Patty Ruland
Forum Replies Created
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(Patty Ruland) Connects to Viewers!
What I learned doing this assignment is the worst of times can be harnessed to help others, and this mission will be central to this show’s premise.
Assignment #2
Considering your own project, overlay the points of access we discussed on your idea to determine how you’re affecting the viewer on a psychological level.
1. Answer these questions about how your show will connect with viewers.
A. What is the emotional connection to the show?<div>
The connection is universal: Everyone experiences poor health; everyone fears the worst. Everyone knows someone who has done both. Many have lost loved ones to illness.
B. How are the characters relatable or non-relatable?
Comedy is one way to deal with tragedy in a way that’s comforting or cathartic.
C.
Medical experts who appear on the show give it credibility and authority. Settings including hospital and rehabilitation facilities put the real in this reality show.
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D. Is there an authentic setting that is uniquely compelling?
Settings including hospital and rehabilitation facilities put the real in this reality show.
E. Do the situations portrayed in your show idea lend themselves to comedy or drama? Are they fun or funny to watch?
Both. When I was in ICU, I cracked so many jokes surgeons told me I made them laugh. Case in point.
2. How do those answers help define your show and how might it connect with the audience?
Just as the MD telethon that ran forever, almost, it will connect and re-connect again and again because it portrays a universal plight we will ALL experience one day.
3. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and place it at the top of your assignment.
4. Post your assignment on the ScreenwritingU Forums under Lesson 3.
Subject: (Patty Ruland) Connects to Viewers!
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I forgot to say I had this dream while I was sedated in ICU after emergency surgery in February 2022.
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Patty Ruland: Reality TV Lesson 1
[I will add the first part of the lesson later on today.]
What I learned doing this assignment is…
Putting my ideas on paper is a huge, satisfying step.
2. Select one idea and give us a 1st draft answer for each the following:
A. A one or two sentence explanation of the show.
Weekly telethon benefitting medical charities with comedians hosting and taking calls.
B. The format or hybrid format you’ve chosen.
Docu-series.
C. The real-life characters.
Based on my dream of Larry David appearing as a wise man as I pondered slipping past the rusting, peeling “gates” into the hereafter and telling me, “Get your butt back on Earth. You’ve got work to do.” Dream MC: The Wise Man himself.
Myself.
Guest comedians.
D. The situation these characters find themselves in.
Episodes feature filmed medical vignettes of medical heroics on the part of care-givers and patients alike.
E. The setting.
Television studio.
F. And the viewer experience.
Viewers are inspired by the stories shown and given the opportunity to make a difference by donating to the charity of their choice.
3. Tell us how you envision it being a SERIES that can run for one or more seasons.
Telethons of yore were serials. This one could feature a nearly inexhaustible cast of medical heroes and spotlight charities and facilities doing heroic work anywhere in the country or world.
4. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…” and put that at the top of your assignments.
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1. Patty Ruland
2. How many scripts you’ve written? 1 finished, 3 3/4s done, 1 short-short
3. What you hope to get out of the class? I have had ideas for reality shows in the past, so I want to learn the genre and possibly go further with it.
4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you? I got an idea for what I think is an incredible reality show when I was heavily sedated after emergency surgery in February of last year. The dream or whatever went on and on and on. It even began humorously! I came through with a new outlook on life, that no matter what, have compassion. That will be the driving force behind any reality show I might script, including the one I dreamed up that fateful time.
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1. Patty Ruland
2. I agree to the terms of this release form.
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.OR
If you agree to the terms of the release form, then you can post your assignments into the group and your cohort can give feedback on them.
Also, if you don’t agree to this group confidentiality agreement, you’ll still need to sign an agreement that says you will keep the strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential.
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.
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I made progress on the first draft, applied the rules and wrote for hours. I did not berate myself for what I wrote. I made peace with my lost time. I celebrated moving forward.
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Subject line: (Patty Ruland’s) Transformational Events
What I learned doing this assignment is: to have faith the ideas, solutions, breakthroughs will come, gradually, just as they should
Lesson:
Act 1
–Charley is in her shabby, paint-stained weekend clothes, in her great grandparents’ attic, reading letters between her great grandparents, after the death of her great grandmother, who is preceded in death by her great grandfather. The letters are based on the novel, Call of the Canyon, by Zane Grey. As Charley reads, in voice-over, tears stream down her face. She exclaims, aloud, “Yes, the answer is yes!”
–Charley has dinner with her fiancé, to finally give him an answer. She wears an engagement ring, which makes her fiancé frown. Charley proceeds by telling him she loves him and the answer is yes. But her fiancé sadly tells her the engagement is not to be—“You hesitated, for weeks.” He walks away from her, conspicuously. [Inciting incident]
Act 2
–The seat to her left empty, Charley steps up to the podium at an awards banquet, in order to accept an award for her hit series, Our Destiny, [better title to come], which spotlights couples who overcome the odds to be together. The premise of the show is that actors re-enact their meeting, any falling out, then their reconciliation. She admits her audience that the episode featuring her engagement will not go as planned. She pitches another title, impromptu, “Unrequited.”
–The public’s response is overwhelming—they want to see the second series more than the first. Her producer agrees. Charley says she’ll be on board, if she can still make the trip Out West to honor and retrace her great grandparents steps. She insists she travel the hard way—by locomotive and horse-and-buggy. She boards a freight car, headed West.
–She arrives at Lolomi Lodge near the Grand Canyon in Arizona; it is rustic and open to the outside. She shivers in the cold and the next morning boards a stagecoach on the way to her great-grandparents ranch. The driver lets her off in the middle of the woods. She falls and injures herself, but she makes it to the ranch. The ranch owner tells her he doesn’t have time for snooty tenderfoots and refuses to help her. Her director threatens to cancel the whole thing. She promises she’ll put this one out of the fire.
Act 3
–A shy cowboy overhears his boss’s callous dismissal of the visitor, and he offers to help Charley retrace her great grandparents steps. The boss later confronts the cowboy, who admits he’s helping Charley. So, they’re on—if she is to stay, she must pass the test, a grueling trail ride to the sheep farm across the canyon.
— Charley and the shy cowboy grow close—with him showing her the acreage he dreams of owning one day. She secretly buys the property, just as her great grandmother did. Meanwhile, her ex-fiancé has second thoughts and dramatically heads West to surprise her, network cameras in tow. He woos Charley again, and she consents to go back East with him.
Midpoint:
–Charley invites the cowboy to meet her at “their place,” where she breaks his heart this time by telling him she’s leaving, a land she could never love as much as he does.
–Charley and her fiancé arrive back in Manhattan, her co-workers welcome her, and she is convinced she’s made the right choice. Then, she begins to read the letters again. Her fiancé sees her and asks her why she wants to live in the past. Why cowboy country means so much to her, apparently.
Act 4
–Charley and her fiancé stand next to each other at the wedding rehearsal, her rich and successful peers whooping them on—risqué talk flows like wine, and wine flows like wine. They mock her cowboy life in Arizona, too. They do a horse-riding “conga” line, erupting into laughter. Her fiancé breaks from the surly mob to join her. She faces him, squarely. “I’m returning the favor,” she says, “and your ring.” She doesn’t belong here anymore.
–She heads West, where she oversees the building of a ranch-style lodge she hopes will be their home. However, her old friend tells her that her true love is not hers anymore—he’s smitten with another, and they’re newlyweds. This parallels her great grandparents near-miss. She goes to the ranch to tell him she’s happy for him, and he tells her he’s not married. They embrace—they plan their new life together.
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(Patty Ruland’s) 4 Act Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is: I don’t have to stress so much as I write, knowing what I am writing does not have to be perfect and that I will think how to solve problems and improve it as I go.
1. Give us the following:
Concept
This is a holiday movie titled Christmas in the Canyon. It depicts a modern version of the love story of the great grandparents of the protagonist, Charley. It is an adaptation of Zane Grey’s novel, Call of the Canyon.
Main
ConflictJust like her great-grandmother before her, Charley is a prominent Manhattanite who thinks she’d never leave the city in a million years. Charley loves her successful life as a top television personality there.
Her secret crush is a former soldier in the Afghanistan war who returns home to Manhattan, only to go West to heal. Surely, when she finds him and reveals her feelings, he will want to come back to New York with her.
Old
WaysIronically, when Charley finds love letters between her grandparents, their old ways begin ever so slowly to overshadow her new ways. She wishes for that eternal kind of love they had and she probably will never know.
New
WaysAfter reading an account in one of the letters of her grandmother traversing the entire country on her own just to surprise and win back her fiancé, Charley broadcasts she will follow in her great-grandmother’s footsteps—that is, go West, too. Her superiority complex about the city dies hard, though.
2. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.
Act 1:
Opening
Charley tells her audience about her longing to Go West to find her true love. Who is it? “How should I know?” she says, cagily.
Inciting
IncidentCharley’s editor/director surprises her—with an assignment to do just that—Go West. She is to read letters and report back during her journey.
The day of her departure, she gets cold feet, but agrees to go, all the same. She tells her audience: ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’ The trip is difficult and she longs to be back home.
Turning
PointA humble ranch hand thrills her when he says he knows of her great grandparents. He offers to take her to the places her great grandparents were when they reunited, parted, then reunited. She and the ranch hand grow close as he tells her more than the letters can convey, and her skills improve dramatically.
Act 2:
New
planShe changes her mind about being there—she asks to stay longer.
Plan
in actionHer broadcasts are a hit. Letters from Charley—“To my Mystery Man” gets high praise and high ratings.
Midpoint
Turning PointIntending to profess his feelings for her, the ranch hand takes her to the cabin her great grandfather built and cooks the dinner he cooked for her then, which she described as “the best day of my life,” at the time. They talk of what an “ideal” marriage would be like, obviously on very different pages. She still doesn’t see him in the role of her true love—he’s just a cowboy, after all. He makes himself scarce from that point on.
Act 3:
Rethink
everythingA family to whom Charley has become very close becomes hopelessly lost as they venture outside of the proscribed safe area. Charley insists on accompanying the ranch hand on the rescue mission. He reluctantly consents. She distinguishes herself as a worthy member of the rescue party, and she realizes her true love has been in front of her all along. Time passes, too much of it, for her.
New
planShe plans to propose to him, on Christmas, on air, but during the broadcast, someone rushes to her and insists he is already married to the foreman’s daughter.
Turning
Point: Huge failure / Major shiftHer demeanor changes to abject sadness, and she admits to her audience: “It’s over.”
She packs and prepares to return to Manhattan—the slow way, as her great-grandmother does in the day.
However, at the train station, a huge crowd comes to see her off. There are lights, cameras, wires, and a band. Reporters ask her what happened. Her editor/director explains he’s going for the ratings—Jilted in the Canyon, the new name of the series.
Charley crumples up in pain and dejection. The crowd parts, though, and the ranch hand walks proudly through. Cameras and microphones follow him.
Act 4:
Climax/Ultimate
expression of the conflictA reporter asks if it’s true he’s not good enough for her? She starts to run, but takes the microphone. She says she doesn’t blame him for marrying another, for she was imperious and conceited. She doesn’t deserve him. She is sorry.
Resolution
He walks toward her, and she looks confused. He takes the mic. He tells the crowd history is indeed repeating itself, for he is not married to anyone. He proposes to Charley, on Christmas, in the Canyon, embracing her and kissing her with the passion she’s always dreamed about. She broadcasts her hit show, Charley in the Canyon, from a real canyon, much to her audience’s delight.
They stay on in the Canyon, in a bed-and-breakfast they operate.
3. Once you have created the 4-Act Structure for your Protagonist, go back over it to see if there is any big picture points you need to add to represent your Antagonist.
4. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
5. Post your assignment in the forums at http://ScreenwritingClasses.com
Subject line: (Your name’s) 4 Act Transformational Structure (place in first line)
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As a former journalist, I did what I do: I got both sides of the story. Since it was an oral interview, I’m incorporating answered I “heard” into future work.
Basically, my protagonist fools herself into thinking she “hates” life in the Canyon, but she reveals during the interview how exciting she really finds it–how thrilling it is to learn to ride a horse, a wild mustang, no less; how rewarding it is to spend time in a cowhands camp, learning how to survive without all the frills of city life. Gradually, she said, she felt as competent in the Canyon as she’d felt in the Big City. As for the antagonist, her fiance, who lives permanently, working on a hog farm, much to Charlie’s disgust. Broken from the war, he talks about how he’s slowly building back, creating a new life to replace the one that is dead. They are at a stalemate–she wanting to “rescue” him from this terrible place, he wanting her to stay, to find true happiness.
To be continued!
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Subject line: (Patty Ruland’s) Character Profile Part 2
What I learned from this assignment: How to begin to create parity between protagonist and antagonist.
Fill in Part 2 of the character Profile for your two lead characters.
What draws us to this
character? Protagonist Charlie, great-granddaughter of Carlie
Traits: There’s nothing she can’t
do better than most anyone else. She’s been a “golden girl” from the time
she was a child. She’s smart but generous to those who are not; she’s
fearless; she’s adventurous; she’s a woman of the world; she’s Manhattan’s
favorite daughter in terms of her stardom as a news anchor.
Subtext: Secretly, she detests
suffering fools and worries she might be a hypocrite.
Flaw: She thinks it’s her way
or the highway, even if it’s out West, where she has little or no
experience facing and overcome the challenges of this very different
local.
Values: She values people who
are just as hard-charging as she is; she values forthright people who do
not lie or obfuscate—this she has cultivated in her work as an
investigative reporter.
Irony: She dislikes revealing
her own weaknesses or fears, even claims she has little to none, to
friends.
What makes this the right
character for this role? She is a fitting incarnation of her great
grandmother (modeled after “Carlie” in Call of the Canyon by Zane
Grey.]1. What draws us to this character? Antagonist Jesse [or other name, tbd], once a bon vivant, until he went to war. We feel gratitude for his sacrifice and empathy for his subsequent breakdown due to what he witnessed and experienced on the battlefield.
2. Traits: He’s the quintessential strong, silent type—but that’s because like many soldiers he just doesn’t want to air the horrors he saw, to toot his own horn about his heroics.
3. Subtext: He’s happiest when no one’s talking, when he’s alone in the canyon, listening only to Nature and the plants and animals that say it best—how beautiful and thrilling this landscape is.
4. Flaw: He doesn’t reveal to Charlie that he’s had enough of her artifice, hiding his true feelings until the moment he decides to leave her. He is NOT forthright.
5. Values: In the Canyon, he values dawn to dusk hard work; an honest day’s effort; people who learn the hard way how to survive here.
6. Irony: Despite being a man of few words and little patience for fancy people who vie to have primacy over others, despite his being less loquacious that the fabled Charlie, he bests her in terms of insight about life, perspective given him only one way, by spending time along in the Canyon.
7. What makes this the right character for this role? In the end, he complements his true love, Charlie, just as her great-grandfather complemented his great grandmother.
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(Patty Ruland’s) Lesson 2: Who are we traveling with?
What I learned doing this assignment is: To put one foot in front of the other as I keep moving forward. To quell the voice inside my head that doubts I can do this.
ASSIGNMENT
1. Listen to the 3 minute Empowerment Audio FIRST.
https://30dayscript.s3.amazonaws.com/Empowerment+Audio.m4a
Done.
2. Pick the type of role your Protagonist will play and give us a few sentences on how they will fulfill that role.
Hero
Explorer [Charlie, great-granddaughter of Carlie.]
Runner
Fighter
Victim
Dreamer3. Pick the type of role your Antagonist will play and give us a few sentences on how they will fulfill that role.
Villain
Change Agent [Jesse*, her former fiancé] *Name to be
changed
Authority
Predator4. What other characters might be necessary?
Supporting characters: Constance, studio supervisor at
the television station where Charlie anchors prime-time news.
Minor roles: TBD
Background characters: TBD5. Pick your genre.
Rom-Com or Buddy Movie [Holiday movie]
Thriller
Horror
Action
Drama
Sci-Fi
Comedy6. Fill in whatever answers come to you about your lead character profiles.
Charlie–
Role in the story: She’s the protagonist, the star of
the show
Age range and Description: 35-?Internal Journey: She feels superior to everyone given
her level of achievement, but finding her great-grandmother’s letters
detailing a similar egoism that fate strikes down begins to set her life
on a more introspective course..
External Journey: She promotes on air she’ found the
letters and wishes to retrace her great-grandmother’s steps, so she sets
out, alone, on a train, not realizing just hard life is about to get for
her.Motivation: She wants to reunite with her fiancé, who
preceded her in the canyon.
Wound: Her fiancé left her and the city to find a new
life in the Canyon.
Mission/Agenda: She wants to know what life was like without
all the fanfare and excess of her current life in Manhattan. She wants to
relive her great-grandmother’s life.
Secret: If the truth be known, she’s weary of all the
city drama and noise and seeks something else—she doesn’t know what it is,
yet.
What makes them special? She starts out not knowing which
end of a horse goes first and by the end of the movie is an accomplished
horsewoman who owns and operates her own ranch in the Canyon, just as her
great-grandmother did before her.Jesse
Role in the story: He’s the antagonist.
Age range and Description: 35-?Internal Journey: He once lived in Manhattan, too, and left
to fight a war. When he came back, Charlie seemed as superficial as the
rest of her crowd. He need to go out West, as his great-grandfather did,
to heal and find a new life.
External Journey: He befriends a family, whose daughter
develops feelings for him, just like his great-grandfather did.Motivation: He wants to prove the war did not beat him.
Wound: He saw atrocities during the war that still
terrify and sadden him.
Mission/Agenda: He wants more than his old life and old
love restored—he wants a new life and a new love (with his old love, which
seems an impossibility).
Secret: He loves only one woman and will always love
only one woman.
What makes them special? He holds a candle for her no
matter what, which pays off when she rushed back to the Canyon and to him.
They reunite on Christmas, and resolve to operate a hotel for people just
like they are—people who don’t know what to make of the Canyon, until they
really, really experience..7. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
8. Post your assignment in the forums at http://ScreenwritingU.com/forums
<s>Subject line:</s><s> (Your name’s) Character Profiles Part 1 (place in first line) </s>This is the wrong label.
[30 Day Script] Lesson 2: Who Are We Traveling With?<s></s>
Deadline: 24 hours
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(Patty Ruland’s) Transformational Journey
What I learned doing this assignment: It’s great to get started on the model. As my granddaughter, 7, says, “Believe in the process!”
ASSIGNMENT
You send a Hero on a journey that the audience gets to live.
1. Listen to the 3 minute Empowerment Audio FIRST.
https://30dayscript.s3.amazonaws.com/Empowerment+Audio.m4a
2. Who is your Hero and what is their Character Arc that represents a transformation?
Charlie, heroine, granddaughter of Carlie, based on the character of the same name in Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey, finds letters between her great grandmother and great grandfather that chronicle their split and reunion. Charlie wants to retrace her great grandparents steps but doesn’t bargain for falling in love with a cowboy and deciding to leave her Manhattan life in the dust.
Internal Journey:
Charlie, like Carlie, is snooty about her Manhattan modern life and looks down on the dusty, deserted land that takes her to her destination in Arizona. She feels superior to everyone there and acts like it.
External Journey:
She tries the life—but it’s just too boring (actually, hard on her)—and chooses her former life by returning to the city, instead. However, like her great grandmother, she, having grown to value for the life she despised and the man she left behind, so she returns to the canyon to forge a new life with him—if he will have her. They celebrate her return at a fete they name “Christmas in the Canyon” to christen their B&B there.
3. What are the Old Ways and New Ways?
Old Ways:
Selfish
Self-centered
Snobby
New Ways:
Sensitive to others
Seasoned in the ways of the West—so she’s no longer helpless there
Courageous enough to choose the best, over the good (“The good is the enemy of the best.”)
4. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
5. Post your assignment in the forums at http://www.Screenwritingclasses.com
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(Patty Ruland’s) Transformational Journey
What I learned:
I love this process, and I welcome the chance to further learn and apply it.
ASSIGNMENT
You send a Hero on a journey that the audience gets to live.
1. Listen to the 3 minute Empowerment Audio FIRST.
https://30dayscript.s3.amazonaws.com/Empowerment+Audio.m4a
2. Who is your Hero and what is their Character Arc that represents a transformation?,
Charlie discovers her great-grandmother’s letters, Carley, to her future husband. Carley was a Manhattan socialite, until she followed her fiance to the canyons of Arizona. She left him, then returned. Charlie, a high-powered anchorwoman, broadcasts she will retrace Carley’s steps–meeting and leaving a ranch owner, then returning, to celebrate “Christmas in the Canyon.” Based on a public domain novel by Zane Grey, adapted to occur in the present day.
Internal Journey:External Journey:
3. What are the Old Ways and New Ways?
Charlie is tough, discerning, unwavering–she goes after what she wants and she always gets it. Vulnerable is NOT a word anyone would use to describe her. She loves city life and cannot image living anywhere else. When she discovers the letters, she starts to question her iron resolve to be a power player in a power locale. Just as happens with her great-grandmother before her, the “Call of the Canyon”–Grey’s novel–transforms her and makes her finally make it her home for good. The two found a bed and breakfast celebrating Christmas to culminate the story.
(Your name’s) Transformational Journey
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1. Your name.
Patty Jan Ruland
2. The words “I agree to the terms of this release form.”
I agree to the terms of this release form.
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.
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.
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Greetings!
1. Name?
Patty Jan Ruland
2. How many scripts you’ve written?
3–one finished
3. What you hope to get out of the class?
I have a producer rooting for a holiday script concept, so I am hoping to get this one done in short order, then go out for coverage, then submit to different companies.
4. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you?
People think I am emotional (too), but a counselor once told me I am more analytical than emotional.
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This is the fifth lesson in the module, so I hope this is the right place to post it.
(Patty Ruland’s Basic Plotting)
What I learned from this lesson: No matter how far I get behind (this time due to a family crisis), I can return to the modules, do the lessons, and add valuable content to the script. As my granddaughter said just this weekend–she’s six!–“Believe in the process.” I do!
My vision: To make a living in this profession
Lesson:
· Influences Surface Story: Her father agrees, but it means they will occupy different vessels, which are separated by a terrible storm, subjecting her to the evil ways of a poacher who takes her hostage.
· Hints: She amazes her parents with her ability to build her own raft/canoe/shelter, all in one, and her knowledge of the lay of the land.
· Changes Reality: She wants to beat both her parents and the poacher to be the first to sight and document (draw or photograph) the river dolphin.
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Subject line: (Patty Ruland’s) Beat Sheet – Draft 1
My Vision: To get better and better in order to gain representation and earn a good living in this field.
What I learned from doing this assignment is I’m getting better at plotting but I have many miles to go before I will improve enough to feel confident.
Genre: Action / Drama
ACT 1: Jessie’s family sets out on a high-profile expedition to document the elusive Amason river dolphin for a top prize.
Jessie PJ 1: Jessie is jealous of her older brother’s top spot in the eyes of her famous naturalist/explorer parents.
Jessie PJ 2: Jessie reveals she is going it alone in her own home-made vessel, a raft outfitted with a canoe and shelter.
Jag AJ 1: Jag, a poacher and former colleague of Jessie’s parents, arrives at the last minute to intimidate Jessie, her parents, and brother.
Deeper Layer: Jag intends to take her family hostage so they will hand over the map to the remote part of the river where natives say the river dolphins congregate.
Jag AJ 2: Jag corners the father and holds a knife to his throat demanding the map.
INCITING INCIDENT: A sudden, violent storm hits, sending all three vessels down the river, separately.
Jag AJ 3: When the family’s vessel runs aground, Jag overtakes it and takes the parents and brother hostage, telling them his business partner has taken Jessie hostage, which is a lie.
Deeper Layer: Jag offers the family what he calls a “sweet ultimatum”: Join forces for power and money or gamble with Jessie’s life. The father and brother do not turn him down.
Jessie PJ 3: Jessie’s friend, the child whose family lives in the forest, comes to her with the news: Her father and brother have joined forces (or so it seems) with Jag, and her mother’s unaccounted for.
Jag AJ 4: Jag demands a loyalty test: The father must shoot and kill an endangered animal (will specify later) (or tribesperson). The father complies, but takes note of where the weapons are stored.
TURNING POINT 1: The child’s tribe overtakes Jag’s vessel and peppers the family with poison darts. They take cover and shoot–Jag, to kill. One of the tribespeople recognizes the father.
ACT 2: The tribe takes the father and brother prisoner.
Jessie PJ 4: Completely shocked by the sight of her father and brother captured, Jessie makes her way to them in the camp.
Jag AJ 5: Jag frightens Jessie by telling her that her mother will be killed if she doesn’t join forces and help her father and brother escape.
DEEPER LAYER REVEAL: Jesse tells her father how she feels–he’s a two-faced manipulator, and it’s catching up with him. She stares her brother down.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: The head of the tribe arrives on scene but does not arrest Jessie.
Jessie PJ 6: Jessie tells her father and brother she’s been visiting this camp all along in order to learn the skills she needs to strike out on her own.
Jag AJ 7: Jag demands she implore the head of the tribe to let them go. She refuses and tells them she’s going to find her mother.
Act 3: Jessie boards her raft and sets out down the Amazon.
Jessie PJ 8: Jessie is joined by many in the tribe. They form a flotilla.
Jag AJ 9: Jag pulls out a knife and holds it to the brother’s neck. The father produces the map.
Turning Point 3: Jag, the father, and the brother escape from the camp. They set out down the river, too. They are joined by Jag’s men.
4th Act Climax: The mother has been the first to find the pink dolphin family. The others converge on the scene. The authorities, led by Jessie, arrive and father and son finger Jag, which was the plan all along. The authorities arrest the poacher and his men.
Resolution: The mother finishes her sketches of the dolphins in their habitat and joins Jesse on their way out of there. Newspapers around the world carry the story.
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I am sorry I am so behind. My family had a crises over the holidays, which left me too upset to make progress. Things are much better now, so I am hoping to make progress.
Deeper Layer
(Patty Ruland’s) Deeper Layer!
My vision: To get better and better so I attain representation and earn a good living in this business.
What I learned from doing this assignment is if I follow the directions and go through the process, astonishing breakthroughs are possible.
Assignment:
Surface Layer: Jessie, the dutiful protege and daughter of renowned naturalists and explorers. helps her parents prepare to venture into the Amazon rainforest in order to document sightings of the elusive pink river dolphin.Deeper Layer: She resents the favored status her older brother has, to the point he’ll be dubbed as expedition director, so she goes behind everyone’s back to go solo into the deep rainforest to study the ways of an indigenous tribe, gaining her a secret best friend.Major Reveal: She reveals she’s build her own raft/canoe and will conduct her own parallel expeditionInfluences Surface Story: Her father agrees, but it means they will occupy different vessels, which are separated by a terrible storm, subjecting her to the evil ways of a poacher who takes her hostage.Hints: She amazes her parents with her ability to build her own raft/canoe/shelter, all in one, and her knowledge of the lay of the land.Changes Reality: She wants to beat both her parents and the poacher to be the first to sight and document (draw or photograph) the river dolphin.
3. Add the rest of the structure to the characters to the script. Try to get to the point as we’ve done in the Iron Man example above.
Beginning: The parents and the brother are abuzz preparing and loading their boat, only to find that Jessie is piloting her own vessel.Inciting Incident: A storm hits, sending the boat down the river and out of sight and out of reach. Jessie sets out to find them and is joined by her friend.Turning Point 1: They find out a poacher, the parents’ rival, is on the trail of them all. They hatch a plan to double-cross the poacher.Act 2:Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: They let the poacher take them hostage; he chops up their raft for firewood. He ties them to posts on the deck of his boat. Act 3:Turning Point 3: They travel a long way, and still no sign of her friend’s tribe, in dangerous waters. The poacher demands they give him the map to the fabled home of the river dolphin, or he’ll throw them to the caymans and snakes. All is lost.Act 4 Climax: The tribe ambushes the poacher’s vessel and shoots poison darts and kill the crew. They take the poacher hostage at their village to exact retribution. The authorities arrive.Resolution: The parents show up, with reports they, including the brother, were the first to spot the pink river dolphin. Jessie is genuinely happy for them and happier for herself for having masterminded the capture of the notorious, ruthless poacher.
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I am still behind due to my surgery. However, I am enjoying the process so much. I will keep on going. Assignment:
(Patty Ruland’s) Character Structure
My vision: To get better and better so I can gain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: To thwart fear that I cannot do this with empowerment. To have faith in the process, for this surely happens: “And have fun with this! It is exciting to see your movie start to materialize right in front of you, isn’t it?” Yes, it is! Quite amazing!
Beginning:
Jesse [new name for protagonist, rather than Alexandra] helps her naturalist parents prepare for their mission to locate the pink dolphin in the Amazon jungle, only to have her older brother make a surprise visit and eclipse her efforts.
Inciting Incident:
A powerful thunderstorm hits the encampment and separates Jessie from her family. Their vessels are washed downriver.
Turning Point 1:
A friend from a native encampment finds Jessie half-alive, her family nurses her back to health, and the friend offers to accompany Jessie to find her family and lead them all to find and document the pink dolphin.
Act 2:
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint:
Jessie and Iara [Iara– this Tupi-Guarani name (Brazilian Indigenous) means lady of the waters or mother of waters. It can also be translated as the water lady, water mother, or water beauty.] stop for supplies at a waystation. They meet a man who says he knows where the parents are. But he is really the evil Jag, infamous poacher and trader. Iara makes a deal—if he can lead them to Jesse’s parents, she’ll lead him to the pink dolphin.
Jag has a better idea: He takes them hostage, until they take him to where the pink dolphin is. He puts them through rainforest hell, a series of dangerous predicaments. In the process, Iara teaches Jesse esoteric indigenous survival skills, thwarting each of Jag’s attempts to see they are lost in the jungle forever.
Act 3:
Turning Point 3:
Jag interrogates them gives them a final ultimatum. She tells him a true story [a setup], and he sends them to their deaths anyway, he thinks.
Act 4 Climax:
Jag has corralled a family of pink dolphins, intending his real plan all along, to kill them to sell their body parts as relics. Jag’s poaching ring, traders, come to view the spoils. When Jag raises his machete to the neck of one dolphin, a dart from a blow-gun whizzes past him. The dolphin escapes. The traders raise and fire their weapons. A hail of hundreds of blow darts engulf them. They fall, all except for Jag and a handful of traders. Jesse raises her blow gun to finish him off.
Resolution:
Her parents emerge, much to her extreme joy, and handcuff Jag. Iara’s family help the parents subdue the traders who are left. The parents receive accolades for finding the pink dolphin, and Jesse and Ira receive medals for bringing in Jag and his traders, stopping the poaching ring.
Repeat the process with your Antagonist.
Beginning: Jag assembles his crew to begin their journey down the Amazon to find the pink dolphin—ostensibly to win a national prize.
Inciting Incident:
Jag is arrested and imprisoned. He learns the cruel ways of the traders, who rake in untold sums of money to harvest body parts of endangered species. Jag escapes, and now a fugitive, continues on his first mission.
Turning Point 1:
On his way, Jag is taken captive by the head of the poaching gang, who urges him to “change professions.” Or else. His mission gets even more evil—he becomes a human poacher, someone who puts down authorities who protect endangered species.
Act 2:
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint:
Jag takes Jesse and Iara hostage on the speculation that the parents made it first to the pink dolphin territory, and there, he can kill two birds with one stone.
Act 3:
Turning Point 3:
Jag walks into the trap set by the parents and does battle to save his life.
Act 4 Climax:
Jag is arrested and taken away.
Resolution:
The ring is smashed for good.
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I know I’m not in the right spot, but I hope I’m in the neighborhood.
(Patty Ruland’s) Supporting Characters
Vision: To get better and better until I gain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: The process always delivers something good!
Support 1: Orphan native child adopted sister of Alexandra, protagonist
Name: Yara, whose Brazilian name translates as “a small butterfly”
Role: Adopted sister and best
friend of Alexandra “first mate” of the raft crew headed down the
treacherous Amazon
Main purpose: To be the link
between Alexandra’s Western ways and the secret, sophisticated
indigenous ways of Yara’s former community
Value: She can escort Alexandra
where other Westerners could not go.Support 2:
Name: Alexandra’s parents
Role: To be the ostensible “adults
in the room” who are to spearhead the expedition.
Main purpose: They are lost in
a storm and struggle to find Alexandra as she struggles to find them.
Value: They are the cause of
Alexandra’s internal dilemma—should she wound their pride and “rescue them”
or make them proud by finding the pink dolphin?Support 3:
Name: Leo, Alexandra’s older
brother
Role: To be the golden boy of
the family
Main purpose: To justify his
parents’ existence and carry on their famous name as explorers
Value: To cherish his sister
while all the while competing with her. -
(Patty Ruland’s) Character Profiles Part 2
My vision: To get better and better so that I gain representation and one day earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: The process is my best friend, for it helps me combat fear and insecurity, as it reliably leads the way to progress. Each lesson yields another epiphany or two about what this story could be. It also helps console me over losing so much time due to my surgery: If I just go with the flow, really commit to it, I don’t feel so bad about being behind, I feel good about moving forward a little more.
Alexandra, protagonist
The High Concept.
A youth and a child set forth in the perilous Amazon rainforest to locate the elusive pink river dolphin.
This Character’s Journey.
After a storm seems to wash away her famous explorer parents, Alexandra takes the lead in an expedition to document the elusive Amazon River Dolphin, in order to win a prize and fame, but all the while she also feels compelled to search for her parents.
Jag, antagonist
The High Concept.
Jag trails Alexandra so he can avoid the trouble of navigating the dangerous route himself from scratch, usurp her expedition, fake documenting the dolphins, then selling them dead or alive on the illicit market. [I don’t like the implied demonization of the descriptor “black,” so I avoid the term.]
This Character’s Journey.
Jag starts out by just wanting to sell the pink dolphins he finds, but due to the high price they bring, dead, he plots to kill them—a family of them.
Alexandra
The Actor Attractors for this Character.
This is a role for a powerful, precocious female youth, who more than shows up her adult competitors with her athleticism, ingenuity, and fearlessness.
Jag
The Actor Attractors for this Character.
This villain is supremely charming, who entertains as he ensnares in his web of deceit and lies. His “prey” see his dashing side up until it is too late, when his diabolical side comes to the fore.
Alexandra
Profile components.
Character Subtext:
She wants her parents to treat her as an equal or better to her brother, obviously their favorite child.
Character Intrigue:
She secretly defects to the company and training provided by native Amazonian villagers to learn superior survival skills. Her adopted sister, an orphan whose family is ties to them, paves the way.
Flaw:
Adrenalin-addict, who performs death-defying feats just for the sport of it
Values:
Knowledge, achievement
Jag
Profile components.
Character Subtext:
He is a cowardly but contented child, until he survives an attack by a jaguar. Then, there’s literally no living with him.
Character Intrigue:
He conspires in his every waking moment to be king of the human jungle.
Flaw:
Bravado, desire for attention
Values:
Money, power
Alexandra
Character Dilemma:
No matter how much she outgrows her childhood ways, she still longs for those innocent days spent learning by her parents’ side.
Jag
Character Dilemma:
He loves animals, but he also loves to kill them.
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(Patty Ruland’s) Character Profiles Part 1
My vision: To get better and better so that I might gain representation and make a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: No matter the assignment, breakthroughs occur. This makes it all-important to do each and every lesson. For example, I was not happy with the villain’s name, and in the process of doing this module, I came upon one I like much better, which, in turn, allowed me to elevate the description of him.
Role in the Story:
High concept–
Protagonist: ALEXANDRA, the daughter of famous naturalist and initial leader of the expedition, who doesn’t want to play second fiddle to anyone, not even her father. Circumstances, a terrible storm that washes her father’s group away, force her to have what she wants—to be the leader.
Antagonist: Now JAG, who is trying to live down his reputation for cowardice by bullying people and animals of the rainforest. He wants to sell endangered species on the black market, as well as claim the prize for documenting the pink dolphin and show up his long-time rival, the father.
Triangle: Father? Orphan native child?
This character’s journey—
ALEXANDRA:
After a storm separates Alexandra’s craft from her parents’ expedition, she has a dual journey—should she focus only on finding her parents or could she also focus on finding the pink dolphin?
Age range and Description: ALEXANDRA
Age Range: 14-16, daughter of famed explorer, whose skills are rapidly catching up to his. Despite a falling out between father and daughter, it will be Alexandra who finally rescues and saves him.
Age range and Description:<s> Diablo</s> JAG
Description: He has the physique and charm of a swashbuckler do-gooder, but the secret soul of a criminal.
Core Traits:
ALEXANDRA: Teen Explorer, Naturalist
Intrepid
Inventive
Invincible
Adrenaline-addict
<s>Diablo:</s> JAG: Poacher, river pirate
Charismatic
Smart
Swift
Stealthy
Revenge-addict
Motivation: Want/Need:
ALEXANDRA:
Want: To find the pink dolphin and win the prize
Need: To come of age and be seen as an explorer in her own right
JAG: To find the pink dolphin and sell specimens to aquariums or dissectors under cover of darkness, as if they’d never been there, delighting in other explorers finding nothing [This is his MO.]
NEED: To show everyone who thinks he’s a heel and coward that money and power redeem his status
Wound: What they can’t face:
ALEXANDRA: She compensates for having to live the lesser life of a girl, in her family and in society, which makes her seethe with resentment toward her father and her older brother
JAG: He was born the sweetest child, but then a jaguar attacked him, he was ridiculed and ostracized, and he turned diabolical in showing no mercy.
Likability, Relatability, Empathy (from Lesson 5)
ALEXANDRA:
Likability:
Alexandra simply shines in so many ways. She’s bright and lights up everyone she meets. With her black hair, and green eyes, she “looks like a night on the rainforest,” according to her beloved father. She’s a voracious reader and great student who learns quickly then applies her knowledge every chance she gets.
Relatability:
Alexandra’s a second child whose brother has upstaged her all her life. She adores her father, who doesn’t seem to realize he plays favorites by lavishing attention on his first-born child, his son. She is a jill-of-all-trades but wants to make her mark doing something unique, big.
Empathy:
We see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, see it in her demeanor: she’s jealous of her brother and hurt she can never be No. 1 with her father. However, she and her brother adore each other, so we feel empathy for her in that she doesn’t want to bear bad will against him.
<s>Diablo</s> JAG
Likability:
Jag’s an entertainer, singing and jigging and playing instruments to disarm potential detractors. He is known for his salty jokes.
Relatability:
We relate to his lust for adventure—doesn’t every human being?
Empathy:
We’re sorry to see his scars on his face arms and legs (if we could see them) due to his being mauled by a jaguar, but to mask them he wears intimidating native face paint making him look like a jaguar [Could his name be Jag? Yes.]
FATHER OR ORPHAN profiles to come.
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(Patty Ruland’s) Likability/Relatability/Empathy
Vision: To get better and better so that I might gain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: These methods work! I indeed have fun doing the assignments.
2. Brainstorm one or more ways you can present your Protagonist through each of these:
Likability:
Alexandra simply shines in so many ways. She’s bright and lights up everyone she meets. With her black hair, and green eyes, she “looks like a night on the rainforest,” according to her beloved father. She’s a voracious reader and great student who learns quickly then applies her knowledge every chance she gets.
Relatability:
She’s a second child whose brother has upstaged her all her life. She adores her father, who doesn’t seem to realize he plays favorites by lavishing attention on his first-born child, his son. She is a jill-of-all-trades but wants to make her mark doing something unique, big.
Empathy:
We see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, see it in her demeanor: she’s jealous of her brother and hurt she can never be No. 1 with her father. However, she and her brother adore each other, so we feel empathy for her in that she doesn’t want to bear bad will against him.
3. Just to get the experience, give us one or more ways that your Antagonist could be presented through each of these:
Likability:
Diablo’s an entertainer, singing and jigging and playing instruments to disarm potential detractors. He is known for his salty jokes.
Relatability:
We relate to his lust for adventure—doesn’t every human being?
Empathy:
We’re sorry to see his scars on his face arms and lets (if we could see them) due to his being mauled by a jaguar.
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I’m not sure if I’m posting these the right places, but at least I’m posting. Still playing catch-up after missing a month due to surgery. Here goes:
Subject line: (Patty Ruland’s) Character Intrigue
My vision: To get better and better so that I might obtain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: Character flaws make characters interesting—intriguing.
Character Name: Alexandra
Role: Protagonist
Hidden agendas: She’s cultivating ties with indigenous explorers by way of her best friend the orphan Meni*, in order to be able to supersede her parent’s expedition. [She thinks she knows more than her parents by now.]
Competition: She wants to be the preeminent explorer in the family, for it burns inside her that her brother and father have always claimed the limelight, while she and her mother had to settle for being “companions,” the “women behind the successful men.”
Unspoken Wound: She’s in her mid-teens and aching to be grown and on her own, for then she could step out from under her famous parents’ and brother’s shadows.
*[Menippe (Greek Origin), meaning ‘the courageous mare’, was a member of the Amazons.]
Character Name: Diablo
Role: Antagonist
Hidden agendas: He’s tracking Alexandra’s party in secret, hidden in the shadows of the rainforest.
Deception: He fronts as a friend of the family and conservationist, a ‘friend of the forest.”
Unspoken Wound: Flashbacks of watching his brother and dog drown in the raging rapids haunt his waking and sleeping hours, causing him to drink to blot out the memories then fly into rages that fuel his cruel acts.
Competition: He is offered a lot of money to cross a terrible line.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: Character flaws make characters interesting—intriguing.
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(Patty Ruland’s) Subtext Characters
My vision: To get better and better so that I might obtain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: mining for subtext can yield silver and gold ideas, the going deeper meets resistance at first but like diving in a cool deep pool, it feels incredible and better by far than splashing around in the shallows.
2. With your example movie, give us the following answers for the character with the most subtext:
Movie Title: The Lost City
of Z:[Amazon summary: The Lost City of Z tells the incredible true story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who journeys into the Amazon at the dawn of the 20th century and discovers evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization that may have once inhabited the region.
–based on the book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann]
Character Name: Jane
Subtext Identity: Acceptance Wound
Subtext Activity: Covers by being sweet.
Jane has an acceptance wound and covers it by being sweet.
My answers:
Character Name: Percy
Fawcett
Subtext Identity: Delusions of
grandeur, raging ambition
Subtext Trait: Covers by
playing the dutiful husband, father, scientist
Subtext Logline: Percy Fawcett has
delusions of grandeur that fuel a raging ambition to be a world-famous
explorer at any cost, which he masks by playing the mild-mannered, dutiful
husband, father, and low-level geographer.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Placing
his ambitions above the welfare of his wife and family, risking the lives
of his crew, though returning home safely, going back to the Amazon taking
his son, pressing on when the way is too dangerous for either of them to
survive.3. For your two leads, brainstorm these answers:
Character Name: Alexandra, protagonist
Subtext Identity: Resentment her older brother is her parents’ favorite and preferred companion on expeditions.
Subtext Trait: Covers by playing the good sport, the third wheel, the consolation prize when her brother leaves the household to study abroad
Subtext Logline: Alexandra still resents that her older brother was always her parents’ favorite and preferred companion on expeditions, which she masks by maintaining her eternal-optimist nature, being a good sport no matter the injustice she endures, not minding being the consolation prize in life.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Stealth, in that she still burns inside for having been left behind because she knows she is more competent than her brother, so she steals away to the camp of indigenous people to learn their ways and acquire their skills, putting also her unfailing diplomacy to good use in winning them over, resolving to strike out on her own to find the pink dolphin because she believes her skills to be superior to even those of her parents.
Character Name: Diablo*, antagonist
*Cliché, I know, but it helps me to infuse him with maximum evil.
Subtext Identity: Guilt-ridden because when he was piloting a canoe and a flash flood made it capsize, he caused the death of his brother and beloved watch dog/sea dog.
Subtext Trait: Covers by being heartless and ruthless
Subtext Logline: Diablo is secretly still racked with guilt over causing the death of his younger brother and his beloved watch dog in a canoeing accident, which he masks by ruthlessly and heartlessly abducts animals either shooting them for skins and other body parts or selling them on the black market.
Possible Areas of Subtext: Corruption because he bribes city and town officials to look the other way, luring/seducing animals into his traps and gullible people into his web of deceit and lies, ultimate evil by framing indigenous family for the cannibalism he is guilty of.
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(Patty Ruland’s) Actor attractors!
Vision: To get better and better so that I may obtain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from this assignment is: Keep moving! Also, don’t berate myself when I almost stall and doubt the worth of what I am putting on paper. The antidote is to stay open to alterations in prior plan that emerge during the process.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Alexandra
Role: Protagonist
[Note: I am changing my lead characters in these ways: The older sibling, Alexandra, will be female, not male, as originally envisioned, the second child in the family, whose older brother is studying abroad. He is his father’s favorite (Alexandra’s deep wound). Her internal goal is to outshine her brother in her parent’s eyes via this mission. The second character, envisioned as an adopted daughter who is from an indigenous family, may be a best friend who surfaces after the storm separates the family and offers to find them.]
What about this role would
cause an actor to want to be known for it?A youthful actress, from 12 to 14 years old, would relish the chance to play a youthful, female swashbuckler character (the type usually filled by young to middle-aged men).
What makes this character one
of the most interesting characters in your story?She is a proficient survivalist, adept in the ways of her parents and older brother.
What are the most interesting
actions the Lead could take in the script?She can decide to try to find her parents or, first, find the pink dolphin, so they can collect on the prize promised. She can build a large floating raft with cabin and canoe, an improvement over the canoe she was originally provided before the storm.
How can you introduce this role
in a way that could sell it to an actor?When the storm hits, she is a wonder at preserving supplies and saving lives.
What could be this character’s
emotional rangeFrom a deep-seated envy of her brother she has never admitted to anyone, to a deep devotion to her parents, to a lust for life and for adventure, to a profound simpatico with the flora and fauna of her beloved rainforest, to a raging ambition to find Boto, to a deep devotion to her friend and companion she regards as a sister [name to come].
What subtext can the actor
play?Her heart still stings from being left out and left home when her father took her brother out on expeditions when she was a child [I was jealous of my own brother, who supplanted me as my own father’s preferred companion on trips to the family lake].
What’s the most interesting
relationships this character can have?She always wanted a sister, and she regards her friend, an orphan whose indigenous parents perished in a flash flood, as a true sister, one she would risk her very life to protect, and does. She can reveal her own fears to her “sister,” who is wise and competent way beyond her years, due to her upbringing in the wiles of the deep rainforest.
How will this character’s
unique voice be presented?She loves to sing and compose songs about the flora and fauna as they float down the river.
What could make this character
special and unique?She is an explorer extraordinaire, the caliber of Indiana Jones and other heroes of the genre.
Lead Character Name: Poacher, name to come
Role: Antagonist
What about this role would
cause an actor to want to be known for it?This character is a true villain, a sneaky, underhanded, opportunistic, ruthless foe to Alexandra, and once to her father.
What makes this character one
of the most interesting characters in your story?He is very charming and disarming, able to play on the parents’ heartstrings once again and confuse Alexandra, who must wonder—is he friend or foe?
What are the most interesting
actions the Lead could take in the script?He operates a poaching ring, collecting rare species for sale all over the world. He loves animals with a boy’s heart and loves exploiting them with a cruel man’s greed.
How can you introduce this role
in a way that could sell it to an actor?The father discovers him lurking in the forest after the storm is over. They reignite their animosity and final conflict, to the point the poacher draws a gun on the father, only to be struck by a stone from a slingshot fired by Alexandra. She sics vicious dogs on him, and they run him off, but only for a while.
What could be this character’s
emotional rangeFrom shame over his father’s drunken, criminal ways, to pride in his own budding criminal ways, to greed and avarice that only grow as he acquires money and power, to ruthlessness that makes him want to seek revenge on the father by going after the daughter.
What subtext can the actor
play?He despises the poor, the pitiful, the infirm because they remind him of family who made his childhood so difficult.
What’s the most interesting
relationships this character can have?The one he has with himself, whose ego and avarice take no prisoners.
How will this character’s
unique voice be presented?He talks to himself and non-human fixtures in his world, has pet names for his guns and other weapons, treats them as pets.
What could make this character
special and unique?He makes a turnaround of some kind—as does Jackson’s character does in Pulp Fiction. Problem is—his lust for revenge must turn to living a life of contrition and retribution.
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I hope this is the right place!
(Patty Ruland’s) Genre Conventions
My vision: To get better and better at this in order to obtain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned doing this assignment is: This can be fun, indeed! And, it’s okay not to know exactly how to plot things—for there’s always another pass and another and another during which improvements are surely likely to be made.
Act 1:
Opening/ Adrenaline-stirring
/ fast pacedScientists and benefactors gather at their rainforest headquarters to receive their assignments. Other scientists receive the plum assignments, like finding arks and grails and the like. The father’s and mother’s party receives the lowest status assignment: find “Boto,” the fabled pink river dolphin, for a monetary prize and modest renown. No one really believes pink dolphins exist, so the assignment is really a mockery and sabotage of the expedition’s chances. The husband and wife had once embarrassed the director of expeditions, so this is just another instance of payback.
Inciting Incident/ Demand for
Action/Mission/The expeditions dispatch to their respective launch points, awaiting the go-ahead. The mother’s and father’s expedition begins auspiciously, for they are experts and have outfitted their vessel with every advantage. The son and daughter are allowed to pilot a fancy canoe, to improve their skills. Suddenly, a violent storm system assembles in the sky. Not only that, a nearby volcano erupts. Torrents of rain and fire rush down the cliffs into the river. The main boat and the canoe are separated. The father yells for his son and daughter to make camp and wait for him. They shout they will, but then the main boat is swept up and away by rapids laced with sparks and flames. The canoe carrying the son and daughter seems no match for the violent rapids, almost overturning countless times. The tumble over a gorge and hold onto the canoe until they can board it again. Eels and capybaras and alligators in the water and leopards and jaguars on the banks stalk the canoe, which is carrying very vulnerable “prey.”
Turning Point/ Mission The
storm ends and explorers gather at headquarters to see who is there and
who is not. The parents have not returned. The son and daughter are
nowhere to be seen.On the river, the two debate what to do next. The son wants to return home and wait. The daughter wants to proceed—to look for their parents and the pink dolphin, she promises with the help of her relatives far down river. She says that they have to find the pink dolphin to honor their parents, whether they are dead or alive. The son reluctantly agrees.
Act 2:
New plan/Mission/ Adrenaline-stirring
/ fast paced/demand for actionThe son and daughter build a new vessel, a makeshift flat raft, shelter, and side canoe. They hurriedly load it with supplies, for they know they are safer on the water where they can move more quickly. The son climbs a tree and braves bee stings while he harvests honeycomb to take with them. The daughter gathers larva and caterpillars to eat. They fill long hollow cane sections with water. They test their fire-starters—flints and dried sap from the incense tree, which is highly flammable and which is very useful in starting fires during rainstorms. Meanwhile, in the shadows in the forest, the poachers prepare to follow them, stalking them, too, on foot.
Plan in action/Escalating
Action:The son and daughter cope with any number of calamities, using skills they share and continue to perfect. Suddenly poachers abduct them and tie them to masts of their ships, forcing them to direct them to where the pink dolphins are. The daughter plots a mutiny and capture of the poachers’ ship.
Midpoint Turning Point; Escalating
Action:The poachers get wise and take the son and daughter to a camp, where they are imprisoned and questioned, ruthlessly. But there, the daughter’s relatives come, at night, in stealth, to inform them they know where the parents are—captured, too–and where the pink dolphins are. One in their party, a long lost friend of the family, a wildlife warden, also visits them, with the dire prediction that the poachers will sell the pink dolphins abroad to aquariums, where they will surely die. The relatives and warden promise to watch over and guard them, as they gather information from and about the poachers.
Act 3:
Rethink everything/Mission/Demand
for ActionThe warden gives the son and daughter an ultimatum: Come with him now and return home safely. Or stay captured in camp, which they choose, with the intention of finding a way to escape, to join an even greater mission—to help bust the poaching ring.
New plan/ Adrenaline-stirring /
fast pacedThe rain pours. Night deepens and darkens. The son and daughter move at night for stealth, as the glowing eyes of the predator capybaras shine menacingly, to scout out where the poachers are.
Turning Point: Huge failure /
Major shift/ New plan/ Adrenaline-stirring / fast pacedThey find them—capturing and leisurely taunting the others.
The son and daughter hang back and wait for their moment to strike. They outfit poison dart guns, per the daughter’s upbringing—not one, but many. The daughter whistles a signal.
The poachers and their reinforcements surprise the party comprised of the warden and relatives, and capture them. The poachers are so enraged, they seem to have murder on their minds. All seems lost for everyone.
Act 4:
Climax/Ultimate expression of
the conflict/ Adrenaline-stirring / fast pacedThe daughter persuades the son they can and must escape to go get a lot more help—despite the gauntlet of guards surrounding them. She whistles another signal but whispers, “Wait.”
Resolution/ Adrenaline-stirring
/ fast pacedJust as the poachers are preparing to tie all of them to leaky, broken canoes and send them to certain death down the next stretch of violent rapids plunging into a deep and rocky gorge, reinforcements arrive—their parents, their fellow scientists, the daughter’s relatives, and a whole school of pink dolphins. They take up the poison dart guns and hold the poachers hostage. The pink dolphins show their warrior natures—baring their teeth and using their beaks to pummel their adversaries. They liberate all of the captives, including the father and mother and warden.
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(Patty Ruland’s) 4 Act Transformational Structure
[I found Module 2. I will finish it before I get back to 3 and 4.]
My vision: To get better and better so that I may gain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned doing this assignment is: I should just hold my nose and keep going, not stopping until I’ve completed the assignment. The reason? Nothing comes from nothing (not doing this or any assignment). Only something comes from something; though this is so rough, I do know I have kept things moving with this assignment.
Create a first draft of your 4 Act Transformational Structure.
1. Start this assignment by empowering yourself using our State-To-Activity empowerment process.
State: I feel completely
confident…
Activity: …creating the
structure of my story.2. Give us the following:
Concept
Two young 19<sup>th</sup> century adventurers, a big brother and a younger orphan indigenous girl (her adopted sister), join their parents’ perilous quest to find “Boto,” the elusive pink river dolphin, living in the Amazon River.
Main Conflict
At first, their parents think they are still too young and green for the expedition, but after a series of tests they prove their skills enough to be included.
Old Ways
The brother, who aspires to be an “objective” scientist/naturalist, had believed he must remain aloof and analyze his subjects—rainforest plants and animals—accordingly.
New Ways
During the trial period, the sister takes her brother to a secret place where she teaches him he must “get his hands dirty” and plunge into the muck to study it. Here, he eats raw larvae for the first time.
3. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.
Act 1:
Opening
Scientists and benefactors gather at their rainforest headquarters to receive their assignments. Other scientists receive the plum assignments, like finding arks and grails and the like. The father’s and mother’s party receives the lowest status assignment: find “Boto,” the fabled pink river dolphin, for a monetary prize and modest renown. No one really believes pink dolphins exist, so the assignment is really a mockery and sabotage of the party’s chances. The husband and wife had once embarrassed the director of expeditions, so this is just another instance of payback.
Inciting Incident
The expeditions dispatch to their respective launch points, awaiting the go-ahead. The mother’s and father’s expedition begins auspiciously, for they are experts and have outfitted their vessel with every advantage. The son and daughter are allowed to pilot a fancy canoe, to improve their skills. Suddenly, a violent storm system assembles in the sky. Not only that, a nearby volcano erupts. Torrents of rain and fire rush down the cliffs into the river. The main boat and the canoe are separated. The father yells for his son and daughter to make camp and wait for him. They shout they will, but then the main boat is swept up and away by rapids laced with sparks and flames.
Turning Point
The storm ends and explorers gather to see who is there and who is not. The parents have not returned. The son wants to return home and wait. The daughter wants to proceed—to look for the parents and the pink dolphin, with the help of her relatives far down river. She says that they have to find the pink dolphin for their parents, whether they are dead or alive. The son reluctantly agrees.
Act 2:
New plan
The son and daughter build a new vessel, a makeshift raft/side canoe. They load it with supplies. Meanwhile, the poachers prepare to follow them.
Plan in action
The son and daughter cope with any number of calamities, using skills they share and perfect. The poachers abduct them and tie them to masts of their ships, forcing them to direct them to where the pink dolphins are. The daughter plots a mutiny and capture of the poachers’ ship.
Midpoint Turning Point
The poachers get wise and take the son and daughter to a camp, where they are imprisoned and questioned, ruthlessly. But there, the daughter’s relatives come, at night, in stealth, to inform them they know where the parents are—captured, too–and where the pink dolphins are. One in their party, a long lost friend of the family, a wildlife warden, also visits them, with the dire prediction that the poachers will sell the pink dolphins abroad to aquariums, where they will surely die. The relatives and warden promise to watch over and guard them, as they gather information from and about the poachers.
Act 3:
Rethink everything
The warden gives the son and daughter a choice: Come with him now and return home safely. Or stay captured in camp, to join an even greater mission—to help bust a poaching ring.
New plan
The rain pours. Night deepens and darkens. The son and daughter decide to stay in camp.
Turning Point: Huge failure /
Major shiftThe poachers surprise the party comprised of the warden and relatives, and captures them, too. They are so enraged, they seem to have murder on their minds. All seems lost for everyone.
Act 4:
Climax/Ultimate expression of
the conflictThe daughter persuades the son they can and must escape to go get help—despite the gauntlet of guards surrounding them. She whistles a signal and whispers, “Wait.”
Resolution
Just as the poachers are preparing to tie them to a leaky, broken canoe and send them to certain death down the next stretch of violent rapids to plunge into a deep and rocky gorge, reinforcements arrive—their parents, their fellow scientists, the daughter’s relatives, and a whole school of pink dolphins.
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[I am jumping back in after having surgery and recovering. I am way behind, but I will keep moving forward.]
(Patty Ruland’s) Actor attractors for (Finding Nemo).
My vision: To get better and better at this so I can gain representation and make a good living in this field.What I learned from doing this assignment is: That making a script a character-driven one will likely increase its power and appeal with viewers.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS Template
Movie Title: Finding Nemo
Lead Character Name: Nemo
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Nemo, as a character, exemplifies a hero on the “hero’s journey.” Though a small youth, the son, of his widowed father Marlin, Nemo makes a transformational journey that is enthralling and inspiring to most any viewer, no matter one’s age. Most actors would want to play the part of such a sympathetic, beguiling hero.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
The movie’s title, Finding Nemo, places Nemo at the center of the story, so everything he does enriches and moves the plot along.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Nemo defies his father by swimming beyond the reef, making him relatable to most offspring. Then, after his capture, he befriends a motley crew of aquarium residents, eventually freeing them all through his bourgeoning ingenuity and tenacity.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Nemo’s egg is the lone survivor after a shark gulps down the rest of his 200 siblings; the sight of the tiny orange egg forlorn and utterly vulnerable would pull on an actor’s heart strings, as it implied the great potential of this character to develop into the heart and soul of the movie. An actor would enjoy fleshing out this role as the story progressed.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Nemo possesses precocious emotional range, from his minor rebellion, to his frightful journey separated from his father, to their reunion—the last scene is especially poignant, emotionally, when Nemo turns back, rushes toward his father, and tells him he loves him.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Nemo’s desire to prove himself as more than a helpless small fry undergirds all that he does.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Nemo’s most interesting relationship(s) are with his fellow aquarium captives—each one influences Nemo to develop and prepare for his date with destiny, when he breaks free.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Nemo’s makes a believable newborn son, then defiant school kid, then small fish on a mission, to find his father. As strictly a character lost without his father, his essence is relatable and irresistible to all of the “non-fish” who watch the movie.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Nemo has the temerity to prevail over his captors, despite the monumental odds against him. As a little fish seemingly at the mercy of a huge ocean and its denizens of monstrous characters, he finds a way to win out.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
The initial scene that has Nemo defying his father and venturing beyond the reef, then finding himself in an aquarium scooper net, being drug ever farther away from his father . . . to the final scene when he rushes back to his father to tell him goodbye and he loves him—well, who would not want to play this role?
ACTOR ATTRACTORS Template
Movie Title: Finding Nemo
Lead Character Name: Dory
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Dory is the eccentric, ebullient friend to Marlin, who never abandons him or his quest to find his son. Despite her memory problems, and grating behaviors, Dory stands out as a character who’s as noble as she is hapless and enervating, her nobility winning out in the end.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
Dory exemplifies the power of irony in powerful screenplays: With her short-term memory loss and flighty ways, she would not be the one expected to be Marlin’s most faithful, long-suffering, long-haul companion. But she is.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Dory assumes Marlin’s quest to find his son, Nemo, as her own. Her selflessness and generosity of spirit allow her to transcend the minor imperfections for which she apologizes and about which others lament.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
In the reef, when first seen, she keeps losing the memory of why she is now swimming side-by-side with Marlin—to find Nemo. In her discombobulated but to the audience endearing state, here, she becomes the poster child for all the dejected, rejected imperfect ones of this world.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Dory consistently expresses her emotions through words and deeds.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Dory loses her parents when she is young; as the years go by, setting her on a quest to find them, she increasingly has difficulty recalling why she is on that quest. This makes her, however, especially attuned and devoted to Nemo and his father’s respective quests to find each other.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Dory’s friendship with Marlin is the most interesting of her relationships in this film. Although she is the selfless one helping Marlin, eventually she reveals their bond is a two-way street—she begs him not to leave her because he helps her remember thins better.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Dory’s self-effacing personality, her comical delivery add entertainment value to the movie, but they also amplify the pathos she brings to the story, as one who must forever justify her existence, even apologize for it. She’s not used to others giving her ample credit, so she’s the tang who’s content to be a tag-along.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Dory is the quintessential ride-or-die friend, despite the rejection she experiences.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
When Dory keeps on speaking “whale” in a most annoying and very loud fake-whale finesse, she elevates this comic relief to the limit, to the point Marlin demands she stop, saying no, she can’t speak whale. When the whale shows it understands her, she is redeemed.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Patty Ruland.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
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I cannot find where to post this assignment, so I’m posting it here to show I am doing it.
On my end, the forum modules to which I can post go up to only Day 6. I have contacted Customer Service and emailed this assignment.
(Patty Ruland’s) Subtext Plot
Concept: 19<sup>th</sup> Century twin sister and brother intrepid naturalists bore dangerously farther into the Amazon rainforest than human explorers should go to be the first to spot and photograph/draw “Boto” the elusive yet storied pink river dolphin. A poacher poses as their father’s colleague sent to be their guide.
Fish out of water/Major cover-up(s): The duo encounter extreme conditions that call on them to muster and invent extreme survival skills, all the while being amazed by the incredible beauty alongside all the danger. Each time they, as fish out of water, successfully acclimate to their challenging surroundings, they go on to tackle the next, greater challenges. As they progress, they come to love their harrowing environs as more home than their home back in the States. Very competitive in their old life, they must forge a strong bond to stay alive and to pursue their goal. During one especially harrowing episode, a “guide” sent by their father offers to help them out of the jam and teach them new skills. He knows the pink dolphins love to play with children, so he uses them to attract a school. He’s really planning to coopt their efforts and bask in the glory of their discovery. Little do any of them know, an indigenous child tracks the party in the shadows, the duo’s secret protector, in spirit, and the poacher’s adversary a child on a mission of her own—to lead authorities to the poacher and catch him in the act of attempting to kidnap one of the pink dolphins to be sold to an aquarium back home. [Indigenous people are in a fight for their lives this very day in Brazil, with the president wanting to remove them and force them to adopt colonizer culture ways. So, I’m thinking it’s time for a rainforest indigenous child to be featured in a film.]
My vision: To get better and better as a writer in order to gain representation and earn a good living in this profession.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: That even though I think I cannot write a “thriller” for kids, I plod right through this assignment, sketching external with more than one internal sub-text. I learned once again that embracing rather than fearing imperfection is a way to embolden any phase of this or any other project.
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I am lost! This is Module 2, Lesson 3: Transformational Journey, WIM. I could not find the correct place to post it. I will post it here, and when I find out the correct place, I will post it again:
2. Tell us the Character Arc for your Protagonist:
Arc Beginning: Twin sister explorer
and tag-along twin brother newbie as opposite as night and day
Arc Ending: Twin sister and
brother become famed dynamic-duo explorers3. Give us their Internal/External Journey.
Internal Journey: Sister loves
the spotlight but must learn to share a little of it with her brother, while
her brother detests the spotlight but must learn to love it at least a
little.
External Journey: Sister and
brother must become a team to survive their dangerous mission of “Finding
Boto” the elusive pink river dolphin in the Amazon rainforest.4. Tell us their Old Ways at the beginning of the movie and their New Ways at the end.
Old Ways:
Sister dominates her brother, sets the tone and the agenda, treating him as fortunate that she deigns to let him tag along; sister takes too many chances, brother is too cautious; sister prone to taking most of the credit, brother prone to letting her
New Ways: Sister and brother
form a strong bond based on equality as they save each other/s lives many
times over; sister’s pride gives way to wisdom, brother’s shyness gives
way to courage -
(Patty Ruland’s) Intentional Lead Characters
Vision: To get better and better as a writer, gain representation, and earn a good living in this field.
What I learned from doing this assignment: To be as intentional as possible in planning lead characters, so that they are intentional lead characters.
2. Give us a logline (one sentence answer) for your protagonist, antagonist, and triangle character (if you have one) to the question, “What makes this character fit my concept and title powerfully?”
3. Tell us what makes each of these characters unique. These two steps will look like this:
Big sister, experienced
adventurer, [character] / gets a
burning desire to be the first to spot the fabled pink dolphin in the Amazon
Rainforest [logline], amplifying her reputation as an explorer whiz
kid. [unique]
Little brother, newbie
adventurer, [character] / finally gets his
chance to tag along with the family during their latest trek to the Amazon
rainforest [logline], / evincing early on an astonishing sixth
sense about their environs [unique].
Character: Dad’s conniving
rival in the academic world [character] / offers to “advise” the
daughter how best to sight the pink dolphin, / all the while hiding
his identity as a wildlife poacher [unique]. -
(Patty Ruland’s) Title, Concept, and Character Structure!
Vision: To get better and better as a writer, gain representation, and earn a good living in this field.
What I learned from doing this assignment: To refer to the mastery session on creating something from nothing, I should not be alarmed I have so little of the story sketched out, which then makes me feel free to brainstorm anything and everything and enjoy doing it.
Title and Concept:
Finding Boto follows the exploits of two intrepid, 19<sup>th</sup>-Century kid naturalists who brave the dangers of the Amazon rainforest to beat out and beat back a poacher who wants to kill “Boto,” an elusive pink river dolphin,” and win international acclaim for being the first to photograph/draw (?) him/her (?).
Character Structure:
Buddy Movie
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I filled out the worksheet and listened to the recording. It was great!
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To do the assignments, fast; learn all I can; empower myself with respect to the multitude of tasks big and small in this class; to trust the creative process; to elevate, elevate, elevate.
Also, I do NOT have to be perfect!
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1. Name?
Patty Ruland
2. How many scripts you’ve written?
3, one complete, two near completion
3. What other ScreenwritingU Classes you’ve taken.
MSC 15, Fearless, the one on getting writing work, and several others.
4. What you hope to get out of the class?
The sacred–the ability to light people up with my work, a phrase from the opening video I really like. In fact, a manager did light up when I floated a new project I’m working on by her. It’s a distinct, unmistakable reaction. I got it. I felt it. I want to pursue that project and finish it because I do not want to let her, and myself, down. That reaction is now the gold standard for me
The profane–I want to find a way to make more money. I work as a publishing contractor, and the pay is abysmal. My recent emergency surgery woke me up to the fact I will be my sole support for the duration, so I need to be able to do that–support myself from now on out. To be more profane: I want to be rich, rich, rich. (I’ve been poor, poor, poor all my life.)
5. Something unique, special, strange or unusual about you?
I have no musical talent whatsoever, though my mother was a voice prodigy. I can’t sing, play, or dance. Curiously, I have a great ear. I do. I dream and hear songs in my head–in fact, I’ve written several for my children’s movie script. People love them. I just can’t get them out of me and into the world, save for including them in my script.
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AGREE, in which case, you Reply to this topic and include three things at the top of the page:
1. Patty Ruland
2. “I agree to the terms of this release form.”
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.
AGREE, in which case, you Reply to this topic and include three things at the top of the page:
1. Your name.
2. The words “I agree to the terms of this release form.”
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.
OR
NOT AGREE, in which case, you hit “Reply to this topic” and type in the words “I’ll do the class privately.”
If you agree to the terms of the release form, then you can post your assignments into the group and your cohort can give feedback on them.
Also, if you don’t agree to this group confidentiality agreement, you’ll still need to sign an agreement that says you will keep the strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential.
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.
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(Jan Ruland’s) Key Business Decisions
What I learned from doing this assignment:
Less is more can mean more in the long run. Thinking about scaling this script down and using all I have learned and resolve to learn about creating character-driven stories is making me want to redo it. I thought it was so terrible, I couldn’t look at it for eight years. I want to look at again. Why? The Watermen could be a great, marketable title and premise. I am filled now with nostalgia for the grueling hours, weeks, months I spent writing that terrible script—there was much to love about it—it was my absolute passion then. Most important of all, I finished it!
Battling down the self-hate that filled me way back then surely will help me finish the other two scripts begun for MSC 15. Win, win, win!
Assignment:
I’d like you to step into the role of the producer. Your job is to see what decisions you’ve already made for your high budget script. This isn’t about changing your high budget script, but gaining an understanding of how producers see it.
1. Give us the decisions that are in your current High Budget script:
– Genre
Drama
– TitleThe Waterman
– ConceptAn enslaved youth who is an ace waterman sets out to Africa to find his mother left behind at the “Door of No Return” in Goree, only to miss her because she escaped and set out to America to find her son.
– Audience
35-45 age group
– Budget
100 million
– Lead Characters
Ajani “Beau” the Waterman
Blue, his best friend
Amara, his mother
Jabir, his father
– Journey / Character Arc
Beau [his nickname in America], Jabir, and Amara return to the Door of No Return to liberate others still imprisoned there.
– Opening / Ending
The script opens when slavers abduct Beau and Jabir, and when a ship captain forces Amara to stay with him, separating the family.
After sixteen years, the family reunites at the Door of No Return, kill the captain, liberate those there then, and head out across the Atlantic to incite mutinies all the way back home.
2. Tell us which of those decisions you could improve to make your script more marketable.
1—This movie, a period piece, would be way too costly to produce. For one, the expenses incurred through multiple trans-Atlantic voyages and battles on land and at sea would be absolutely prohibitive.
The solution would be to animate the script; edgy, adult animated features seem to be setting a trend that is likely to endure indefinitely.
2–Not only that, the epic enslavement slavery may not be as cutting-edge as it was when the writer wrote this script in 2013. The Django phenomenon may have been the alpha and omega of the enslavement blockbuster.
That’s perfectly fine though, for–
The solution would be to downplay the trans-Atlantic story arc and replace it with a more intimate, character-driven depiction of the Carolina watermen/water-women culture—notable because the African captives were so proficient as watermen and fishermen, they were allowed to own property, make money at fish auctions, and have relatively greater autonomy. Because girls and women were just as valuable and proficient, the movie could portray this setting as nothing short of remarkable.
To
effect these changes, the script would have to be completely overhauled. This
would save money at the outset and minimize the risk of producing an expensive
flop at the end of the process.3. Answer the question “What I learned doing
this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.4. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclass<wbr>es.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your name’s) Key Business Decisions
(place in first line)Deadline: 48 hours
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(Jan Ruland’s) Key Business Decisions
What I learned from doing this assignment:
Less is more can mean more in the long run. Thinking about scaling this script down and using all I have learned and resolve to learn about creating character-driven stories is making me want to redo it. I thought it was so terrible, I couldn’t look at it for eight years. I want to look at again. Why? The Watermen could be a great, marketable title and premise. I am filled now with nostalgia for the grueling hours, weeks, months I spent writing that terrible script—there was much to love about it—it was my absolute passion then. Most important of all, I finished it!
Battling down the self-hate that filled me way back then surely will help me finish the other two scripts begun for MSC 15. Win, win, win!
Assignment:
I’d like you to step into the role of the producer. Your job is to see what decisions you’ve already made for your high budget script. This isn’t about changing your high budget script, but gaining an understanding of how producers see it.
1. Give us the decisions that are in your current High Budget script:
– Genre
Drama
– TitleThe Waterman
– ConceptAn enslaved youth who is an ace waterman sets out to Africa to find his mother left behind at the “Door of No Return” in Goree, only to miss her because she escaped and set out to America to find her son.
– Audience
35-45 age group
– Budget
100 million
– Lead Characters
Ajani “Beau” the Waterman
Blue, his best friend
Amara, his mother
Jabir, his father
– Journey / Character Arc
Beau [his nickname in America], Jabir, and Amara return to the Door of No Return to liberate others still imprisoned there.
– Opening / Ending
The script opens when slavers abduct Beau and Jabir, and when a ship captain forces Amara to stay with him, separating the family.
After sixteen years, the family reunites at the Door of No Return, kill the captain, liberate those there then, and head out across the Atlantic to incite mutinies all the way back home.
2. Tell us which of those decisions you could improve to make your script more marketable.
1—This movie, a period piece, would be way too costly to produce. For one, the expenses incurred through multiple trans-Atlantic voyages and battles on land and at sea would be absolutely prohibitive.
The solution would be to animate the script; edgy, adult animated features seem to be setting a trend that is likely to endure indefinitely.
2–Not only that, the epic enslavement slavery may not be as cutting-edge as it was when the writer wrote this script in 2013. The Django phenomenon may have been the alpha and omega of the enslavement blockbuster.
That’s perfectly fine though, for–
The solution would be to downplay the trans-Atlantic story arc and replace it with a more intimate, character-driven depiction of the Carolina watermen/water-women culture—notable because the African captives were so proficient as watermen and fishermen, they were allowed to own property, make money at fish auctions, and have relatively greater autonomy. Because girls and women were just as valuable and proficient, the movie could portray this setting as nothing short of remarkable.
To
effect these changes, the script would have to be completely overhauled. This
would save money at the outset and minimize the risk of producing an expensive
flop at the end of the process.3. Answer the question “What I learned doing
this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.4. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclass<wbr>es.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your name’s) Key Business Decisions
(place in first line)Deadline: 48 hours
——————— -
Jan Ruland’s Speciality — (Drama)
What I learned doing this assignment is that I can satisfy two core objectives: to honor business imperatives of producers and production companies, as well write a script from the deepest parts of my being, that these two objectives need not be mutually exclusive.
Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclasses.com/forums/
Assignment:
3. CONVENTIONS OF DRAMA PURPOSE: To explore stories with emotional and inter-personal high stakes for their characters.
CHARACTER-DRIVEN JOURNEY: We always need to care about the characters in a Drama, and their internal journey drives the film’s events and progression.
HIGH STAKES COME FROM WITHIN: Whether the story’s events are relatively mundane or intense, the struggles, obstacles, and stakes comes from within the characters more than from external pressures.
EMOTIONALLY RESONATES: Drama audiences want to feel and be moved by the characters’ emotions and how they experience the events.
CHALLENGING, EMOTIONALLY-CHARGED SITUATIONS: Characters get challenged to their core by the emotional situations and struggles that they run into.
REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS: Drama stories are grounded in reality.
Tell us your speciality and start the process of mastery today.
1. Tell us your speciality.
I am specializing in dramas–more specifically, Christmas dramas.
I am researching vintage Christmas stories published on Gutenberg.org that dramatize how characters discover the “true meaning” of this holiday; my express purpose is to write a combination audition/spec script that adapts one or more of these stories.
I came across these relatively obscure stories written by well-known and little-known Victorian writers in my work in children’s publishing. The stories have all the makings of the drama genre; film adaptations of them would, as well.
On a personal note, they affect me, to the depths of my soul, deeply and profoundly, and so I seek this intense an emotional connection with the Christmas script I will be writing.
In a business sense, I believe Christmas scripts would afford me my best prospects for breaking into the industry. In fact, I recently talked with a producer who said she was looking forward to seeing what I create. “I love Christmas movies,” she told me.
Indeed, scores upon scores of Christmas movies remain favorites long after their release.
In addition, many come out each Christmas season.
So, I am treating “Christmas Movies” as a speciality unto itself. I can see how being well-versed in Christmas Movies Past, Christmas Movies Present, and Christmas Movies Future could stand me in good stead as I seek writing assignments with one as an audition script, and I shop one or more in the market.
2. Do a quick Google search for “top (genre) movies.” Select two of the top movies in your genre to watch.
Done. I chose two Christmas Gothic dramas to watch, as I am gravitating to vintage versions of the story.
3. As you watch each movie, take notes on how that movie fulfills the key parts of your genre.
4. For each movie, tell us the following:
1– Genre: Drama
Title: A Christmas CarolHow it delivered on the genre conventions:
BBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT0Rzy5Op2Q [vintage production]
Highlights: “Ghost of Christmas Past” is a woman! Her performance is superb or better than that. I note the Gothic genre in evidence here: eerie goings-on announce the presence of ghosts, and more. For this type of movie, I will going forward employ the term “Christmas Gothic” and incorporate it in my Christmas screenplay(s). In Dickens’ work, the dark and ominous “Gothic” is his lament of the plight of the poor and of exploited children workers of the time. The stories I am to adapt also express what true wealth is, and it is not money.
This movie certainly reflects the elements of the drama genre—Scrooge’s inner struggle is the main conflict, and how he resolves it drives the story. The stakes are high: Will he change in time or will he die un-mourned and relegated to a remote plot in the graveyard?
Outline of the movie, highlighting the parts that fulfill the genre:
Despite the element of the supernatural that makes the novel and several film adaptations each a “ghost story,” including the one I watched, the over-arching premise of all of them is grounded in a cruel reality: No matter whether the past, present, or future, greed, selfishness, and lust for power and money continue to deprive the poor of basic necessities and comforts. Truth be told, however, most everyone could identify with Scrooge—yes, they could! For, upon witnessing how he is changed they may be compelled to contemplate how they could be changed—at Christmas, specifically, but any time, generally.
2–Genre: Drama
Title: The Man Who Invented ChristmasHow it delivered on the genre conventions:
This movie portrays the inner and outer struggles Dickens faces as he is writing the book. The stakes are high: After several flops, this could be his last chance to restore his reputation and salvage his career as a writer. Moreover, he is completely out of money, something he tries to hide from his friends and family-and, his editors and the public.
Outline of the movie, highlighting the parts that fulfill the genre:
Dickens has writer’s block and almost abandons writing the book when he cannot come up with a satisfactory ending. Only by acknowledging his own dual nature—his hypocrisy, as his friend calls it—that he is as heartless toward the down-and-out as Scrooge is, does he have the breakthrough he needs to finish the book. By identifying with Scrooge—rather than sitting in sanctimonious condemnation of him—Dickens realizes it’s never too late to change, imparting that realization in a famously changed Scrooge.
5. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
6. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclasses.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your name’s) Speciality — (genre here) (place in first line)
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(Patty Ruland’s) Credibility is Going Up!
‘What I learned doing this assignment is:
There is hope for someone like myself who has little to no credibility in this industry.
The 2 or 3 steps I will take in the next 30 days to increase your credibility:
Ø Format and list for sale 2-4 Christmas books I am basing on Public Domain IP in Gutenberg.org. Use these ideas/books as the basis of same number of filmscripts. A manager told me she looked forward to reading them. I promised one the first of the year, the time she said producers usually buy Christmas scripts. I truly love the texts—they are not proselytizing in any way; they are for anyone wanting to live out vintage but eternal humanistic values.
Ø Make progress on all of my scripts—finish the one for MSC15.
Ø Improve my Linkedin page.
CREDIBILITY CHECKLIST
=====================1. Your Writing Sample
I have four writing samples. Three do the following:
– Delivers on the genre in a strong way
– Delivers on the business decisions
I need to finish all of them.2. Screenwriting Accomplishments
None3. The Google factor
None4. Your Network
305. Education specific to screenwriting
Bachelor of Science, Radio-Television-Film, UT-Austin
Master Screenwriter Certificate program at ScreenwritingU—In Progress
6. Borrowed Credibility
No7. IMDB CREDITS
None8. Other forms of credibility that is related to screenwriting:
Published children’s author
Published investigative journalist
ASSIGNMENT 1: Credibility Checklist
———-Put together your plan for increasing your credibility.
1. Based upon the Credibility Model in this lesson, fill in the Credibility Checklist to show us your current credibility.
Done
2. Make a list of possible things you can do to increase your credibility in the future.
· I need to master Linkedin. I have a mental block against doing so, but I will overcome it.
· I need to finish my two scripts for MSC-15.
· I need to make progress on my Christmas scripts.
· I need to learn how to write a treatment and write one for each of my (so) many script ideas.
3. At the top of the page, tell us the 2 or 3 steps you’ll take in the next 30 days to increase your credibility.
Done
4. Answer the question ‘What I learned doing this assignment is…?’ and put it at the top of your work.
5. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclass<wbr>es.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your name’s) Credibility is Going Up! (place in first line)
Deadline: 48 hours
————————Again, for this lesson, you’ll have two assignments.
Assignment 1: Fill out the Credibility Checklist.
Assignment 2: Make Your LinkedIn Profile the best it can be.
Don’t worry, these are both easy. And remember, even if you already think you’ve nailed these two, even a small improvement in your credibility could make the difference with the next producer you pitch. So make sure you do these important assignments.
Go for it!
Hal
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(Patricia Ruland’s) Show Empathy/Distress
Lesson 7: Empathy/Distress: The Binge Worthy Drug!
ASSIGNMENT 1:
1. Watch the next episode of your Example Show and focus on the Empathy/Distress that shows up in this episode and throughout the season so far.
2. Notice the difference between Big Picture Empathy/Distress and detail oriented Empathy/Distress. Big Picture will have an impact across multiple episodes.
Deadline: 24 hours
Completed: Watched Season 1, Episode 7 of Gossip Girl.
ASSIGNMENT 2:
1. Make a list of BIG PICTURE difficult situations and decisions your characters could make because of the main conflict of this series.
Just ask: “Knowing the concept, what are the big picture Empathy/Distress situations that could occur?”
Caren Cay
A. Undeserved misfortune.
She is afflicted with chronic mental illness.
B. External Character conflicts.
She butts heads with her husband Fred Oscar (FO!) often. He can reduce her to tears and does not seem to care. His arguments with their children, o and k, distress her even more.
C. Plot intruding on life.
She looks forward to performing at the Woostockishish festival, but from the time they go to bed the night before, through the time they fight like cats and dogs before they leave, during the car ride, and at the festival, sadden and destabilize her, to the point they push her off the edge.
D. Moral dilemmas.
She thinks, dreams constantly of a more fulfilling life, but she loves her children more than life itself, so she seems always to be one foot in the door and one foot out.
E. Forced decisions they’d never make.
She embarrasses Fred Oscar so much that he has her committed at the end of the pilot. She is furious and lets everyone know. She abandons all civility and trashes him very vocally as she is being admitted. . . . but this may be her ticket . . . to the life she’s always wanted. Yes, a mental institution, her ticket.
Fred Oscar
A. Undeserved misfortune.
He has intimacy issues because his parents died in a terrible wreck when he was a teenager, so he keeps everyone at arm’s length—not too close but always near enough for him to exert control.
B. External Character conflicts.
He admits he loves to argue, that it is “some of the best fun there is,” and, indeed, stirring others up even to a frenzy seems to be sport for him. He’s always been this way, his aunt once told him.
C. Plot intruding on life.
As he’s greasing the wheels of his political candidacy for governor, Caren Cay has a very public meltdown, and he finds himself apologizing for her—again—to his VIPs.
D. Moral dilemmas.
He knows Caren Cay has never abandoned her college dreams of a career in rock-and-roll, so her very “relevant” performances both make him mad and make him proud. Should he accept the good with the bad here?
E. Forced decisions they’d never make.
Due to Caren Cay’s over-the-top behavior at the concert/festival, and her “stunt” as FO! calls it, hen she leans out farther and farther out the window, then falls in a tree, FO! takes out the form he’d already filled out that will get her admitted. He really does not want to do this, has an aversion to sickness and hospitals, but feels it’s his responsibility to protect her from herself
What I learned doing this assignment is:
Characters slowly take on lives of their own—we come to know them and care about them as people. I had little empathy for Fred Oscar—until, I did this exercise. I had let the worldly overshadow the intrinsic wisdom in life anyone can know, that at least some point in time, everyone has feelings, everyone hurts, everyone deserves empathy.
3. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclasses.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your Name’s) Show Empathy/Distress (place in first line)
Deadline: 3 days (for both Assignment 1 and
2) -
(Patricia Ruland’s) Show Relationship Map
[Binge Worthy TV] Lesson 6: Build Your Character Relationship Map
What I learned from this assignment:
Still waters must run deep and long; emotional relationships are intricate and consequential. It’s taxing to consider character relationship on so many levels—just as it is in life.
Show: Gossip Girl
Show: “Psycho*Boomer*Effing*Delic”—pilot
For the serial: Ok Boom! Wham! Bam!
Gossip Girl
Surface:
Serena and Blair
Best Friends
Serena and Dan
Friends
Serena and Chuck
Peers
Common Ground
Serena and Blair
Both are popular, both are insiders, both go to the same elite high school.
Serena and Dan
Both are good students at elite high school; both experience life as an outsider.
Serena and Chuck
Both are students at elite high school; both run in the same Upper Eastside social circle.
Conflict
Serena and Blair
They are interested in the same guy—rather, the Blair is in love with Nate who is in love with Serena.
Serena and Dan
They click until Dan finds out that Serena betrayed Blair by sleeping with Nate.
Serena and Chuck
Serena won’t admit that before she wanted to change, Chuck was right in thinking she was a lot like him.
History
Serena and Blair
They are best friends for as long as they can remember—up and until Blair finds out how Serena betrayed her.
Serena and Dan
Dan has feelings for Serena but she barely acknowledges his existence. They clicked after she comes back, presumably having changed for the better.
Serena and Chuck
They click as long as Serena lives out her bad side; they clash after she tries to change for the better.
Subtext
Serena and Blair
Competitors, in reality, for top ultimate insider role.
Serena and Dan
Kindred spirits, allies.
Serena and Chuck
Adversaries because he is predatory.
Relationship Arc
Serena and Blair
From being best friends to becoming enemies and back to best friends, for the time being.
Serena and Dan
From being just peers, classmates to clicking as friends to becoming romantically involved to–?
Serena and Chuck
From being classmates with only their bad ways in common to becoming mortal enemies after he preys upon Dan’s sister and colludes with Blair.
My Show: “Psycho*Boomer*Effing*Delic”—pilot
For the serial: Ok Boom! Wham! Bam!
Surface:
Caren Cay and Fred Oscar
Husband, Wife
Caren Cay and ok
Mother and twin son and daughter
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
Patient, Psychiatrist
Common Ground
Caren Cay and Fred Oscar
As the Boomers, living in a prosperous suburb, they’ve built a comfortable life for themselves and their twin son and daughter.
Caren Cay and ok
Caren Cay adores ok, and they, her. They love to perform, as singers and musicians.
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda are committed to finding a way for Caren Cay to realize greater autonomy and self-actualization, forestalled during the “Boomers with Children” years.
Conflict
Caren Cay and Fred Oscar
They are never very compatible, and they’ve grown absolutely incompatible over the years. Caren Cay has gotten more “out there,” restless, and FO! more the company man, conservative social climber, inside guy.
Caren Cay and ok
ok feel pulled, torn because they love both their parents, although their desire to break away increases, making Caren Cay both hold on and push them away
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
Caren Cay gets upset, destabilized when FO! and Dr. Frieda act like mortal enemies—fighting on opposite sides of the battle—the former for Caren’ Cay’s independence, and the latter for Caren Cay’s acceptance of her fate and role as wife, mother, community woman.
History
Caren Cay and Fred Oscar
They click in college, in film school, but when they move away from College Town, their true, opposing natures make their early marriage difficult, and their oil and water relationship bleaker for both of them.
Caren Cay and ok
ok benefit by having indulgent parents, who both are committed to giving them everything, to seeing they had the strong foundations for a good and prosperous future in adulthood.
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
Dr. Frieda risks her professional standing by trying out her controversial “take the leap” therapy she’s employing to try to get Caren Cay unstuck—from the past, from the ties that bind, from life without her true soulmate.
Subtext
Caren Cay and Fred Oscar
Arch rivals: she the throwback hippie, he the anti-hippie
Caren Cay and ok
Rebellion waiting to happen.
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
Comrades in arms.
Relationship Arc
Caren Cay and ok
From being college sweethearts to staying married for the material comforts and for the benefits of family to potentially becoming estranged and divorced.
Caren Cay and ok
From being the devoted son and daughter to the humiliated young adults who break off from their Boomer embarrassments for parents.
Caren Cay and Dr. Frieda
From being patient and doctor to bonded allies to bearers of secret knowledge and practices that make the “take the leap” sessions so unconventional and thus risky.
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(Patricia Ruland’s) Character Emotions lesson
[Binge Worthy TV] Lesson 5: Depth of Emotions
What I learned was:
“The beautiful thing about internal struggles is that you can trigger them at any time in a character’s life. This allows for endless drama.” This opens up endless possibilities.” –Mr. Croasmun, Lesson 5
COMPILED PROFILES FOR THE SHOW GOSSIP GIRL
SERENA PROFILE
A. Hope: Make a new start in old Eastside neighborhood. / Fear: She’ll regress to her old ways.
B. Want: To do right by people. / Need: To protect her brother, restore friendships.
C. Base Negative Emotion: Competitiveness / Public Mask: Laid-back, easy-going, true-blue
D. Weaknesses: Befriending people who are not good for her..
E. Triggers: Her brother bing mistreated; parents’ ineptitude.
F. Coping Mechanism: Being all things to all people, evolving as others stay the same (maintaining their bad selves)
BLAIR PROFILE
A. Hope: Solidify intimate girl-friend status with Nate. / Fear: He still loves Serena.
B. Want: To hold court over everyone in her circle.. / Need: Control, adoration.
C. Base Negative Emotion: Vindictiveness. / Petite, delicate flower.
D. Weaknesses: Ineffectual as Nate’s partner; need to keep trying.
E. Triggers: Being told Serena slept with Nate.
F. Coping Mechanism: Enlist Chuck and other accomplices to do in Serena and anyone who supports her..
CHUCK PROFILE
A. Hope: Bedding women on his climb to the top / Fear None to speak of..
B. Want: Sex, money, power. / Need: True friendship, loyalty
C. Base Negative Emotion: Ruthless / Public Mask: Unflappable, too cool for school
D. Weaknesses: Wasteful—of time and affections of others
E. Triggers: Not triggered, in a bad way; triggered in a good way when Nate fell in with ruthless gamblers and he saved him by letting him pay his debts with his prized possession..
F. Coping Mechanism: Always contemplating the
next rung up.ASSIGNMENT 2: “Psycho*Boomer*Effing*Delic” [Pilot for Ok Boom! Wham! Bam! Serial]
1. For each of your main characters, brainstorm an Emotional Profile, filling in the following:
CAREN CAY BOOMER PROFILE
A. Hope: Somehow, she will transcend her life in Boomerville. Fear: She won’t.
B. Want: Success she never had in her youth / True love.
C. Base Negative Emotion: Rage, despair / Public Mask: Devoted mother, active community member
D. Weaknesses: Stress that sends her over the edge..
E. Triggers: Family arguments; constant strife; messes!
F. Coping Mechanism: “Taking the leap” to find her soul mate, dead or alive.
FRED OSCAR (FO!) BOOMER PROFILE
A. Hope: He can tamp Caren enough so she stays in check Fear: She will embarrass him publicly.
B. Want: New ways to be important / Need: Friendships with the “right” people
C. Base Negative: Selfishness, heartlessness Mask: Middle-Class Man of the Family
D. Weaknesses: No loyalty—no cache granted
E. Triggers: Someone, especially Caren Cay one-upping him; feelings of irrelevance.
F. Coping Mechanism: Bearing down on his family emotionally; courting bigger fish to fry politically—and, personally.
ok, the Boomer twins
A. Hope: Things will lighten up at their house. Fear: They won’t..
B. Want: To obtain distance from overbearing parents Need: To grow—up and away
C. Base Negative Emotion: Talent for sabotage / Public Mask: “good kids” with bad parents.
D. Weaknesses: peer pressure, their own lust for the limelight
E. Triggers: mother’s tendency to go off the deep end; father’s tendency to drive her off the deep end
F. Coping Mechanism: Sticking like glue
together, two-as-one 24/7/365. -
(Patricia Ruland’s) Topper Outline! (Day 8)
[Comedy 70] Day 8: Toppers, Running Gags and Belly Laughs
What I learned: Any bad joke is better than no joke at all. There are no small jokes, just small comedians.
My modest nature took on another persona—proving I am not above sinking very, very low. 😊
I don’t believe I followed the format exactly, and I think I combined assignments, the punchline one with this one.
This is what I came up with, so far:
ASSIGNMENT
———-Write a “scene outline” that will be used for the next three assignments.
1. Select a comic situation that can yield a lot of funny moments.
Important: You want a situation that is ripe for comedy.
Brainstorm a bunch of ideas and then select the best one.– Forced union of incompatibles
2. Create or select at least two characters with comedy loglines.
3. Brainstorm a list of possible funny moments that are connected
with the heart of the comic situation.4. Show us your selections in this format:
Comedy situation:
“Beswitched”
Frackenstein’s monster, MONTY, is switched at birth. The series tracks how he acclimates to Suburbia and disavows his superpowers to win the heart of the very mortal Angelica.
Comedy Characters and their loglines:Monty, Angelica, Lurch, et al
Logline for Beswitched:
Frackenstein’s monster is switched at birth. Can Little Monty find a new life in Suburbia?
Character: Little Monty, short for Monster, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster
Possible funny moments:
Monty narrates his struggles and triumphs, and he verbally identifies each milestone.
Milestones, such as school project, first date, first child with Angelica, and so forth..
SCENE OUTLINE:BIRTH
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Nurses take him to trash compactor room.
Kind woman takes to him and takes him home.
CHILDHOOD
Mom coos as she feeds her new baby. He spits peas out all over the place.
Mom: “Peas look good on you. They go with your complexion.”
Monty spits peas all over mom
“Green’s not my color.”
Monty spits carrots all over mom.
“Orange is sure not my color.”
Monty, in baby voice: “No worries. Barf looks good on you!”
Monty watches Sesame Street. Performs duet with Kermit, “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.”
SCHOOL DAYS
Monty’s new mom tries to wake him up for school. He is grouchy.
“Now who’s slept on the wrong side of the coffin?” she asks. “Time to get up.”
Money stretches.
“The moon’s out and the bats are winging.”
Aunt Morticia pops her head in the window, and says: “That’s my line.”
Monty and Morticia break into a song-and-dance number to the song, “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”
SCIENCE FAIR AT SCHOOL
Judge asks: “What’s your project, Son?”
“I am my project.”
[I got nothin’—more here.]
WORKING ODD JOBS TO GET THROUGH COLLEGE
–Job: Pool Guy
Camera pans length of form showing sleek, shiny from sweat, ripped body.
Face sticks out like a sore thumb.
One woman at the pool party recoils in horror.
”It’s the Swamp Thing.”
Another woman lusts after him.
“Wanna see my Bat Cave, Robin?” she flirts.
Monty looks interested.
“Wanna tour my Inner Sanctum?”
Monty looks very interested.
“Wanna probe my depths?”
“Wanna see my snorkel?” Monty answers.
Woman looks very interested.
“My long, slippery, flexible . . . durable . . . snorkel?”
Woman looks very, very interested.
“Wanna see . . . the Full Monty?”
–Job: Model, Romance Novel Covers
Cover depicts Monty as buff from the neck down and horrific looking from the neck up. Comedy derives from visual incongruity.
Title of book: Big Monster Love. Cover shows torrid bedroom scene. Book subtitle in bubble of dialogue by wife: “No reason to be jealous, dude. It’s not what you think.”
Woman’s thought bubble: “Once you go Monster, you never go back.”
<s>Press release regarding subsequent buzz: “Green is the new black.”</s>
DATING
Angelica brings Monty home for dinner to meet the parents.
Mom: “Tall, green, and handsome?”
Angelica: “Two outta three ain’t bad.”
Dad: “Dating the color of money, alright.”
[underwhelming]
COLLEGE
Monty gets into UT-Austin. He plays for the UT longhorns, but dresses out in in “burnt green.”
Coach: “So, who’s the greenhorn?”
[half-baked]
PHYSICAL EXAM:
Monty: “Doctor, what’s wrong with me? I can’t seem to hold it together.”
Doctor: “You gotta screw loose.”
Doctor writes out a prescription for Woodson’s Hardware Store.
Doctor: “Parts department is in the back.”
Cut to Parts store. Monty buys a box of screws.
Cut to Oil and Lube shop.
Workers oil all of Monty’s joints. He yelps in pain.
Monty: “Have a heart!”
Worker: “I have none.”
Tin Man pops into scene:
“Hey, that’s my line.”
CHANCE MEETING WITH ANGELICA
Monty makes his way down a NY city street. A breathless Angelica overtakes him. She has found the lost screw.
Angelica: “Wanna screw?”
Monty: “ . . . again?”
Angelica: “Take me to your Man Cave.”
BEDROOM SCENE:
Angelica: “I love you, you big lug.” She takes out a wrench from under the bed.
Monty, playfully: “Give me that wrench.”
Angelica, playfully: “Give me that, wench?”
Monty: “I wanna screw—”
Angelica: “I wanna, I wanna yank – your chain.”
Monty: “Yeah, wanna screw?”
Angelica: “If you were a tire, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Monty: “Yeah, you wanna screw now?”
Angelica: “Got a rubber?”
Monty: “Yeah, DO. YOU. WANT. TO. SCREW?”
Angelica slowly takes the wrench and slowly tightens the screw.
Monty: “Yeah, Tina Turner me, nice and easy.”
NEW YORK AUDITIONS, MONTAGE
Monty files into a casting room. He taps his phone and up comes his reel on the screen.
REEL:
Iconic dance scenes (incongruous visuals, hopefully comedic]
Do your best Travolta . . .
Disco—monster in white jumpsuit dancing.
Your best Gene Kelly . . .
Very fleet-footed Monty performing “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Your best Herman Munster.
Casting director: “You’re an un-natural.”
COLD READ, SCREEN TEST
Monty and Lurch face casting table.
Casting director: “It’s a buddy-buddy movie—just your regular guys, your garden variety undercover cops who secretly are monsters and who must gain the trust of the locals. Your job is to blend in.
The Mask character, Green Hornet, and Any Old Alien surround them.
“Green is the new orange,” they tell him.
Castin director points to a mock line-up of a motley crew of monsters.
Casting director: “Bad cop, your line.”
Monty: “Tough call. All you dirt bags look alike.”
Lurch: “Book ‘em, Mano, all of ‘em.”
Casting director: “I like it. Bad Cop, Bad Cop.”
YOGA SESSION:
After yoga session.
MONTY: “I feel like a new man.”
More yoga. Monty strikes a provocative pretzel pose, along with the teacher.
Teacher: “Munch me.”
Monty: “Crunch me.”
Angelica: “Snack my brains out.”
Monty: “That’s twisted.” Monty stops to snack. He smacks his lips.
Angelica: “I said smack MY brains out, you idiot!”
BIRTH OF FIRST CHILD:
Before delivery:
Angelica, in tears: “I said, I said, you fucking racist royal asshole parents of mine. The nerve of you–‘But what color will the baby be?’ “
Monty: “Try honey, not acid, next time.”
[need more here]
After the birth:
Monty and Angelica, push a baby stroller with their actually very cute mini-me version of Frankenstein’s monster inside.
Passerby: “Take after your mother, don’t you, little guy?”
Little Monty upchucks on the passerby.
Monty: “Hey, pinky, orangey, yellowy, gooey—that looks good on you!”
CAREER IN POLITICS
Moderator: “Thank you for tuning in to Candidates’ Forum.”
Meet Mr. Frank Jr., the Green Party nominee.
[HO-HUM]
SEARCH FOR REAL FATHER
At the laboratory.
Adoption counselor: “Meet your real father.”
Monty: “Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?”
[half-baked—no—just runny, raw-egg cookie dough here.]
-
(Patricia Ruland’s) Comedy Brainstorm Session!
[Comedy 70] Day 7: The Comedy Brainstorm Session
What I learned:
Comedy is hard, hard work. Serious business. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
I don’t believe I followed the format exactly, and I think I combined assignments, the punchline one with this one.
This is what I came up with, so far:
ASSIGNMENT
———-Write a “scene outline” that will be used for the next three assignments.
1. Select a comic situation that can yield a lot of funny moments.
Important: You want a situation that is ripe for comedy.
Brainstorm a bunch of ideas and then select the best one.– Forced union of incompatibles
2. Create or select at least two characters with comedy loglines.
3. Brainstorm a list of possible funny moments that are connected
with the heart of the comic situation.4. Show us your selections in this format:
Comedy situation:
“Beswitched”
Frackenstein’s monster, MONTY, is switched at birth. The series tracks how he acclimates to Suburbia and disavows his superpowers to win the heart of the very mortal Angelica.
Comedy Characters and their loglines:Monty, Angelica, Lurch
Beswitched: Frackenstein’s monster is switched at birth. Can he find a new life in Suburbia?
Character: Monty, short for Monster, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster
Possible funny moments:
Monty narrates his struggles and triumphs, and he verbally identifies each milestone.
Milestones, such as school project, first date, first child with Angelica, and so forth..
SCENE OUTLINE:BIRTH
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Kind woman takes to him and takes him home.
CHILDHOOD
Mom coos as she feeds her new baby. He spits peas out all over the place.
Mom: “Peas look good on you. They go with your complexion.”
Monty watches Sesame Street. Performs duet with Kermit, “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.”
SCHOOL DAYS
Monty’s new mom tries to wake him up for school. He is grouchy.
“Who slept on the wrong side of the coffin?” she asks. “Time to get up. The moon’s out and the bats are winging.”
SCIENCE FAIR AT SCHOOL
Judge asks: “What’s your project, Son?”
“I am my project.”
WORKING ODD JOBS TO GET THROUGH COLLEGE
–Job: Pool Guy
Camera pans length of form showing sleek, shiny from sweat, ripped body. Face sticks out like a sore thumb. One woman at the pool party recoils in horror.
Another woman lusts after him. “Wanna see my Bat Cave, Robin?” she flirts.
–Job: Model, Romance Novel Covers
Cover depicts Monty as buff from the neck down and horrific looking from the neck up. Comedy derived from visual incongruity. Title of book: Big Monster Love. Cover shows torrid bedroom scene. Book subtitle in bubble of dialogue by wife: “No reason to be jealous, dude. It’s not what you think.”
Press release regarding subsequent buzz: “Green is the new black.”
DATING
Angelica brings Monty home for dinner to meet the parents.
Mom: “Tall, green, and handsome?”
Angelica: “Two outta three ain’t bad.”
Dad: “Dating the color of money, alright.”
COLLEGE
Monty gets into UT-Austin. He plays for the UT longhorns, but dresses in in “burnt green.”
Coach: “So, who’s the greenhorn?”
PHYSICAL EXAM:
Monty: “Doctor, what’s wrong with me?”
Doctor: “You gotta screw loose.”
Doctor writes out a prescription for Woodson’s Hardware Store.
Doctor: “Parts department is in the back.”
CHANCE MEETING WITH ANGELICA
Monty makes his way down a NY city street. A breathless Angelica overtakes him. She has found the lost screw.
Angelica: “Wanna screw?”
Monty: “ . . . again?”
BEDROOM SCENE:
Angelica: “I love you, you big lug.” She takes out a wrench from under the bed.
Monty, playfully: “Give me that wrench.”
Angelica, playfully: “Give me that, wench?”
AFTERWARDS
Angelica: “If you were a tire, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
NEW YORK AUDITIONS, MONTAGE
Monty, to casting directors: “Don’t judge a spook by its cover.”
REEL:
Iconic dance scenes (incongruous visuals, hopefully comedic]
Do your best Travolta . . .
Disco—monster in white jumpsuit dancing.
Your best Gene Kelly . . .
Very fleet-footed Monty performing “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Your best Herman Munster.
Casting director: “You’re a natural.”
COLD READ, SCREEN TEST
Monty and Lurch face casting table.
Casting director: “We’re casting a buddy-buddy movie—just your regular guys, undercover cops who secretly are monsters and who must gain the trust of the locals. Your job is to blend in.
The Mask character, Green Hornet, and Any Old Alien surround them.
“Green is the new orange,” they tell him.
A mock line-up of a motley crew of monsters.
Casting director: “Bad cop, your line.”
Monty: “Tough call. All dirtbags look alike.”
Lurch: “Book ‘em, all of ‘em.”
Casting director: “I like it. Bad Cop, Bad Cop interp.”
YOGA SESSION:
After yoga session.
MONTY: “I feel like a new man.”
BIRTH OF FIRST CHILD:
Before delivery:
Angelica, in tears: “Those fucking racist royal bastard parents of mine are asking: ‘But what color will the baby be?’
After the birth:
Monty and Angelica, strolling along with actually very cute mini-me version of Frankenstein’s monster—all the rough edges smoothed.
Passerby: “Take after your mother, don’t you, little guy?”
CAREER IN POLITICS
Moderator: “Thank you for tuning in to Candidates’ Forum.”
Meet Mr. Frank Jr., the Green Party nominee.
SEARCH FOR REAL FATHER
At the laboratory.
Adoption counselor: “Meet your real father.”
Monty: “Dr. Frankentstein, I presume?”
-
(Patricia Ruland’s) character’s intro
What I learned from this assignment is it I commit to the process, leave fear of writing funny lines behind, and give it a whirl, I can do more than I thought I could. Very empowering. I leaned once again that revision happens in passes, many.
ASSIGNMENT
———-1. Create a comedy logline for one or more characters.
BEATRIX ‘BUNNIE’ HOPPER, 40, super chic, former face cream model bucking to be CFO of S&M Content Management Systems, uses group training sessions to [gently] bully her “silly little masochists/ moppet minions,” as she likes to call them.
[Bunnie trains Caren Cay Boomer in her disastrous office job at S&M CMS.]
2. Then write a scene introducing that character and clearly
demonstrating the comedy logline.SEE BELOW
3. Answer the question “What I learned from this assignment is…?”
and post it at the top of your work.Subject: (Your name) character’s intro (in first line)
Deadline: 24 hours
——————–
Even if this seems difficult, give it your best shot. You may be surprised
by something brilliant that shows up. Remember, coming up with the
comedy character logline is a simple process.1. Write out the character’s setup — the part that makes them
a normal character.Beatrix ‘Bunnie’ Hopper is a facilitator at S&M Content Management Systems who is presenting a training session to Boomer employees, including Caren Cay [my msc15 script in progress].
2. Brainstorm possible incongruent twists to that character.
Even all that company standing and boundless energy cannot insure trainees will take her seriously—that is, pay her the slightest bit of attention.
3. Select the twist that provides the best comic opportunities.
She
bills herself as “Beatrix—rhymes with Dominatrix”—and adds an edge to the
training that rouses some from their state of ennui.Just go through the process with a couple of characters and see what comes
of it. Once you have something that works, even minimally, write a scene
and turn it in.SCENE:
INT S&M COMPANY CLASSROOM DAY
Students sit in tandem desks in a large classroom made out of a warehouse. They whisper, yawn, flip or fiddle with papers, strum pencils, surf the Internet, and text on their phones. Some say it’s 8:55.
All at once, strobes flash across the room. Techno House Music pounds. Startled, students sit up or jump up then sit down. They blink and cup their hands over their eyes and ears. Some oldtimers go back to sleep and snore.
BEATRIX ‘BUNNIE,’ 40, former face cream model and still super-chic in all-black, is CFO of S&M Content Management Systems.
Bunnie throws open the curtains and bops up to a microphone on the center of a raised platform at the front of the classroom.
BUNNIE
I’m Beatrix–rhymes with–? Rhymes with–? Come on, old-timers, you know the drill–. Where’s that senior sass? Give it to me, give it to me–?
SLIM ‘TO NONE’, 60, awakens and guffaws out an answer.
SLIM
(yawning)
Rhymes, well, it really doesn’t, does it, Herb? . . . with ‘dominatrix’?–
BUNNIE
That’s the time, Old-Timer. My grandpa used to say “that’s the time.”
HERB
(yawning, too)
Yeah, and my name rhymes with, with–
SLIM, HERB
–pervert.
Slim and Herb, as well as others seated nearby, laugh at the joke. They put their heads back on their desks.
Bunnie, slightly miffed, takes up her pointer and raps it on her palm.
BUNNIE
(haughtily)
Look lively.
Bunnie raps the pointer on her desk.
BUNNIE
(haughtily)
Look lively, my little masochist munchkins . . . my pretties.
Bunnie threads through the desks, rapping the pointer on her palm as she goes.
Students rouse and do look a little livelier.
Music stops as a spotlight lands on her. She tears off her blazer. Her T-shirt says, “I’m your Energizer Bunny!”
BUNNIE
(Screeching)
Good morning. Wake up.
Bunnie taps the mic and causes interference.
BUNNIE
Let me introduce myself. I’m Bunnie, your Energizer–
Bunnie traces her pointer finger over the word “Bunny” on her shirt.
–Bunny.
Bunnie picks up and holds up pink and blue T-shirts that read: “S&M Rabbit in Training.” Muffled chuckles waft here and there.
Bunnie takes plastic packages of T-shirts out of a box and and pitches them to students.
BUNNIE
Choose the right one, now. Wear them the rest of the week, please.
Two students, one male and one female, mock-tug-o’-war with a pink shirt.
BUNNIE
I see we have two comedians who want to entertain us.
Bunnie walks over to them and takes the blue and gives it to the man and the pink and gives it to the woman.
BUNNIE
Old School all the way.
The two students exchange t-shirts. Bunnie turns her back on them and walks.
BUNNIE
Except when it comes to technology. Except when it comes to this orientation session. This is your lucky day.
All of you are members of another generation. You didn’t grow up with all this wonderful technology at your disposal–I know. I will have your–
STUDENT 1, 59, raises her hand.
STUDENT 1
I hold a degree in IT. I’d be honored to assist–
STUDENT 2, high-fives Student 1
STUDENT 2
I, as well.
62MBUNNIE
–your back. Grand. Back to what I was saying. Studies show that your age group, the so-called “Boomer” generation, fall behind due to the generational technology gap.
I’m here to make sure that does not happen here at S&M Content Management Systems.
Now, quick like a bunny–
Bunnie darts from table to table and TAPS a single key or multiple keys on the run. She hops and bops. She stops at desks here and there.
BUNNIE
It’s okay to know absolutely nothing.
Bunnie hops and TAPS.
BUNNIE
No. It’s like this.
Darts and TAP-TAP-TAPS. Bunnie makes her way to Caren Cay’s cubicle.
BUNNIE
Noooooo. Like this.
Caren Cay squints and taps.
Bunnie ops on and TAPS, fast, with fingers of both hands with a hint of irritation.
BUNNIE
I am afraid not. To be clear, you should go here. And do this.
Is that all crystal clear? Good.
Suddently, an ear-splitting BUZZER sounds. Students startle again and settle down; their faces show a mix of amusement and apprehension. Some rap pens on their desks to mock Bunnie.
BUNNIE
Did you know? 741 hz zaps toxins and negative thought patterns. I clean my aura daily–you can, too.
BUNNIE
Bunnie trots out a turn-table record player. She takes a record out of its sleeve, places it reverently on the turn table, and places the needle on the record. Tibetan bowls chime. Electronic MUSIC plays.
BUNNIE
See?
Bunnie punches her phone to program an intercom. A New Age creative frequency sound track booms. Bunnie strikes a yoga pose or two.
A glitch then causes an irritating skip-skip-skip in the music.
BUNNIE
Breathe.
Students sigh. One mock-hyperventilates.
BUNNIE
No. From our diaphragm.
Students sigh louder. Some do mock yoga poses, too.
BUNNIE
Rebellion is the path of fools.
Students continue to mock her movements. The glitch recurs. Students pattern their movements in rhythm with the glitch.
Bunnie raps the desk hard with the pointer. The room gets still and silent.
Bunnie angrily packs up the turn-table and straps on her expensive one-shoulder back-pack.
BUNNIE
Training’s over. Fuck you, suckers.
-
(Patricia’s) Intriguing Character Layers
<font face=”verdana, sans-serif”>What I learned doing these assignment is—</font>
<font face=”verdana, sans-serif”>I–</font>
<font face=”verdana, sans-serif”>–Why I subconsciously and now consciously want to watch Gossip Girl, to binge watch it: I want to see how the secrets and reveals intertwine and play out.</font>
<font face=”verdana, sans-serif”>II–</font>
<font face=”verdana, sans-serif”>–I need to elevate the intrigue in my script, specifically and as a whole. That’s the most pressing task at hand now.</font>
ASSIGNMENT 1
Role: Serena, the “ultimate insider”
Hidden agendas: Protect her brother from others knowing he is in a mental institution.
Competition: With Blair, for top spot in the Eastsider hierarchy.
Conspiracy:
Secrets: Her affair past affair with Blair’s boyfriend Nate, what made her leave for boarding school, yet to be explicitly disclosed.
Deception: Tries to pick up where she left off with Blair, her best friend, until Blair lets her know she knows in front of others, including Dan.
Wound: She betrays her best friend. She tries to change her ways but loses her place at the top is lost, anyway.
Secret identity: Good girl.
Role: Blair, rival of Sere
Hidden agendas: Her boyfriend Nate remains indifferent to her, so she goes to great lengths to be with him; she wants to take revenge on Serena for betraying her with Nate; she wants to reel in Dan’s sister to manipulate her to be used.
Competition: With Blair, for top spot in the hierarchy.
Conspiracy: With Chuck, to ruin Serena.
Secrets: Her very bad year—losing her mother to an affair.
Deception: Sets Blair up to fail at the Ivy League mixer.
Wound: She no longer has a father close by, and her cold mother just wants to use her to promote her fashion line..
Secret Identity: Nate’s true love.
2. Watch the next episode and see how Character Intrigue is being used to create the need to see more episodes. Very skillfully done.
Deadline: 24 hours
ASSIGNMENT 2
1. For your Inner Circle characters, fill in any of the Intrigue items that apply.
Character Name: Caren Cay
Role: Wife of Fred Oscar Boomer and mother of ok, the twins.
Hidden agendas: To break out of Boomertown, to see the world, to find her soul mate, dead or alive.
Competition: With FO!, who resents yet tries to hijack her star appeal to enhance his political ambitions.
Conspiracy: With her psychiatrist, to figure out a way out.
Secrets: Her flirtation with Imaginary Lover #2, the man she met at Babbel Land in Manhattan and who hasn’t given up on her; her contempt for the Good Boomer Life; her contemplation of paying for “instruction,” as a thoroughly modern, feminist woman could and should, in her mind; her chronic psychotic breaks, which are the only times she can be her true self—one with her soul mate, dead or alive.
Deception: She plans her escape years in advance; she learns French, takes photography lessons; signs up to leave for Paris each year but loses the nerve; wins contest to go.
Wound: FO! looks down on her; she feels in adequate due to her age; people have begun to call her a has-been from a has-been time.
Secret Identity: Free spirit.
Character Name: FO! (Fred Oscar)
Role: Husband of Fred Oscar Boomer and father of ok, the twins.
Hidden agendas: To break out of Boomertown, too; to be a man of power and prestige.
Competition: With Caren Cay, as he lacks her star power and talent to win a wider audience.
Conspiracies: With Candi, the governor, to make sure the media attends the festival, where he knows Caren Cay will make a spectacle of herself, just to get the name recognition it will give him.
Secrets: He rolls with high-rollers, faking it to make it, to make their coveted reality come to pass for him, too. Their savings dwindle, as a result.
Deception: This family man has a weakness, other women, one woman, who can sponsor his rise to power.
Wound: He turns down an invitation to dinner the night his parents die in a car crash.
Secret Identity: Free man.
2. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
3. Post your assignment in the forums at https://www.screenwritingclasses.com/forums/
Subject line: (Your Name’s) Intriguing Character Layers (place in first line)
Deadline: 3 Days (24 hours for Assignment 1, 48
hours for Assignment 2) -
(Patricia Jan Ruland’s) Three Circles of Characters
[Binge Worthy TV] Lesson 2: Three Circles of Characters
What I learned doing this assignment is:
I need to add characters to the Connected Circle and Environmental Circle for my show.
ASSIGNMENT 1:
Watch the next episode of your Example Show to see how the characters fit into these three circles:
Gossip Girl
Main Characters Circle:
What makes a lead characters engaging on multiple levels?
A. Role in the show:
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Serena
A. Role in the show:
Serena is the main character, “the ultimate insider,” who finds herself the ultimate outsider by the end of Episode 2.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Serena makes the heroine’s journey: her path is to leave the past behind even though it keeps catching up with her.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
Her personal life is everybody’s business, thanks to the Gossip Girl, the blogger who narrates the show. However, she has not yet revealed why she left Manhattan, why she went to boarding school, why it was so bad, what made her decide to turn over a new leaf.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Serena is found out—the guy who is Blair’s boyfriend tells Blair he slept with Serena the previous year. This is the past bad girl she thought she left behind. The guy, the good guy, Dan, finds out when Blair tells him for revenge.
E. Unpredictable: The implication at the end is that Serena may return to her bad girl ways because now she is alone and no one considers her “the ultimate insider” anymore
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
We care because we start pulling for Serena from the start—everything about her—her demeanor, her empathy for her brother, her kindness to everyone, her interest in the “good guy” Dan–all make us root for her. She is nursing deep wounds—that she is a bad sister to her brother and her neglect may have been a part of his decision to take his own life. She feels horrible guilt over both of these major transgressions. We want to believe she has really changed.
Blair
A. Role in the show:
Blair plays the part of both friend and foe to Serena—best friend, once, and current nemesis.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Blair is the daughter of a fashion designer and is the fashion icon of her elite group. She is the other ultimate insider in the story.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She presumably is ashamed she is a virgin—mainly because her boyfriend remains reluctant to be her full intimate partner. She is hurt when Serena abandons her, and she never gets over it. But maybe she prefers this adversarial role—it gives her a chance to depose the person everyone considers the real Queen B, Serena.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
She makes no bones about excluding and controlling and dictating the terms to anyone who knows her. She uses people—like Jenna—to step on others. She ambushes Dan and tells him how Serena slept with her boyfriend—achieving the desired result—that Serena would fall completely from grace in her circle.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Even though Nate joins her in her bed, she looks off with a conniving expression on her face. Who knows what she will do next? That’s her value as a villain.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
At first, she wins some empathy from the audience—she lost her best friend and then she finds out he cheated on her with her best friend Serena. However, the way she gloats over the misery she causes for others makes our empathy for her well run dry.
B. Connected Circle:
Dan, Nate, Jenna, Chuck
C. Environment Circle:
Immediate family: Serena’s Mom, Jenna and Dan’s Dad, Nate’s father, Blair’s clique, the Brunch crowd
Give us a quick list for each circle.
ASSIGNMENT 2:
Create the three circles of characters for your show.
Main Characters Circle: Caren Cay, FO!, Boomer wife and husband.
What makes a lead characters engaging on multiple levels?
A. Role in the show:
Caren Cay is the principle character who makes the hero’s journey—she goes in and out of sanity as she weighs her need to stay mother and wife with her need to live the kind of life she missed and find her true soulmate.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
She is an accomplished guitarist, singer, and performer. She justifies and maintains the soundtrack that consists of the Boomer canon of rock music.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
She is woefully lonely and unfulfilled, so much so that she concocts trysts with “Imaginary Lovers” in her episodes of detachment from reality—this makes being “Caren Cray Cray” more appealing.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
She has one emotional affair after another; she presents herself as the ultimate flower child but she has just a fierce temper as her husband, FO!
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
From dancing a mock provocative dance on the kitchen counters to smashing her guitar onstage to end out her show, Caren Cay likes to entertain people and goes to great lengths to go over the top with that.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
We care because Caren Cay, the woman who haves just about everything, needs so much more, needs so much different. She is trapped in a marriage that has given her children but denied her a truly fulfilling intimate life with a worthy soulmate; we care for her because the stress of being trapped and of coping with her husbands unfailing instinct to sabotage drives her mad.
FO!
FO!s main roles are consort to Caren Cay, father of ok.
Caren Cay, wife; FO! husband; ok, the twins
Connected Circle
ok, the twins; Candi, the Governor
Environment Circle:
Boomers’ neighbors and friends; Caren Cay’s band; fans and media who follow Caren Cay; FO!s work and political associates.
-
More (Patricia Ruland’s) Funny Situations
<b tabindex=”-1″ data-thread-perm-id=”thread-f:1700943140286608774″ data-legacy-thread-id=”179af6c62bebb586″>[Comedy 70] Day 4: More Comedy Situations!
What I learned from this:
Don’t be afraid to be outrageous. Then, don’t be afraid to be even more outrageous. Be fearlessly outrageous.
Caren Cay’s a morning person; her family are night people. She exemplified “early to bed, early to rise.” Her husband, FO!, and the twins, ok, believe late to bed and late to rise–oh, eff it. Today is the day of the festival, and Caren Cay is up at the crack of dawn.
Technique: Forced union of incompatibles
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, BATHROOM DAY
At the crack of dawn, Caren Cay jumps up off the couch in the family room, takes a good, long shower; the massive rain-showerhead floods her with a steamy deluge. She puts on a bathrobe, HUMS, “All Along the Watchtower” along with the soundtrack.
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, BEDROOM DAY
Caren Cay prods FO!’s shoulder.
CAREN CAY
(sunnily)
Hey, hey we need to get a head start—hey, hey—want to be early—
Caren Cay opens the window. Curtains lift with the gentle rush of a breeze. Caren Cay hears CRICKETS, CROAKS, TWEETS.
SOUNDTRACK changes to a Musak version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” . . .
CAREN CAY
‘the door was open and–
FO!
(dreaming, smiling, bellowing)
I graciously accept our party’s nomination. I accept. I accept—
FO! Falls back into a sound, impenetrable sleep. CRICKETS CRESCENDO and stop.
Caren Cay too slowly closes the window, slams it shut. She stares over at FO!, stone-faced.
CAREN CAY
Crickets.
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, HALL DAY
Caren Cay rolls her eyes, exits the bedroom, and makes her way down the hall, earbuds in place. Lullaby version of “All Along the Watchtower” plays softly.
She TAPS on each bedroom door. She HUMS softly to the music.
CAREN CAY
Hey, there, time to get up . . . wanna get there early . . . big day is here.
She retraces her steps and RAPS on each door. No answer.
CAREN CAY
(effing crickets)
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, KITCHEN DAY
Caren Cay reaches the kitchen, reacts in horror to the horrible mess, evidence of her family’s midnight “gorgefest.”
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, KITCHEN DAY
Caren Cay bangs pots and pans and slams dishes in the massive dishwasher, soaps and sloshes the counters, leaves water running and bubbles rise in a luminous, undulating cloud,
She drops her robe and climbs in the sink—it’s a “farm sink”—massive, too—and she can sit in it—she mugs starlet “bath” sensuousness—still HUMMING “All Along the Watchtower.”
She grabs her bathrobe on the counter, pulls it on and around her as she stands up in the sink. She pulls up a mop and does pin-up poses and mock pole dancing moves.
She starts to put her earbuds in but slings them on the counter. HUMMING, still, she dances on the huge countertop, over to the island, over to the countertop on the other side.
She punches keys on the home PE system, steps back on to the center island countertop. OPENING STRAINS of “All Along the Watchtower,” Jimi Hendrix version, blare out top volume.
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, ‘MISTRESS’ BEDROOM, DAY
FO! bolts upright in bed.
FO!
What the eff?
FO! grabs his pants, puts them on; covers his ears; paces wildly for the door.
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, O’S BEDROOM, DAY
O jumps and falls out of bed. He jumps back up and runs for the door.
O
What the?
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, K’S BEDROOM, DAY
K’s eyes pop open; she listens, spellbound, and smiles broadly. She hops out of bed dancing, grabs a pencil and water cup, beats it to the beat, and dances for the door.
K
Party!
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, HALL DAY
FO! storms down the hall. O claps as K beats the cup with the pencil. They form a rock-conga line—doing vintage Sixties dances, like the Pony and the Swim. FO! gets even madder. They reach the kitchen door.
INT BOOMERS’ HOME, KITCHEN DAY
Caren Cay passionately strums a huge Cuisinart skillet—she shows she knows what she is doing. She wields the imaginary frets on the handle like a guitar boss. She SING-SCREAMS at the top of her lungs.
Outside, THUNDER BOOMS and LIGHTNING CRASHES.
Caren Cay smiles, looks to the heavens, suddenly turns up the volume even louder.
SOUND TRACK
‘There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke . . . ‘
CAREN CAY
(singing very loudly)
‘The hour’s getting LATE. “
Caren Cay twirls and rocker stomps on each countertop. She air head-bangs up and down.
FO!
Very funny. You’re such a comediENNE.
SOUND TRACK
‘And the wind began to howl–
CAREN CAY
(with a blood-curdling howl)
–howl.
Caren Cay continues to HOWL, operatically, along with the guitar solo.
FO! SCREAMS out in anger. He lunges and turns off the intercom stereo system.
FO!
Are you cray-cray, Caren Cay? That’s what we should call you, “Caren Cray-Cray Cay, no, Caren Cray-Cray of the Cay.” Like that? Poetic enough? Get that printed on your Social Security card, your driver’s license, your birth certificate, and your Starbucks Gold Card.
CAREN CAY
Head-bang, hard-core rock-out . . . while I–
Caren Cay brandishes her arm across the spic-and-span kitchen. She crushes an empty milk carton on the counter.
CAREN CAY
(now sweetly saccharine)
–while I work.
Caren Cay WHISTLES the tune of “Whistle While You Work.” She mock-sings her adaptation of the lyrics.
CAREN CAY
I shopped and bought the food
Unloaded bags ‘n bshd for my brood
Put it up and took it down
Unwrapped the wrappers, every one
I chopped and cooked the food
Put it on the table and called you here
You ate and ate and ate and ate
Said you’d clean up with all good cheer–j
Just like a good family should
You need your rest you said
So get some Zzzzs, you sleepy-head–
FO!
O said ‘I got this’–K said ‘We got this.”
O
We were talking to Mom–
K
–not you, Dad.
CAREN CAY
(Still singing to the tune of “Whistle While You Work.” )
Tomorrow’s big, and we want you to knock ‘em dead,’ you said–
O
(sadly)
–but we just went to bed.
CAREN CAY
But we just went to bed.
Caren Cay polishes the counters and continues to whistle the song.
K
I’m sorry, Mom. I set my alarm–but I fell back asleep.
Caren Cay opens the refrigerator and takes out a six-pack of strawberry-banana yogurt. She tears two off and puts them in three places at the table.
CAREN CAY
I know you’re helpless,
but I want you to be well-fed–
”on my big day.”
FO!
They said they were sorry.
CAREN CAY
They did.
Caren Cay heads for the door.
CAREN CAY
I’m ahead of you–I obviously had my shower. Back by popular demand, super 20X whitening power Xtreme torpedo mint toothpaste. . . . I’m leaving for the festival in thirty minutes. “Be there, by the car, or be square.”
SOUND TRACK
“A wild cat did growl”–
(whispering)
Or . . . I’ll scratch your eyes out.
-
(Patricia J. Ruland) Funny situations
SCENE: This is from a script I am working on about a Woostock-style festival put on by a family named The Boomers. Caren Cay is the mother; FO! The dad; ok the twins. Caren Cay has just performed.
A young boomlet, BRAD, 25, approaches Caren & Co. His face glows with admiration. He holds out a program and pen.
BRAD
Hi, I’m Chad. May I have your autograph?
CAREN CAY
Sure. No problem.
Another boomlet, BRENT, 28, walks up to them. The two perform a secret handshake.
BRAD
Meet the smokin’ hot MILF who just changed my life.
BRENT
Our life. You were a firecracker up there.
CAREN CAY
Uh, where’s the . . . concession stand? I’m starving.
BRENT
Hungry . . . for love.
A group of young people crowd around a guy holding a copy of the “Urban Dick.” They cannot turn the pages fast enough. They burst out laughing and reciting definitions.
YOUNG PERSON 1
“A hot ass mom you wanna smash and kill all night long.”
YOUNG PERSON 2
Let me see that. . . . “Milves:
plural of milf”
The crowd around the Urban Dick grows larger and roudier.
BRAD
Hey, this is sufficiently Boomer-delic, isn’t it?
Chad sings “Ready for Love” in a showtune way.
BRAD
Ready for love . . . I’m ready for love.
CAREN CAY
ok, think I saw a snow-cone stand somewhere around here. Sure would like a Coney dog and a snow cone.
K
Consider it done.
BRAD
Hey, I’m Coney.
CAREN CAY
Cherry Lime, ok–yeah, a cherry lime would be great, great.
BRIAN, 32, walks up.
BRYAN
And I’m Dog. You can call me “Dawg, D-A-W-G.”
K
I could go for a Lemon-Lime, Mom.
O
Make that a double.
CAREN CAY
Meet me at the picnic tables?
Before Caren Cay can make her escape, Brad, Brent, and Bryan commence a trio, “Cherry Baby.”
BRAD, BRENT, BRYAN
Oh, don’t you know
I’m never gonna ever let you go
Cause you’re so sweet
I’ve got to have you Cherry
O
That’s my mom, you effing–
BRAD, BRENT, BRYAN
Mmmmm, Cherry baby
Cherry, Cherry, oh yeah
Cherry, Cherry baby
Cherry, Cherry oh
K
–creep.
FO! is oblivious, just yards away, as he chats up the attractive governor, CANDACE, “CANDI,” 47.
FO!
I must say–
CANDI
–let me say it. You’ve outdone yourself, FO!
O
Hey, you effing perverts. That’s my mom.
Both FO! Candi look over as all hell breaks loose. o decks Brad. Brad decks o. k delivers a mixed martial arts-worthy kick to Brent’s crotch. o gets up and kicks Brent in the crotch, too.
FO! rushes over and decks Brad, Brent, and Bryan. Candi mouths “My Hero,” and claps and eggs them on.
Caren Cay slinks toward the stage. She walks like a zombie strumming and singing.
CAREN CAY
I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
The love that’s all around me
And so the feeling grows
Brad decks FO! o decks Brent. Brent decks o. FO! gets up and decks Brad. Brent gets up and decks FO!. They pile on in full saloon brawl mode.
CAREN CAY
(voice fading)
It’s written on the wind
It’s everywhere I go
So if you really love me
Come on and let it show
K
Cops 12 o’clock.
Cops and reporters crowd them. Cops cuff FO! because the B boys say he started it. Candi coolly strolls over.
CANDI
Hey, Officer, enjoying the festival as much as I am? We have FO! to thank.
Brad, Brent, and Bryan shift their adoring gazes from Caren Cay to Candi. The officer stands transfixed.
OFFICER
I’m a Led Zeppelin fan, myself.
CANDI
Well, I have a whole lotta love for that revelation.
Candi blows a kiss at the officer, and tips her head toward FO!’s cuffs. The officer hastily uncuffs FO! Candi, with FO! On one arm and the officer on the other, make their way to the stage.
EXT FESTIVAL ARENA, STAGE NIGHT
The sun is setting. Caren Cay finishes her snow-cone and hurries on stage. She straps on her guitar, back to the crowd. She turns around and faces the audience.
MILF signs stretch as far as the eye can see: “Owned–By a MILF”; “GOT MILF?”; “MILFALICIOUS!” A group sways as they sing.
GROUP IN THE AUDIENCE
“What’s it all about, MILFIE?”
Caren Cay falters but recovers.
CAREN CAY
(gasping)
Another cherry lime sno-co, please, k?
K
(whispering)
It’s a compliment, Mom.
CAREN CAY
Yeah, like having a scarlet M emblazoned on my chest.
O runs onstage carting a Cherry Lime snow-cone. The audience roars.
O
You’re the bomb, Mom. Here.
Caren Cay does not know her mic is live.
CAREN CAY
That hits the spot. You got a Lemon Lime for yourself, didn’t you?
Caren Cay jumps at the sound of her voice. She thirstily consumes the second snow-cone.
YOUNG PERSON 3
That’s our mom-that’s our MILF.
STEVEN, 42, hangs on the edge of the stage. He mouths the words, “I love you.”
Caren Cay snaps around to adjust a dial on an amplifier behind her. Loud INTERFERENCE NOISES cut Steven down and incite the audience into a frenzy. The entire audience joins in singing.
AUDIENCE
What’s it all about, MILFIE?
Caren Cay adjusts the dial again and even louder INTERFERENCE sounds blare out of the amplifier.
CAREN CAY
Owned? You want owned?
Caren Cay belts out “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as she bashes her guitar against the sound equipment.
CAREN CAY
(SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER INTO THE MIC)
With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
Caren Cay smashes her guitar to pieces. The crowd stomps and chants.
AUDIENCE
MILF. MILF. MILF. . . .
CAREN CAY
Entertain your fucking self.
Caren Cay storms off the stage. FO! and Candi stomp and clap wildly.
CANDI
You are a genius, FO!
The ONION news crew arrives on scene and fans out. Caren Cay loses a reporter tailing her and disappears into the night. A reporter interviews Candi and FO!.
-
(Gossip Girl) 5 Star Model
What I learned doing this assignment is:
I need to keep an open mind—ordinarily, I would not have tuned in to this show. I am glad I did. It exemplifies the model we are learning, and it showcases expert characterization and dialogue—and more. I’m know I’m learning by carrying out the assignments—and I hope I am learning by osmosis.
ASSIGNMENT:
1. Pick a Binge Worthy EXAMPLE SHOW from our list below and watch the first episode, making a light outline of the episode. Just the beats and anything that seems important to you. Choice: Gossip Girl.
Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (BS2)
Opening Image – Voice-over lionizes Serena, the legend who is the main character; Serena in paradoxical counterpoint appears downhearted and possibly unhappy about her return from boarding school to Manhattan.
Set-up – Based on the Gossip Girl’s accounting, Serena is a notorious “bad girl” in her social circle. Her departure and re-emergence cause a hyper level of buzz—and trepidation.
Theme Stated (happens during the Set-up) – This movie is about the triumph of good over evil, “good” over “bad.” The set-up kicks off when Dan sees Serena in Grand Central Station and Gossip Girl identifies her as “the love of his life”—if only she knew that. The story arc of the episode portrays how they buck the snobbery of the Gossip Girl crowd, they bond, and fulfill Gossip Girl’s snide yet accurate assessment.
Catalyst – Serena visits her brother in the hospital. He had tried to commit suicide. The loving way she sleeps in his room and apologizes for being a terrible sister deepens the impression for the audience she’s not the same she was before—she’s indeed a bad girl gone good.
Debate – Blair worries Serena will steal her boyfriend, Nate, who has had a crush on Serena for a long time. Serena tells him in no uncertain terms she won’t betray her friend.
Break Into Two (Choosing Act Two) – Now begins the trial by fire for Serena—can she sustain her resolve to change, from bad to good? She blithely reconciles with her best friend, “B.” However, the reconciliation seems one-sided—Serena engages in wishful thinking forcing to the fore her idealization of their friendship—the hopeless notion she is still her best friend. But she is not.
B Story
The Promise of the Premise – So far so good, the former bad girl is really good now, and the lonely boy may soon be lonely no more. Dan gets a ‘help!’ text from his sister, Jenna—a fashion emergency. This sets the stage for the climactic big dance.
Midpoint – Jenna becomes an ally of Serena, who advises her to choose a black version of the dress she likes; later, she implies to Dan he should try to connect with Serena because “she’s actually really nice.” Dan rushes to the Palace presumably to find her.
Bad Guys Close In – Meanwhile, at the Palace, Chuck, whose family owns the place, propositions Serena. She refuses. He tries to blackmail her by letting her know he witnessed Jake and her doing what Jake’s yet to do with his girlfriend, Blair, but she tells him she’s trying to change. He tries to rape her but she fights him off. She goes through agony because she flashes back to being with Nate as Chuck assaults her.
Cut to Nate confessing the indiscretion to Blair; this prompts a break-up. To help his father with a business deal, Nate reconciles with Blair.
Serena’s mom presents a dress for her to wear to the dance, but Serena says she has other plans—when pressed, drums up that she is with Dan, and they are going to a concert.
All is Lost –
At the party, Chuck makes aggressive advances toward Jenna and traps her in the stairwell and then on the roof. Jenna texts Dan and says it’s an emergency.
Dark Night of the Soul – Serena sees it’s about Chuck and she insists on going with Dan to the party to find Jenna. So much is at stake—will they get there in time?
Break Into Three (Choosing Act Three) – Serena and Dan rush upstairs—Dan punches Chuck and Serena pushes him. They comfort Jenna and exit the party, to the normal drumbeat of gossipy remarks as they pass by. At the cab, Dan bids goodbye, but Serena gets in–to talk about a second date.
Finale – Dan places his arm around his sister to comfort her. Serena takes Dan’s hand to hold it. He is obviously thrilled, but playing it cool enough not to show it to an extreme.
Final Image – The episode ends with Serena’s face in the cab window—triumphant this time—happy in the knowledge that she’s proven she really is a bad girl gone good.
2. From that, make a list of the 5 Star Points for that show.
Big Picture Hooks
Ask this: What is the big hook of this show?Infamous bad girl returns to her posh Manhattan neighborhood and snobby inner circle to prove she’s changed—she’s a bad girl gone good.
Amazing and Intriguing Character
Ask this: What makes these main characters intriguing and interesting?Serena is shown in both lights—in her life as an infamous bad girl without principles and in her new life with principles, trying to prove her worth as a good girl—that is, as a loyal friend, devoted and repentant sister, and potential ‘good girlfriend’ to good guy Dan. The supporting characters—Blair, Nate, and Chuck—stay the same—they remain bad to the bone. Jenna is a constant of good–she voices the counterpoint to the mean-spirited voice of the Gossip Girl.
Empathy / Distress
Ask this: What situation causes us to feel both empathy and distress for
this character?Early on, the audience feels admiration and empathy for Serena—a complete turnaround from how they might have reacted to the time before she leaves Manhattan. They hurt when she hurts over her brother’s attempted suicide. They feel discomfort during flashback scenes, especially the one when she cheats on her best friend with her boyfriend. They chafe when others reject her, don’t invite her, gossip about her. They flinch in great distress when Chuck assaults her. They cheer her on when she declines a surreptitious invitation to the big dance, when she chooses the perfect good guy for a good girl—Dan. They cheer even more when the two thwart the attack on Dan’s sister.
Layers / Open Loops
Ask this: What questions are created by this first episode that can only
be answered by watching the entire season?Unresolved in this episode are the questions: Why does Serena flee to boarding school? What happens there to cause her to do a complete about-face? How much does her brother’s attempted suicide influence her change of heart and character?
Inviting Obsession
Ask this: How does this pilot create the need to see every single episode?The audience will want to follow whether the bad girl really has gone good—for good. They will follow: How will she be tested? Why does the Gossip Girl inject the caveat that she will have to attend school on Monday—implying she’s not out of the woods yet? And, as a guilty pleasure, the audience will want to tune in to Gossip Girl’s malevolent missives, each and every one. Yes, they are addictive–by design.
3. Watch the same first episode A SECOND TIME while looking at your 5 Star Point analysis. This time, your purpose is to see beyond the obvious answers. Assume there is more to learn and discover it! Done. See above.
4. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and
put it at the top of your work. Done. -
(Patricia Ruland) Funny Scene!
What I learned from this assignment is:
–Comedy can be broken down into its working parts.
–Writers can learn to be deliberately funny—it’s not just a gift or an accident—comedy is a craft.
THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN
by
,Judd Apatow and Steve Carell
[EXCERPT for COMEDY CLASS]
INT. CIRCUIT CITY – LATER
Andy is at his post. David, Jay, and Cal are a few feet away, having a conversation.
CAL
What about Andy?
JAY
He doesn’t have any money.
DAVID
Well, we can’t play poker without at least four guys.
JAY
Al1 right. But he’s gotta bring at least 50 bucks, or it’s not worth it.
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(to Andy)
Hey Andy, are you busy tonight?
Andy is taken aback at the question. Although he’s friendly with them, they never invite him out to social engagements-
ANDY
Do we have to break down the Sony
truck?
[This is funny because Andy remains the innocent here—of course they wanted him to do their work for them—nothing more exciting than that.]
Please keep scrolling—this PDF is difficult to replicate.
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5.
DAVID
No, we 1 re gonna play poker. You
wanna play poker?
ANDY
Uh, yeah, sure, that’d be cool.
JAY
You know how to play?
ANDY
I play on-line.
DAVID
Well it’s just like that, except with real people.
[Comedy: Sarcasm builds upon the perception that Andy is a loner.]
ANDY
(trying to be hip)
So, uh, where’s this going down?
DAVID
My house. I’ll get you the address.
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ANDY
Cool, very cool. Should I bring
some stogies? Some liquor?
DAVID
Could you stop off at Boston Market and pick us up some chicken? Three extra crispy, one original, two with fries, and two with mashed potatoes, extra gravy. Each one with corn on the cob.
ANDY
Okay.
DAVID
I’m just fucking with you.
[Here, to save face and be one of the guys, Andy dispenses with his kind and helpful ways and pretends he regards everyone as “losers” for whom he’d never buy dinner (chicken) . . . until the next moment he offers to do just that. The incongruity heightens the comedy and they poignancy.]
ANDY
I know. You think I’ll pick up you losers chicken? I’ll see you guys at the game …. but do you need food?
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No.
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DAVID
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6.
JAY
SET UP I hope he has money.
[The audience is already acclimated to thinking that Andy is lacking in just about everything, including money.]
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INT. DAVID’S APARTMENT – MIDNIGHT
The four are playing poker. Most of the chips are in front of Andy, who is a little too dressed up for this event.
JAY
How much fuckin’ online poker do you play?
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ANDY
Just an hour or two a night. When I’m not on Sims.
Incongruencies:
–The pace becomes incongruent—from laggardly to speeded up. It doesn’t take long for Andy to change the audience’s perception of him as a sluggard to an ace—poker player. The immediate cut from one to the other constitutes the inconsistency.
–Right after the line “I hope he has money” the scene immediately jumps to Andy in a suit having won most of the chips—this incongruency is starting a build.
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CUT TO:
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INT. DAVID’S APARTMENT – LATER
DAVID
(throws down ONE chip} Well, Andy, at least I feel like I1 ve gotten to know you better, since you spent the last three hours fucking me in the ass.
[David’s cool, leader-of-the-pack demeanor prefaces this comedic, hot-headed remark that reflects his humiliation at having been beaten at poker—by Andy, no less. The incongruency in David’s demeanor and delivery makes for a funny switch.]
They all laugh.
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ANDY
(giggling}
I didn’t fuck you in the ass. Guys, this has been fun. Give me a call anytime, I’m wide open.
[Set-up: Andy never gets asked out to do anything. Incongruency: He plays it up and changes the tone and meaning of “I’m wide open”—meaning not that he’s always free—the reality—to implying he’s open for anything.]
CAL
You know what a gentleman does after he beats other gentleman? He takes them out for liquor.
ANDY
I’m game.
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JAY
I have to get out of here. I’m meeting Ellen.
CAL
A little late night action.
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7.
DAVID
So you just go to her place at night and bone her and leave? And she has no problem with that?
JAY
No, she loves it.
DAVID
How come I can’t get one of those?
JAY
Do you really want me to explain it to you? Because I will.
DAVID
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Shut up.
JAY
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This girl is the best. She will do anything. There is no filter between what she wants and doing it. Everything is on the table.
She-is-game.
ANDY
Sign me up for that. I 1 m in!
CAL
I have got to get laid. It’s been
too long.
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JAY
How long?
CAL
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Like four months.
DAVID
Who was the last one?
CAL
Jill. She was awesome. She had these huge titties. Oh, I used to love to bite them. I didn’t even want to have sex, I could bite those titties all night.
DAVID
What happened to her?
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…..
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8.
CAL
She was an asshole. She was mean. She was a miserable person, but I so regret breaking up with her.
DAVID
Why did you break up with her?
CAL
I felt like we were in different places in our lives.
JAY
Yeah, you were in this place where you were having trouble getting a job and she was in this place where she hated your fat ass!
CAL
Basically. I miss those titties.
ANDY
Titties are the best.
DAVID
I had this girlfriend, she loved the fellatio. Anywhere we went, she would want to do it.
CAL
Why didn’t you marry her?
DAVID
We went to see Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. And she’s going for it, and the guy who worked there saw us, but he didn’t stop it, he just watched. It was so gross. And then I couldn’t finish…
JAY
wait a second, was that Ace one or Ace two?
DAVID
It was the first one.
JAY
This story is over ten years old. You don’t have a sex story that happened in this millennium.
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Fuck you.
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9.
DAVID
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CAL
That is lame.
ANDY
Ah, unbelievable. So lame.
[All of the above is the extended set-up that portrays the speakers as very savvy in love.
The pay-off is that they turn to Andy to contribute, but the audience knows he’s got nothing.]
DAVID
Then you give us a good sex story,
Andy.
Andy is stopped in his tracks.
ANDY
I don’t kiss and tell.
JAY
Come on, give us a good, dirty one. The dirtiest thing you’ve ever done.
ANDY
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Give me a break. You’re a freak.
I can tell.
DAVID
Lay one on us.
ANDY
(after a breath) Ok…well….I went with this girl, she loved having sex. She was so into it. We would have sex and she’d be screaming, “I love it . “
It was so dirty. We had sex in every room in the house. The bathroom. It was like you guys were saying. She wanted to do it on the kitchen table. I came home and she was on the kitchen table naked ’cause she just wanted me to nail her…
DAVID
And did you nail her?
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10.
ANDY
I nailed her so bad. We were swinging from the chandelier. She was crazy. It was never enough with her. Never enough.
JAY
What was her name?
ANDY
Tan-dra. Man it was so crazy.
CAL
Sounds crazy.
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I am it. too.
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ANDY
embarrassed to even talk about
God, I was really into it,
It was so much fun.
DAVID
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Did you like to talk during sex?
ANDY
She was talking the whole time. I was hitting it big time. Just hitting it. She could barely walk
– the next day. Me so horny.
They all laugh, and look at each other, realizing Andy is full of shit.
[What Andy’s claiming—that he has wild relations with women–is incongruent with the others’ growing awareness he has absolutely no experience.]
JAY
So you really used to do her?
ANDY
Oh, I did her so bad.
JAY
What were her tits like?
ANDY
They were good. Good tits.
CAL
Her nipples?
ANDY
Yeah. Nipples.
DAVID
What were they like
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ANDY
They were good ones.
JAY
Give us some details. Were they long nips? Flat nips? Dark areolas? Were they big silver dollar nips?
[This gets funny because what Andy says is incongruent with facts and details of the situation. That is, he doesn’t know what he’s “describing” really looks like.]
ANDY
They were like a dollar. Like ten dollars.
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11.
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What? Huh?
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DAVID
CAL ANDY
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Like ten times a night.
DAVID
Ten times.
ANDY
Maybe twenty.
JAY
Do you last a long time?
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Oh yeah. How long? An hour.
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ANDY
CAL ANDY
DAVID
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Of screwing.
ANDY
Yeah. Sometimes a little less.
JAY
So ten times would take at least
ten hours. Do you rest in between?
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ANDY
No. I don’t need to.
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12.
DAVID
You start right up.
ANDY
Why not. Why waste time?
CAL
So sex with you could take a whole day.
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ANDY
Yeah. More even.
DAVID
Do you use protection?
ANDY
Sometimes. I don’t really need to.
CAL
Do you use a rubber, or a sponge?
ANDY
I always use a sponge. Sometimes two at a time. What do you guys use?
<br clear=”all”>
ALL
Sponge.
JAY
Did you get a lot of back door
action?
DAVID
Come on, that’s enough.
ANDY
<br clear=”all”>
That’s cool. Side door. doors.
<br clear=”all”>
We did back door. We were doing all the
<br clear=”all”>
(joking) And a couple
<br clear=”all”>
of windows.
[Set-up: Andy goes overboard and gets ridiculous, and in doing so, breaks his cover.]
<br clear=”all”>
JAY
You have no idea what we’re talking
about.
<br clear=”all”>
<br clear=”all”>
[Andy is found out because he does not know what they are talking about . . . leading only to one conclusion . . .
Sure I do.
<br clear=”all”>
ANDY
<br clear=”all”>
JAY
laughing Oh my God.
<br clear=”all”>
13.
<br clear=”all”>
What?
<br clear=”all”>
ANDY
JAY
<br clear=”all”>
You’re a fucking virgin.
[The heart of the matter—the crux of the inconsistency that is the entire premise of this comedy—that a man, 40, is still a virgin. The very thought of that most probably would cause most people in an audience to laugh.]
ANDY
What? Shut up. Yeah, okay. Tell Tandra that. If. I’m a virgin Tandra’s a virgin, too.
JAY
You are.
ANDY
<br clear=”all”>
Not since I was ten, my friend.
JAY
Unbelievable.
ANDY
Ha. That’s funny. This is fun. When did you guys lose your virginity?
<br clear=”all”>
JAY
No, no, no. You’ve never popped your cherry.
DAVID
Leave him alone.
JAY
What?
DAVID
<br clear=”all”>
Don’t be mean.
JAY
I 1 m not being mean. I want to help him. him laid.
[Incongruous opinions of Jay’s motives make this exchange funny.]
<br clear=”all”>
He’s a virgin.
I want to get
<br clear=”all”>
Yes.
<br clear=”all”>
CAL
Let’s get Andy laid.
ANDY
<br clear=”all”>
Come on guys. Very funny.
[The incongruity of Andy’s sorrowful state as masked by his jocular and fake delivery is funny and poignant.]
<br clear=”all”>
.
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AGREE, in which case, you hit “Reply to this topic” and include three things at the top of the page:
1. Patricia Jan Ruland
2. I agree to the terms of this release form.
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.If you agree to the terms of the release form, then you can send your assignments into the group and you’ll get feedback on them.
Also, if you don’t agree to this group confidentiality agreement, you’ll still need to sign an agreement that says you will keep the strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the Binge Worthy TV class confidential in order to stay in the class.
GROUP RELEASE FORM FOR “BINGE WORTHY TV” CLASS
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 Binge Worthy TV class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, teaching a class, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the Binge Worthy TV 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 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. The easiest solution if you have similar ideas is to either not look at each other’s work or to agree to take your shows in different directions.
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 Binge Worthy TV class.
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Patricia Jan Ruland
One feature (terrible); one short (pretty good); one animated children’s feature (in progress). I am working on a serial for the MSC15 class, too.
I love trends–I am intrigued by the ascent of streaming programming in recent years. I want to write scripts that reflect this new and exciting development in the industry. I see unlimited potential there for screenwriters of every genre. This gives me a chance to invoke my Tinkerbell syndrome–in order to wish great success to each and every screenwriter out there.
I love to write poetry–I took a long break from that beloved avocation–but my son and his friend, both of whom are getting a doctorate in literature, are coaxing that passion out of me again. I am also a street photographer. I am combining the two disciplines in a book I want to self-publish. I love French poetry and the French photographer Brassai.
What is unique about me is that I am content to be always the apprentice, never the master, for I love learning, the journey of learning. It is my life.