Stuart Ungar
Forum Replies Created
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From this assignment, I learnt that the intent is to captivate the viewers so they irresistibly commit to the emotional journey we set before them. We intend to manipulate their feelings concerning the characters we create so they find them enticing to the point they are reluctant to leave their seat in front of the TV.
Revenge – The series:
Emily Thorne:
Immediately, the show establishes the series journey for Emily Thorne, which will engage us on multiple levels. These are: –
1. Revenge: It soon becomes evident that the series will take us on her journey of revenge. She is covertly plotting to bring about the downfall of those responsible for her now-dead father’s suffering.
2. Empathy: We immediately engender audience empathy for Emily when we see her as a little girl in great distress when she sees her father framed for a crime he did not commit.
3. Intrigue: Her father has left behind a box containing, in effect, a record of his colleagues’ betrayal—a guide for Emily to exact revenge on those who perpetrated the crime.
4. Moral Issues: Emily will do anything to entrap her father’s criminal associates and make them pay dearly for betraying him.
Victoria Grayson:
She is a vixen of the first order, seeing herself as the Empress of the local Hampton community, wrapped in a robe of wealth. She will stop at nothing to protect her nearest and dearest, particularly when she feels they are under threat or when they are behaving in a way of which she disapproves. She is highly manipulative and has few moral boundaries. Ultimately, we pray for her hubris to be her downfall.
Conrad Grayson:
An unscrupulous multibillionaire stockbroker with a very shady past, he framed Emily’s father with colleagues and was responsible for his going to jail, where he died. He has no loyalties, few moral boundaries, and is someone we love to dislike. He is slimy with a carapace of charm.
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Characters for The Memory Web:
A. Main Characters Circle:
Dr Ruth Snyder: Brilliant ex-professor of quantum physics with a photographic memory who moved laterally, became an MD, and specialised in neuroscience research. Nobel laureate and kendo master
Dr SARAH SNYDER: Ruth’s identical twin sister, MD, is a defence against biological warfare specialist and a world expert in prion research.
DEBORAH SNYDER: Ruth Snyder’s daughter, a high-IQ, emotionally intelligent child who is very bright, forthright, and sensitive.
ABRAHAM SNYDER: Father of Ruth and Sarah, concentration camp survivor, a number tattooed on the arm, morose, slow-moving. He is secretly very proud of his daughter’s achievements but is not demonstrative and minimises any show of love.
WINSTON MORGAN: FBI Special Agent from Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, widower, whose wife died in childbirth eight years before the story opens.
LORD ARTHUR MARTEL: World-renowned geneticist and molecular biologist, father figure/mentor to Ruth, Master of Trinity College Cambridge, UK, President of the Royal Society (UK equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA), secretly in awe and in love with Ruth
WILLIAM WAGNER: (a.k.a. Doctor Kurt Steyn) Officer in the SS during World War II, brought to the US secretly under the Gehlen Plan and Operation Paperclip. William became hugely wealthy, founding the most significant private company, Berg Pharmaceutical Industries, in the USA.
B. Connected Circle:
HANNAH SNYDER: (previously Hannah Bronowski – World War II inmate at IG Farben factory – enslaved person in the chemical factory): Wife of Abraham: post World War II Abraham and Hannah devoted their lives to tracking down Nazi war criminals.
HENRY WAGNER: son of William, VP of United States, previously Republican Senator for Utah, member of the John Birch Society.
LAURA MEITNER: sadistic ex-lover of Henry Wagner. an ex-Navy seal, and molecular biologist.
HEINRICH SCHULTZ: William Wagner’s fellow SS officer and long-standing friend, a homosexual, who has been secretly in love with William for the last sixty years.
C. Environment Circle:
FREDERICK STERN:
Asst. Director FBI, Criminal Investigation Division FBI.
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What I learnt from doing this assignment is that having sculpted my theme, I now have the characters to provide scaffolding for supporting the plot.
Character list of REVENGE
Main characters:
Emily Thorne – main character who is going to be seeking revenge on the characters who framed her father (David Clark) for the crime that led to his death.
Conrad Grayson – billionaire stockbroker who helped frame Emily’s father for the crime he didn’t commit. Lover of Lydia Davis
Victoria Grayson, Conrad Grayson’s husband, was involved in the setup for framing Emily’s father. Lover of Emily’s father.
Daniel Grayson is the son of Victoria and Conrad Grayson and is Emily’s lover.
Bill Harman – ex-business partner of Conrad Grayson, part of the frame-up of Emily’s father
Lydia Davis – lover of Conrad Grayson and the arch-enemy of Victoria Grayson
Connected Circle:
David Clark – Emily’s father
Nolan Ross – wealthy friend and helper of Emily and Emily’s benefactor because of her father’s support
Jack Porter, friend, has a crush on her but gets rejected.
Declan Porter – brother of Jack and boyfriend of Charlotte Grayson
Frank Stevens is a bodyguard/investigator who works for Conrad Grayson.
Environment circle:
Cole Porter – bar owner and father of Jack and Declan
Ashley Davenport – assistant to Victoria Grayson
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I learned from this assignment that in the pilot of ‘Revenge’, there is a cocktail of delicious story appetisers served in quarter portions. To be more specific, they are:-
1. Big Picture Hook: In the pilot, we meet a beautiful young woman intent on taking revenge for her father’s betrayal, which occurred when she was a small child. The event led to his being jailed and ultimate death. The story is compelling because she has a dual identity of a sweet carapace covering a ruthless true self. She is an anti-hero with an unwavering commitment to avenging her father. The pilot holds its audience with a compelling premise of justice, betrayal, and revenge, as the title suggests. We are not told why. The central hook is enhanced by the underling taking on the wealthy and powerful elite of the Hamptons. It gives an intriguing mix of suspense and drama and the satisfying notion of the underdog challenging the status of the affluent class. It is a story of Samson taking on Goliath.
2. Amazing and Intriguing Character: In the present, we meet characters involved in her father’s past and gain insight using flashbacks as to their role in the conspiracy that created her father’s downfall. The information is given sparingly, like pieces of a jigsaw being pulled together, and a picture slowly emerges of what has engendered her anger and desire for revenge. We become increasingly intrigued as she begins to act out her plan. Our interest is maintained and heightened as we are progressively pulled further and further into the story.
3. Empathy / Distress: In several scenes, we witness her suffering as a child, where she changes from having an idyllic childhood to becoming a jailed juvenile delinquent. We sense her pain and empathise with her trauma.
4. Layers / Open Loops: By judiciously only slowly releasing the reveals so that each new piece of information merely begets a further question, the audience is constantly left with open loops that engender even more devotion to seeing the whole series.
5. Inviting Obsession: By the end of the pilot, the audience develops a strong emotional attachment to the underdog protagonist, which transfixes us to her journey. A complex web of relationships bound into non-linear storytelling puzzles the audience and compels them to anxiously await a positive outcome.
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Stuart Ungar
I have written three scripts.
I hope to enhance my writing skills to give the reader/viewer a memorable emotional journey.
Following a skiing accident many years ago, I could not work for many months and wrote an unusual medical thriller. I so enjoyed the experience of seeing it in the bookstores that when I lay down the stethoscope, I promised myself I would write full-time. My project is to sculpt the story into a binge-worthy television series
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Stuart Ungar
I agree to the terms of this release form.
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
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Stuart Ungar
Villain’s Track
What I learnt during this assignment is that having a very tightly focused villain’s plan encapsulates the main thrust of the story and acts as a launchpad for brainstorming and enhancing the narrative drive.
VILLAINS: Wilhelm/Henry Weber: pharmaceutical multibillionaire and the world’s richest man, father of Henry, Vice President.
Heroine: Dr Ruth Snyder: handicapped world-renowned neuroscientist with a photographic memory, twice winner of the Nobel prize, Paralympic gold medal winner, kendo/samurai sabre Grand Master.
WILHELM WEBER BACK STORY: Cologne 1938: SS Uberleutnant Wilhelm Weber lines up the seven-member Snyder family against the cathedral wall and shoots each of them through the neck except for the 10-year-old Abraham. This is watched by SS Uberleutnant Wolfgang Schmidt.
HIT CONTRACTS: Washington DC 2005: Wilhelm’s ‘anonymous’ Caucus, who includes Wolfgang Schmidt, orders assassination of a prepared list of virologists and molecular biochemists. The Director of the Centre for Disease Control to be pressured by threatening his family. He would be useful to slow pursuit of the epidemic. Wolfgang enquires of Laura that they have their prion expert cooperating. She shows them a video of his kidnapped family.
GATHERING STORM: FBI investigating murders by a serial killer using Ruth’s Quantum Computer Neuro-scientific Rosetta Synaptic Transmission Algorithm to extract memories contained in the brains of the corpses. DR SVEN LUNDQUIST, 49, Ruth’s ex-husband, father of Deborah, arrives and gives Deborah a birthday present and tells her to keep it safe. Watching the corpses’ extracted memory videos Ruth is shocked that are all members of her top-secret Biological Warfare Defence Committee. Ruth is told very likely she is next on the list and given FBI protection.
BREEDING GROUND: Dr Sarah Snyder, Ruth’s twin sister, Centre for Disease Control epidemiologist investigates Florida yellow fever outbreak near the Everglades. Under Sarah’s guidance, miniature drone films inside a remote Everglades long hut where victims suffering from yellow fever are lashed to their beds each of which are enclosed in plastic bubbles containing thousands of mosquitoes. The victims are being used as food sources for the mosquitoes. Sarah is captured, tied to a bed, and used similarly. The mosquitoes are harvested, the hut is set on fire. Ruth views the drone recording and sees her sister die. Ruth vows revenge.
ONSLAUGHT: Ruth walking from her car, holding Debbie’s hand, trips, and they both fall to the ground. A few feet in front of them a woman falls onto them as her head explodes and they are covered in blood and brain tissue.
PHASE ONE: Wilhelm calls four-star army General Marshall Dorfman, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, whilst lying in his intensive care postsurgical bed at Walter Reed Hospital and tells him to attend an urgent meeting. The General orders a team of nurses and doctors to transport him by helicopter to Wilhelm’s office on his Boeing 767. Doctor Laura Meitner, entomologist, Director of Everglades Camp, lands in her helicopter on the tarmac next to the 767. Dorfman tells them that is 6 sabotage teams are ready and can lift off instantly. They agree to activate them immediately as well as release the infected mosquitoes. Twenty main cities in the southern United States are deluged with infected mosquitoes causing a severe and widespread epidemic of yellow fever. Six vaccine factories in the USA and abroad are destroyed. A “gas leak” explosion devastates the hospital containing some yellow fever victims in Florida by the accidental early release of infected mosquitoes. Newswires deny the outbreak of yellow fever in Florida.
RAMPANT EPIDEMIC: Laura Meitner supervises the distribution of the infected mosquitoes. She orders a hit team to go to Ruth’s home.
EARLY LIFE ENCOUNTER: Ruth and Abraham at a reception in the White House for the new crop of Nobel winners. Abraham is introduced to Wilhelm, recognises him as the executioner of his family and faints. Wilhelm orders a background check on Abe. Ruth takes Abraham home. Ruth suspicious as she arrives home. Takes down decorative Japanese sword and successfully fights team.
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM MEETING: General Dorfman from his Walter Reed bed attends meeting remotely. Dorfman attempts to get Ruth excluded from the meeting. Ruth demonstrates her superiority. VP proposes vaccination. Ruth attempts to veto this, but it is passed by the committee. Congress, their families, the executive branch of government together with this committee, and the mission important personnel at the Pentagon will be first for immunisation.
WILHELM’S PLAN: a totally owned subsidiary of his pharmaceutical company has the only supply of vaccines. It is laced with a prion. Within a few weeks, the prion induces progeria – rapidly advancing and incurable degenerative diseases of old age. Ruth diagnoses progeria on herself and Deborah All of both Houses of Congress develop heart attacks, strokes, and dementia. Hospitals are overwhelmed with these illnesses.
MARTIAL LAW: The President has a stroke. Under the 25th amendment, Henry Wagner becomes President, signs the 22 executive orders under the FEMA acts and declares martial law with no sunset clause. Henry activates the FEMA camps and has leading liberal and left-wing political leaders and their families interned without exterior communication. Wagner father and son are in complete control of the USA.
THE DISAPPEARING: all opposition groups are rounded up and sent to the camps.
RUTH’S AGEING: Ruth she and Deborah have a very limited lifespan. Abraham visits and overhears a discussion re-progeria, the vaccine and the Wagner plan. Abe is appalled when he sees Deborah looking like a miniature 80-year-old. Ruth realises it is happening to all vaccine recipients.
MAJOR SETBACK: the progeria causes Ruth to keel over with acute angina and is taken to the ER. Ruth has urgent coronary angiography and stent insertion leaves her sickbed and goes with Winston to find Abe. Winston finds Abe at the Wagner Mansion. Abe has shot William Wagner, but before Wagner dies he shoots Abe severely wounding him.
LOOSE ENDS: Henry Wagner orders Laura to arrange a hit on Abe. Laura tells him she must tie up some loose ends, especially Lundqvist.
CLIMAX: Lundqvist, is attacked in his lab and badly beaten up. Winston and Ruth arrive and save him from being killed. He confesses he was responsible under extreme duress for lacing the vaccine with something provided by Laura because they held his wife and son hostage. To act as an antidote, he had created a monoclonal antibody to bind the prion details of which were in the birthday present he had given Deborah. Laura arrives and has overheard the monoclonal antibody revelation. There is a fight, with Ruth using her kendo skills to beat up Laura and her Secret Service agent. Ruth analyses William Wagner’s brain. An attempt is made to kill Abe in his hospital room which Ruth thwarts. Ruth shows Abe the video of Wagner as a young man when he was a SS Obersturmbahnfuhrer. Abe’s whole family were lined up against the wall of a Cathedral and executed with each of them being shot in the neck. Wagner kills the baby held in the boy’s arms her blood splattering across the boy’s face. Wagner is about to do the same to Abe when the cathedral bells chime and Wagner calls to Wolfgang they must go and attend mass. Abe kisses the picture of his little sister, saying “I still love you, Esther.” Abe begs Ruth for forgiveness, but he was afraid that if he dared show love it would be a death sentence for her – everyone he had ever dared to love would be killed.
AFTERMATH: Ruth watched by Lundqvist, is injecting into Debbie with the monoclonal antibody and we see her begin to return to her former self. Ruth and Winston exposed to the media the Wagner conspiracy. Abe recovers and there is healing between Ruth and her father.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Stuart Ungar.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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Stuart Ungar
Writing Killer Action Movies
Lesson 3:
What I learnt from this assignment is that to be successful a narrative drive is composed of a strong empathy with my handicapped heroine combined with her needing to overcome a seemingly impossible task.
A: Ruth Snyder: a world-renowned, but handicapped neuroscientist, twice winner of the Nobel prize and Paralympic gold medallist is severely distressed, enraged and bent on revenge for the murder of her twin sister.
B: Alone Ruth takes on the private army of Wilhelm Weber, the world’s richest man and his son Henry, Vice President of the USA
C: Internal Motivation: On learning of her twin sister’s murder Ruth wants revenge.
C: External Motivation: Ruth realises herself and her daughter, Deborah, are next to die unless she defeats the father and son team.
D: Ruth is subject to multiple assassination attempts from both the CIA as well as the VP’s hitmen.
Clear Mission: To understand why her sister was murdered and punish the perpetrators.
Motivation: On her sister’s murder Ruth sees the pain in her father Abraham’s eyes, but does not understand fully until she learns of Wilhelm Weber’s role in Abraham’s early life.
Inciting Incident: The Weber’s murder of Ruth’s sister Sarah.
First Action: Ruth, when studying the drone video showing Sarah’s death, misses a vital clue
Obstacle: Ruth by sheer chance narrowly escapes being shot by a sniper
Escalation: Six-man hit team take Deborah hostage
Overwhelming Odds: Ruth uses her kendo/samurai sword skills and saves Deborah
New Plan: Entrap Wilhelm’s Chief of Staff, torture him to reveal Weber’s gameplan
Full out Attack: Ruth fights her way into the VP’s residence, tortures the VP and gets a confession.
Success: Ruth thwarts the illness that has enveloped Congress. Ruth reunites with her husband.
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Writing Killer Action Movies: Answers Lesson 2
Stuart Ungar
Hero: Ruth Snyder Villains: Wilhelm and Henry Weber
I learned doing this assignment that a narrative can always be significantly elevated if the changes are compatible with the story’s logic.
Concept: A neuroscientist seeks revenge for her twin sister’s murder by the world’s richest man. She discovers and subverts his plan to shred the Constitution.
Hero Morally Right: She fights to save herself, her daughter, and her country from an implacable tyrant.
Villain Morally Wrong: Megalomaniac multibillionaire wishes to take over the Presidency and become a dictator
Heroine: Ruth Snyder: A brilliant neuroscientist with hidden skills
A. Unique Skill Set: Neuroscientist, who can extract memories from both living and dead brains, photographic memory, kendo, and samurai sword Grand Master,
B. Motivation: the heroine fights to save herself and her daughter from dying and her country from tyranny.
C. Wound: ill-understood estrangement from the love of her father and her husband.
Villain: Wilhelm (the world’s richest man) and his son Henry Weber, the Vice President
A. Unbeatable: enormous resources with their private army and Machiavellian skills
B. Plan/Goal: destroy the federal government and make his son President
C. What they lose if Hero survives: their fortune and their freedom
Impossible Mission: Ruth must stop the destruction of Congress and the abolition of the Constitution
A. Puts Heroine in Action: stop the covert biological attack, find its source, and destroy its originators
B. Demands They Go Beyond Their Best: Ruth’s anger forces her to transcend her physical fears
C. Destroy the Villain: Ruth entraps the Webers.
Answers:
B. Motivation: the heroine fights to save herself, her daughter and her country from tyranny.
What if it becomes: –
Ruth realises she and her daughter and all members of Congress are going to die. She needs to take extreme measures to prevent a catastrophe.
C. Wound: ill-understood estrangement from her father and her husband
What if it becomes: –
What if Ruth was able to watch her father, age eleven, witness his parents, his four brothers murdered, as well as his baby sister shot through the head whilst nestling in his arms
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Stuart Ungar
High Concept: A brilliant neuroscientist realises that she must defeat the world’s richest man to save herself and her country from tyranny.
Conventions:
Highly Skilled Hero: A disabled Nobel laureate neuroscientist with a photographic memory
Mission: Initially, in trying to find her twin sister’s murderer, she becomes entangled in the antagonist’s plans to overturn the federal government.
Demand for Action: Her intense need to thwart her implacable antagonist’s intention to shred the Constitution makes her transcend her abilities to foil multiple assassination attempts.
Antagonist: the world’s richest man’s megalomaniac intent -
Stuart Ungar
Hi everyone – I am a retired Internist who has always been fascinated by people and their stories. After all, we are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. When I was a newly qualified physician, I went on a skiing holiday and did a pirouette on a fixed right foot. My binding did not give. Consequently, I had a spiral fracture of my tibia, could not work and was in a toe to hip plaster for a long time. I read Michael Crichton’s first book, The Andromeda Strain, enjoyed it enormously, wrote my own medical thriller, got it published and promised myself when I retired, I would pick up the pen once again.
I have written a couple of scripts, but want to up my game.
The stories that interest me involve taking my medical database, looking at it differently, expanding the horizons of my imagination and creating a compelling medical fiction story. -
Stuart Ungar
I agree to the terms of this release form.
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.