[Patricia Milton]

GET OUT by Jordan Peele – Patricia Milton finds the essence

What I learned is the importance of essence to each scene, and how scenes build upon one another. I particularly liked the use of metaphor to convey essence.

Scene 1-3, pre-title card.

Suburban street at night.

A black man walking alone at night is drugged and kidnapped.

Essence: It is unsafe for black people to walk alone at night in suburbia; they are in danger in white America.

Scene 10-13.

A road on the way to Rose’s parents’ house.

While Chris and Rose flirt, their car hits a deer; when the police arrive, Chris is protected by Rose.

Essence: Metaphoric injury of “buck” reveals Chris is in danger, sets tone of thriller. Police can/must be managed by white woman.

Scene 35-41.

Missy’s office.

Rose’s mom, a hypnotist, fully dressed in the middle of the night, sends Chris to “the sunken place.”

Essence: “Helping” white woman is dangerous and in control, using Chris’ trauma to control him.

Scene 47-49.

The home of Rose’s parents, a garden party.

As Rose and Chris mingle, the old, white party guests size up Chris and make racially insensitive comments: Set-up for Scene 66-69 bidding.

Essence: Modern day white America still wishes to buy/exploit black people a la slaveholders.

Scene 89.

In the basement of Rose’s parents’ home.

A stuffed deer head (“buck” metaphor again) is prominent. Chris is tied to an armchair in front of a TV, which turns on and shows a teacup and teaspoon, the hypnotic trance inducer.

Essence: Rose’s mother Missy, a white woman, is seeking to retain control of Chris, a black man, in order to exploit him. Chris will extract stuffing from the armchair (symbolic picking cotton) to plug his ears and resist the trance.

To me, this scene is rich with symbolic racialized meaning, and contains the essence of the film. Chris is able to triumph over exploitation despite his trauma, and sets off the final confrontation, which he wins. That Chris has used “picking cotton” to overcome the murderous white folks is both poetic and satisfying.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Patricia Milton. Reason: forgot to put what I learned :-/

[Patricia Milton]

I agree to the terms of the following Group 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.

Signed: P. M. Milton

[Patricia Milton]

I’m Patricia Milton. I’m a playwright who has been produced widely, in the US, Canada, Turkey, and Denmark. 100’s of short scripts and a dozen full-lengths.

I strongly believe in constantly honing my dramatization skills, and I’m sure to learn strategies that I can apply to playwriting.

I once worked with a serial killer.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia’s Thriller Plot

What I learned is I don’t like my Sequence 7 twist. I need to keep thinking about it.

I used the 8-Sequence Structure.

ACT I

SEQUENCE ONE – Status Quo & Inciting Incident

Establishes Kamiri and her mother’s codependent relationship. Kamiri is preparing for a job interview, desperate to be hired after three years without a job or prospects – why is she a pariah in the tech world? Inciting incident: Kamiri shows up for the interview and Xtopher is there. He explains Bubble and Kamiri can both repair their reputations if she signs on.

Mystery 1 Xtopher hires Kamiri.

Villain’s Plan 1 He Focuses her ethics probe on autonomous vehicles.

Villain’s Plan 2 He claims he’s working on a ransomware recovery project, which makes no sense.

SEQUENCE TWO – Predicament & Lock In

Kamiri accepts the job at Bubble even though just about everything is fishy at Bubble. She justifies it to herself that she just needs to hang on for six months, then she will have demonstrated she is no tech pariah and can move on. She is also romantically linked to Xtopher still.

Mystery 3 What is Xtopher up to?

Mystery 4 Why is PerfecShawn so suspicious of Kamiri and determined to evade her questions?

Life Threatening Situation 1 Kamiri and PerfecShawn determine they are being watched.

ACT II

SEQUENCE THREE – First Obstacle & Raising the Stakes

The first OBSTACLE to the central character is faced, and the beginning of the elimination of the alternatives begins.

Villain’s Plan 3 Xtopher assigns Kamiri the menial task of hunting through autonomous vehicle project files for ethical violations.

Mystery 5 Kamiri finds that Bubble has been letting SMPD plus into autonomous vehicles to surveille citizens. There are also multiple ethics violations. Why is this info so easy to find?

Mystery 6 Kamiri determines Bubble’s legal counsel hit a pedestrian because the car swerved to avoid a porcupine. Why is the Bubble car making these decisions?

Villain’s Plan 4 Why are there half a dozen monks in the conference room?

PerfecShawn piques Kamiri’s interest with his own suspicions of Xtopher.

SEQUENCE FOUR – First Culmination/Midpoint

A higher OBSTACLE, the principle of RISING ACTION is brought in and builds to the FIRST CULMINATION, which usually parallels the RESOLUTION of the film. Sequence four should end with Kamiri winning in some way.

Villain’s Plan 5 Xtopher is flying to L.A., he says to meet with Canadians regarding ransomware recovery, but Kamiri plans to spy on him in his Bubble car to determine if this is true.

Mystery 7 Why is Xtopher flying to LA?

Kamiri secures information from PerfecShawn about the surveillance in autonomous vehicles to surveil Xtopher.

SEQUENCE FIVE – Subplot & Rising Action

Villain’s Plan 6 Leo and Xtopher decide to send Kamiri to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Big Tech.

Villain’s Plan 7 Xtopher and Kamiri romance scene.

SEQUENCE SIX – Main Culmination/End of Act Two

The build-up to the MAIN CULMINATION – back to the main story. The highest obstacle, the last alternative, the highest or lowest moment and the end of our main tension come at this point.

Villain’s plan 7 Xtopher and Leo visit Kay and convince her to wear a Ver-2.

Life-threatening situation 2 Kamiri realizes she must abandon her investigation, or she will be forced to lie to the Senate and her mom or will be fired. She comes up with her own plan and asks Xtopher to bring her toy bear to LA with him.

ACT III

SEQUENCE SEVEN – New Tension & Twist

The TWIST can end this sequence or come at the start of the eighth sequence.

Life threatening situation 3 – PerfecShawn realizes what Kamiri is up to and confronts her. She convinces him to ally with her.

Villain’s plan 8 – Kamiri and PerfecShawn use the recording to understand what Xtopher is creating, and they confront him.

SEQUENCE EIGHT – Resolution

Hell-bent for the RESOLUTION.

Villain’s plan 9 – Kamiri asks Xtopher to testify, as she doesn’t want to lie. He agrees.

Kamiri rounds up the monks and sends them into the Senate subcommitte to reveal the secret project.

Kay tells Kamiri that the committee is recommending the largest fine ever and algorithmic destruction for the Ver-2.

Life threatening situation 4 – Kamiri is fired and must continue to live with her mother.

[Patricia Milton]

What I learned is Kamiri’s threatening situations are higher up the hierarchy of needs and are not just about survival.

Patricia’s life threatening situations

• Kamiri is being surveilled at Bubble
• Kamiri could have her reputation and career ruined if she whistle-blows and loses her job again
• Danger to mother by Xtopher – he gives Kay a Ver-2
• Betrayal by Xtopher (a second one) – Kamiri has had her heart broken already
• The threat that Kamiri’s secret could be revealed – former hacker and led a co that spied on kids thru their AI-powered dolls.
• Public humiliation. Unable to get another job as tech whistleblowers are shunned.
• Violation of her own moral code/loss of self-worth if she doesn’t figure out how to blow whistle covertly
• Forced to live with her mother – a fate worse than death

[Patricia Milton]

Subject Line: Patricia’s Mystery Sequence for The Engine of Our Destruction.

What I learned is I have the mysteries needed for my stage play.

What is the big secret that the Villain is covering up?
Xtopher is creating a secret digital wearable conscience.

The cover-ups.

• Hire Kamiri.
• Focus Kamiri’s ethics probe on autonomous vehicles.
• Sabotage autonomous vehicles to cause a crisis.
• Claim he’s working on a ransomeware recovery project
• Secretly conduct meetings with the monks, the LA
  archdiocese, Scientologists, and so on.
  Get Leo to assign Kamiri to testify to the Senate
  subcommittee.
• Give a Ver-2 to Kamiri’s mom, the Senator.

The first mystery must engage the Hero into solving it.

• Why do you need AI for ransomeware recovery? You
  don’t.

Sequence the mysteries so that each one leads us to the
next one. Include ONE Red Herring mystery if you can.

Hire Kamiri.

• Who is Kamiri?

  Kamiri was a hacker.

• Kamiri hasn’t had a job for years.
• Kamiri needs to restore her reputation in the tech
  world, so she will be a pushover.
• Kamiri was his lover so he can manipulate her.

Focus Kamiri’s ethics probe on autonomous vehicles.

• What is happening with Bubble autonomous vehicles?
• PerfecShawn acts guilty, is set up as an adversary to
  Kamiri.
• The accident with legal counsel was an autonomous
  vehicle problem.
• PerfecShawn was a hacker.

Xtopher claims he’s working on a ransomeware recovery project.

• What is he really working on? AI not required for ransomeware recovery.
• Secretly conduct meetings with the monks, the LA
  archdiocese, Scientologists, and so on.

  These don’t seem like ransomeware clients.

• Get Leo to assign Kamiri to testify to the Senate
  subcommittee.
• When ransomeware appears on Bubble’s computers, Xtopher doesn’t know what to do.
• Gives a Ver-2 device to Kamiri’s mother.

</div>

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Patricia Milton.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia’s villain (Xtopher) has a great plan

I learned my villain’s plan.

What is his end goal?

· Develop and widely distribute a wearable AI conscience, selling the data to advertisers, law enforcement, politicians, clergy, and marketers.

· To do this, he must keep the Senate’s tech subcommittee from investigating Bubble.

How can he accomplish that in a devious way?

· Hire Kamiri, (whose Mom is a Senator) who desperately needs a job since she’s a blacklisted tech whistleblower

· Manipulate Kamiri into blowing the whistle on some small misstep, then clean it up, so it looks like Bubble is policing itself.

How can he cover it up?

· Claim his own secret project is a ransomware recovery project.

· Hire and assign Kamiri to investigate ethics in the autonomous car division.

· Xtopher will work with PerfecShawn to breach ethics (small privacy breach, car malfunction, cover-up of crashes) in the auto division

· Get Kamiri to whistleblow/testify to the Senate subcommittee on which her mother sits, honestly swearing that Bubble fixed their problem willingly.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia’s SOTL assignment.

The MIS of the character and the plot were again integrated into every scene. I noticed the selective use of exposition in the first few scenes upped the suspense. This is interesting to me as many times exposition is clunky or boring, but here it was establishing “rules,” and danger that heightened the suspense. In a thriller we assume the rules will be broken.

The backstory of Clarice also was doled out so we could be intrigued as to how Lechter would use it against her.

Obviously stakes were incredibly high throughout.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia’s BI Stacking Suspense – Basic Instinct

I found the MIS of the character and the plot woven into every scene. I thought that the fact that the Beth red herrings were created by the antagonist made it more interesting than if they were unconnected red herrings.

I also thought the plot was SO farfetched and the conclusion so obvious as to make the suspension of disbelief impossible. Perhaps that is the 1972-ness of it? Yikes.

[Patricia Milton]

Subject line: Patricia Milton’s World and Characters

What I learned doing this assignment is the MIS of my villain and hero are inextricably linked.

1. My CONCEPT: A tech whistleblower who’s been blacklisted for years swears to remain loyal to the company that finally hires her … then discovers something there is very wrong.

The Big M.I.S. of my story:

<div>Big Mystery: What is Xtopher/Bubble trying to hide?
</div><div>

Big Intrigue: What does the IA wearable called the
Ver-2 actually do?

</div>

Big Suspense: How/will Kamiri testify before the Senate
Tech Committee?

2. The Intriguing World I have selected for this story: Bubble, a tech Giant engaged in a clandestine AI experiment.

3. Kamiri:

Big Mystery: What was her relationship to Xtopher &
what happened?

Big Intrigue: Will she learn what Xtopher is doing?

Big Suspense: Will Kamiri break bad or truthfully
testify?

Xtopher:

Big Mystery: What was his relationship to Kamiri before,
and what does he want now?

Big Intrigue: What is he up to with the Ver-2?

Big Suspense: Will he succeed in persuading Kamiri to “break
bad?”

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Patricia Milton.

[Patricia Milton]

Subject line: Patricia Milton’s Big M.I.S.

The Engine of Our Destruction Logline:A blacklisted Senator’s daughter is encouraged by her ex to apply at the tech giant he helms. She’s surprised to be hired, given her background as a disgraced whistleblower. Her cynicism is challenged when she discovers her ex is engaged in a secret Artificial Intelligence venture that could upend the world.

What I learned doing this assignment is I am not interested in characters’ lives being in danger, but I love a protagonist whose moral character is challenged, who could lose their integrity for good.

1. What are the conventions of your story?

Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Kamiri

Dangerous Villain: Xtopher

High stakes: The moral life of humanity

Life and death situations: Kamiri losing her soul. Also
Kamiri losing her job, being blacklisted again, and being forced to
continue to live at home with her mother

This story is thrilling because: Who can Kamiri trust?
Will Bubble deploy the Ver-2 across the globe, controlling individual
moral choice? Will Kamiri keep her cynicism or lean into her integrity
again, though it will destroy her career?

2. Tell us the Big M.I.S. of your story.

Big Mystery: What is Xtopher/Bubble trying to hide?

Big Intrigue: What is the IA wearable called the Ver-2?

Big Suspense: How/will Kamiri testify before the Senate
     Tech Committee?

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Patricia Milton.

[Patricia Milton]

Subject line: HEADHUNTERS Thriller Conventions

What I learned doing this assignment is the magical effect a few GREAT twists can have.

Unwitting
but Resourceful Hero: Roger Brown

Dangerous
Villain: Clas Greve

High
stakes: Death or imprisonment, Wealth if successful

Life
and death situations: Roger finds a dead man in his car; then as he tries to dispose of the body, the man is
actually alive; then the man tries to kill him when he won’t call 911;
then he kills the man. Running from a man trying to kill him, running from
the police. Almost getting stabbed to death.
Huge car crash.

This
movie is thrilling because? No one is who you might think. A protagonist
is fighting for his life against an antagonist who remains mysterious
almost till the end.

3. What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?

Big
Mystery: Who is Clas Greve and what does he want?

Big
Intrigue: Who can Roger trust?

Big
Suspense: Will Roger survive?

4. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller? Several excellent twists; well-executed humor, set-ups and pay-offs expertly woven into the script. An extremely satisfying ironic ending.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Patricia Milton.

[Patricia Milton]

I, Patricia Milton, agree to the terms of the confidentiality agreement.

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.

[Patricia Milton]

1. Patricia Milton

2. How many scripts you’ve written? A dozen produced full-length stage plays, about 150 shorter stage plays.

3. What you hope to get out of the class? I am writing a thriller and would like to make it the very best it can be.

4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you? I once worked in an office with a man who turned out to be a serial killer.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia Milton

I agree to the terms of this release form.

[Patricia Milton]

Patricia Milton (SF Bay Area) she/her/hers

I’ve written a dozen full-length stage plays and musicals, no film scripts

I am working on a project I think is profound, want to deepen it

I once worked with a guy who turned out to be a serial killer

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Patricia Milton.

[Patricia Milton]

Thanks, Leah, for your comment and your enthusiasm, -p