My findings...

"As far as I know, we do not understand why gravity does what it does, (As in tht cause of it) however we understand, or belive we understand, what its effects are. "

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-100334.html

http://www.universetoday.com/74015/what-causes-gravity/

I may need to expand on this conversation between Wendy and her Councelor, but what she says is fairly accurate.

Changes to third draft

I never had a real reason for Corryn being involved in the experiment other than to do something important, but today I realized that if Corryn's father is constantly making her feel like she's not good enough, it makes sense that she would try to find a way to pass on information so people won't feel stupid. However, not everyone comes to the same conclusions with information they have. This experiment can't work, at least not yet, because everyone's ability to understand what they know is different. Some people study, take tests, and then immediately forget what they studied. Some people don't need to study because learning comes naturally to them. Wendy has an ability to understand the information in her head because she already had a brain that could process information quickly. Whereas, Wyatt's brain did not possess this ability.

Movin' On Up

In my opinion, the second draft is MUCH better than the first. I think it explains the plot better. I think the characters are more well rounded and they have more struggles/changes in the arc. I think Wendy's overall arc from a lost orphan to sacrificing her life for her brother in the end is way more interesting and easy to sympathize with.

Problems I see right away...

Even though Wendy is supposed to be very intelligent, I still want to make her sound a little bit more her age, because right now I have dialogue for her that makes her sound like she's 20 or older, especially in the end.

I think Ardon should be more upset in the end. I can still do more with his character, maybe make him more of a villain type character. I don't think he should be so willing to help in the end or so easily persuaded. He's been trying to get this project going for 9 years, and after that much time, no one would want to give up without a very serious fight, especially now that he has proof it actually works!

I think the conflict between Corryn/Corryn's father/Wendy is solved a little to easily. Wendy sees how her brother's life is ruined, but she forgives Corryn right away. Corryn has been suffering from her father's brutality for years, but she forgives him right away. These conflicts can be stretched a little longer, without boring the audience, to give the characters time to adjust to the situation and make decisions.

More to come...

Script Becomes Paranormal!

Extra Extra, read all about it.

I'm one for taking chances in order to save ideas. The last one wasn't working. I know it. But there is a way to make it better, and that is to go back to the beginning. I had an idea, before I thought of this as a real experiment. I had an idea that Wendy was reincarnated, and she learned about her mother through those memories. Simple, right? In talking to people, that idea got lost and it became what I wrote in the first draft. I've decided for the sake of the script, to delve into the real world of science fiction and play around with paranormal ideas. My father told me a story. Back when Drexel was just the Institute of science and technology, there were scientists there who were studying reincarnation, and they were trying to figure out the science behind it. And now, so does Corryn and Ardon.

Corryn and Ardon know that if they can find a scientific answer from reincarnation, they can find a way to duplicate it manually. Since I don't have much time to save my script, I'm going to keep the old story about Corryn dying, and now she comes back through her daughter, Wendy. Now Wendy helps Ardon try to figure out how it happened. What Wendy is more concerned over, however, is Corryn's life. Wendy almost loses herself and allowing Corryn's past to consume her present, but eventually Wendy has to let go and move on.

Answer to a previous Problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZuwo_YlY0

I actually had it right in the first draft. I can't have Wendy not understand the information now in her head because the memories are attached, and those memories trigger answers. She understands the answers because she can remember how she got them through Corryn's memories.

But this brings us to another problem. I can't have this exist in the world as it is today. I can't have the audience believe that this is taking place now. For there to be some kind of hope that all of this is possible, I need to put the entire story far enough into the future (let's just say "somewhere in the near future" as Gattaga puts it) so the audience can't question what's happening because if it's in the future, who knows? Maybe it is possible if other things are made possible in that future.

Wendy doesn't have to struggle with not understanding because there is so much going on that she needs to deal with. She's not a normal child, she finds out that her mother did an experiment on her when she was a baby, her sister resents her, and a lot of other stuff i added in the new draft.

Deeper Meaning

I'm always trying to find amazing new concepts and incredibly deep meanings to put into my stories, but in taking a step back, I found something. My story I have right now isn't about the science. It isn't about getting the audience to understand memory and how it works.

It's about the love of parents and children. Wendy's mom sacrificed her for an experiment, and now all Wendy wants is to know that she loved her. Nikki is so concerned about Wendy that all Jenn wants to know is that she's loved too. That's the beauty of Jenn's character. She's not just there to be a bitch. She wants attention, because deep down, she's been living with an 8 year old genius and no matter what she does, she feels like she can't get Nikki's attention. AND furthermore, Corryn is even struggling with the parent acceptance. In her mind, her father is a bastard, but all she really wanted was to be loved. They say there's nothing stronger than a parent's love for their child. But what happens when children question that love? How far will they go to make sure it's there?

Corryn is alive in this draft. Wendy finds out in the midpoint, and her drive is to find out why Corryn did what she did. And because Jenn can sympathize with this intense need to find acceptance from a parent, Jenn comes around and helps her. Sadie is gone. Ardon is more so the bad guy who only had one passion...to finish the experiment. Corryn abandoned the experiment when she realized what she did, but Ardon kept going, and now that he has Wendy, there's hope again for him.

Short Film!

Just had an idea during the class to make my short film come together. Small town usually have those summer festivals with small competitions. Every year, all the competitions Eric joins, he wins 2nd place. This year, he gets yet another 2nd place trophy. So he comes up with the idea to lose the rest of the contests. The other townspeople find out, and they start losing. Now Eric is losing at losing. The final contest, Eric really tries to win for that 1st place ribbon. He gets 2nd place. His sister tells him he must have more 2nd place ribbons than anyone in the whole town. Eric has his revelation.

Eric will no longer be 18. This is too old I feel for a boy to be this dedicated to winning at festival games. I'm thinking now 15. He's not interested in driving or going to bars yet, so he still has a drive to win at festival games. I still don't think I want a love interests, even though 15 year old boys are most definitely interested in girls. For me, that's not the point of the story. Yeah, he can flirt with some of the girls in the town. Maybe they root for him to lose. But it's not about the girls. Having a wall of 2nd place ribbons, this is Eric's want: to be the best at something!

Whoa

This is the first time this term that I've felt overwhelmed about this project. I know there is so much good stuff here, but every good idea I have comes with a setback. I'm not discouraged, but I'm accepting the fact that the second draft will still not come close to what I expect of this project. By the third, or even the fourth draft, I believe I will finally see a very small light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Some good news. I had my father read the script (a person who I can trust to tell me the truth, who appreciates sci-fi, and who is capable of giving me advice on the science in the script.) We both concluded that, even though Wendy has all of this information in her head, she would not understand it. It's like when a student studies for a test and crams information into her head, and then forgets it the day after. That is not understanding, that's memorizing. Wendy is in the same situation. She has all of this information crammed into her head that she cannot understand. THIS IS A HUGE STRUGGLE for her. This is why she needs Nikki and Ardon.

I also don't want Ardon to be as nice as he was in the first draft. I want to show his struggles too. After all, when Corryn died, he was on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough, and he knows he needs Wendy's help. If Wendy refuses to help him, wouldn't he grow mad? All these years of trying to find her, and now that he has her and she's not willing to help him, how far would he go to get the answers? AND Ardon may believe that because Wendy has all of Corryn's information in her head, she can make decisions like Corryn used to. But Wendy isn't Corryn, and might also be something Ardon has to deal with. Just because Wendy has this information doesn't mean she would come to the same conclusions as Corryn would.

Lots of ideas and so little time to execute them.

Errors

All spelling errors have been fixed, as there were many of them. Hopefully I caught everything. There are lots of problems with the script and this should not be one of them.

Missed Something

So I can't believe that I set up the exposition for Dark Energy in the very beginning and just didn't use it to explain the rest of the script! That's crazy, right?

Okay, so I did more research on this Dark Energy in the brain and scientists have found that inactivity in the brain is very high. When the brain is active, it only increases 5% from inactivity. This means that when we think our brain is at rest, it's actually still working very hard.

The article I found states: All the substances in the universe we can see and interact with—all this together makes up less than 5% of the universe, with dark energy and dark matter at 74% and 23% respectively. In the same way, all the brain activity we are aware of—conscious thought—makes up about 5% of our total brain activity. Just as background energy in the universe is predominent, so is background energy in our brains. Dark energy is thus a fitting term for this phenomenon.

The middle of the article goes further to asking questions about attention spans. How long do we pay attention before our minds start to wander off? What if the scientist saw 30 seconds ago that your DMN (default mode network) was shutting off your brain’s conscious area, thus telling me that you will lose focus soon—about right now?

These are a lot of questions that may not show up in my script. BUT I think it's important to try and figure out if there needs to be a trigger for Wendy to remember her mother OR...maybe Wendy's so smart that her mind is constantly wandering off. Maybe she gets bored when other people talk, so her mind goes somewhere else. The big question is, how much control does Wendy have on her memories? Yes, she can try to remember the same ways we real people try to remember things. But how about those memories that just pop into our minds? The ones we may not be able to suppress? The ones that are triggered? The ones that aren't?

My Week Off...

Stepping back from my senior project for the week, I'm putting all of my efforts into getting ready to shoot the teaser for a pilot I wrote, "You Could Be Me." The pilot revolves around the life of psychologist Anna Brown, who suffers from chronic bad luck. If a meteor hit the planet, Anna would be the target. She has no control over her own life, so she writes a self-help book titled You Could Be Me to give others hope that even though their lives might be bad, they aren't and will never be as bad as Anna's. Since I'm graduating in June, there won't be enough time to shoot all of it, so the first 4 or 5 minutes will have to do.

I have my film crew, most of my actors (auditions will be in two weeks), waiting on locations, and I'm directing and co-producing along side my amazing boyfriend who was able to make all of this possible. Very exciting!

Science Stuff

I'm going to have to send this script to a few people who know science better than I do. Even though I've been doing a lot of my own research, I'm worried that some things still won't make much sense.

Instead of creating another post for this comment, I'll just add it to this one. My minor characters need a lot of work (in addition to everything else). Nikki, Jenn, Ardon, and especially Sadie don't have enough to their characters. Jenn may be okay for now, and Nikki isn't that crucial of a character to the story, but Ardon needs more than just sitting around in the lab all day and Sadie needs more than just being there for the ride. These characters have a lot of potential, but right now their plot pushes. For the first draft, I was focusing more so on developing Wendy and Corryn's relationship, which I think I did pretty well. And now it's time to dig deeper.

See the Finish Line!

I thought of what I consider to be a great ending to my script (I thought of it a while ago but never blogged about it).

The confrontation has been about Wendy and Corryn the entire time, not Wendy and Jenn. So it makes sense that Wendy would need to confront the antagonist, the reason why Wendy is the way she is, the person she's been wanting to just love her. And since this is sci-fi, Wendy can confront Corryn in her mind and finally be at peace. We'll see how it goes. A scene like this could get very awkward/unbelievable, but if I can do it right, it would be the perfect ending to the script.

Goods and Bads of Directing

I'm taking the directing class now with Professor Kelly and so far it's interesting, but I cringe every time I have to edit the scripts. Cutting out large chunks of script directions just makes me more aware of the fact that this is going to be happening to my scripts. Once it's out of my hands, everyone else has the freedom to throw out and change whatever they want. And all the time I spend imagining what a scene should look like, how the characters should react, where in the script the scene takes place...my vision of the world only means something to one person: me.

Maybe I'll be a director one day...

Thanks Team!

One of my fringe sources sent me this article for my script.

Romantic Breakups Cause Real Pain.

Rejection quite literally hurts — the experience and the memory of getting dumped by a loved one trigger brain regions linked with physical sensations of pain, scientists find.

Why is this significant? Because if Corryn has this disease, and feels the physical pain of it, and Wendy remembers this pain, it could cause Wendy to feel the physical pain as well caused my the memories of the pain Corryn felt. I already added this idea to the script in the second act.

This is why talking helps

I brought up my script idea to my fraternity brother, Chris, and he asked how old Wendy was when she underwent the experiment. I said one or two, very young. I assumed that a baby's ability to take in information was far better at an early age. Turns out, I was right, but for a different reason.

Up until the age of three or four, babies can create multiple synapses in their brains, which allows them to take in and remember much more information. Then as they grow, the ability to create synapses decreases. So if Wendy took in all of this information as a child, she still would have room in her small brain for more information because these synapses would do it. The fact that we still don't know how much brain power we use or what goes on with the rest of it....this could definitely be a working theory.

http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=60790%20

Planning

It's time to reoutline. So much has changed from the original, and to keep myself on track this new beat sheet is crucial. That's the plan for tonight. Tomorrow, the writing continues...

Swing the Bat Often

If anyone reads this blog other than Professor Kaufhold, this may be good advice for you (just read it in my "Buzzmarketing" book while studying for my final).

Swing the Bat Often.

The best "big" ideas don't come in the beginning. In the book, the author gives an example that Henry Kissinger once sent back a paper to his senior writer 5 times with a note, "it can be better" without reading the paper. Kissinger knew that rewrites were needed because it takes time to make anything really good. If you keep throwing out ideas, eventually you'll think of the big one.

Moral of the story, I'm not getting discouraged by my senior project, and no one else should either if they are really putting in the effort. All first drafts are shitty. Take a look at some of the best movie scripts and see how they are different from the films, because they are. Even though this concept is repeated over and over, I still hear from students that they're bummed about their first draft. No matter how bad mine is, I'm still very proud of it, because I know I'm completely out of my comfort zone with this script and that's a good thing for me. Lots of writers are encouraged to write what they know, but nothing is more challenging, more fulfilling, and more FUN than using the imagination.

Minor stuff

Thinking of changing Harvard to Princeton. I want to actually walk on one of these campuses to get a feel for them, and since Princeton is closer, and also has a neuroscience program, it won't be a difficult change to make in the script. It's just hard to write about buildings I've never seen before.

Suggestions?

Even though Wendy is a child prodigy, I'm wondering how mature her speech should be? She is seven-years-old after all. I might need to make her sound younger than she does right now, but it may not be necessary. Thoughts?