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Nola Gray

🎬 NOLA GRAY Written by Sean Lawrence FADE IN: EXT. LSU CAMPUS – DAY (2005) Move-in day energy. Heat shimmering. Music blasting. Students swarm across campus. EXT. HILL MEMORIAL LIBRARY – CONTINUOUS DEAN and DAVID TALE (22, identical twins, athletic, distinct energy) linger by a bike rack. David flips through a magazine. Dean studies people. DAVID What’s the one thing you’d change? DEAN Nothing. (beat) Feels like freedom. DAVID That wasn’t the question. DEAN (smiles) Ask me in ten years. A girl passes. David nods. Dean notices. DEAN What’s going on with you? DAVID Nothing. DEAN I’ve got that feeling again. DAVID Not this— DEAN Something’s off. They separate. INT. LIBRARY – DAY Dean studies. Spots JULIE DUBOIS. JULIE Dean? DEAN Julie. They reconnect. LIBRARIAN (V.O.) All classes are canceled due to the approaching hurricane. Silence falls. DEAN Katrina. JULIE Feels different. She hands him her number. INT. LAW CENTER – DAY Dean finds David. DEAN School’s shut down. Storm’s coming. DAVID...

Breaking up Your Story into Beats

  What scenes or story beats do you need to tell this story? You’ll add what you need to the basic framework you already have in your premises. Let’s work from the Jackie Chan Adventures premises we have so you can see how it’s done.   Basic structure of Jackie Chan Adventures: “Queen of the Shadowkhan”  Premise: •Jade, as one of the main characters, is the star of this episode. Her character fl aw is her need for peer acceptance/respect. This fl aw motivates a whole chain of problems for everyone around her. •We go to the end to see what, if anything, she learned. She learns not to succumb to peer pressure, and she realizes that indeed she did not succumb to Shendu’s pressure. (Theme: Respect earned from someone you admire is better than respect from all others!) •Jade’s initial goal is to be cool (have a tattoo) and gain respect. That snowballs as she begins to abuse the respect she gets from the ninjas. •Shendu is the villain who uses Jade in an attempt to destroy Ja...