN GARDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Charlie, Nicola, Simone, and Alex protect Skyler from the hostile crowd. Skyler decides to find the truth and they promise to help him.
EXT. MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN – DAY
Plan of action. Skyler wants to investigate Teacher Merrill. Why did she refuse to let him know the truth?
ACT 2
INT. LUCY AND PAUL’S BEDROOM – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her. who searches her mum’s drawers and cupboards, and finds a USB stick.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – DAY
Skyler above Rose who shares with Brigit her plan to connect with her mum’s old friends to find out who her father is. Brigit suggests a surprise birthday party.
EXT. DATA ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler and Charlie sneak into the data room while Simone, Nicola and Alex keep the DATA KEEPER busy.
INT. DATA ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler and Charlie explores Merrill’s file. They discovered she is grounded after failing a mission. Charlie discovers her mission was: Skyler!!! But he doesn’t tell Skyler. Merrill’s not allowed to be a guardian angel anymore and is assigned to be a supervisor until…She must have Skyler save a life to redeem herself. They get interrupted by the keeper who chases them.
EXT. DATA ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler shows he had time to steal an access stick. He can now remotely access the data.
INT. ROSE’S KITCHEN – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her.
Lucy takes Mia and Luke to the swimming pool. Roses finishes the dishes with Paul. Once Lucy out, she explains her plan for a surprise party for her mum. Paul is excited.
INT. MARIAN’S KITCHEN – DAY
MARIAN (45) stares at her computer and shares her discovery to her husband PHIL (45). An Invitation to Lucy’s surprise party. Lucy had disappeared and had never contacted them since Uni. The invitation suggests they bring other people from that time.
INT. TEACHER ANGEL MERRILL’S OFFICE – DAY
Teacher Angel Merrill confronts teacher Angel Agnes. She shouldn’t have told Skyler about how he was found. Teachers angels Peter and Dominic are worried about possible tensions and about Skyler’s safety. Merrill tells them he believes he failed his previous mission and she let him believe it. Peter says it’s in her interest that he succeeds with Rose. (does she manipulate Skyler for her own good?)
INT. MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN – DAY
Skyler cannot find his stick. Who took it from him?
INT. MARIAN’S DINING ROOM – NIGHT
Rose mum’s friends from Uni comment on how Lucy had disappeared and about the thrill of meeting her again after all those years. Will she reveal what had happened then? Lucy was a thief and something went wrong.
EXT. PARTY SHOP – DAY
Skyler above Rose watching her and Brigit, inappropriately dressed, (one over dressed the other one under dressed) as they collect party items from the shop shelves. Rose is envious of Brigit’s relationship with her father.
INT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
During a class of magic, the teacher Angel DREW uses Magic to prevent Skyler from being physically injured by Andy and his friends.
INT. ROSE’S KITCHEN – DAY
Skyler watches Rose and Paul who try to prepare the party without being spotted by Luke and Mia but they fail. They make up a story for Mia but tell the truth to Luke.
EXT. ROSE’S GARDEN – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose who leads Marian and Phil into her garden with instructions to hide.
INT. ROSE’S FRONT DOOR – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose who lets in a group of guests that Paul and Luke know and hug. Rose leads them to the garden.
EXT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Another class about teenagers behavior with addiction.
INT. ROSE’S KITCHEN – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose as Lucy and Mia enter the house just as the garden is lit with garlands of fairy lights. The Surprise party is on! Lucy freezes when she sees Marian and her group of friends.
EXT. ROSE’S GARDEN – LATER
Skyler watches Rose who drinks too much alcohol and questions her mum’s Uni friends so she can get names of potential father although her mum is aware of what she is doing.
INT. ROSE’S KITCHEN – LATER
Skyler watches Rose hiding while Paul confronts Lucy about her hidden past.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – ROSE’S HOUSE – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose who is tracing her three potential fathers online with Birgit.
EXT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS
Someone tries to kill Skyler. No one witnessed it. No one knows who the murderer is.
ACT 3
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – DAY
All the Guardian Angels are gathered while bells are ringing and more Guardian Angels arrive from every where. Anyone who knows who tried to kill Skyler must come forward or see him later on. Teacher Angel Merrill will lead an investigation and everyone will have to be ready to answer her questions.
INT. SICK ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Teacher Angel Agnes treats Skyler still unconscious with magic while Merrill has a dilema. Should she take him back and loose everything or should she risks to have him killed but give hersef a chance to succeed?
INT. OFFICE – CYBER SECURITY AGENCY – LATER
Skyler watches Rose. Briefing at the office. Antoine leads the meeting and assigns her to a task.
EXT. OFFICE – CYBER SECURITY AGENCY – LATER
Skyler watches Rose tell Logan about a personal project and he encourages her to bring it to work on it at the office.
INT. ROSE’S BATHROOM – DAY
Skyler watches Rose, Lucy and Mia getting ready to go to bed and Lucy warning again Rose to not try to find her father and focus on her new training.
INT. OFFICE – CYBER SECURITY AGENCY – DAY
Skyler watches when Antoine and the team rave about Rose’s exceptional talent and Logan looks jealous.
EXT. GARDEN OF EDEN – DAY
Guardian Angel Poppy reveals that Skyler had God Parents who betrayed the school, hurt lots of people. Not the actual students, but their parents.
INT. SICK ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler questions Agnes who refuses to answer as she is busy treating a sick angel with a spell that requires concentration.
INT. ARCHIVES – DAY
Skyler visits Teacher Angel Dominic at the archives to get more information about his God Parents. Dominic finds a way to not have to answer.
EXT. STADIUM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler loose a school game because he has again a traumatic memory. Skyler angry, gets into a fight. It’s a disgrace for a Guardian Angel to fight.
INT. TEACHER ANGEL PETER’S OFFICE – DAY
Conflict between school teachers about what to do with Skyler.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose who finds out Jo, her possible father, is connected to a Cyber group they investigate at the office.
INT. OFFICE – CYBER SECURITY AGENCY – DAY
Skyler watches Rose who locates Jo from the office computer unaware that Logan is spying.
INT. SICK ROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler uses forbidden magic to force Agnes to tell him the truth. He learns that he is the son of the couple who betrayed the school and was hidden when he was a baby in a family on earth. The magic spells is too short for him to learn more.
EXT. MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN – DAY
Skyler accesses the data regarding her God Parents and shows it to Charlie.
INT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler’s GOD FATHER and GODMOTHER are surrounded by Guardian Angel who fight them to death. They both kill Guardian Angels when the stick stops working. Skyler is devastated. This is the prove that his God Parents betrayed and destroyed their owns.
EXT – MEDITERRANEN GARDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler wants to hide there and give up everything.
ACT 4
INT. TEACHER ANGEL PETER’S OFFICE – DAY
Skyler is punished for using forbidden magic, and sent to guard the ramparts.
EXT. RAMPARTS – GATE OF HEAVEN – DAY
Skyler discovers the other angels guarding the ramparts are also punished, some for a few days, some for eternity who chose to be there rather than becoming fallen Angels.
EXT. RAMPARTS – GATE OF HEAVEN – DAY
Skyler meets AN OLD ANGEL who recognizes him. He says Skyler looks so much like his God father.
The old man talks about his God Parents as good people who lead the fight against the fallen Angels. He warns him that they are back. He asks him to follow him.
EXT. ANOTHER RAMPART – GATE OF HEAVEN – DAY
Skyler led by the old man witnesses an attack of a Fallen Angel on a Guardian Angel: The Guardian Angel is suddenly surrounded by a black smoke and the smoke disappears inside him.
Skyler asks how they can protect themself.
The old man tells him that a few are naturally protected like he is and if Skyler is the son of his God father as he believes, he has a natural protection.
Skyler learns that he has been sent to the ramparts, not as a punishment but because Teacher Angels are aware of what’s happening and want him to know about it also.
EXT. RAMPARTS – GATE OF HEAVEN – NIGHT
Skyler uses forbidden magic to escape the ramparts but something goes wrong.
INT. SKYLER’S BEDROOM – EARTH – DAY
Skyler finds himself in the future. He is not an angel. He is the boy who had a car crash. He uses magic again to go back to the school of angels.
INT. GARDEN OF EDEN – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Skyler lands by Charlie and runs with him to meet the teachers before Andy and his friend could stop him.
INT. TEACHER ANGEL PETER’S OFFICE – DAY
Skyler reveals what he saw at the ramparts and Peter call the other teacher to meet immediately.
They want Skyler to find out which Guardian Angel has been corrupted by the fallen Angels.
His traumatic memories were his own memories while he was hidden on earth. People wanted to kill him as a revenge for the arm his God Parents did. Merrill was his Guardian Angel.
EXT. DECK – APARTMENT – PARIS – DAY
Teacher Angel Merrill flies, holding a baby and gently drop the baby on a hammock on a deck. She flies off.
ACT 5
INT. OFFICE – CYBER SECURITY AGENCY – DAY
Skyler watches Rose.
Rose finds out she is working on Jo’s file, her potential father.
INT. ROSE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Skyler watches Rose who shows Bridget how Jo is under investigation and Brigit wants her to warn him. They drink too much and decide to meet Jo without telling him but just to see how they feel about him.
INT. CLASSROOM – SCHOOL OF ANGELS – DAY
Another class on teenager’s behavior 101. V.O. teacher and how they can become incredibly stupid.
EXT. JO’S BUILDING – NIGHT
Rose and Brigit are in danger, between older men trying to catch them and the police sent by Antoine to spy on Jo’s activities.
Skyler watches Rose and Brigit and saves the girls’ life.
INT. TEACHER ANGEL PETER’S OFFICE – DAY
Merrill announces that Skyler has saved Rose’s life, he redeemed himself and she can take him back to earth now.
INT. GATES OF HEAVEN – DAY
Race between Merrill and Andy’s group. Which one will get him first. Merrill wins.
INT. PATIENT ROOM – HOSPITAL – PARIS – DAY
Merrill carries Skyler back on earth. Skyler wakes up from a 7 month 11 day coma.
INT. PATIENT ROOM – HOSPITAL – PARIS – LATER
Guardian Angel Charlie watches Skyler surrounded by overwhelmed family and staff.
-
Marie’s Setting Up The Future
What I learned doing this assignment is to look into all the info I had gathered on my show and make a list of events/character reveals/under-the-surface infor that COULD be set up in the pilot and use only the obvious ones and see which ones I would use in the pilot.
BIG PICTURE SETUPS:
. Who is Skyler? Is he a fallen Angel?
. Why is Merrill so involved with Skyler? What’s at risk for her?
– Is Rose going to be safe searching for her father?
– Will Rose ever reach her dream of becoming nominated for the Nobel Prize?
LIST OF INFO that could be set up in the pilot:
About Skyler and Merrill
Who is Skyler, where does he come from? Why is Merrill so afraid?
Skyler was a human boy (12) watched by his easily distracted Guardian Angel Merrill when he stole his mum’s car with his little brother, crashed and his little brother died.
Skyler’s mum is an adoptive mum. His brother was her only child. He was so precious to her that she cannot forgive Skyler.
– Skyler, devastated and unable to bear the guilt and the grief of his brother’s death attempts to commit suicide. He jumps off a high cliff at the least expected moment and Merrill is only able to slow his fall. He doesn’t die but he is left in a coma on a hospital bed.
– Merrill brings Skyler to the gate of Heaven and leaves him there. That’s where his body is found by the other angels. He is nacked, wet and unconscious. His body is only covered by an angel dress, laid on top of him.
– Merrill hides what happens because her mentor Angel Peter orders her to do so.
She has failed her assignment to guide and protect Skyler. She is lucky he hasn’t died because she would have become a fallen angel for eternity.
Now, she must watch him without him knowing who she is.
If he redeems himself as a Guardian Angel and can save someone’s life in exchange for the death he had caused, Skyler will be allowed to return to his body on earth.
– Skyler’s human body is not dead. He is still in a coma, watched by his father who sits by his side every day and works online.
– Skyler will have to make a choice to return to his body or to remain an angel for eternity.
– He will chose to be a human and discover why his parents split up and how his mum got Alzheimer’s after his fall. Eventually his father will tell him that she had tried to kill him.
– Skyler is also a Cyber Prodigy and will eventually meet Rose although he doesn’t remember his life as an angel and doesn’t know he had met her before.
– Skyler will fight Rose, believing she is a dangerous hacker until he will discover she works under cover and they are on the same side.
– Skyler and Rose will eventually fall in love.
– Rose will get nominated for the Nobel Prize, thanks to Skyler helping her and staying out of the limelight.
_____________________________________________________________
SETUP In the pilot, I will show how Skyler was found at the gate of heaven. How he has fear of falling and traumatic memories he can’t explain. That angels don’t have memories of earth. Only Fallen Angels have.
Could he be a fallen angel?
When on earth in charge of Rose, he shows an attraction to being bad! – The more Rose is out of control and in danger, the more Skyler enjoys it!
______________________________________________________
About Rose and Skyler
– Skyler provides Rose with celestial information that makes her a prodigy.
– Rose’s mother is hiding something from her past and doesn’t want Rose to find out who her father is.
– Rose is invited to train in a prestigious Government Cyber Security agency. She never meets the big boss. He only works online. He will happen to be Skyler’s dad.
– Rose has the typical behavior of a fatherless daughter and is in search of a father figure. And a psychologist diagnoses her.
– Rose is determined to find her father. She will meet a first one who is not what he pretends to be.
– Rose will find a second potential father, a very boring man who will actually be toxic to her life (?)
– When Rose will discover who is a real father, it will be a bomb ! (a famous International politician or something like that who was involved in a robery with her mum and if he would acknowledge he was the father of Rose, that would prove that he had been part of this robery and distroy his career ? He is also a scary man with dangerous bodyguard and there is a lot at stake for him – still has to be brainstormed)
– Logan and Rose are 2 prodigies competing for the first place and Logan steals Rose’s work but once Rose will be undercover, she will have her revenge on him and then he will try to corner her and she will be saved by her Guardian Angel etc…
– Rose works undercover for the government but Skyler misses the moment where the decision is made because he is caught up into his own wilderness.
– The more Skyler tries to get Rose away from the bad guys, the more he puts her in danger because he doesn’t know she is undercover.
____________________________________
SETUP in the pilot, I will show that Rose is a fatherless daughter in search of her father despite her mother forbidding her to ever try to find him and how Rose finds a first potential father, a dangerous Cyber Lord who is actually not her father but pretends to be.
I will show how Rose goes from working officially to working undercover without Skyler knowledge.
-
Assignment Lesson 8 Mod 3
Marie’s Adding Empathy/Dostress!
What I learned doing this assignment is how to create situations to cause more empathy/distress by first taking all the potential situations to extremes, check afterwards what works and what went too far and how it gives more depth to my characters. I used the 7 big pictures ways, crucible, betrayal, forced decision, hurt those they love, emotional dilemma, exposed, must make decision with future consequences. I loved the process as again, it’s very creative and fun.
I checked each scene with empathy/distress situation and raised the stake and find out sometimes, it made me bring forward a first encounter with a character that appeared later. I developped a scene that was just one sentence into a real dramatic situation that became the TP1. In the next scene, when the teenager disrupts the family dinner, I added more broken objects and sharps dangerous objects to make the scene more extreme. One character developped with more depth thanks to the brainstorming.
-
Marie’s open loops and mysteries
What I learned doing this assignment is to create as much mystery and open loop as possible and to push down the answers to the end of the season.
I have added Open Loops and Mysteries to such an extend that -I don’t even know the answers to some of those open loops yet. Lots of brainstorming to come. It’s the first time since I’ve been writing scripts that I feel the process allows so much creativity that it’s incredibly fun! Thanks Hal! Hard work too but that’s part of the process anyway.
-
Marie Stacks intrigue
What I learned doing this assignment is to use intrigue techniques to brainstorm and make sure I build the intrigues up to the turning points.
I first built it around the main character and then I added the two other characters.
This helped me to finish a first outline so I combined this assignment with the next ones.
-
Marie’s layers and reveals
What I learned doing this assignment was that I ended showing more than telling and it made me layout the story differently. It was a big job actually and I couldn’t see the end of it but now I’ve achieved what I wanted and I look forward to the next assignment. I am aware that I took longer than I should.
-
Marie’s Character Story Lines
What I learned doing this assignment is to create or recreate a character story line in 5 minutes and it’s not their actual story line, it’s only for the pilot and I learned to create a 3-act structure in their story to draw the audience deeper into their lives.
ACT 1
ESSENCE: (Skyler opening) Skyler is a Guardian Angels who guides and protects Rose (13), a gentle Cyber prodigy. She is so bright and fast and he is dyslexic, with ADD, slow learner and has a traumatic memory that created a fear of flying. Fortunately, his mentor Merrill supports him (Merrill’s opening) and he keeps up with a continuous training at the School of Angels.
(Rose Opening) Rose is proud to be a prodigy and sees herself becoming a Nobel Prize but she is a teenager, and she dates online. Oddly, she is after older men who could be her father.
The whole family (single mother and 2 smaller sibblings) accompany Rose to another part of the country. She has been selected to be part of a training program in the Cyber Security Government Agency.
TURNING POINT: But suddenly, Rose is disconnected from Skyler’s celestial guidance.
ACT 2
ESSENCE: The Fallen Angels and their ambitious Master are responsible for the disconnection. It’s part of a bigger plan to disconnect all humans from celestial guidance.
Merrill and the archangels at the School of Angels are aware of the situation: all Guardian Angels assigned to Prodigies reported being disconnected except Skyler.
They are aware of an imminent attack on the School itself. Merrill is worried about Skyler. The Master must no approach him. Why did he not report the disconnection?
Skyler questions his own ability as he has a traumatic memory about a boy diving from a cliff and killing himself. He thinks it was his previous assignment and he failed it. He cannot fail Rose!!
Angels don’t have memories of earth. Why him?
He questions his origins as well as his ability to be a good Guardian Angel.
Rose gets her period, her hormones are kicking and she turns into a horrible teenager, slamming doors and running away overdressed or underdressed.
She wishes her father would know about her. Her single mother refuses to tell her who he is and seems frightened when she swears she will find him. She says he doesn’t even know about her. The men she is pretending to date are actually old friends of her mum who potentially could be her father.
Skyler tracks them and can watch them to make sure they will not harm Rose.
Skyler who cannot anymore whisper to her ears, protects her by using the power of energy and the power of attraction to move things and people around her and prevent her from getting hurt.
His training at School is intense and useful. Skyler can be at school and on earth at the same time.
But when Rose falls madly in love with the younger trainee at the Cyber Security Government Agency, despite his total lack of interest in her, she is so overwhelmed that she makes several mistakes and loses the trust of her instructer.
(Rose’s TP) Until one day, she is suspected of leaking information.
(Skyler’s TP) Skyler is upset he failed to guide her better. He blames his ADD.
ACT 3
Rose is angry because of Logan and the team’s rejection and decides to turn her talents to the dark web.
Skyler gives up. Skyler finds learning Cyber too difficult.
Whatever he does, he’s bad at it. What the point of fighting?
And Rose is now hacking, ransoming and he doesn’t prevent her from having her crypto money stolen.
It happens just when Rose is trying to recover her stolen money and is accused by a Cyber Lord to work for the Police. She is tracked and killed before Skyler can stop it from happening.
Turning Point (Skyler TP): Skyler breaks the rules to save Rose. He uses magic and time travelling (he had been practicing at School but totally forbidden to use on earth) and he prevents Rose to be killed!!!
ACT 4
Merrill discovers that a group of 18-year old students has been watching Skyler.
She confronts their teacher. She is Skyler’s mentor!!! She should have been informed. The teacher didn’t know about it.
The class at school has witnessed what he did. The Archangel must know about it!
Skyler is expecting to be expelled and sent for eternity to watch the ramparts of the world of Angels, but on the contrary, he is invited to meet the archangel.
The archangel reveals that Skyler is actually very special. He is the Godson of the Angel Leader who has been killed 13 years ago when he was only a baby.
He received a legacy from his Godfather and there is a prediction that he is the one who will save the world of angels from an attack from the dark forces. But this legacy is a gift, he can only access if he empowers himself.
The archangel had him hidden on earth for 13 years and that’s why he was new at the school of Angels when all the others had grown up together. That’s why he always felt different.
Skyler shares his discovery with Merrill and his best friend Charlie.
Turning Point (Skyler TP) – Skyler decides to fight and prove he can be up to the task.
Merrill prepares him to fight the Master of the Fallen Angels
ACT 5
Rose is hired by the Crime Lord who had attempted to kill her but his memory had been erased. Rose learns how to hack big companies.
She also finds one of her presumed fathers, a fat pharmacist she just watches from far away.
Charlie, Skyler’s School friend is attacked by 3 Fallen Angels. After the attacks, he looks the same but his mind has been over taken by dark forces. He has become a Fallen Angel and he is Skyler’s little shadow.
Skyler and Merrill notice a change in Charlie’s behavior. They become suspicious and notice one of his fingers is always folded.
Skyler and Merrill noticed the same folded finger in many of the students at school.
They establish a list of names of presumed Fallen Angels for the Archangel.
Skyler wants to run and hide and asks Merrill to take over the assignment of Rose but he realizes that time of running and hiding is over, he must fight.
Turning Point: He is attacked by 3 Fallen Angels. Is he now a Fallen Angel too?
-
Marie’s Pilot Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is to create a pilot structure. I loved this exercise but I’m not sure I have mastered it. I know it’s only a first draft!.
TEASER:
Essence: VO about the meaning of celestial connection. Every human has a Guardian Angel and the role of the Guardian Angels is particularly difficult with teenagers.
Images of Rose when she has a risky behaviour and gets killed (Mystery) while Skyler, her Guardian Angel is trying everything to save her.
Turning Point: The VO is the voice of an archangel teaching a class of Guardian Angels at the School of Angels in Heaven about teenager’s behaviour and their attraction to danger.
ACT 1
Essence: Skyler, despite his dyslexia, ADHD and fear of flying, guides Rose (13), a Cyber Prodigy, just as she is invited to train in a Government Cyber Security Agency. She hears Skyler’s guidance as her own voice. Her mum and 2 smaller siblings move with her to another part of the country. Rose loves her family and helps her mum. She sees herself holding the Nobel Prize. She wants to help humanity and maintain Peace. Skyler adores her.
Turning Point: Skyler is suddenly disconnected from Rose.
ACT 2
Essence: Just when Rose has her period, and her hormones are kicking! She turns into a real teenager, slamming doors and running away overdressed or underdressed and Skyler is unable to guide her since their connection has been cut. Skyler who cannot whisper words to her ears, protects her by using the power of energy and the power of attraction to move things and people around her to prevent her from getting hurt. Rose is in love with another trainee Logan who is not interested with her and she gets distracted, makes mistakes several times and doesn’t work enough.
Turning Point/MIDPOINT: Rose is suspected to leak important information from the government agency and expelled from the training.
ACT3
Essence: Rose is also rejected by Logan and is angry so she turns to the dark web but exposed to an unchartered world, she is suspected of working for the police, located, and killed by a Crime Lord.
Turning Point: Skyler must break the rules to save her: he uses forbidden tools: Magic and time-travelling! He goes back in time and avoids her death! He also erases the memories of the bad guys.
ACT 4
Essence: The archangels don’t punish him despite his use of forbidden magic on earth. He is told that the fallen angels have disconnected all the prodigies on earth and it’s only the first part of a bigger plan to disconnect all human beings from their celestial connections. They need everyone to be ready to fight the Fallen Angels.
Turning Point: Skyler’s best friend, Charlie, is attacked by 3 Fallen Angels who look like Guardian Angels. Charlie has no memories and his mind doesn’t belong to him but to the dark world. Now, Charlie is after Skyler.
ACT 5
Essence: Skyler and his mentor Merrill notice a change in Charlie’s behaviour.
Charlie convinces Skyler that he could be a fallen Angel. That would explain while Skyler failed his previous mission. The boy Skyler was protecting in his previous assignment, commited suicide: her dived into the see from a high cliff. Skyler’s knows that his fear of flying comes from this traumatic memory. Why does he have a memory from hearth. Guardian Angel don’t have memories.
Lock in: Charlie and 2 Fallen Angel attack Skyler the same way Charlie was attacked. Now, Skyler is a Fallen Angel.
-
Marie’s amazing Inciting incident.
What I learned doing this assignment is that by following the instructions, it gives a first draft for the inciting incident.
INTRIGUING CONCEPT:
Humans have celestial guidance and this is how the world evolves.
Prodigies discover new ways, new knowledges, all inspired and guided by invisible Guardian Angels.
But what would happen if that connection was cut off by the evil forces, the fallen angels?
ACT 1
Skyler watches Rose, a Cyber Prodigee, who is invited to train with a government agency at the age of 13!
Skyler must attend a class at the Guardian Angel school about teenagers’s behavior.
He has learning and flying difficulties and his school mates don’t respect him. Skyler doesn’t think the lesson is useful as his protegee Rose is a lovely girl, not showing any sign of brain rewiring and attraction to death.
MIDPOINT
Skyler is disconnected to Rose.
Rose has a risky behavior and things turn so bad that Skyler sees he will not be able to stop her from being raped and killed.
LOCK IN
The only way to save her is to use forbidden magic, reverse the time, and prevent the danger.
But he takes the risk to be noticed.
Now either he will be expelled from the world of the Guardian Angels and become a Fallen Angel or he will be caught by the devil who has been looking for him for 13 years!
-
Marie’s big picture Components
What I learned doing this assignment is the list of components that make a great pilot. It is so helpful!
World:
The unknow world of the school of the Guardian angels and the devil with the fallen angels
The uncharted and unruled territory of Cyber crime.
Main Mystery:
Who is Skyler? why is he different from the other angels? Is he a fallen angel? Is he a human?
Impossible goal:
To fulfill his assignment.
Main conflict:
Fighting the fallen angels influence on humans
Second Mystery:
How Skyler will be able to communicate with Rose after the connection has been cut?
Season 1 arc:
From having one assignment: to watch one human,
to having the responsibility of the whole school of Guardian Angels.
Season 1 Protagonist Internal Journey
From struggling with Dyslexia, ADHD, fear of flying and fear of failing again to empowering himself and leading his pairs.
Pilot conflict:
Skyler is enjoying his guidance to Rose, a gorgeous prodigy when the connection stops and she turns into a little monster and he has to fight her darkness unaware that what happened to them is part of a big plan from the fallen Angels to cut human beings from celestial connection.
Main characters introduced:
Skyker, Merrill, Rose
Inciting incident of season 1:
Skyler is disconnected from Rose and must use forbidden magic.
-
I lost the previous message so I write it again here.
Marie’s visually Appealing Bible
I learned a lot, listening to the interview, reading the lecture and looking for pictures. It shows that my bible could be shorter and I don’t find pictures that match my story so I will have to use photoshop (hopefully over the week-end). I will be happy to exchange as soon as I am ready. How do we contact each other for exchange?
-
Marie’s Edited TV Pitch Bible
What I learned doing this assignment is to elevate and improve my TV Pitch Bible by following the steps recomended steps, one after the other, methodically, steadily…simplify, trim, recentre and keep the BW frame up to date as well.
-
Marie’s Episode Titles
What I learned doing this assignment is to brainstorm the titles of each episode using the title formats is that it helps to clarify the logic between the episod and the journey of the main character.
Episode 1.1 – Disconnected
Episode 1.2 – Father figure
Episode 1.3 – predict and prevent
Episode 1.4 – Godparent
Episode 1.5 – Doubts and fears
Episode 1.6 – Higher stakes
Episode 1.7 – Back in time and up to hell
Episode 1.8 – The death of the prodigies
Episode 1.9 – The legacy
Episode 1.10 – Human or angel?
-
Marie’s Presents Non-Stop intrigue
What I learned doing this assignment is to discover places that needed intrigue in my TV Pitch Bible and to check the setups and payoff, to brainstorm replacement lines by using the intrigue pattern. It was fun and brought new ideas to my show but suddenly, I understood that my plot couldn’t feed 6 seasons and I ended up spending time rethinking the whole show. I think I elevated the story and have understood the processof writing with intrigue. I have lots of work to put my new bible together but I’ll try to go fast and forget perfection…
-
Assignment Lesson 8 Module 2
Marie’s intrigue patterns
What I learned doing this assignment is to select a line from my pitch bible and rewrite it using the intrigue patterns. It was a really interesting exercise. I will change a few things in my story chronology thanks to this.
BLAND LINE from my Pitch Bible
A Guardian Angel Skyler, mysteriously rescued by the Archangels at the gate of Heaven is believed to be the ‘chosen’ according to a prediction: he will save the Guardian Angels from an invasion from the Fallen Angels.
RETHINK THAT LINE
A. Establish something shocking and the terrible things it could mean.
If there is a controversy between the archangels about Skyler’s mysterious origin and about who wrote the prediction, could it means that Skyler may also very well be a fallen angel and it would be like introducing the wolf in the sheep pen?
B. Strong statement; question about something underhanded beneath the surface.
To prove his faith in the prediction, the Master archangel sends Skyler on a very delicate and important mission: to plant the seed, inspire and lead the mind of a teenager with a gift who could bring Peace to the whole planet.
C. Question that points to hidden agendas, hidden identity, conspiracy, etc.
But the archangel has also sent 3 other guardian angels with an excellent reputation for a similar mission and this means that the 4 guardian angels will plant the same idea in 4 human beings’ minds dispatched in the world and only one of them will win the Nobel Prize in case Skyler wouldn’t be the ‘chosen’
D. Character 1 is convinced/worried/wondering that Character 2 has done_________
A full classroom of students guardian angels watch Skyler’s mission with Rose without his knowledge and when he lies about his sudden lack of connection, they are intrigued and bet he will manage or he will fail.
E. But maybe it’s all wrong.
But when he uses forbidden tools like travelling through space and time to prevent problems for Rose, it becomes obvious that he enjoys too much breaking the rules.
F. A pattern that leads to future consequences
Is his bad behavior affecting Rose?
G. If he does___________, that means (intrigue).
Could he be just behaving badly like any teenagers do? Guardian angels absorb the vibes of the humans they help.
H. State the mystery
How come his best friend Charlie, the loviest angel of all, turned into a little devil as well? Is his badness contagious?
I. Should be/Could be____but it is even worse.
What part does Skyler play in affecting both Charlie’s and Rose’s behaviors, could it be the signs that he is a fallen angel and is part of a much bigger scheme: is he leading an attack of the fallen angels against the guardian angels?
J. Intense language.
Despite the mystery about his arrival in the world of angels, Skyler, a guardian angel, has been given a delicate mission for the future of the peace of our planet by the archangels. But was it a mistake to chose him because of a stupid prediction? Could he be a fallen angel leading an invasion into the world of angel?
-
Assignment lesson 7 module 2
Marie’s TV Pitch Bible Investigation
What I learned doing this assignment is going through the tools added lots of levels to my story!! I loved it! It’s brainstorming with a coach. Each question opens a new door and helped me to center the show on one main theme.
TOOL 1: DIG: WHAT’S BENEATH THAT?
Skyler
Level 1
A guardian angel has a mission to accomplish with a human teenager called Rose
Level 2
He fails his mission and he lies to his mentor and his friends about it
Level 3
He believes and so do his friends that he is actually a fallen angel.
Level 4
He is not, but he is manipulated by the fallen angels and part of a large scheme.
Level 5
He is actually a human boy in a coma and he was an angel to redeem his past sins.
Level 6
Now that he is a human being, he wants to meet Rose in real life.
Level 7
His past will catch up on him. The people he hurt when he was 10 and caused him to want to end his life will come for revenge.
ROSE
Level 1
She has been selected to receive a gift: she will become an genius ehtical Ciber who will have a great influence on Cyber security around the planet
Level 2
She is caught into competintg with the 3 other people in the world who received the same gift and the same mission. Which one of them will receive the nobel price?
TOOL 2: EXTRAPOLATE: IF___________ THEN_________
If Skyler is competing with three other guardian angels, it will be his drive to break the rules. Where does it go? Who might be involved (his friends Merrill and Charlie?)
If the mentors were actually watching them and controlling them but suddenly would lose the power of controlling them and at that particular moment recognize that they are under attack from the fallen angels.
– Rose (with the help of 14 years old neighbour) hacks a credit card of a horrible neihgbour but puts the money back into her letter box.
– Rose’s ultimate goal is the Nobel Prize so she works day and night when she happens to do something remarkable that attracts the attention of the professor.
– The professor who loves dating very young girl gets in touch with Rose online but doesn’t reveal his true identity, then she could be a victim of this predator both for sex and for him to steal the progresses of her researches (she has been further than him).
– Rose hears about the researches of the African man and tries to reach out to him but his wife thinks she is a date ?
At one point, Rose is evil because she is guided by Charlie.
– Rose learns more with a 17-year old who wants sex with her and teaches her how to hack a company and ransom them and then he runs away with the money.
– A mysterious genius (the elder woman) gets to publish an article online about her research and Rose reckons she doesn’t have what it takes to beat her ?
– Rose decides to give up.
– Rose hacks another company and finds a way to hide her money.
– Rose hacks the water filtration system for a ransom.
– Rose hacks the election?
If Rose becomes bad and Skyler becomes bad to save her, they are both out of control but watched by the mentor.
So Skyler is withdrawn from his mission and sent to keep the ramparts while another guardian angel is sent to support Skyler.
The new guardian angel is actually an embodied guardian angel and pretends he has a good connection with Rose and makes her do a couple of good things before he makes her do something absolutely devastating ????
TOOL 3: WONDER: WHAT IF_______________________
What if the knowledge that is passed to Rose as well as 3 others on different points of the planet, created a competition between Rose and those 3 other Cyber geniuses !!
What if Rose wanted to have a worldwide recognation for her talent rather than just searching for her father’s recognition? She wants to be the youngest to receive the nobel prize for contributing to help Peace in the world. She will be a Cyber security heroin. The youngest is 17. She has 4 years to achieve her goal.
What if the 3 others were
– a lonely retired woman with a false identity
– An African young man with a wife and a child
– A university professor specialized in Cyber security but fired because of his bad behavior with young female students
What if their guardian angels must meet regularly and decide which of them will win each battle and which one will get the nobel price eventually.
What if Charlie the real Charlie was often bullied by his school friend and find refuge with the awkward dyslexic Skyler.
What if Charlie the fallen angel would not only fights the bullies but would scare them to death?
Why Skyler lost connection with Rose? It shouldn’t be the only one? Are the three others going through the same issue? Will the three guardian angels will lie about the disconnection because they are competing ?
Who has organized the disconnection ?
The fallen angels who start by focusing on stopping the evolution of mankind.
This is the first step in the fallen angels scheme.
TOOL 4: BACK TRACK: HOW COULD_______________________HAVE HAPPENED?
Piece of conspiration revealed: how could it have happened?
The fallen angels’s plan is to disconnect human being from the inspiration and the protection of their guardian angel. How could this have happened? Because the world is getting too peacefull and the planet too well taken care of.
The fallen angels have lost their power ! They fill their influence is weakening more and more every day.
How could the embodiement have happened?
Shocking event
How could the connection have been cut off?
Because the fallen angels have also their school and their knowledge, actually the same as the Guardian angels but they are always doing the opposite.
When the angels explains the law of energy, the good attracks the good, they teach the same, but how the bad attracts the bad.
So using the last discovery in the field of energy, they found a way thanks to a mad scientist to disconnect the energy field.
There is however, one way that doesn’t apply and the connection can be reinstalled.
Skyler will have to discover that.
Mystery: how Skyler could have been doubting of his origin.
All angels come from earth. They all have been humans. But only him has traumatic memories because he is actually still a human being. His body is waiting down there in a coma. He has to come back before they pull the plug.
TOOL 5: FORECAST: HOW COULD THIS GET EVEN WORSE?
How could this get even worse for Skyler?
Rose has been gifted by the creator to improve humankind and uses her skills for the opposite reason. She ends up creating dissention and wars. and Skyler is not only powerless to stop her but seems to enjoy getting into crime himself.
How could the character get even worse ?
He is already lying, pretending, manipulating until he realizes he is manipulated himself, he is part of a scheme too big for him. He is not up to the task, wether he is a good man or a bad man.
He was unprepared to that level of struggle. He is unable to deal with it because he is worthless, he had already failed his previous mission and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong then.
Situation; how could this get worse?
Not only his mentor is disapointted, not only he has to admit that they were wrong about thinking he could be the chosen, now, he has lost confidence in himself. And he is about to be embodied by the fallen angel and his soul kept away in a prison cell.
Moral dilemma:
He had to break the rules and lie to keep Rose alive and he had to pretend he had accomplished his mission but he also had to face the disapointment of his mentor and his friend Merrill when they saw the pleasure he took at being bad, a dimension he didn’t know he had inside himself.
USE IN TV PITCH BIBLE
Mystery: how Skyler could have been doubting of his origin?
All angels come from earth. They all have been humans. But only him has traumatic memories because he is actually still a human being. His body is waiting down there in a coma. He has to come back before they pull the plug.
Skyler is actually a human boy in a coma and he was an angel to redeem his past sins.
Now that he is a human being, he wants to meet Rose in real life.
His past will catch up on him. The people he hurt when he was 10 and caused him to want to end his life will come for revenge.
Rose has been selected to receive a gift: she will become an genius ehtical Ciber who will have a great influence on Cyber security around the planet
What if the knowledge that is passed to Rose as well as 3 others on different points of the planet, created a competition between Rose and those 3 other Cyber geniuses !!
What if Rose wanted to have a worldwide recognation for her talent rather than just searching for her father’s recognition? She wants to be the youngest to receive the nobel prize for contributing to help Peace in the world. She will be a Cyber security heroin. The youngest is 17. She has 4 years to achieve her goal.
She is caught into competintg with the 3 other people in the world who received the same gift and the same mission. Which one of them will receive the nobel price?
If Skyler is competing with three other guardian angels, it will be his drive to break the rules. Where does it go? Who might be involved (his friends Merrill and Charlie?)
If the mentors were actually watching them and controlling them but suddenly would lose the power of controlling them and at that particular moment recognize that they are under attack from the fallen angels
Why Skyler lost connection with Rose? It shouldn’t be the only one? Are the three others going through the same issue? Will the three guardian angels will lie about the disconnection because they are competing ?
Who has organized the disconnection ?
The fallen angels who start by focusing on stopping the evolution of mankind.
This is the first step in the fallen angels scheme.
They have cut what they call the « great connections ». The inspiring ideas that will make the human being evolved and improve their live.
So this applied to the artists, singers, poets, physicians, scientists…
Mankind is deprived from inspired new ideas.
Second step of the scheme, remove all the guardian angels, starting from the school of angels so every single human being will be guided by demons only.
The fallen angels’s plan is to disconnect human being from the inspiration and the protection of their guardian angel. How could this have happened? Because the world is getting too peacefull and the planet too well taken care of.
The fallen angels have lost their power ! They fill their influence is weakening more and more every day.
How could the embodiement have happened?
When the angels explains the law of energy, the good attracks the good, they teach the same, but how the bad attracts the bad.
So using the last discovery in the field of energy, they found a way thanks to a mad scientist to disconnect the energy field.
USE IN EPISODS
– Rose (with the help of 14 years old neighbour) hacks a credit card of a horrible neihgbour but puts the money back into her letter box.
– Rose’s ultimate goal is the Nobel Prize so she works day and night when she happens to do something remarkable that attracts the attention of the professor.
– The professor who loves dating very young girl gets in touch with Rose online but doesn’t reveal his true identity, then she could be a victim of this predator both for sex and for him to steal the progresses of her researches (she has been further than him).
– Rose hears about the researches of the African man and tries to reach out to him but his wife thinks she is a date ?
What if the 3 others were
– a lonely retired woman with a false identity
– An African young man with a wife and a child
– A university professor specialized in Cyber security but fired because of his bad behavior with young female students
What if their guardian angels must meet regularly and decide which of them will win each battle and which one will get the nobel price eventually.
– A mysterious genius (the elder woman) gets to publish an article online about her research and Rose reckons she doesn’t have what it takes to beat her ?
– Rose decides to give up.
– Rose hacks another company and finds a way to hide her money.
– Rose hacks the water filtration system for a ransom.
– Rose hacks the election?
If Rose becomes bad and Skyler becomes bad to save her, they are both out of control but watched by the mentor.
So Skyler is withdrawn from his mission and sent to keep the ramparts while another guardian angel is sent to support Skyler.
The new guardian angel is actually an embodied guardian angel and pretends he has a good connection with Rose and makes her do a couple of good things before he makes her do something absolutely devastating ????
What if Charlie the real Charlie was often bullied by his school friend and find refuge with the awkward dyslexic Skyler.
What if Charlie the fallen angel would not only fights the bullies but would scare them to death?
About Skyler: dyslexic, running away when facing his own struggle
He is already lying, pretending, manipulating until he realizes he is manipulated himself, he is part of a scheme too big for him. He is not up to the task, wether he is a good man or a bad man.
He was unprepared to that level of struggle. He is unable to deal with it because he is worthless, he had already failed his previous mission and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong then.
Situation; how could this get worse?
Not only his mentor is disapointted, not only he has to admit that they were wrong about thinking he could be the chosen, now, he has lost confidence in himself. And he is about to be embodied by the fallen angel and his soul kept away in a prison cell.
Moral dilemma:
He had to break the rules and lie to keep Rose alive and he had to pretend he had accomplished his mission but he also had to face the disapointment of his mentor and his friend Merrill when they saw the pleasure he took at being bad, a dimension he didn’t know he had inside himself.
The fallen angels have cut what they call the « great connections ». The inspiring ideas that will make the human being evolved and improve their live.
So this applied to the artists, singers, poets, physicians, scientists…
Mankind is deprived from inspired new ideas.
Second step of the scheme, remove all the guardian angels, starting from the school of angels so every single human being will be guided by demons only.
The fallen angels’s plan is to disconnect human being from the inspiration and the protection of their guardian angel. How could this have happened? Because the world is getting too peacefull and the planet too well taken care of.
The fallen angels have lost their power ! They fill their influence is weakening more and more every day.
How could the embodiement have happened?
When the angels explains the law of energy, the good attracks the good, they teach the same, but how the bad attracts the bad.
So using the last discovery in the field of energy, they found a way thanks to a mad scientist to disconnect the energy field.
DON’T USE:
The real father story / the mother being dissociated.
TV PITCH BIBLE `
What I changed:
skyler, a guardian angel has been assigned to protect and inspire a very special human, Rose, a 13-year old teenager.
Rose has been chosen by the creator to be a genius in Cyber sciences and to become the future Nobel prize for her contribution to peace.
Rose is so gifted that she knows better than notorious scientists in the field and she has given herself the goal to be the youngest Nobel prize in the country.
Her knowledge is inspired by her guardian angel, Skyler, who whispers the answers, connects the dots for her and leads her to her success.
She is aware that answers come magically to her head and she feels a light when connecting with her guardian angel.
But suddenly, the connection stops. Both Skyler and Rose are totally lost!
Skyler had failed his previous mission and cannot fail Rose.
He uses all the knowledge he receives about teenagers’s behaviour at the school of angels and applies the law of energy but nothing works.
Rose has a commitment to give an international online lecture and feels the ligth is gone, the whispering inspirational words have stopped. She has like a writer’s block in the same time she gets her period and her hormone changes affect her mood.
So Skyler uses forbidden techniques of manipulating the time and the place to change the course of events.
When asked by his mentor and his friend, how he is doing, he lies and pretends he’s in control.
Rose discovers that the same advance she achieved in her work has been also discovered by 3 other people in the world who received the same gift and the same mission. Which one of them will receive the nobel price?
Skyler prevents the three other competitors to do their own lectures and steals their data, finds ways to place the stolen data in front of Rose since he cannot talk to her anymore but Rose seems to want to give it all up.
The more he helps her, the more he is breaking the rule and the more he acts like a teenager with a real pleasure at taking risks.
The less she has connection with him, the more she is obsessed with dating boys on line and searching for her identity.
But his mentor has been watching him all the time and has to stop Skyler.
Skyler is ashamed when he realizes that he was watched by a whole classroom as a model. He admits that he was wrongly chosen for Rose, with his dyslexia and his pleasure at breaking bad, he totally deserves his punishment: he is sent to guard the ramparts at the edge of the world of angels.
The new guardian angel who replaces him with Rose has no connection problem but what he whispers and what he inspires Rose to do is evil. Why is Rose turning into a monster? She starts hacking and stealing money.Her goal to become the Nobel Prize is a faded memory.
Skyler is crying over his fate, pitying himslef, when he sees his friend Charlie coming to him. Charlie was punished to for a unfair reason and Skyler witnesses Charlie being embodied by demons, the fallen angels. They try to embody him as well but for some mysterious reason, they can’t.
Students look at him oddly when he returns to school. Some rumors say he is a fallen angels. Some other rumors says his arrival has been a mystery no one wants to talk about and he is told by Merrill that she found a prediction about him. It says that he will save the school of angels.
But Skyler believes he is a fallen angel since he couldn’t get embodied like Charlie.
Skyler warn the principal (the archangel principal) and he gathers the school to announce that an attack from the fallen angel could be imminent.
The principal explains how the fallen angels have cut what they call the « great connections ». The inspiring ideas that will make the human being evolved and improve their live.
So this applied to the artists, singers, poets, physicians, scientists…
Mankind is deprived from inspired new ideas.
Second step of the scheme, remove all the guardian angels, starting from the school of angels so every single human being will be guided by demons only.
The principal sends Merrill and Skyler on a secret mission of finding which students have been already embodied and report their names.
Then the principal calls all the students on the list including the one who is with Rose,to be on one team and all the good guardian angels on the other team. The game becomes a battle field between angels and demons. Thanks to Skyler fantastic ability to fly faster with a better 3D awareness, the fallen angel are killed.
In the meantime, Rose has used her skill for no good. She ransoms companies, and considers ransoming a hospital.
She is caught by the police and arrested.
At the school of guardian angels Skyler is able to reverse the embodiement process and recover the souls of the guardian angel, reunite them with their body but it requires such an energy that it kills him.
Skyler wakes up. He is not dead but lying on a hospital bed. He is that boy that was in his traumatic memories. He is waking up from 7 years and 111 days of coma.
He has to find Rose.
The people he hurt when he was 10 will come for revenge.
-
Assignment lesson 6 module 2
Marie’s Show Summary
What I learned doing this assignment is how to write a 1st draft summary and chose one of three possible formats.
I chose « Engage in the main mystery »
CYBER ANGELS
One hour supernatural crime
Skyler, a guardian angel must protect Rose a teen hacker. He failed his previous mission and is haunted by the traumatic memories of the boy he didn’t save. He must redeem himself by saving Rose.
But suddenly, he cannot connect with Rose any more and despite the help of his mentor, and his friends at the school of angels, despite the classes he had on teenage behaviors, he keeps on failing his mission: The harder he works, the more Rose acts devilishly and the more he lies about it to everyone.
Skyler’s arrival at the school of angels has been a mystery and half of the school thinks he is special because of a prediction. The rumor says that he will save the angels from destruction. The other half of the school thinks he is a fallen angel.
Skyler feels he can’t be special with his dylexia, his drive to do bad things and when he starts committing crimes to save Rose and enjoying it, he definitely believes he is a fallen angel.
When he discovers that Fallen Angel have started to inflitrate the world of guardian angels and have embodied half of the students but were unable to embody him, he is confused about his identity again. Is he one of them or is he « chosen » who will save the guardian angels?
The plan of the Fallen angels is to cut human being from celestial protection and destroy earth.
On earth, Skyler must save Rose and stop her from hucking the water’s filtration system in the whole country for a ransom.
At the school of angels, Skyler must save all the students that have been embodied by demons.
Will Skyler believe enough in himself to lead the war against the Fallen angels?
-
Assignment lesson 5 module 2
Marie’s Episode Descriptions
What I learned doing this is a technique and tips fo create engaging episode description that will hook the reader.
EPISODE 1
Main Character’s journey: Skyler has to face his fear of failing again
Major Challenge/conflict: To protect Rose and make sure he doesn’t fail again.
Action/Reaction: Rose is unpredictable and challenging.
Cliffhanger: Will he be able to prevent her from hurting herself just as his connection to her stops?
An awkaward dyslexic guardian angel, Skyler, failed to help a 10-year old boy who dies and Skyler keeps on having traumatic memories that upsets him.
In the classroom, at the school of angels, the lesson is about teenager’s risky behaviors and how their brain rewire turning them into little monsters.
When the lesson is over, all guardian angels are sent to earth to protect a human being, Skyler has Rose, Merrill has Peter, Charlie has Olive. All teenagers.
Skyler connects with Rose. She believes in Guardian angels and she feels a light that makes her happy. Skyler whispers beautiful thoughts in her mind. She talks to him. He leads her to behave well.
Rose decides to visit her real father secretly but he rejects her. Her rage turns into suicidal thoughts and Skyler is faced again with his fear of failing but manages to talk her into staying alive.
Then Rose decides to be a better thief than her famous father. She studies her father’s famous robberies.
EPISODE 2
Main Character’s journey: Skyler must protect Rose despite their lack of connection.
Major Challenge/conflict: How to keep her on the right track?
Action/Reaction: How to fix the connection? How Skyler can improve his speed? Skyler enjoys the challenge (risky behavior) and works at improving his flying performance with Charlie despite Merrill’s warnings.
Class about the lack of limits in risk taking in the teenage world.
Cliffhanger: Will they get caught by the teacher?
Skyler watches Rose training to be a thief onine and practices with her school friends. If Skyler wants to interfere and prevent her from becoming bad, he must improve his own skills at travelling through time and space despite his dyslexia that makes him a slow learner.
Merril disagrees and thinks he should report the disconnection but she helps him with her brillant mind and theorical knowledge.<div>EPISODE 3
Main Character’s journey: Skyler questions his origins and the secret around it.
Major Challenge/conflict: Charlie is embodied by fallen angels but they cannot embody Skyler who is unaware of it.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Action/Reaction: Rumor about Skyler being special. Merrill suspects something has happened to Charlie and other students at school. Charlie says he fell and has lost his memory. The teachers fear an attack from the fallen angels.
Class about the attraction for teenagers to the darkwebb and the existence of fallen angels.
Cliffhanger: The fallen angel have a plan to embody all the guardian angels and to disconnect human beings from celestial advice.
EPISODE 4
Main Character’s journey: Skyler doesn’t feel special and doesn’t like to be stared at. He thinks he attracts bad things naturally. The more he tries to guide Rose to be a good person, the more she learns how to be dishonnest.
Major Challenge/conflict: Skyler is horrified to see that Rose has decided to become a hacker and trains for it with a 14 year old neighbour.
Action/Reaction: Skyler hasn’t been trained by the school about hacking. He is unprepared and uses his old way of going back through time but Rose persists. He makes things horribly worse!!!
Class about insight, about taking a leap in independance and away from authority.
Rose hacks credit cards starting with her mum’s one!.
Cliffhanger: Skyler returns in time to undo what she did, but makes a mistake that causes the curiosity of the police.
EPISODE 5
Main Character’s journey: Skyler blames himself. He is a failure! He’s a fake.
Major Challenge/conflict: Charlie wonders if Skyler could be a fallen angel?
Rose becomes a bigger bolder hacker. She learns to enter a company and freeze their datas with the help of the 17-year old . Rose is in love. He want sex. Skyler is struggling to prevent him to have sex with her.
Action/Reaction: Skyler needs Merrill’s and Charlie’s help.
Class about teenagers and sex.
Cliffhanger: Charlie is causing Skyler to fail.
Rose is sent to community service for hacking her mum’s credit card and over there she meets a professional hacker (17) who then pretends to give her after school maths lessons,and teaches her how to hack safely. Rose is a natural!!!
Rose talks to Skyler and hears his voice telling her to do the worse thing possible but it’s not Skyler’s voice, it’s Charlie, the fallen angel, who manipulates her.
Merrill starts to have suspicion about Charlie.
EPISODE 6
Main Character’s journey: Skyler identifies with Charlie’s bad behavior. What if he is bad?
Major Challenge/conflict: The fallen angels are infiltrating the school and no one seems to notice. Charlie harms Skyler and Merrill.
Action/Reaction: They must report Charlie only to find out that half of the school is like Charlie
Class about exploring limits and identities.
Cliffhanger: Skyler believes he is like Charlie, a fallen angel.
EPISODE 7
Main Character’s journey: Skyler embraces his badness and stay away from Merrill.
Major Challenge/conflict: Skyler supports Rose when she hacks a hospital, causing someone’s deatth but then realizes he had fallen so low!
Class about health and body parts
Action/Reaction: Skyler is angry against Charlie and fights to death after discovering the sheme with the fallen angel who infiltrated the school, who disconnect human being from their angels.
Cliffhanger: Is it possible to save the real Charlie after he has been embodied?
EPISODE 8
Main Character’s journey: Skyler finds his own faith.
Major Challenge/conflict: Skyler defeats the Fallen angels thanks to a school game turned into a battlefield.
Class about celestial light and importance to guiding human beings.
Action/Reaction: He must find how to reverse the embodiement but this will kill him.
Cliffhanger: He wakes up from a coma in a hopital bed. He has been in a coma for 7 years.
</div>
-
Assignment lesson 4 Module 2
Marie’s episod list rough draft
What I learned doing this assignment is that following the process of this lesson and having to answer questions is a great guide but I first tried to stretch the first season into 5 seasons and I got lost, so I came back to my first plan.
Beginning of the season: Intro this amazing world of angels, and the school for Guardian Angels. Each of the Guardian angels can travel through space and time all at once. They each have a human to protect and train at school where they are given mentoring. Skyler is different. There is a mystery around him. He has traumatic memories of earth of his previous mission: he failed to save a boy. Other angels don’t have memories.
Season Ending (cliffhanger). Skyler defeats the fallen angels who had invaded the school of angels sacrificing his own life only to wake up from coma in an hospital bed on earth. He is the boy whose traumatic memories had been haunting him.
1/ SEASON 1 – Mystery set up:
Is Skyler a fallen angel? Is he part of a bigger plan to invade the world of angels and deprive human beings from celestial protection?
Mystery solved: He is a human being between life and death. He had to redeem himself to be able to live again.
Question A: What is the mystery?
Who is Skyler? Why is Skyler « different » from the other guardian angels? Is he a fallen angel? Why is he seen by the archangel as the chosen?
Question B: how could the mystery be set up?
We have to doubt from episode1 to episod 8.
What parts will be left out that must be solved?
– What’s the secret behind his traumatic memories?
– Why does he lie to his mentor?
– How can he be the chosen when dyslexic and a runner?
– Is he a fallen angel as he seems to convince himself, finding pleasure in doing bad things or is he just a teenager with the brain rewiring?
– Why Charlie behave differently after coming back from the ramparts?
– Why is Charlie challenging him to break the rules?
– How come the angels are all embodied by the fallen angels at the ramparts and not him?
– Why did he lie to his mentor about failing to keep Rose on the right track? (because we think he is scared to fail and be sent away on the remparts for eternity ?
– Why does he wants Merrill to keep the secret that Charlie is a fallen angel infiltrated into the school
– Why does he have such a good relationship with Charlie despite knowing he is a fallen angel?
– How come he came back from the remparts normal when Charlie has been embodied. Merrill becomes suspicious of him.
Question C: What is the ultimate solution that the characters must work to discover.
Skyler, when he was a boy on earth was part of a scheme that killed innocent people but was unaware of the consequences of his actions and so he ended his life before become an angel and redeeming himself.
LAYERS
Layer: Skyler failed to prevent the death of the boy in his previous mission and its traumatic memories haunt him.
Layer: Rose is not a quiet student; she is a hacker.
Layer: The good Skyler uses forbidden magic secretly to save Rose, rather than risking to fail again
Layer: Charlie, the good friend is embodied by a fallen angel and challenges Skyler.
Layer: Merrill helps Skyler with his dyslexia secretly
Layer: When Merrill investigates Charlie, Skyler keeps secret from her as he thinks he is a fallen angel like Charlie.
Layer: Skyler enjoys being bad with Charlie.
Layer: There is a prediction about Skyler and the archangel is watching him with a special attention.
Layer: Skyler couldn’t be embodied. He is not a fallen angel.
Layer: Half of the school has been embodied.
Layer: The school game is a battlefield between guardian angels and fallen angels.
Layer: Charlie loves Skyler and sacrifices his life for him
Layer: – Skyler has the power to reverse the embodiments and save his school friends including the real Charlie who become again a Guardian angel.
but this will kill him.
Layer: Skyler is dead!
Layer: Skyler wakes up on a hospital bed. He is the boy who committed suicide and haunted him with traumatic memories. He never died but stayed in coma for 6 years!
Where this character goes in future seasons?
– Skyler (16) wants to find Rose in real life.
– Skyler will pair with Rose to become the world best Ethical Hackers in the Cyber war and they will be protected by Merrill and Charlie, their Guardian angels.
MAIN STORY LINE :
Skyler the guardian angel must protect Rose despite his lack of connection with her.
STORY LINE 1:
Skyler at school is challenged by the Fallen angels.
STORY LINE 2:
Skyler is challenged by his own devil nature and the mystery of his origin.
OUTLINING PROCESS
Episod 1:
After a guardian angel cannot stop a 10-year old boy from taking his life, he is assigned to protect a teen hacker, Rose (13), a new mission he must not fail.
Episod 2:
Skyler’s best friend Charlie is unfairly punished and sent to the ramparts but when he returns, he is different and Skyler questions his bad influence over him as Charlie makes him break the rules. Skyler’s connection to Rose stops. He has to use his ability to travel through time and space to protect her.
Episod 3:
Despite a warning from his friend Merrill, Skyler gets caught using magic spells and sent to the ramparts but when he returns, he senses some students look at him oddly. Skyler questions his difference and his origin and why he seems to make Rose’s situation much worse like he did with the boy previously.
Charlie is caught while interfering in Skyler’s connection to Rose but lies and says he was there to help.
Episod 4:
The school suspects an attack from the Fallen angels. Merrill suspects Charlie to be a fallen angel and Skyler takes part of her investigation but while doing so, is convinced he is a fallen angel too. His mission on earth turns to disaster: Rose becomes a Cyber criminal.
Episod 5:
The school atmosphere is tenser as more suspicion arises. Skyler protects Charlie even after being hurt by him and Merrill upset removes her support.
More and more students are punished and protest of their innocence.
More and more students look oddly at Skyler.
Skyler and Charlie fight in a school competition and Charlie tries to cut Skyler’s wings.
Rose’s hacking takes a larger influence and Skyler cannot prevent her from becoming the target of a rival Cyber Lord.
Episod 6:
Skyler cannot fly because he has been hurt by Charlie and he is removed from his mission with Rose by the archangel. Charlie offers to replace Skyler. Merrill and Skyler try to stop him from interfering on Rose’s actions.
Skyler must use Merrill’s help to avoid Rose to be killed. He confesses his doubt about his identity but she reveals that there is a prediction about him, that he is a chosen and will help the world of angels. He cannot be bad. He must believe in himself.
Episod 7:
Skyler discovers that Charlie is a fallen angel,
With Merrill, they investigate the school ground and discover how guardian angels were manipulated so they would break the rules and be sent to punishement at the ramparts and once there, were embodied by the fallen angels, and their souls locked away. But Slyler is special, they couldn’t embody him. Skyler is now convinced he is the chosen
Episod 8:
Skyler defeats the fallen angels and reverses the embodiement so the guardian angels souls can reunify with their bodies. Skyler finds the real Charlie, his friend but reversing the process of embodiement kills him, we believe although he wakes up as the 17-year boy who had tried to die when he was 10 but was in a coma on a hospital bed for 7 years.
-
Assignment Lesson 3 Module 2
Marie’s five seasons
What I learned is that by putting the story into season and using the brainstorming and the step leads to many more paths.
SEASON 1: DISCONNECTED
How does a guardian angel protect a teen hacker in danger after losing the connection with her?
A Guardian angel with the ability to travel through space and time all at once, is either studying at the school of angels in heaven or on a mission on earth: watching over Rose, a teenage hacker. But one day, he loses the connection with Rose. It’s too bad he has already failed his previous mission. Failing again means he will be sent to guard the remparts for eternity and it would put an end to the rumor about the mystery of his origin, the way students think he is « THE CHOSEN » and the particular attention he secretly receives from the school principal and the teachers, the archangels.
Without the ability to connect with Rose, he can only remove obstacles and dangers before they reach her. She hacks a bank to attract the attention of her birth father, a famous bank robber in jail. With his traditional guardian angel training and his dyslexia, Skyler is unprepared to deal with Rose’s genius ability to hack and to understand the Cyber world she’s involved with. He can make big mistakes and take risks, and use forbidden magic to commit crimes. All of this makes him wonder about his own identity. Is he actually bad? Is Skyler a fallen angel?
SEASON 2: THE INVASION, WHO IS WHO?
How Skyler discovers that the school of angels has been infiltrated by fallen angels including his best friend. Are they also behind Rose’s horrific behavior?
Skyler likes to hang with Merrill and Charlie, his two best friends at school. Skyler and Charlie are punished for something they didn’t do and sent to guard the remparts for a short period of time. When they return to school, Charlie is not himself anymore. Skyler doesn’t notice because he is busy watching Rose who is now hacking a hospital for a ransom. Someone dies. How could Rose turn so bad?
Skyler is haunted by traumatic memories of the boy of his previous mission (no other angels had memories). That boy had turned suicidal and Skyler failed to prevent him to take his life. Why does he fail all his missions?
Skyler and Merrill investigate Charlie and find out that he has been embodied by a fallen angel who stalked Skyler, cutting his connection to Rose in order to enter Rose’s mind. Skyler and Merril decide to act as normal with him and meet secretly. They inform the principal, the archangel A.
Skyler and Merrill investigate and unveil the scheme of the fallen angels: The fallen angel’s strategy is to create an incident that causes several students to be punished and sent to guard the remparts at the end of the angel world for the time they have been sentenced to. But once there, they become the victims of the fallen angels who slip into their bodies. How many fallen angels are inside the school now? What happens to the students’ souls when they have been embodied ? Will Skyler be able to stop Rose from becoming a monster?
SEASON 3: CONSPIRATION
Stopping a major cyber attack while leading a secret investigation to reconquer the school.
Rose hacks the water filtration system and the whole country’s water is not drinkable until she gets a generous ransom. Skyler must do everything in his power including forbidden magic to stop this major cyber attack.
In the meantime in Heaven, the archangels (the principal and the teachers) set a war strategy: they delegate Skyler and his friends to investigate who is or is not a fallen angel? Skyler refuses. Because he was always present every time someone was punished, he questions his own doing. Is he a fallen angel? He confesses his doubts to his mentor the archangel who admits that it could be a strategy from the fallen angel to help him doubt himself.
Skyler accepts the mission to investigate the students and believes now he can be a good angel.The archangel recommends they respect the school rules to avoid suspicion from the fallen angels but of course, Skyler breaks the rules and is sent to the remparts for punishment. Once there, Skyler is the victim of many unsuccessful attempts to embody him. Skyler discovers what happens to the souls of the victims.They are kept in transparent eggs outside the remparts. What’s special about him? Why is he different? Skyler escapes from the remparts.
SEASON 4: THE CHOSEN
Skyler discovers he is the only guardian angel who can resist the fallen angel embodiment and is admired by the other students! Why? The archangel A reveals that he and only he can reverse the process for the victims. It was written in a prediction. This explains why the rumors call him ’the chosen’. But to activate his power, he has to believe in himself, to trust he is a good angel.
A big event takes place every year at school : a game of wings. Usually school houses compete against each other but this time, the archangel creates 2 teams: one of guardian angels and one of embodied angels. The new rule is to hunt away the embodied angels. A real battle field and a real wish to kill on both sides! Skyler leads his side to victory and they haste to recover the souls of all the embodied students, outside the remparts and bring them in time before their body dies but only Skyler can reverse the process.
Skyler is busy affronting both the dragon and Charlie in a huge fight using magic despite the rules of the school and Skyler kills the dragon but the dragon is not completely dead when Charlie sacrifices his life, to save Skyler from the ultime attack of the dragon. But Skyler is badly hurt and looks like he is dying.
The souls of the embodied students are brought to their body but it’s not enough to make the students come back to life.
It’s all lost. Skyler is the only one who could reverse the process to reunite souls and bodies!
Charlie, the fallen angel, is dying too. He repeats: « you are the boy, you don’t belong here. »
But Skyler doesn’t understand what Charlie means and Charlie loses consciousness. The archangels carry him away with the bodies of the other students.
Skyler concentrates all his energy to moving the souls into the body of the students. He pronounces some magic formulas. But nothing happens.
As the angels carry Skyler around sadly in a slow ceremony, he seems to lose his eyesight and hearing abilities. Merrill’s face is close to his face. She cries. The archangel gently pulls her away telling her that she has to let him go, « he has fulfilled his destiny and he is not due to be with us anymore ». Is he dying???
In the meantime, Rose has turned into a cyber lord and is doing missions of worldwide political manipulations that could cause a war.
But still, Rose is a teen who needs to be loved and is always searching for a father figure and it makes her very vulnerable in her online dating.
Inevitably, it turns against her : Her online favorite date turns out to be a Cyber Lord who
kidnaps her. Once locked in the basement of his house, he uses her skills for his own devil plan of ruling the world.
SEASON 5: HACKING THE HACKER
How will Skyler hack the biggest Cyber Lord while in heaven?
Skyler’s eyes are closed, but he can hear Merrill crying. Skyler opens his eyes and sees her face but as he looks around, he sees he is in a hospital room, lying on a hospital bed and tubed with machines beeping. There are screams around him. « He opened his eyes!!! » Skyler can see Merrill but the hospital staff who surround his bed can’t see her. Skyler discovers he is on earth. He has been in a coma for 7 months.
Merrill continues to watch over him meanwhile he has visitors : his parents, a girl friend, school friends.
After a recovery time, Skyler tries to find Rose. But she disappeared.
Charlie the guardian angel appears by his side. He survived and the other guardian angels did too. Skyler feels Charlie’s presence and talks to him.
Skyler has to go to school, date his girl friend without having feelings for her anymore and his guardian angel Charlie that she has been cheating on him. He breaks up with her.
He looks everywhere for Rose.
He finds a Cyber security teacher and keeps on training.
One day, there is a total power cut for a huge ransom in another country. Skyler, with the help of his teacher, recognizes Rose’s specific style and that leads him to the Cyber Lord who kidnapped her. He finds him thanks to Charlie and Merrill who are watching over everything he does.
He then hacks the hacker with the help of his Cybersecurity teacher.
The power is restored and the crypto money traced and reversed back to the government.
Skyler becomes a hero and is chased by paparazzi and reporters.
Rose’s situation becomes worse as the angry Cyber lord blames her. Merrill has become her guardian angel and makes things the least worst possible for Rose.
Will a foreign language and his dyslexia slow Skyler down? Will he arrive in time to save Rose?
Skyler manages to locate the Cyber Lord’s base and it’s a high security EMF protected building but Skyler manages to hack into the Cyber Lord’s security system and free Rose.
Rose believes she seized an opportunity and thanks her guardian angel! She doesn’t know Skyler helped her.
Skyler then, manages to meet her through her favorite dating app and he plays the part she likes when she meets men. She falls for him immediately.
Rose doesn’t want to touch a computer anymore and feels sorry for what she did but he shows her how much her talent is needed for gouvernements to protect their population. She can redeem herself by working for Ethical Cyber.
What will be Rose and Skyler’s next mission for the government with the protection of their guardian angels Charlie and Merrill?
-
Marie’s Character Descriptions
What I learned doing this assignment is that it helps build the character’s arc and brings new elements to the story.
CHARACTER 1: SKYLER
A Guardian angel with the ability to travel through space and time all at once, is either studying at the school of angels in heaven or on a mission on earth: watching over Rose, a teenage hacker. But one day, he loses the connection with Rose. It’s too bad he has already failed his previous mission. Failing again means he will be sent to guard the remparts for eternity and it would put an end to the rumor about the mystery of his origin, the way students think he is special and the particular attention he secretly receives from the school principal and the teachers, the archangels.
Without the ability to connect with Rose, he can only remove obstacles and dangers before they reach her. With his traditionnal guardian angel training and his dyslexia, Skyler is unprepared to deal with Rose’s genius ability to hack and to face the Cyber lords she’s involved with. He can make big mistakes and take risks, use forbidden magic to commit crimes. All of this make him wonder about his own identity. Is he actually bad? Is he a fallen angel?
Or is he the victim of a scheme too big for him? Is Charlie the fallen angel manipulated Rose and leading her to her own desctruction? When he learns that half of the students at school have been embodied by fallen angels who want to disconnect humans from celestial protection, he realizes that he has a special ability to resist fallen angel embodiement and can reverse the process for others. But to activate his power, he has to believe in himself and he has to solve the mystery of his origin and to understand why he has those traumatic memories of the boy of his previous mission (no other angels had memories). The more he becomes the leader of the students and destroy the fallen angels, the more he is loosing connection with them, focusing only on his friend Merrill. He suddenly wakes up in the boy’s human body, on a hospital bed, coming out of a long coma. His guardian angel Merrill will lead him to meet Rose and become an ethic hacker.
CHARACTER 2: ROSE
A moody, unpredictable teen girl who lives at home with her mum, pretends to do her homework for school but instead, she dedicates her time between hacking or creating different identities in search of her own. She doesn’t know that her guardian angel is still there, watching her. Until she was 6, she could see her guardian angel, but after, she could only feel the blessing of his presence and she got into the habit of talking to him. Even if she can’t feel his presence anymore, she keeps talking to him.
She’s a natural at hacking. She starts with little actions until she decides to go bold and hacks the water filtration system that will affect the whole country for a ransom. Her guardian angel is devastated and since he cannot connect with her anymore, he tries to anticipate or get ahead of her (he can manipulate the time) to prevent her from becoming a bad person.
Both the police and the Cyber lords are after her. Her guardian angel prevents her from being killed or arrested. But Charlie the fallen angel fights him.
Despite being the world famous younger hacker, Rose doesn’t manage to attract her birth father’s attention. He used to be the most famous bank robber. But she does attract the attention of another father figure, a Cyber Lord who hacks her, ransoms her, manipulates her and involves her into a bigger crime scene despite the gigantic efforts her guardian angel has been deploying to help her. What she doesn’t know is that Charlie the fallen angel possesses her and makes her do things she would never normally do.
Unaware of the war going on between the fallen angels and the guardian angel, only centered on the Cyber war, she becomes a Cyber lord, and her bad behavior affects many sectors of social and professional life. All along, she is unaware that her guardian angel is commiting crimes to save her on a daily base in this dangerous mental cyber world.
CHARACTER 3: CHARLIE
A guardian angel with the same abilities as Skyler to travel through space and time all at once, who studies at the school of angels and is neglecting his mission on earth: watching over Liam, a boy with chronic fatigue. One day, Charlie, who is an average boy with not much brain, is embodied by a fallen angel, the best in his category, a highly trained demon. The fallen angel’s mission is part of a big plan: to disconnect the guardian angels from the human they protect and to have free access to the human mind and lead him or her to destroy everything around them. But, the fallen angels have failed to embody Skyler. So the demons embodies Charlie, Skyler’s best friend, as a way to manipulate Skyler. That’s the closest the fallen angels can get to Skyler (a rumor at school calls Skyler « the chosen »)
So the fallen angel Charlie has to pretend to be silly but bursts of his cleverness trigger Skyler’s suspicion about Charlie’s real identity. Has Charlie something to do with his disconnection with Rose? The more Charlie the fallen angel will be pushing Rose into deadly situations, the more Skyler the guardian angel has to fight his influence over Rose to save her.
Charlie the fallen angel develops a fascination for Skyler and feels attracted to him until a day, in the midst of a furious battle between guardian angels and fallen angels, Charlie will sacrifice himself to save Skyler.
-
Marie’s Intriguing Concept and World
What I learned doing this assignment is that it helped me question every word, every idea to try to concentrate and elevate the concept.
CONCEPT
A. A young guardian angel, Skyler, studies at the school of angels. His mission is to protect Rose, a genius teen hacker
B. But fallen angels interfere and disconnect him from Rose, revealing a bigger scheme to lead human beings to self-destruction through Cyber war.
C. And Skyler must discover the secret of his own origin
D. To succeed in his mission and team up with Rose, turning her into an ethical hacker to save the world.
INTRIGUING WORLD
A. The school of angels
B. The Cyber war on earth
C. The teenagers online and offline.
-
Marie’s completed FWB
What I learned doing this was to connect all the information I had gathered into 3 pages and the whole processed creating new ideas. Amazing!
I would like Option B. Pro feedback from SU
-
Assignment 2 lesson 11
Marie’s Creating Irony
What I learned was to look at every opportunity to brainstorm ideas, plot, and characters’ opposites. It has opened up my story. Another breakthrough!
IRONY IN THE PLOT
The beautiful school of angels is corrupted day by day with fallen angels who embody students one after the other.
The school game between two angel teams turns out to be a real battle field between guardian angels and fallen angels.
The remparts where angels guard the world of angels are actually guarded by embodied fallen angels.
The school of angels teaches a non violent approach (fighting is a disgrace, a failure) but guardian angels have to fight.
Charlie the fallen angel dies to save Skyler, his enemy.
Skyler’s failures are Charlie’s doing.
The boy on earth hanting Skyler’s memories is himself.
CHARACTERS
The strong Skyler loses his strength when he cuts himself.
The smart Skyler cannot read.
Dominic, the maintenance man, is an angel who cannot fly.
Charlie is a healer but he is always sick
The good friend Charlie, when embodied by a fallen angel, is a monster.
Merrill, a controlled student, becomes wild when she smells Marijuana or cocaïn on earth.
Merrill, the perfect student who is doing everything by the book, breaks the rules to help Skyler.
-
Assignment 1 lesson 11
Example TV Show: INVENTING ANNA
In EP. 7
How the irony shows up
Anna, an heiress in business with lots of VIPs, steals a bag of chips on the seat of a train because she is starving.
Rachel wants to believe Anna is her friend and she is a good person but needs her money back
and Rachel reports to the prosecutor that Anna is a con woman.
In the whole series:
Anna is a poor con artist but an excellent business woman.
Anna is a bad person that everyone loves!
Anna works hard at things she blows up afterwards. (Ex: getting on that yacht was a performance but she blows it all by overstaying). (Ex: using Nora’s credit card just when Nora was supporting her).
Rachel
She is a friend with a plan = to use Anna for her own career.
Todd
He is a family man who choses to miss his family holidays in order to stay on Anna’s case.
Vivian
She is expecting a baby / she is expecting a story that will save her future.
-
What I learned is to separate the plot layers from the character’s layers. I can see now how they wil interact. Brainstorming is amazing to add layers to the story and to the character. Great lesson!
-
Assignment 2 lesson 10
My TV show
Plot surface:
In the world of angels, there is a school for guardian angels.
They are taught how to be the best at what they’re doing.
Each guardian angel has to protect a human being on earth.
They are supervised by a mentor, an archangel.
Guardian angels do not have genders.
They can be at the same time at school and on earth.
Layer 1: Sabotage
Skyler, a guardian angel cannot connect with the human being he is supposed to protect. Her name is Rose. She is a sweet teenage girl who suddenly turns bad.
Layer 2 Conspiracy
Is Skyler the victim of Charlie’s manipulation? Charlie is his school friend but after a fall, he lost his memory and changed.
Layer 3: Mystery
Skyler and his best friend Merril are suspecting Charlie to have been taken over by the soul of a fallen angel.
Layer 4: Hidden agenda
Skyler would rather have Charlie responsible for what is going wrong rather than doubting his own ability.
Layer 5 : Future consequences
Are fallen angels attempting to take over the world of angels by entering the angels bodies?
Character surface
Skyler is a guardian angel who protects Rose, a cute teenager. But Rose discovers that her real father was a great thief and decides to secretly train to be a famous thief like him. She doesn’t listen to her inner voice and Skyler cannot anymore control her. He cannot only push away any potentialdangers that could affect her.
Layer 1: Hidden agenda
He has to save Rose. If he fails saving Rose, he knows he will end up as a rempart angel, one of those angels who guard the remparts of the world of angels.
Layer 2 Hidden character history
Skyler was found when he was a boy. Who are his parents?
He has an ability to remember what happened on earth (flash backs) while he is at school. The other guardian angels don’t.
Layer 3: Secret identity
Could he be a fallen angel himself? Why do the archangels (teachers and headmaster) show a particular attention to him?
Answer: Skyler is the human boy who had died. A prediction had announced he would be an angel coming from earth who would save the angel world from the invasion of the fallen angels.
When he remembered the boy committing suicide and his helplessness to save him, it was his own memory, not flash backs.
Layer 4: Wound
Because of his memories from earth, Skyler recalls that he has already failed to save a boy in the past and he knows that his mentor and his friends question his abilities.
Layer 5 : Competition
Charlie wants to be close to Skyler, wants to beat him at school competitions. Is Charlie in love with him or do they connect because he is a fallen angel too.
-
Assignment 1 lesson 10
TV Show: INVENTING ANNA
EP 6
Plot surface:
Anna and 4 friends stay in a very expensive hotel in Morocco for the week-end.
Layer 1: Sabotage
Anna’s cards or any form of payments are declined. Anna is rude to the manager. Rachel out of fear gives her credit card. How would you invite 4 friends on a luxury holiday if you had no money?
Layer 2 Conspiracy
Rachel has already planned to write about Anna. (she is taking notes and her colleague from Vanity fair is taking videos)
Layer 3: Mystery
How are they going to be able to leave the hotel?
Layer 4: Hidden agenda
Anna knows Rachel will end up paying the bills. She earns time.
Layer 5 : Competition
Time.
Character surface
Anna is a young German Heiress who is trying to set up a luxury business in NY and is waiting for her funds to arrive.
Layer 1: Hidden agenda
Anna never wanted to leave the hotel because all her bills would be charged on her room, until they realized she had no money.
Anna uses the photos and the videos to pretend to be rich on social media
Layer 2 Hidden character
She is a master in manipulation.
Layer 3: Secret identity
She works for her success. She earns her accomplishment. She was (is) living her dream.
Excuses:
– she got mugged.
– issues with her cards. « A lot of banks won’t do business in Morocco ».
– her new cards haven’t been registered yet
– her trust allowance doesn’t come before the 1st.
– the business doesn’t take her seriously because she is a young woman.
Does she really have the money she pretends she has?
Layer 4: Wound
She cannot connect with anyone.
She is lonely and poor. Her parents don’t understand her.
Example: She pretends to Kacy that she is going to end her life so she can sleep in her apartment. Then she is rude to Martin when he leaves the apartment because of her presence. She drinks Kacy’s last water, takes over her coach, throws her clothes away in the recycling bin and then tells Kacy that the dress she had given her is ugly! (From what I heard, it was the only dress she wore for a couple of weeks).
Layer 5 : Competition
The bankers.
-
Assignment 1 lesson 9
INVENTING ANNA
BIG PICTURE OPEN LOOPS :
– Is Anna a fraud or a real heiress? <div>
– Does she have money?
– Why did she hurt so many people? What did she do to them?
– Will Vivian the journalist get her story? Will it lift her career?
– Will Vivian be able to manage a story and a pregnancy in the same time ?
– Will Todd be able to deal with this difficult case ?
– Will Todd accept to collaborate with Vivian?
SMALL PICTURE OPEN LOOPS:
In Episod 5
1. Is Anna a fraud or a real heiress? Does she have money? (big picture) SHOWING IN THIS EPISOD.
OPEN LOOP: Anna’s credit cards are declined at the restaurant after she had dinner with Neff.
CONSEQUENCE: Neff has to pay for their dinner.
WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE:
Why is Anna broke? </p><p><br></p><p><b>OPEN LOOP</b>: Hotel manager says to his team, don’t insist on getting client’s cards today as the machine is <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;">broken but write down the numbers. But don’t put any pressure on the clients today as the hotel is full.</span></p><p><b>CONSEQUENCE:</b> Anna didn’t leave her credit card at the hotel reception and Neff didn’t write her card <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;">number.</span></p><p><b>WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: </b> Is Neff responsible? Is she going to lose her job?</p><p><br></p><p><b>OPEN LOOP: </b>the way Vivian makes a frown showing she doesn’t believe that Anna has money.</p><p><b>CONSEQUENCE:</b> <b> </b>we, the audience, watch Anne overspending with a certain distance..</p><p><b>WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: </b> Why Vivian who is an investigation journalist believes Anna could be a fraud ?</p><p><br></p><p><b>OPEN LOOP: </b>Anna’s confession to Neff: when she was a kid, she didn’t have anything. </p><p><b>CONSEQUENCE:</b> Neff is surprised that Anna was poor when she was a kid.</p><p><b style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;">WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE:</b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;"> Is Anna making up a story about her past that’s not true?</span><br></p><p><b>OPEN LOOP: </b>Anna was spending $1000 a day. « Like she can’t get rid of it fast enough » says one of the <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;">journalists at Scriberia.</span></p><p><b>CONSEQUENCE: </b>Something had to be wrong. </p><p><b>WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: </b>Before, Anna was spending someone else’s money (Chase) but here, this is her own money she is running through. Either she is supremely confident that this ADF thing is going to happen or this is one last gasp of freedom before the fall.
2. Why did Anna hurt so many people? What did she do to them? (big picture)
In this episod: NEFF, THE CONCIERGE
OPEN LOOP: the way Anna tips ($100 notes)
CONSEQUENCE: Neff plans to get as much money as possible from Anna so she can make her film. Anna notices that Neff can be very useful to her.
WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE:
Will Neff gets the money she needs for her film?
OPEN LOOP: Neff mentions Anna to the sons of the owner of the property manager of 281 Park. They say if she was in business with our father, she would stay in one of the suites.
CONSEQUENCE: Neff is now questioning whether Anna has been lying. Neff makes a call and discovers Anna doesn’t lease 281 Park Ave.
WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE:
Will Neff confront Anna? And what will be Anna’s explanation?
OPEN LOOP: Neff’s boss reveals that Anna hasn’t paid the hotel.
CONSEQUENCE: Neff checks if Anna has paid for the restaurant and discovers that her bills have be put on her hotel bill. And then, she discovers that Anna told the restaurant’s manager that her cards had been hacked but she never told Neff.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: She would have told Neff is she had been really hacked<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>. So did she lie to Neff too?</div><div>
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>OPEN LOOP: Anna is kicked out of the hotel.
CONSEQUENCE: Neff can’t help Anna recovering her passport and papers despite their friendship and her generosity. Neff would risk her job.
WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: Is their friendship over? Neff will never get her money back?
OPEN LOOP: Neff’s boss celebrates ! Anna has just paid her hotel bill!
CONSEQUENCE: Neff was wrong to mistrust her. Neff was right about claiming that Anna had money.
WHICH CREATES A QUESTION ABOUT THE FUTURE: will Anna be friends with Neff again?
I stopped there but I could carry on with the following points of the big questions. It’s very interesting to see that structure for the big picture open loop to the small picture. Another breakthrough for me!!
</div>
-
Lesson 8 Assignment 2
What I learned doing this assignment is that looking at mystery helps brainstorming and brings new ideas. At the same time, the WWWWW system is an excellent way to be more specific. I got a bit confused on the question system but nevertheless, It was a breakthrough for me and I have been watching other series focusing on the shocking event mystery and the over time mystery.
MYSTERY TYPE 1:
THE SHOCKING EVENT MYSTERY
A. Shocking event:
Skyler, a guardian angel, is chased by angels who are trying to catch him.
He is flying at high speed but is so surrounded by them, that he cannot escape anymore and they lock him in a bird cage.
B. Secret:
What caused him to be arrested? is he a demon, a fallen angel?
C. Investigation:
An investigation is conducted to find out if Skyler is an angel or a demon. Is he part of a conspiracy led by a gang of fallen angels to corrupt guardian angels or is he manipulated by them?
MYSTERY TYPE 2:
THE « OVER TIME » MYSTERY
A. Cover up: Charlie is a very good friend of Skyler.
B. Secret: Charlie is a fallen angel who loves Skyler but his mission is to destroy him as Charlie is the member of a conspiracy to spoil and demonize the school of angels.
C. Reveals:
– Charlie uses the fact that Skyler is different from his friends at the school of angels : Skyler can remember what he did, said or saw on his missions to watch Rose on earth. (The other angels can’t). But Skyler has always been careful to hide it. He doesn’t want to be different.
– Every time Skyler watch over Rose and leaves her, Charlie makes sure something terrible happens to her. So Skyler feels he is a failier.
– Skyler is in love with Rose and tries to explore the world of angels to find a way to become a human and be with Rose. Charlie uses him to gather useful information to pass them to the fallen angels so they can plan their invasion and destruction
– Skyler’s arrival to the school of Heaven was not a usual one. He was only a newborn when he was found at the bottom of the remparts.
Who is Skyler? A good angel or a fallen angel (a demon)?
What was he/she doing? When he is arrested and locked away, he was actually going to succeed in escaping from the school of angels.
When: for the last 16 years, he has been a guardian angel and a student at the school of angels. He has watched over Rose since she was born. He grew up watching her.
Where: in heaven, at the school of angels.
In the school of angels, students learn what is relevant to know at their age and the age of their protegee.
How: he is caught into a net thrown at him by the angels who accuse him of being a fallen angel.
What do we know that causes the mystery?
Why is Skyler different?
Where does he come from?
Is Charlie the good friend he pretends to be?
Why is Rose more and more lost and addicted under his guardianship?
Why the fountain effect doesn’t work on him?
Who wants to hurt him? Charlie, the guardian angel who is actually a fallen angel who infiltrated the school (he was swapped with another baby)
How is he so powerless? Because it’s not only Charlie he has to fight but the gang of demons infiltrated inside the school of angels.
-
Assignment 1 lesson 8
TV Show: INVENTING ANNA, EP 4
– Big picture mysteries.
Who is Anna ? Is she a German Heiress? Is she Russian? Is she rich or poor?
– Smaller mysteries.
Anna needs $40 million. Who the hell would believe Anna Delvey was good for $40 million?
Why did Alan help her ?
How Anna (who had no money at that time) tricked Alan, making him believe she had $65 million in Germany?
How does a partner work 200 hours without a retainer?
How did she steal a private jet?
How can Anna find $100 000 to secure the building at 281 Park?
The answers in this episod:
She bought a virtual sim card. It lets you run phone numbers from different countries. Using a voice distorter app, she pretended to be Peter Hanneke, the trustee in charge of her $65 million.
She used her connections and organized a dinner to show each person how connected she was in order to increase her credibility.
-
Assignment 2 lesson 7
Marie’s Show Empathy/Distress
What I learned doing this assignment is to focus on Empathy/distress and observe how they are the key to binge worthy shows and then apply it to my own show.
List of BIG PICTURE difficult situations and decisions your characters could make because of the main conflict of this series.
Undeserved misfortune :
He/she is failing in his role of guardian angel to Rose.
The more he wants to become human and stand by her side for ever, the more she becomes out of control.
Despite everything he/she does, Rose dies.
External character conflicts :
Intentional:
Charlie, the fallen angel (demon) loves competing with him/her and wants to keep him/her in the world of angels.
Charlie, the fallen angel manipulates Rose to prevent Skyler to help her.
Skyler hurts Merrill because he hides his true agenda (becoming a human) but uses her help in his search.
C. Plot intruding on life
– obstacles preventing him to become a human being
– race to be loved by Rose before she falls in love with a real man.
D. Moral dilemmas
– acting as a good guardian angel or betraying his friends, his mentor and teachers to get out of the angel world?
E. Forced decision they’d never make.
– use forbidden fighting techniques to destroy all the fallen angels hidden in the world of angels.
-
Assignment 1 Lesson 7
EXAMPLE SHOW: INVENTING ANNA
A. Undeserved misfortune.
Being in jail for something she didn’t do.
B. External character conflict.
Intentional :
– Prosecutor accuses her of being a wannabe socialite and a scam artist but she earned her accomplishments, she worked for her success.
– manipulating Vivian (and everyone) knowing that she is a scam artist but making her believe she is honest.
Unintentional
– her lies hurt everyone involved with her.
C. Plot intruding on life
– Obstacles stopping her from getting the loan that would guarantee her success.
D. Moral dilemmas:
She sacrifices her friendship with Val to keep her plan of using Chase’s money
E. Forced decisions she would never make:
Betraying Chase for her own success.
Big Picture Empathy/Distress
– Acting distressed with Vivian will have an impact on Vivian believing she is honnest for nearly 3 episods
– Acting distressed when she can’t pay for the hotel with Val will have an impact on her relationship with Shase (she needs him) until she betrays him to get the reward = Nora’s attention and connections
– Acting distressed with Chase when he has gone to Germany but lied to her will make us believe she loves him until she betrays him
Detail orientated Empathy/Distress: example: she has to ask for Chase’s help to pay the hotel and everytime she fails at getting what she wants ‘-(from the famous architect, from the gallerist, from the property manager,)
-
Lesson 6 assignment 2
My show: LIGHT WINGS
Character: SKYLER
1/ Relationship with CHARLIE
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – both are Guardian angels
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – both work hard at increasing their knowledge of the angel world in order to escape it.
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – Charlie destroys everything Skyler does.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – They have been sitting on the same school benches for ever.
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – Skyler has been instructed to spie on Charlie who is suspected to be a fallen angel.
RELATIONSHIP ARC – from friendship to mistrust
2/ Relationship with Murrill
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – Both are Guardian Angel
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – Murrill helps Skyler to spie on Charlie.
Skyler shares his visions from earth with Murrill. (he is the only one who has vision as he cannot drink at the fountain that makes you forget what you saw on earth.
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – Murrill discovers that Skyler is planning to live on earth and hasn’t shared his plan. She feels betrayed.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – Have always been studying together.
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – Skyler lies to cover his plan to live on earth.
Merrill lies to cover that she has been talking to Charlie and they are destroying everything he does around his departure.
RELATIONSHIP ARC – from mistrist to real friendship
3/ Relationship with ROSE
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – Skyler is her Guardian Angel
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – Love
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – she cannot follow his guidance because she has to do what she is told to do or else she would be locked in a cellar. And without knowing it, she is influenced by Charlie, the fallen angel (the demon) to put her life at risk and regret it after.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – He was assigned to guard her since birth;
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – Skyler plans to live with her as a human being but she doesn’t know that.
RELATIONSHIP ARC – from impossible love to being together for good.
-
Lesson 6 – Assignment 1
Example show: INVENTING ANNA
ANNA’s relationship map:
1/ Relationship with Vivian
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – Prisoner interviewed by an average journalist
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – Need of recognition
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – Anna wants to test Vivian to see if she is able to write about her.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – from first interview in jail.
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – Anna manipulates Vivian for her own sake.
RELATIONSHIP ARC – From seeing her as a worthless person to understanding her motives and using the best of her.
2/ Relationship with Chase
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – Lovers and business partners
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – Ambition
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – Ego conflict. He works for himself and she has to work for herself too. Competition and mistrust.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – Lovers travelling the world.
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – which one is using the other the most?
RELATIONSHIP ARC – from passionate love to being abandoned.
3/ Relationship with Val
RELATIONSHIP SURFACE – Friends
RELATIONSHIP COMMON GROUND – The love for fashion
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT – she doesn’t love him as he loves her.
RELATIONSHIP HISTORY – she is using him to be introduced to the wealthiests.
RELATIONSHIP SUBTEXT – she ignores his love for her.
RELATIONSHIP ARC – she likes having him around but when she discovers he looked at her passport, she turns her back to him.
-
Assignment 2 Lesson 5
Marie’s charater emotions
What I learned doing this assignment is to change objectives when I’m stuck and also to brainstorm every decision.
SKYLER
A. SITUATIONAL:
HOPE: to be up to the role that everyone expect from him /
FEAR: to be seen as he really is = a liar.
B. MOTIVATION:
WANT: to train and prove them right /
NEED: self-esteem, doesn’t believe he is a chosen.
C. MASK:
BASE NEGATIVE EMOTION: shame /
PUBLIC MASK: Acts as a detective
D. WEAKNESSES: Clostrophobia, fear of tight spaces and lack of air, fear of under ground, underwater.
E. TRIGGERS: being despised or ashamed.
F. COPING MECHANISM: lies, steals.
MERRILL
A. SITUATIONAL:
HOPE: To be Skyler’s best friend
FEAR: To only be able to be an angel who guard the remparts and be such a bad student that she will never become guardian angel.
B. MOTIVATION:
WANT: to be able to pass the exams and become a guardian angel who can travel to earth
NEED: to be loved without being compared to Charlie
C. MASK:
BASE NEGATIVE EMOTION: she is not bright, not smart /
PUBLIC MASK: she is funny, clumsy, makes silly jokes.
D. WEAKNESSES: needs everything sparkling clean. She hates animals because they are dirty.
E. TRIGGERS: Comparing her with Charlie
F. COPING MECHANISM: pretending to love her little sister.
CHARLIE
A. SITUATIONAL:
HOPE: to be the smartest person so she will be noticed by her real father.
FEAR: to be just ordinary
B. MOTIVATION:
WANT: to become a guardian angel so she can get back to earth and find her father.
NEED: to be recognized and loved by the archangels.
C. MASK:
BASE NEGATIVE EMOTION: rage /
PUBLIC MASK: incredibly knowledgeable, fast thinker and driven when she acts.
D. WEAKNESSES: changes her mind, unpredictible.
E. TRIGGERS: being told she is little.
F. COPING MECHANISM: fight back.
-
INVENTING ANNA,
ANNA DELVEY
A. Hope: creating a luxury art centre / Fear: arrested
B. Want: to be famous / need: be recognized as a smart person
C: Base negative emotion: lonely and heartless/ Public mask: socialite
D. Weaknesses: scam artist, no money, no family.
E: triggers: being accused of wannabe socialite who has no money
F: coping Mechanism: manipulates everyone, in denial.
VIVIAN KENT
A. Hope: find a good story / fear: being stopped in her investigation
B. Want: fix her reputation / need: to prepare the birth of her child
C: Base negative emotion:pregnant and tired / Public mask: energetic
D. Weaknesses: obsessive, doesn’t care enough for herself and her husband.
E: triggers: injustice from Paul who cannot see what she sees as a good story
F: coping Mechanism: lies, apologizes.
TODD the Lawyer
A. Hope: to have one trial that could make him successful / fear: to fail
B. Want: to go to trial / need: to grow in the eyes of his wife’s successful friends.
C: Base negative emotion: shame and fear / Public mask: confident and firm
D. Weaknesses: irrealistic, doesn’t want to team up with Vivian
E: triggers: defiance
F: coping Mechanism: sharing (wife) calling for collaboration (with the prosecutor)
-
Marie’s intriguing character layers 2
What I learned after listening to the audio is that the freedom of brainstorming opens new possibilities and I don’t feel I am locked in any of them. It’s time for exploration.
CHARACTER NAME: SKILER
ROLE: A new student in the school of angels (age 10).
HIDDEN AGENDAS: to get back to earth to finish what he had started.
COMPETITION: with Charlie.
CONSPIRACIES: Trying to find the limits of the school. Is there a way out? Where do the volunteer angels descend to earth from?
SECRETS: he didn’t drink at the fountain that makes you forget your past life. He has flashbacks of his past life but cannot talk about them.
DECEPTION: He uses his friends’s help to run away from the teacher who suspects his secret but he lies about why the teacher is after him.
He uses Aubrey’s extraordinary memory to become an angel faster and have the right to volunteer to go back on earth. He uses Merril and Charlie to teach them how to steal things.
WOUND: He accused an innocent just to get attention. The real murderer killed him.
SECRET IDENTITY: detective.
CHARACTER NAME: MERRILL
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels (age 10)
HIDDEN AGENDAS: She wants everyone to love her.
COMPETITION: compete with Charlie, her little sister who is so much smarter than her.
CONSPIRACIES: when Charlie tells her that Skiler didn’t drink at the fountain and remembers his past, they try to stop him from escaping.
SECRETS: she was a thief but she drank the water from the fountain so she forgot. The ability of her fingers is still showing. She uses her skill without noticing, only for good reasons.
DECEPTION: she always gives false explanations to her sister.
WOUND: she was abandoned by her mum at age 5 and was reluctant to be always in charge of her sister to find out her sister was smarter than her and didn’t need her anymore.
SECRET IDENTITY: thief
CHARACTER NAME: CHARLIE
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels, Merril’s little sister ( age 8).
HIDDEN AGENDAS: She wants to be noticed by the head of the school.
COMPETITION: with her sister and the other students.
CONSPIRACIES: She gives her sister wrong information to make her look like a fool.
SECRETS: she is able to communicate with a fallen angel (devil).
DECEPTION: she sets a trap for Skiler and her sister to encounter the fallen angel unaware that he could actually kill them.
WOUND: She was abandoned at age 3.
SECRET IDENTITY: Scam artist, manipulator
CHARACTER NAME: AUBREY
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels (age 10)
HIDDEN AGENDAS: to become a guardian angel healer
COMPETITION: with the other students
CONSPIRACIES: with little Charlie, they want to stop Merrill and Skiler to break the rules. They send them to the wrong place at the wrong moment to interfere with their objective and make them fail.
SECRETS: she changes her mind all the time and doesn’t remember why she did things this way rather than that way.
DECEPTION: with little Charlie, she uses her ability to betray Skiler and Merrill in order to save her own reputation
WOUND: she died of cancer and is obsessed with the fact that she could be destroyed from inside.
SECRET IDENTITY: healer
-
Assignment 2 lesson 4
Marie’s intriguing character layers
What I learned doing this assignment is to explore areas of character intrigue.
It’s important to decide what’s under the surface because it’s what causes intrigue, questions and gives potential layers in the story.
CHARACTER NAME: SKILER
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels (age 10).
HIDDEN AGENDAS: he was killed by a murderer just as he was going to report him to the police and he wants a revenge.
COMPETITION: with another house.
CONSPIRACIES: trying to get out of the angel world in order to be able to have his revenge.
SECRETS: he wrongly accused an innocent man of murder and he needs to fix this.
DECEPTION: He uses Aubrey who has an excellent memory to research how to escape without telling her what his objective is. He pretends to be adventurous and rebel.
WOUND: He was a disappointment to both his parents.
SECRET IDENTITY: detective.
QUESTION: will Skiler be able to prove the innocence of the man he had previously accused before he was himself victim of the real killer ?
CHARACTER NAME: MERRILL
ROLE:a new student in the school of angels (age 10)
HIDDEN AGENDAS: she wants to find her real mum.
COMPETITION: compete with another house within the school
CONSPIRACIES: she wants to explore the limits of the school territory
SECRETS: she was a thief
DECEPTION: she was brought up as a thief and she can’t help stealing every thing she can get her hand on.
WOUND: she was abandoned by her mum at age 5.
SECRET IDENTITY: she is the best thief!
QUESTION: will Merrill be able to find her real mum?
CHARACTER NAME: CHARLIE
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels, Merril’s little sister ( age 8).
HIDDEN AGENDAS: she wants to be like her big sister but honestly
COMPETITION: against another house within the school
CONSPIRACIES: She follows her sister to find out what she is up to
SECRETS: she trained as a thief
DECEPTION: she puts back everything her sister steals.
WOUND: She was abandoned at age 3.
SECRET IDENTITY: She is a very honest person.
QUESTION: will Charlie be able to prove she is honest?
CHARACTER NAME: AUBREY
ROLE: a new student in the school of angels (age 10)
HIDDEN AGENDAS: wants to do best to earn the right to go to Heaven.
COMPETITION: with the other house in the school
CONSPIRACIES: with little Charlie, they want to stop Merrill and Skiler to break the rules.
SECRETS: she has an ability to hear people’s thoughts.
DECEPTION: She uses her ability to betray Skiler and Merrill in order to save her own reputation
WOUND: she died of cancer and is obsessed with the fact that she could be destroyed from inside.
SECRET IDENTITY: famous (Angel) singer
QUESTION: will Aubrey be able to enter the famous choir of Angels ?
-
Assignment 1 lesson 4
1. List of the places you’ve already seen character intrigue in the previous episodes.
INVENTING ANA
ANA DELVEY-SOROKIN
ROLE: the woman in jail waiting for trial, a scam artist or a real German Heiress?
HIDDEN AGENDA : trying to build a business.
She tells this to the journalist Vivian at their first interview.
She will tell her further in the series that SHE WANTS TO BE FAMOUS.
COMPETITION : with Chase, for power and position, with time because the fastest she goes, the more money she can get.
CONSPIRACIES: she knows that if she uses Vivian, she may reach her goal : to be famous.
DECEPTION: different identities and backstories to everyone she needs including Vivian, Todd, Val, Neff, Nora, Talia, Kacy, Rachel and big banks, financial advisers, hedge funds, real estate developers, philanthropists, Galleries, art dealers, fashion week and 1/2 of NY society.
SECRETS: she has no money. She is not an heiress.
WOUND: her secret past. Who is she? She has no family, no one who cares?
SECRET IDENTITY: she is a scam artist
VIVIAN KENT
ROLE: a journalist at a Manhattan’s newspaper.
HIDDEN AGENDA : to show the world how remarkable Anna is.
But this is because she wants to get a good story to boost her career before giving birth.
COMPETITION : with her colleague Paul who became her boss and took her position.
CONSPIRACIES: with her colleagues Barry, Lou and Maud, pretending to work on « Wall street me too »
SECRETS: Lies to her boss
DECEPTION: she pretends to work on the « Wall Street, #metoo » article but she works on Anna’s story instead.
WOUND: She wrote a bad article that destroyed her reputation and Paul was given a job she deserves more than him.
SECRET IDENTITY: she is a great journalist.
____________________________________________________________
2. HOW CHARACTER INTRIGUE is being used to create the need to see more episodes.
– QUESTION ABOUT ANNA: Is she who she pretends to be?
We think she is remarkable (as described by the lawyer Todd and Vivian the journalist) but the Prosecutor and the judge want her locked in jail.
– QUESTION ABOUT VIVIAN: is she going to get a good story in time before the birth of her baby?
It’s because we want the answers to those questions that we need to see more episodes.
-
Marie’s Engaging Main Characters (3 more main characters)
What I learned by doing this exercise is that it’s a good way to lay out their stories and it made me swap the leading role to another one of my main characters. Instead of being Merryl, it will be Skyler.
Charlie
A. Role in the show
Charlie is a 7 year old girl, a thief who uses her tiny body to break into private homes to rob for a gang. She is also a very gifted pickpocket. It’s difficult for her to lie about her past. Unlike her sister, she says out loud every thing that crosses her thoughts and can be really embarrassing. She is naïve and fragile and needs her big sister’s protection.
B. Unique
Purpose
She wants to be a perfect angel but she is not very bright.
Expertise:
– has very agile fingers.. She is very flexible and can run extremely fast. (grew up trained to be a thief)
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She doesn’t want the students at the school of angelry to know she was a thief.
D. Moral Issue:
She was told to believe that stealing was « right » when someone had something they didn’t even use or had so much money and good insurance so it didn’t matter !
What moral boundaries are they crossing?
She is forced to Help her big sister stealing things..
E -Unpredictable: What will they do next?
She will steal something on her own to protect her sister.
She will confess she was a thief.
F – Empathetic: Why do we care?
Because we know she has been trained to be a thief and cannot help do things that are not right but she is actually a good child and she is going to change.
SKYLER
A. Role in the show
A 10 year old boy, loving, who has drowned and woke up in the angel world but he wants to go back on earth for real, he wants to be alive again. He doesn’t accept the idea that it’s all over.
B. Unique
Purpose
Gather lots of information in order to find the way to return to earth for real (not only as an invisible protective angel).
Expertise:
He should have become an IT engineer. He is good at fixing, making things.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
He had witnessed a crime and had recognized the murderer but when he comes back on earth as an angel, he discovers he was wrong. The murderer is actually a smart serial killer who continue to kill and he has to be stopped.
D. Moral Issue:
He uses Aubrey who has an excellent memory to research how to escape without telling her what his objective is.
E -Unpredictable: What will they do next?
When finally, he has the serial killer caught, he decides to stay on earth because he is in love, aware that he will never return to the angel world.
F – Empathetic: Why do we care?
We care because his objective is good (repairing a mistake to save the life of an innocent and have the right killer in jail)
AUBREY
A. Role in the show
A 10 year old girl, with an incredible memory and a thirst for knowledge who died of cancer. She wants to become a top student but she has to help her friends in their attempts of escaping the angel world although she disagrees.
B. Unique
Purpose
To be the best angel of the school.
Expertise:
She has an extraordinary memory.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She discovers while at school with the angels that she has an
ability to see through people, to see their deep
personality and their issues but she doesn’t master it and
doesn’t want people to know.
D. Moral Issue:
She has always the dilemma to say aloud or to keep the secret
of what she discovers about others.
E -Unpredictable: What will they do next?
She will fail an exam in order to support her friends.
F – Empathetic: Why do we care?
We care because she died of cancer and she is a hard worker
and she is so supportive of her 3 friends.
-
ASSIGNMENT 2:
Marie’s Engaging Main Characters
1. Tell us the journey of your show.
What if Violence was seen as a total failure in humanity?
2. Who are the main characters that will sell your show?
Merrill, Charlie and Aubrey.
3. Answer these questions for each of those characters.
Merrill
A. Role in the show
Merrill is a violent 10 year old girl, a thief who uses her tiny body to break into private homes to rob for a gang. She is also a very gifted pickpocket.
B. Unique
Purpose
she didn’t want to die before she was about to start tracing her real mum (she had never met).
Expertise:
– has very agile fingers and can memorize spaces in her head as if she had taken a photo. She is very flexible and can run extremely fast. (years of being a thief)
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She doesn’t want the student angels to know she was a thief.
D. Moral Issue:
She believes that stealing is « right » when someone has something they don’t even use or have so much money and good insurance so it doesn’t matter !
What moral boundaries are they crossing?
She will steal something from the very respected head archangel, the owner of the school of angels, in order to leave the worlds of angels and go back on earth.
E -Unpredictable: What will they do next?
After trying everything to return on earth permanently, she will choose to stay an angel to help the people who struggle on earth.
F – Empathetic: Why do we care?
Because we feel for her, for all the big decisions she must make to become a better person. She is only 10 and she cares for her little sister and she cares for her real mum.
-
Assignment 1 lesson 3
TITLE: INVENTING ANA
A. Role in the show:
Ana Delvey/Sorokin: scam artist who wants to be famous, trying to create a luxury Art exhibition place for the very rich people but now under investigation and in jail for stealing money from the biggest banks and hotels in NY.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Smart business woman who is able to gain the trust of the highest people in society.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She changes personality and style for each of her victims.
Who is she? Who is the real Ana?
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Being self-made, she assumes the right to be dishonest because she has no other choice. She has no moral boundaries (living of Chase’s income, hosted by the lonely Nora, over staying on Talia’s friends yacht, disrespectful of Val’s show preparation) as her purpose is to prove to the world that she can do it because she is brillant.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Unexpected acceptation of the media interview with Vivian
Unexpected decision to go on trial and to not take the bail.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
We care for her because we feel she’s lost and she is an excellent actress.
She is a manipulator as much for the audience than for the people who loved her until they discovered she was fake.
-
Assignment 2:
What I learned was that when you try to write a summary of your character in one line, you have to give them a problem and something they want it tells the story.
A – MAIN CHARACTERS CIRCLE
Merrill – 10 year old girl, a beginner angel at the angel school. In her past life, she was adopted by a violent family. She died in a car crash with her little sister. In the Angel world, she learns that violence is not her only weapon. She is too impatient to wait to become an accomplished angel. She has one more thing on the planet earth she has always wanted to do: to find her real mother.
Charlie – 7 year old girl, Merrill’s sister. She wants her sister to be an angel role model and stay with her forever.
Skyler – 10 year old boy, loving, who has drowned and woke up in the angel world but he wants to be alive again.
Aubrey – 10 year old girl, with an incredible memory and a thirst for knowledge who died of cancer. She wants to become an archangel but she has to help her friends in their attempts of escaping the angel world although she disagrees.
B. CONNECTED CIRCLES
The school of angels
Finley : archangel, the head of the angel world, teaches healing.
Blake: archangel, teaches flying lessons. He dislikes Merryl.
Aley: archangel, teaches « history of angels ». supportive to Merryl from day 1
Tatum: the bad angel who changes shape and appearance and whose job is to create a way to let the devil enter the angel world.
Camero: archangel, teaches “Defense against Demons”
Parker: archangel, teaches “music”
Ezra: archangel, teaches celestial arts and find your own angel style.
Austin: archangel, teaches magic and quantum physic
Around Merryl’s and Charlie’s past:
their family:
James: their violent brother who got involved with gangs and who was driving Merrill and Charlie back home after a burglary (he used them for their small size, they could enter the house through the dog’s door) when he had the accident and caused their death. He is a bad guy. He is the only son of their parents and never accepted the adoptive sisters.
Peter: Merrill and Charlie’s adoptive father, real father to James. He is an alcoholic and likes to play with guns. The girls had to hide every time he drank.
Mary: Merrill and Charlie’s adoptive mother, real mother to James. A passive, emotionally handicaped woman who doesn’t protect any of her children. She lets her husband decide everything. She suspects her son was drunk when he killed the girls.
Pauline: Merrill and Charlies’s real mum.
Kai: Charlie’s angel friend.
Jaylin: an angel student in Merril’s class.
Around Skyler’s past:
Her family:
Logan: Skyler’s closest brother, who feels responsible for her death. When they were paddling for fun, he jumped off their little dinghy to save a surfer in trouble but the dinghy tipped over and Skyler got stuck under it. He is missing her and struggles to live with the guilt.
Helen, Skyler’s mum, a religious, messy, uneducated, superactive loving woman who cannot talk about Skyler. It is the subject to avoid. It’s too painful.
Her husband, Sandy: Skyler’s dad, an artist who disappears in his art studio for days and paints secretly portraits of his dead little boy.
Around Aubrey’s past
Her family:
Margaret: Aubrey’s mother working on a farm that belongs to Aubrey’s step father Louis. She doesn’t like intensive farming and the way her new husband runs her family farm. She believes her daughter’s cancer was caused by the pesticides and fertiliser they use on the farm.
Louis: Aubrey’s step father, a man passionate about making money who wants to sell and make profit, who doesn’t care about animal’s welfare and richness of the soil…
C. Environment Circle:
Merrill and Charlie’s:
8 Other students in Merril’s house
8 Other students in another house who compete with Merril’s group.
Members of a gang (their brother’s friends)
A woman from the adoption bureau
skyler’s circle:
His 8 brothers and sisters
His parent’s friends at church.
Aubrey’s circle:
Her doctor who treats her for pesticides
The oncologist
The nurse.
Friends from school
Aubrey’s grand-parents, cousins, aunt and uncle.
-
What I learned was to identify the characters in each circle. I noticed that the three main characters want something. Ana wants to be famous, Todd wants to be recognized as a good lawyer and Vivian needs a good story because she wants to regain a good reputation as a journalist before the birth of her little girl. It’s obvious that they are related to the theme of the series: “Everyone wants something”.
(Sorry I didn’t chose a TV show from the list, I was dying to study “Inventing Ana”.)
TV show:
INVENTING ANA
A. Main Characters Circle:
Ana Sorokin-Delvey: 26 year old scam artist, wannabe socialite criminal who stole from the biggest banks and hotels in NY. She has been arrested, waiting for her trial. She wants to be famous.
Vivian Kent: a pregnant journalist, feature writer at Manhattan Magazine in search of a good story to boost her career after a previous flop and wants it done before the birth of her baby.
Todd: a small lawyer stuck with little cases, married to a wealthy beautiful woman. He suffers from coming from a poor background so if he could win this case, he would become more self-confident in the eyes of his wife’s successful friends.
B. Connected Circle:
Around Ana’s past:
Chase: her boyfriend. He’s looking for funds for an app he is creating that tap into the subconscient. (hot futurist « it » boy with the next big click thingy) but he is actually using the money he raises to fund his private life with Ana. He is also a scam artist.
Neff, Ana’s only true friend, receptionist at the 12 George Hotel, the only one who visits her in prison.
Val: a fashion designer who loves Ana deeply. He had no love from his own mum and is attached to Nora (mother-son relationship)
Nora: a wealthy woman who hosts Val, Ana and Chase.
Around Vivian:
Her husband: who complains she is so involved with Ana that she neglects her own private life.
Landon: her big boss who gives her 2 weeks to get her story
Paul: her direct boss who wants her to write meaningless articles and refuses to let her work on Ana’s story.
Barry, Lou and Maud: her three supporting colleagues who do research for her.
Around the lawyer Todd:
Margaret: his beautiful wife
Catherine McCaw: ADA, prosecutor.
C. Environment Circle:
Ana’s circle:
Talia Mallay: runs a global empire, she invites Ana on a yacht in Ibiza.
Yacht owner and his wife.
Couple of friends of the yacht
A man from the company Fortress
The owner of a art gallery
The clients at the opening of an exhibition at the art gallery.
Rachel, the woman dressed by Ana who refuses to visit her in prison.
A gym coach (I didn’t pick up her name and who she is) who understands that Ana is not who she said she was.
A young woman with a bun.
Vivian’s circle:
The ultrasound technician.
The lawyer’s circle:
His assistant
Aggie, his daughter
Brian, his son.
-
Sorry, I must I pushed the wrong button, my assignment was posted under your name!!!!!
Marie Sanderson Jordan
-
Lesson 1 assignment
RIVERDALE 5 Star Model
What I learned doing this assignment is looking at the layers of the possible future plots and paying closer attention to the intriguing characters. I didn’t have the inviting obsession to watch the second episode though. I regret I didn’t do this exercise with the first episode of « Inventing Ana ».
1. Outline of the first episode:
In a small town, a boy named Jason drowned during the summer. His twin sister, Cheryl, is the captain of the cheerleading squad and is a bully. When school starts, 2 best friends Archie and Betty meet a new girl, Veronica whose father is a millionaire facing embezzlement. Betty and Veronica become friends. Betty would like to date Archie but he is attracted to Veronica and he has a secret. He had sex with the music teacher not far from where Jason drowned and they heard a shot but cannot tell anyone about it. Suddenly Jason’s body appears on the river edge. He didn’t drown, he was shot.
2. List of the 5 Star Points for that show.
Big Picture Hooks:
A normal town with a peaceful life appears to be a dangerous place.
Amazing and Intriguing Character
Betty is too perfect. Her mother destroyed her sister and wants her to be the perfect one. But this is why Archie can’t fall in love with her.
Archie is trying to please everyone at the same time he wants to do his own thing (music) and he is torn between his real love for the music teacher, his attraction to Veronica and his wish to remain Betty’s best friend.
Veronica comes from NY upper society and she is the outsider who can say what she thinks and stands up to the bully Cheryl. But could she be evil?
Empathy / Distress
Betty expected Archie to be in love with her. She is broken-hearted when he tells her he can’t.
Archie feels he is losing his best friend Betty.
Veronica didn’t want to kiss Archie but it happened.
Layers / open loops
Who killed Jason?
Are the music teacher and Archie going to confess that they heard the shot that killed Jason ?
Will Betty and Archie get back to being best friends or more ?
Inviting Obsession
What happened to Jason and why was he killed?
-
I agree to the term 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 everyone,
1. My name is Marie Sanderson Jordan.
2. I wrote 2 scripts + a writing assignment (feature) and 2 stage plays in French and 4 features in English. (2 of them I am thinking of rewriting now with my knowledge gained with Hal at MSC14).
3. I’d like to learn how to transition from feature writing to bingeworthy writing.
4. I am a French native living in New Zealand (for 24 years). My brain works in French, my thoughts, actions, reactions are European and I live my everyday life in a Pacific Island with a British mentality meanwhile I watch American movies and series everyday!!!!!
-
Marie Sanderson Jordan
I agree to the terms of this 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.
-
Hi Harry,
Just saw your message. I was in Europe for 6 weeks.
Nice to hear from you! I hope you enjoy AI as much as I do!
Marie -
I will exchange with you Moses. I sent my Binge Worthy Framework through ScreenwritingU email. Could you do this too?
-
Hi Kimberly, I liked your comment. Nice meeting you! All the best for the course!
-
Hi, I can’t find where to post the pre-course assignement neither?