#vcascreenwriting2017

·       jed patterson arrives at café in his porche.

·       on phone; snippet of conversation – he will not do a promotional football video with his father; early establishment of fractured relationship.

·       meets friend bel baker inside café

·       two more friends arrive soon after, chase and indicah.

·       all three annoyed at jed for his absence/being bad friend/fame going to head

·       they state he is coming with them for a night volunteering at a soup kitchen.

·       they pile into bel baker’s car but it will not start. no other option but to use jed’s porche to transport vegetables and tins of soup.

·       as they dish out meals to the homeless people, bel unleashes on jed, questioning the changes in him after he started playing league football.

·       interrupted as young woman with bruises comes up to them for food

·       jed particularly rattled about the domestic violence

·       later: bel, jed in storeroom—consider their friendship/relationship

·       jed morose; bel unsolicited tells him he’s not his father.

1.      Minute 40: Dr No’s lair Why does a spider seem like the best method to deal with Bond?

2.      Why is the plotting issue problematic for the story's logic:

The spider scene, and its exposition, is problematic because it is emphasised as being the ‘final straw’ – this ominous creature will deal with Bond and if it does not, the Professor, having failed, will be in fatal trouble with Dr No.

This prompts a question demanding to be asked – how can the last option be the least foolproof? There are too many variables in using a spider to cause Bond’s death, among other illogical aspects.

For example:

-        Who is to say the spider would even crawl the correct way? If it wanders off course slightly, it would be more likely to end up a curtain or under the bed, not on the limited surface area of James Bond.

-        And, largely, if the Professor can get all the way into Bond’s room, undetected, to plant the spider, why would he not just shoot Bond as he lay sleeping?

3.      Propose a viable solution to make the illogical thing logical, without sacrificing any entertainment value, or requiring the whole script to be thrown out the window:

Establish early within the storyline, Bond’s crippling terror of arachnids. That would cultivate a level of intellectual torment, coupled with the threat of physical danger, exacerbating narrative tension. Show No to be purposely playing mind games with Bond.

New character: Jed Patterson

Flawed Belief: if he just keeps himself distant from everybody, he will not be hurt.

Irrational Fear: if he does not avoid serious, intimate relationships, he will damage people the way his father hurt his mother; aka, he will become his father, who was glorified as a handsome, talented athlete but, uncommonly known, domestically violent.

Deeply Held Longing: on some level, his father’s approval because he never had access to it, though he knows he does not actually want it. Ultimately, to be close to people without causing mutual pain.

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

Likability: charismatic, intelligent

High level skills: successful athlete, idolised by the general community as an AFL player.

THIS IS A WORKING PROGRESS. I AM POSTING THIS PURELY BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN BLACKMAILED WITH Official Failure IF I DO NOT.

 george tarver, only known as tarver, thinks the name ‘george’ ages him prematurely by about fifteen years. cisgender male, early twenties; relatively fresh out of high school, and currently a university student. medium-height, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, along with an assortment of other cleverly-hyphenated descriptions. high cheekbones; unusual, green, cat-like eyes. alluring and physically attractive in an enigmatic way. clever, but not loudly; though will flaunt his intelligence ferociously if provoked. an analytical eye, an observer; critiques and evaluates those around him. emotional makeup: kind-hearted when it comes down to it but self-absorbed and arrogant. immensely indifferent to most things around him, especially anything operating outside his bubble of existence. shallow. detached and decidedly unwarm in demeanour.

two parents; two older siblings—a brother and a sister—neither living at home. single, but faintly infamous for numerous ‘flings’; does not appreciate emotional intimacy with lovers. large, close network of friends; liked and somewhat envied by outsiders to his social cliques; perceived as popular because of brusque, distant attitude that promotes the sense, perhaps misguided, of authenticity.

extremely wealthy grandparents and parents. caucasian. apathetic to religion, probably atheist but with an element of agnostic thrown in. still living at home.

goal/want:          to stop

                           to escape

tarver wants to stop his friend scarletta manor’s crazed quest to deliver him an epiphany: an epiphany about his upbringing/class/truth about the world. wants her to stop trying to/thinking he needs to be, saved.

also, wants to escape: the expectations of society on who he is as a person, who he should be because of his lineage and privilege. he almost thinks the homeless have it easier because they have no sense of duty/no compulsion to achieve … but he has to stop himself thinking those kind of thoughts.

tarver has a burning fear that he will not be able to live up to his status. he has no true reason for so desperately needing to prove himself, but an uncle—his father’s brother—committed suicide after being accused of fraud and embezzlement. though he never knew him and was largely unaffected by the death, being about eleven and excluded from the details—subconsciously, tarver possibly fears some manifestation of the same fate: failure.

1987.

A little girl shades her eyes against the sun and stares up at the sand dune. She pouts.

“It’s too high. I don’t want to.”

Without looking back, her parents, half-way up already, call over their shoulders a combination of, “No, it’s not”, and “Hurry up.”

The bottom lip is beginning to tremble. “I can’t.” Her voice is now a whine. “Carry me.”

“We aren’t carrying you, so come now or you won’t get ice-cream,” her mother says.

“And don’t forget your towel and the boogeyboard,” her husband adds.

The little girl grits her teeth, hands on hips, and begins to march up the dune. She grimaces as her bare feet are scalded by the sand.

“The sand is too hot.”

“It’s the same temperature for everyone,” her mother calls back.

  * * *

2017

“Here, put your shoes on or the sand might be too hot on your feet,” the little girl’s mother says urgently.

The child shades her eyes against the sun and stares up at the sand dune. Then she turns to her parents, pouting.

“It’s too high. I don’t want to anyway.”

Two thick beach towels are swathed around her father’s shoulders, and he is holding a large green bucket with a picture of a frog on it, a plastic spade and a boogeyboard. Her mother has two plastic chairs hooked over respective fingers on one hand, and a cricket bat and ball in the other; a towel, too, is around her neck. They make eye contact.

“It’s not too bad,” her mother says. “We will walk up it together.”

“And then we will get ice-cream,” her father adds.

The bottom lip is beginning to tremble. “I can’t.” The girl’s voice is now a whine. “Carry me.”

From under the towels, her dad sighs. “I’ll give you a piggyback.”

His wife sets down the chairs and sports equipment. The little girl grits her teeth, hands on hips, as she waits for her mother to lift her up onto his back.

titled: ‘lake children’

titled: ‘the promise of lasagna’