18 QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO KNOW THE ANSWERS TO
BEFORE YOU BEGIN WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT OF YOUR SCREENPLAY
1. Title: Golden Harvest
2. Genre: Dark Comedy, Blake Snyder’s Institutionalized
3. Tone: Black humor, like The Hospital or Office Space
4. Logline: While shadowing a prominent doctor at his clinic, a premed student whose first medical school application was rejected must decide whether to report in the doctor’s illegal scheme.
OR
A premed student must decide whether to help an undercover investigative reporter expose the doctor’s illegal scheme.
5. Who is the hero? Missy Callahan
What she wants: To be accepted by a medical school and to help people by becoming a doctor
5. What is in the way: She is asked to ignore evidence that her mentor is harming his patients.
6. Why do we care if the hero succeeds? We want her to make the right (moral) decision, even if it means reducing her chances of being accepted by a medical school.
7. What is the theme? Does working with an unethical boss corrupt all those involved? OR Are boomers grabbing resources that should belong to millennials?
8. Who is the intended audience? Adults
9. Type of movie: Studio
10. What is the inciting incident? Missy is rejected by the medical school that was her backup choice.
11. Act One break: Missy begins shadowing her mentor
12. Midpoint (high point): Missy learns that her mentor harvests estrogen from millennial women with high-risk pregnancies and uses it to treat menopausal symptoms in old and rich boomer women.
13. Act Two break (low point): Missy is fired by her mentor.
14. Resolution: Missy writes a medical school application essay about her experience that results in her acceptance.
15. What is the main character’s inner struggle? Whether to participate in her mentor’s illegal scheme in order to get a good recommendation.
16. What is the main character arc? From loser to winner.
17. Source of conflict: Who/what is the villain? Dr. Simon Smaug, a prominent doctor with a secret, who is true believer in hormone therapy.
18. What is the ticking clock? Missy must reapply for medical school by the application deadline.
BUT REMEMBER
M. Night Shyamalan said he didn’t know
Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense was dead
until ‘about the fifth or sixth draft.’