#vca screenwriting

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The set-up/inciting incident runs until “What’s it called?” - it’s a bit long, but hope ya droogs like it. 

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Industry Perspectives: Week 8

Set-up:

We are introduced to twelve-year-old Norah who lives with her divorced father in a suburban down in mid-west USA. Her father has recently acquired a new girlfriend, a veterinarian, and Norah is less than pleased about it. Her wound is abandonment. Her mother left her at a young age, and since then she has struggled to understand healthy relationships. 

Inciting Incident:

Norah dissects a frog at school. She takes the task very seriously, and executes the dissection with precision and intelligence. 

Protagonist’s action taken in response to Inciting Incident

On her way home from school, Norah kills a real frog. Over time, Norah goes on a murder spree, killing her neighbours pets. She despises her dad’s veterinarian girlfriend so much so that she enjoys bringing pain to the very things which the girlfriend tries to heal. Norah figures that if she kills all the neighbourhood pets, the girlfriend will have no clients, and be forced to relocate. 

Obstacle #1 encountered in the course of taking action

A boy from school sees Norah killing a dog. Norah has a crush on this boy, and she is embarrassed to be found in a vulnerable situation. 

Protagonist’s response to Obstacle:

Norah confides in him, and he understands her. He decides to help her kill more animals, and they begin working as a team. Their friendship blossoms and for once Norah understands what it feels like to have a friend. She doesn’t feel so alone anymore. 

Obstacle #2 encountered in the course of taking action (if appropriate):

A tornado rips through the town. The tornado passes directly through Norah’s property, lifting the loose soil off the hundreds of dead animal carcasses. The dead animals go swirling through the air, and scatter around the suburban town to be found by their heartbroken owners. 

Protagonist’s response to Obstacle

In panic, Norah blames the murders on the girlfriend. The whole town is aware that the animals originated from Norah’s backyard, and so she blames it on the girlfriend who had moved in with them. Since Norah is young and has a ‘good girl’ reputation, the town believes her accusation.  Story ending – Reward or Reversal? And why?

Reward. In investigating the girlfriend, the police discover that she has been running an illegal fur selling business. Thus, she assumed to be guilty of the pet murders and Norah gets off the hook. Norah’s wound of abandonment has been healed thanks to her new friend who she had made along the way. 

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Celtx assured me that this was one page long. Fight me.

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Plot Details

Week 7

Claire Cormack loves her son Joe. But she worries there’s something he’s not telling her, and her husband. She hears of a new way to track location through her son’s phone. One Saturday night, she follows him to a house at the other end of town, and sees her son undress a boy, who falls down like a ragdoll. She finds out her suspicions were right to be raised, but can’t bring herself to admit what she knows.

Week 8

Set-up: Claire is out walking her dog at night — the hours after dinner — and begins to look into the windows of houses. An empty lounge room, a kid in his bedroom, a couple talking in the kitchen. She returns home, her husband Pete is cleaning up after dinner. They begin to discuss Joe, their son.

Inciting Incident: A suggestion from a friend to try a new tracking app begins to sway Claire. Something is wrong with Joe, despite his assurances. All it requires is Joe’s phone to accept the location request.

Protagonist’s action taken in response to Inciting Incident: Claire says goodnight to Joe, before waiting up. She waits till he’s offline, and then enters his room. She needs to accept her request — but first must figure out his passcode, while he stirs in bed.

Obstacle #1 encountered in the course of taking action: She succeeds, but is full of doubt when the weekend arrives, and Joe heads to his mate’s party. She has to lie to Pete and say she is returning to the office to retrieve something, while she instead drives out to the house in question.

Protagonist’s response to Obstacle: After making it to the house on the other side of town, she finds no party. She sits in her car, trying to see into the house.

Obstacle #2 encountered in the course of taking action (if appropriate): The windows are darkened, like the house is empty. There is nothing to see from inside the car.  

Protagonist’s response to Obstacle: So Claire exits the car. Cautiously walks across the street. Then, suddenly, a light switches on upstairs. She tries to stay in the dark, out of the street lamp glow. What she can see is confusing, soundless: Joe with another boy. They’re close, but it’s not loving. The other boy is limp in his arms, like a ragdoll. Joe starts to take of his shirt. And they disappear from view.

Story ending – Reward or Reversal? And why?: Claire had got what she wanted — she knows what’s been troubling Joe. But she also knows what he’s done. Late at night, as Joe sleeps, she deletes the app. And she takes the dog for a walk. Again, looking into the windows. Not obsessively. But she slows at one house. A woman is standing with her back to a second story window. There’s something odd in that image. Even more so when she turns around and sees Claire straight up. This acts as a reversal: Claire is confronted by the gaze back for the first time, just as she was confronted by her son’s actions after she wanted to find out what he was up to.

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Art Inspirations Task

Inspired by “All Night Long” (1962) by Michael Andrews.

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Matilda

Matilda Dorman was obsessed with true crime. She had stayed at the Cecil Hotel in LA, where Elisa Lam stayed, and Richard Ramirez had hid out between killings. She had been to Port Arthur. She had recently visited Utoya in Norway, where those poor kids were shot on that island. She had a whole East Coast tour planned. People often got the wrong end of the stick when she admitted it was her passion. They thought crime was her passion and that didn’t exactly stick with her career as a police officer. What was the point of staying in dodgy motels where some people were killed twenty years ago when your day job involves a contemporary remake of the same catastrophes? She’d shrug when they asked about it and say it just interested her and that was all there was to it. She met her wife on a tour around the Book Depository in Dallas. They had both bought commemorative 50th anniversary JFK bobble-heads, and they were the only ones in the store that had found them funny. They sit together on the mantelpiece in their inner city flat, and Matilda could not be happier.  

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Protagonist Flawed Beliefs & Thematic Statement

Claire Cormack

Flawed Belief: Claire believes that by watching her son without his knowledge, she is ultimately protecting him from harm. If she just keeps monitoring her child, she will be able to protect him; no matter if she crosses the line.

Irrational Fear: With everyone, but with her youngest Joe particularly, she is compensating — caring intensely out of a fear of abandonment that is deeply rooted, and rarely talked about. If she avoids the behaviour that led her mother to leave her, her actions will always be in the best interest. Surely.

Deeply Held Longing: To be truly caring requires an appreciation of when to step back, and give up control.

Which of the Three Classic Ways to Create Empathy might be utilised in creating your protagonist?

Sympathy: Claire is a deeply sympathetic character, whose ultimate compassion and steel is impressive. We understand that her actions are coming from a place of deep love, in response to childhood trauma, and a social media age that makes it easy to monitor strangers, let alone loved ones.

Likability: she is an inherently likable character, whose actions betray her fierce intellect, her tremendous capability to love and to laugh, and her dedication to the ones she loves.

Which of Five Additional Ways to Strengthen Empathy might be drawn upon in creating your protagonist?

Placed in a familiar setting: Claire is part of a small town, in the process of gentrification, as more ‘city-folk’ like themselves move. It is a contemporary setting, she engages with her son’s social media in order to track his whereabouts. It makes her arc instantly compatible with the audience’s lives, even if they do not live in a semi-rural Australian town.

Familiar flaws and foibles: There is a part of us that likes to watch secretly, to know what we aren’t meant to, to be voyeurs. Her flaw, and the consequent action she takes, is an extreme extension of what many kids experience, and many parents do: when is it best not to know,

Acting as the ‘eyes’ of the audience: We literally view the story through her eyes, we see her son’s actions through her attempts to find out more.

Thematic Statement: Observation in the interest of control makes voyeurs of us all.