[Henry Fox FOX]

Emma Served Me The Finger – EROTIC THRILLER, COMEDY

What I learned: Get creative with how you introduce a character!

1. Character Name: Joe (lead)

Role in the story: Lead, Boyfriend of Emma’s

Core Character Traits: Nurturing, Restrained, Unguarded, Avoidant

Beginning: Joe is seen spying on Emma’s home. Presumed creepy.

Middle: Joe is trapped by his own surprise and Emma keeps him there. Presumed victim.

End: Joe is tricked and falls for Emma’s appearing decency. Presumed fool.

Broad Strokes: Joe starts by spying on Emma’s. We learn that he’s her boyfriend and we are supposed to fall for him after he mentions that he’s setting up a surprise. He does all this hard work while she’s away, ignoring the signs that he’s in danger. Then he stumbles into the surprise. He plays it off when Emma starts asking him about it. After mistaking his efforts as successful, he gets trapped and eaten by Emma. He wakes up and again falls for it.

Changes: I think I need more dialogue of Joe talking about what he thinks of Emma before the surprise. It also needs to be more clear that he’s fallen for Emma’s act, thinking he’s done better than he has.

2. Character Name: Emma (lead)

Role in the story: Lead, Girlfriend of Joe’s

Core Character Traits: Manipulation, Sadistic, Liability for others, Indebted

<font face=”inherit”>Beginning: E</font>mma<font face=”inherit”> is hyped up. Presumed idealistic.</font>

Middle: After the bombshell and then we see her trying to squeeze the truth out using her trickery. Presumed villain/victim.

End: Emma disarms Joe before giving him his own surprise. Presumed villain we want to see succeed.

Broad Strokes: Emma arrives home and is shocked by Joe’s surprise. She realizes he knows about the body and then teases him. She gives up, thinking she’s looking too much into it but then is reminded and continues her pursuit. Realizing that he knows she kills him. Then Joe wakes up. Things appear normal. He and Emma talk and then he realizes that he blabbed about knowing in his sleep.

Changes: Emma needs to mention that Joe talked in his sleep. She also needs to more clearly give up her pursuit until he reveals that he knows when she eats.

3. Character Name: Jennifer

Role in the story:non-lead, friend of Emma’s, helps Joe set up his plan

Core Character Traits: Friendly, Teasing with others, Indecisive, Reserved

<font face=”inherit”>Beginning: Jennifer is getting ready </font>for<font face=”inherit”> the concert. Indecisive. Needs Emma’s help.</font>

Middle: Jennifer helps Joe with his plan by calling and giving heads up. Excited.

End: Jennifer takes on a mentorship like role to help Joe.

Broad Strokes: Only in about 5 minutes of the film, most of it VoiceOver.

Changes: I need to give Jennifer a bit more to do if I want her to have more impact in the story. Although I’m not sure I need to change that about her. Her dialogue is weak.

[Henry Fox FOX]

Emma Served Me the Finger – Henry Fox

Logline: Emma Served Me the Finger is an erotic thriller comedy about a naively optimistic boyfriend who sneaks into his girlfriends home to set up a surprise until he he discovers a skeleton in her closet which not only threatens their evening but also their relationship entirely.

What I learned doing this assignment is that sometimes your characters can actually have even more depth than initially realized.

1. Character Name: Joe (lead)

Role in the story: Lead, Boyfriend of Emma’s

Core Character Traits: Nurturing, Restrained, Unguarded, Avoidant

Character Subtext Logline: Joe sets up this romantic dinner so he can have intimacy with Emma

His mission: To knock Emma’s guard down so they can be intimate

Want: To make Emma happy Need: To feel like he is wanted for who he is (aka Happy)

2. Character Name: Emma (lead)

Role in the story: Lead, Girlfriend of Joe’s

Core Character Traits: Manipulation, Sadistic, Liability for others, Indebted

Character Subtext Logline: Emma teases Joe to see if she needs to “take care” of Joe

Her mission: To knock Joe’s guard down so she can enjoy him cracking from her advances

Want: To break Joe Need: To see if Joe is truly reliable for her

3. Character Name: Jennifer

Role in the story:non-lead, friend of Emma’s, helps Joe set up his plan

Core Character Traits: Friendly, Teasing with others, Indecisive, Reserved

Character Subtext Logline: Jennifer helps Joe so that Emma can have a nice night

Her mission: To distract Emma

Want: To help Joe Need: To help Joe make a good impression on Emma

[Henry Fox FOX]

Emma Served Me The Finger – EROTIC THRILLER, COMEDY

Logline:

Emma Served Me the Finger is an erotic thriller comedy about a naively optimistic boyfriend who sneaks into his girlfriends home to set up a surprise until he he discovers a skeleton in her closet which not only threatens their evening but also their relationship entirely.

What I’ve learned: How effective separating out can make certain elements more clear that need improvement.

1. Opening

Joe waits and reflects on his relationship with Emma before she leaves for a concert.

At first, we are to think that Joe is a stalker, implied more horror/thriller tone.

2. Joe mentions their relationship and his plan.

Joe tells one of Emma’s neighbors that he’s going to have a surprise, anniversary party for his girlfriend Emma.

More rom com tone.

3. Joe breaks into Emma’s place and prepares.

After she leaves, he sneaks into her house and sets up a romantic decorations and a surprise dinner. He accidentally catches a curtain on fire and puts it out after receiving a message that Emma is returning home.

The tone is implied “rom com”.

4. Joe discovers Emma’s secret.

Joe brings a fully cooked turkey to Emma’s bedroom to put in her closet as a nice surprise. After almost dropping the turkey, a dead corpse falls out of her closet.

The tone shifts for the first time where it can be both horror and comedy. It leans more horror.

5. Emma returns home.

Emma returns home. After barely getting by, Joe acts like he has no idea that the corpse is in her closet. Emma – thinking he doesn’t know – thinks his surprise is romantic and goes in for a hug.

It leans more rom com.

6. Emma smells the corpse on Joe’s body.

After discovering Joe knows her secret, Emma teases and taunts him. She forces him to drink a cocktail that Joe believes in poisoned.

The tone is more horror than comedy. But maintains both.

7. Emma teases Joe.

Emma flashes Joe as she puts on some music. Then she implies that she is both turned on by him and also that she is a cannibal.

The tone is more comedy than horror. But maintains both.

<u style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>8. Joe escapes/dinner.

Joe escapes Emma’s advance. But Emma implies that she’ll chase after Joe. They eat dinner. As they eat dinner, Emma plays with her food.

The tone shifts from horror to comedy as the make their way through dinner.

9. Emma spills wine as she dances for Joe.

Emma spills wine on the table. It looks like blood stain. Then Emma takes Joe into the living room. There, Emma dances an attempted erotic dance.

The previous comedic tone gets cut by the implied danger of the spill. As Emma performs her seductress dance, the tone edges from horror to comedy.

10. Joe fails to escape.

Joe tries to escape but Emma collapses into him. To distract her, Joe mentions he has boardgames. Emma suggest operation.

The previous comedic tone edges from comedy to horror.

11. Emma test Joe.

Emma mentions that Joe knows her secret before mentioning that everyone’s got skeletons in their closet. Then she mentions how Joe is the only man to ever make her feel safe and how she wants to protect his soul.

The previous horror tone edges from horror to romantic/sentimental. This scene is the first scene where comedy isn’t involved.

12. Emma goes in.

Joe falls for Emma’s trap. He breaks his guard down after it’s implied that Emma wouldn’t hurt him. Then she slips off her dress.

The previous romantic/sentimental tone turns horror. There is also implied comedy in seeing Joe falling for her trap.

13. Emma dismembers Joe.

Joe gets knocked out by Emma. Joe wakes up in Emma’s bed, tied down. Emma implies that she use torture tools on Joe before turning on a goofy song and performing a teasing dance. Then she rips his eyeballs out.

The scene tonally starts in horror, then goes back to comedy before sharply turning back into horror.

14. Joe wakes up.

Joe wakes up in Emma’s home. He enters to see her eating his dead corpse. Then she grinds the floor as bananas fall from the ceiling.

The last scenes horror lingers until the bananas fall from the ceiling, shifting the scene quickly from horror to comedy.

15. Joe wakes up again.

Again in Emma’s home. But this time, the dead corpse of Emma is on top of him.

The comedy of the last scene gets cut by this one.

16. Joe wakes up again again.

Joe wakes up one more time. He checks her closet for a corpse. Nothing. He enters to see her cooking. He gets changed into new clothes and then they have dinner.

The horror of the last scene eases away into this scene to a comedy.

17. Joe wakes up again.

As Joe eats dinner, and he and Emma have a silly conversation. Things seem to return to normal. Until goes to take a bite of sausage and discovers that the sausage is actually the finger of the corpse he found earlier. Joe screams. Emma laughs and plays with her food.

Coming from the sharp tone of horror, the last scene lingers on and maintains the comedy until Joe discovers the finger. Once he does, it sharply gets cut by horror before Emma plays with her food, again cutting the horror with comedy.

Issues to fix: For me, this piece is really going to thrive if tonally, it’s steadily hopping back and forth between two polar opposite genres. Beats 9-11 I think need some improvement in keeping the tension present. I also feel like I could risk loosing the audience from exhaustion if these beats go on for too long.

[Henry Fox FOX]

Emma Served Me The Finger – EROTIC THRILLER, COMEDY

Logline:

Emma Served Me the Finger is an erotic thriller comedy about a naively optimistic boyfriend who sneaks into his girlfriends home to set up a surprise until he he discovers a skeleton in her closet which not only threatens their evening but also their relationship entirely.

Main Conflict: Joe tries to escape from his surprise dinner while Emma tries to keep Joe close to see if she needs to kill him for discovering her dirty little secret.

1. Opening

Joe waits and reflects on his relationship with Emma before she leaves for a concert. After she leaves, he sneaks into her house and sets up a romantic decorations and a surprise dinner. He accidentally catches a curtain on fire and puts it out after he learns that Emma is returning home. <div>

<div>

2. Inciting Incident Pg. 20 :

Joe tells one of Emma’s neighbors that he’s going to have a surprise, anniversary party for his girlfriend Emma.

3. By page 10, you should know what the movie is about:

Joe has prepared a romantic surprise for his girlfriend. It’s implied that when she gets home, they’ll enjoy their romantic dinner and then have sex.

4. First Turning point at the end of first Act.

Joe brings a fully cooked turkey to Emma’s bedroom to put in her closet as a nice surprise. After almost dropping the turkey, a dead corpse falls out of her closet.

5. Midpoint

After returning home and falling for Joe’s surprise, Emma goes in for a hug and smells the dead corpse on Joe’s jacket. Seeing Joe trying to escape, Emma seduces, teases and torments Joe in an attempt to crack him to see if he knows about the corpse in her closet and threatens to turn Joe into the next one if he indicates he does.

6. Second Turning point at the end of second Act.

After discovering Joe knows her secret, Emma knocks Joe out and ties him to her bed. Then she teases and taunts him, getting sexually excited at his fear before dismembering him.

7. Crisis

Joe wakes up, realizing that everything he experienced was a dream. He enters into Emma’s home and sees the sight of her eating his now dead corpse. As she teases him with sex, a mountain of bananas fall from the ceiling.

8. Climax

Joe wakes up in Emma’s bedroom, again. Joe goes into the house and sees Emma cooking a meal. Emma ask about his dreams, saying that he was talking to himself a lot. Emma gives Joe a kiss and then remarks that he smells bad. Joe showers and then has dinner with Emma as he tells about everything that he dreamed.

9. Resolution

As Joe and Emma tease Joe about his dream, Joe goes in to take a bite of a sausage. He notices something sticking out of it. As Joe examines it, he realizes that the “sausage” is actually the finger of the corpse he found before. As Joe screams at the thought, Emma laughs at him as she chews on her own sausage.

</div></div>

[Henry Fox FOX]

Henry Fox Logline & One Page:

What I learned from this lesson?

How and when you edit is more important than what you edit.

LOGLINE: Emma Served Me The Finger – EROTIC THRILLER, COMEDY

Emma Served Me the Finger is an erotic thriller comedy about a naively optimistic boyfriend who sneaks into his girlfriends home to set up a surprise until he he discovers a skeleton in her closet which not only threatens their evening but also their relationship entirely.

ONE PAGE: Emma Served Me The Finger – EROTIC THRILLER, COMEDY

Joe is a typical college student romantic guy. Emma is his seemingly normal girlfriend. It’s the night before their anniversary. Joe hires Emma’s friend Jennifer to take out to a concert so Joe can sneak into Emma’s house and set up a romantic dinner. He’s even cooking!

After the sun sets and she’s ready, Joe gets the call from Jennifer. They are returning back to Emma’s home. Joe finishes getting ready and takes his fully cooked turkey into Emma’s bedroom to hide in her closet.

Suddenly, a dead corpse falls out of the closet. Joe – in shock – realizes that his girlfriend stores a corpse in her closet. Then Joe hears Emma opening the door.

She’s returned home.

The evidence is everywhere. Joe can’t escape easily. He hides the turkey and quickly escapes suspicion by masking himself in the moment of Emma’s surprise.

Emma – at first – is thrilled. “You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.” Then in a moment of bliss, she goes in to hug Joe, smelling the corpse on his jacket. The game that she’s playing, now has changed. Realizing that Joe’s casually escaping, Emma will have to murder him and plays horny and hungry in order to keep Joe close.

Joe tries to play it casual and Emma tries to tease him to death. Joe tries to deny he knows about the corpse. Emma tries to prove otherwise. After a nice romantic talk on the sofa over soft music, a scrumptious meal and a seducing dance show, Joe falls too far into Emma’s trap and is knocked unconscious.

Reawakening, Joe is tied to Emma’s bed. She tells him that she’s done this before. She teases him and then tells him she’s going to enjoy eating him before she rips his eye balls out.

Suddenly Joe wakes up in Emma’s bed again. Panicked and disorientated, he looks into the closet. No corpse. He searches the house and enters to see Emma eating a corpse in the dining room. She turns to him and begs him to release her as a pile of bananas land on the floor. Joe is shocked.

Then Joe wakes up. Yet again on Emma’s bed. It’s still dark out. Joe once again enters to see Emma cooking. They hug and kiss. Then they have a dinner that Emma’s made.

And, as they have dinner – after Joe explains his dream – they ask “What happened? Was it all a dream? What kind of experience was that?” Then Joe realizes that Emma meal is a surprise itself. Happy anniversary! As they say.

[Henry Fox FOX]

Hola. Hello. Aloha. How are you doing?

My name is Henry Fox. I’ve written about 17 movie scripts in my life. Most of them I’ve written post covid. I consider myself a filmmaker first and I’d like to be able to take my scripts and get them in production as both a writer/director. I’m hoping to be able to learn all of the editing/rewriting techniques to help eventually get my scripts ready so they can get into production.

I also went to film school and am hoping that my knowledge of writing/directing/producing gets as good as I can get it (so I’ll always be learning.)

Outside of films I enjoy lucha libre wrestling, tiki bars and cooking.

Cheers!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  Henry Fox FOX.

[Henry Fox FOX]

Henry Fox

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.

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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.

[Henry Fox FOX]

Thank you. The whole thing was pretty wild in terms of how it came together. Do you want to be script partners?