Isaac Ho's Blog, page 5
September 28, 2012
The Repatriation of Henry Chin featured on The Bawdy Book Blog
September 27, 2012
Trailer – Hell is Full of Strippers
September 8, 2012
Playlist for Hell is Full of Strippers
July 14, 2012
Déjà Vu All Over Again – The Nightingale and Miss Saigon
June 19, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 10 (SPOILERS)
Those who know me, know very few of my stories have happy endings. This one doesn’t either. I sent out query emails to my usual contact list and despite some well wishes from a few, the response was entirely negative: a very polite, “This doesn’t sound like anything we can move on at this time.”
Probably the harshest comment I received was from a non-writing lawyer who said, “If I were your agent, I would have told you not to write this.”
His reasons were lengthy:
No one would produce a $50+ million movie with an Asian American lead.
There is no Asian American actor with enough box office appeal that could star in it.
There is no role for a hot, up and coming actress for the leading man to sleep with.
It’s anti-American.
It’s anti-military.
It’s racist.
My target audience is Asian American men, a demo who doesn’t see movies unless it’s based on a comic book.
The story he said I should have written was this: An average guy (white, obviously) has to choose between saving his hot new girlfriend or his hot ex-wife from an invasion by the Chinese army. They end up in the mountains together where they have a ménage à troi while enemy artillery explodes all around them. If I wanted to make his hot girlfriend Chinese, that was fine. She could make whatever political statement I wanted before she got killed. The movie would end with him rescuing the president.
He swore that was a movie people would pay money to see. Owen Wilson, Clive Owen or Jason Statham could play the lead and draw a large audience. He said that for my own good, I had to start thinking like this.
To be fair, his suggestions for rewrites weren’t too far off from questions I got from other “experts.”
Does Henry have to be Chinese? Tailoring it for an A-list star would make the project more attractive.
Does Elizabeth have to be his daughter? A love story with an up and coming starlet would bring in the female audience.
Could they be pursued by the Chinese Army instead? American audiences have a hard time seeing Americans depicted as the enemy.
Can you write more jokes for Clyde so Chris Tucker, Chris Rock or some other black comedian could play him?
One suggestion for the ending was that Henry rescue the Chinese ambassador who happens to be held hostage by some Neo-Nazi group… you can demonize Nazis without offending anyone. By rescuing the Chinese ambassador, Henry ends the war.
“You can’t be too precious,” he said. “Hollywood wants to make the movies they want to make, not the movies you want to make. You have to do whatever you can to get their movie made. Your original idea about an Asian American guy escaping into the woods with his daughter because they’re accused of being terrorists proves to everyone you’re an amateur who doesn’t know the first thing about Hollywood.”
…and this was coming from a good friend. I don’t want to imagine what he would have said if he hated me.
I had one last recourse. I thought that story would do well in the screenplay contests. I changed the title to The Repatriation of Henry Chin and crossed my fingers.
There was a bit of relief in sending out those applications.
I don’t consider myself a person of terribly high artistic integrity. I love a good popcorn movie as much as anyone else. But I do see a lot of people chasing the same ideas over and over again. I was searching for my own unique voice in material I felt a connection to. I wanted my work to stand out as fresh and different from everything else out there. I imagine many working screenwriters feel the same way and that they begin all their projects with that intention.
Creating an Asian American mythology was important to me. Italian Americans were generally looked down upon until The Godfather made a mafia family mythic heroes… a perception that still exists today.
I always believed that the inclusion of more voices was better than having fewer voices in any discussion. It was very clear to me that diversity, not only of representation, but also of vision and point of view was missing in popular media.
I was encouraged by the critical and popular success of Letters from Iwo Jima, a companion movie to Flags of our Fathers. With an Oscar nomination for Iris Yamashita for best original screenplay I was able to ignore most of the negative backlash by a vocal minority who called the movie anti-American because of its harsh depiction of war and American soldiers.
I wanted to create the Asian American version of the Corleone family. Given the growing anti-Chinese sentiment espoused by our politicians today, I wasn’t sure if that was possible.
After several months, the critiques from the screenplay contests began coming in.
One complained that the protagonist didn’t have enough of an arc to sustain the story. I realized that the review thought Babcock, not Henry was the protagonist. Another said the premise was preposterous because the United States would never arbitrarily imprison its own citizens without cause. Another said that as an action movie, it failed to root itself in anything believable.
I was terribly discouraged. I wondered if my sense of politics and activism outpaced my writing ability. I tried very hard to see what the reviewers saw. Maybe I didn’t have the proper sensibilities to be a working screenwriter.
I did receive some positive feedback. Words like ‘original’ and ‘page turner’ were used to describe the screenplay. But I was cautioned that only the people who didn’t know me would be able to give me the most objective feedback.
I had trouble accepting the idea that the script was poorly written but the screenplay had pretty much run its course.
I stuck Henry in a drawer and moved on to other projects. I would embrace the criticisms I had received and put more plausibility into the worlds I depicted; clear and unambiguous motivations for my characters; and, try to come up with a story hook that was also a good marketing hook.
But in my heart, Henry Chin would simply not die.
And the following year, I had an opportunity to bring him back to life.
June 18, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 9 (SPOILERS)
Today I want to write about three aspects of the final draft of the treatment and how they finally ended up in the screenplay.
Around the midpoint, I separated Henry and Elizabeth.
SWITZER FALLS: A forest ranger comes by and tickets Clyde’s cargo van for not having a nature pass. CLYDE: “I’m here for a day hike.” RANGER: “In wing tips?” Clyde tries to talk himself out of it but now realizes he has to move his cargo van. The ranger leaves and Clyde carries Elizabeth into his cargo van and throws away the ticket.
Clyde hears his cargo van start up. He tries to wrestle control from Elizabeth as she drives off.
SET PIECE: A blinding, scary drive down Route #2 with Clyde and Elizabeth fighting for control. They crash the van.
My reasoning was that finding Elizabeth would provide Henry with a strong objective to get through the end of the story.
Another section involved Babcock and his need to impress Colonel Li.
With Colonel Li in his car, they drive up to Angeles National Forest. BABCOCK: “We’ve legalized discrimination in America. Instead of letting the fittest survive, we give minorities an unfair advantage. That’s not the America I know.” Babcock says that Colonel Li will need someone who can liaison between the repatriots and the Chinese government. COLONEL LI: “Do you think that man is you?” BABCOCK: “Yes, I do.” COLONEL LI: “Capture this man and we’ll see.”
And the last section involved providing a personal motivation for Babcock’s relentless pursuit of Henry and Elizabeth.
Babcock begins his interrogation [of Elizabeth] but it comes across much more like a seduction than interrogation. He’s talked to all of her friends, they don’t seem to know who she really is. But he understand because he’s dated many Japanese, Korean and Chinese girls. The thing they all have in common is that they don’t want to be Asian. She’s almost there. That she already has the best of both worlds.
The first draft of the screenplay took me almost exactly a month to write coming in a very lean 98 pages. With these sections still in place I sent it out to some trusted friends for review.
The reason why I highlighted these sections in particular was because there was a unanimous consensus that they didn’t work.
Either the entire story should be about Henry finding his daughter or escaping with her. By doing half the story of one and the other, there isn’t a complete arc to Henry’s journey. The shift in story is the result of external forces rather than a discovery on his part.
The character of Colonel Li felt redundant. His only function in the story was to prod Babcock into action. If Babcock felt strong enough about pursuing Henry, the story didn’t need Colonel Li. Also, the belief that including Colonel Li in the story necessitated the depiction of an armed combat sequence between the U.S. and China, essentially wiping Henry out of the scope of the story.
Babcock’s yellow fever was comical in a bad way. Elizabeth came across as a typical helpless female victim who needed to be rescued. We had all seen that before, was there a new spin I could put on that.
I ended up taking the advice.
The first step was to excise the character of Colonel Li completely. What ended up happening was his disdain for American became incorporated into Babcock as ambition.
Babcock runs up to Morgan.
BABCOCK
Excuse me Director Morgan.
MORGAN
What do you want, Babcock?
BABCOCK
I want to go on detached assignment to retrieve those two repatriots. It happened on my watch and I feel personally responsible.
Also, it allowed me to lose most of Babcock’s yellow fever and relegate him to the world of asshole boyfriend to Natasha (Emiko in the treatment).
EXT. GLENDALE – RESIDENTIAL STREET – FAUX VICTORIAN -- NIGHT
Babcock knocks on the door. The porch lights come on.
The door opens to reveal NATASHA CHO (20s), lithe, fair skinned with long, straight black hair. She wears a bathrobe.
NATASHA
You don’t know how to respect boundaries.
BABCOCK
I’m working on a new case right now and it’s got me --
NATASHA
Excuse me, do you see a sign on my door that says ‘therapist’?
But to fuel his ambition to catch Henry, Henry’s military background was born.
INT. ICE HEADQUARTERS – MORGAN’S OFFICE – DAY
Morgan sits at his desk. Babcock drops a file folder on his desk. Paper clipped to the file folder is an 8 x 10 photo of Henry when he was in the military, in full dress uniform, flanked by the U.S. flag.
BABCOCK
Corporal Henry Chin, forty seven confirmed kills. A man like this has the skill and the knowledge and we gave it to him.
MORGAN
To do what?
BABCOCK
This man could be the leader of a domestic terrorist cell.
I was very careful about how I modulated his military service. I didn’t want Henry to be a superhero Special Forces operator. He’s an Army grunt who worked hard. While the 82nd Airborne is highly prestigious, it’s not the Green Berets, or the Navy Seals or Delta Force. I didn’t want Henry to be Rambo. I wanted him to be a vet who served in a combat theater like many of our father, uncles and neighbors.
For Henry and Elizabeth’s relationship, I had the white militia group capture them both. It was here that I wanted Henry to reveal his background in the Army to Elizabeth. Most vets I know are stoic about their service. Many didn’t tell their children about it if they were too young to remember. Oftentimes, the children would find out on their own.
HENRY
I served in the 82nd Airborne, U.S. Army.
LYNCH
And I’m Douglas MacArthur.
ELDRIDGE
Wait a second, if you’re lying...
HENRY
Operation Blue Spoon... Panama.
Eldridge eyes Henry for a second.
ELIZABETH
Dad?
ELDRIDGE
Was your father a soldier?
Elizabeth stares dumbfounded.
ELDRIDGE
There’s a special place in Hell for men who lie about serving in the U.S. military.
The turning point in Henry’s relationship with Elizabeth had to be some kind of moment where she realizes the grave danger they’re in and what Henry is willing to do to protect her.
EXT. ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST – BASECAMP – MESS TENT -- NIGHT
A FOLDING PICNIC TABLE and BENCH are in the tent.
Henry sits next to Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH
Dad, you never told me you were in the Army.
HENRY
Yeah... it’s not the easiest thing to talk about.
ELIZABETH
You and Uncle Clyde?
HENRY
We were in the same unit. He saved my life at least a dozen times over. Hopefully, a dozen plus one.
ELIZABETH
Can you get us out of here?
HENRY
These are mad men. Whatever happens, promise me you won’t blame yourself.
Henry ultimately provokes the white militia to torture him to buy time for Clyde to arrive.
Once Henry and Clyde are reunited, I had my moment to articulate the theme.
CLYDE
I put Panama behind me a long time ago. How come you can’t let go?
HENRY
When you and I came back from our three day patrol which ended up being a fourteen day survival mission, I was dehydrated, running a fever.
CLYDE
I remember.
HENRY
At triage, the medics were working on some wounded Panamanians and a newbie told me to wait. You grabbed his face and told him, ‘Treat him now. He’s one of ours.’ That was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like an outsider in my own country.
(beat)
My family’s been in this country eight generations and I’m still treated like a foreigner.
CLYDE
And now we’re terrorists in our own country.
Henry and Clyde start laughing.
And the real reason why Henry went on the run with Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH
Why are the camps so bad? A real answer. Not from a textbook.
CLYDE
Private Darryl Kinoshita was a Yonsei... fourth generation Japanese American serving in our squad. His grandfather served in the 442nd in World War Two and was killed in Italy. Darryl’s father couldn’t handle it and drank himself to death before the age of thirty.
HENRY
Darryl inherited those emotional scars and ate his gun in Panama.
ELIZABETH
You two tell such happy stories.
It was another two months or so for me to incorporate these changes. Henry’s encounter with the white militia had to be deadlier. Clyde’s escape into the forest would lead his pursuers to Henry. Their escape had to be rewritten and I had to reconceive the confrontation between Henry and Babcock.
This was the longest time I’d ever spent working on a screenplay since leaving school. In retrospect, I probably should have spent more time. In class we had 10 weeks, usually less, to crank out a screenplay each quarter. There is very little opportunity to create more than a barebones outline of thinly fleshed out scenes.
A professional screenwriting assignment would provide barely more time except you’ll probably be writing someone else’s idea.
Something was different about Henry Chin. My personal goal was to create an Asian American action hero. I didn’t want to take John Rambo, Indiana Jones, or John McClane and slap an Asian name on him.
I wanted to build him from the ground up so that his Asian American-ness was absolutely required. Without it, what would stop a producer from saying, “Terrific script, this is perfect for Bruce Willis. Let’s just change the name.”
But I also wanted to get this script out into the world.
And then I learned first hand the pitfalls of sending out a script too early.
June 14, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 8 (SPOILERS)
This is true seduction. The day is a circle – morning, afternoon, and night. After a few days I was clearly enjoying the same delusion as the girl on the horse – that I could ride clear around the ring of day, guarded by wind and sun and sea and sand, and be not a moment older.
—E.B. White, The Ring of Time
Everything in this world comes to an end.
—Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
Struggling with the third act is nothing new to me. My early plays had virtually no resolution. Things would get terrible for the characters and then I would simply type “The End.” At a staged reading of one of my early plays, the audience was ready to kill me for failing to write a suitable ending.
I still struggled with my third acts while still in school at UCLA. In a 100 page script, my third acts would typically be less than 10 pages. After graduation, I searched for a third act formula and blogged about it here.
Ultimately, I stuck with the formula that the third act transformation and action were dependent on whatever the Hero’s flaw is as revealed as the reason for his Refusal of the Call in Joseph Campbell-speak.
While it was a useful tool to use as a starting point, it tended to make my scripts highly predictable.
In The 40 Year Old Virgin Andy finally wins Trish’s love by chasing after her on his bicycle to confess his virginity. This moment was set up earlier when he explains to David why he is still a virgin.
ANDY
When I was young, I tried and it didn’t happen. And then I got older and got more and more nervous because it hadn’t happened yet and I got kind of weirded out about it and then it really didn’t happen. And then I don’t know. I just kind of stopped trying.
In The American President, President Shepherd goes on the offensive against his opponent by clearly stating his position and objectives regarding certain specific political issues regardless of what the pollsters say. His earlier political maneuvering had cost him his relationship with Sydney Ellen Wade. This moment was set up earlier when A.J. cautions him about public perception, which Shepherd does take into consideration.
A.J.
The difference is he didn’t have to be the president on television. You’ve said it yourself a million times: if there were a television set in every living room 60 years ago, this country does not elect a man in a wheelchair.
Joan Wilder rescues her sister and Jack Colton from dangerous treasure hunters in Romancing the Stone. Once the map is revealed to be useless, she fights Zolo, sending him to his flamingdeath in the jaws of a crocodile before Jack arrives. This moment was set up earlier when her publisher Gloria tries to dissuade her from going to Colombia and lists the reasons why.
GLORIA
Listen to me, you get bus sick, sea sick, plane sick, train sick, you practically puke on the escalator at Bloomingdale’s for God’s sake... Joanie, please don’t go. You’re not up to this Joan, and you know it.
I wanted something more complex, more ambiguous for Henry. I made a list of movies and their third act transformations.
Enemy of the State
After the end of act two conflict, the NSA figures out who jar is. Jar’s background revealed from both sides. New strategy. Fight only battles you know you can win. New tactic (different from the original objective).
Traitor
Don Cheadle’s handler is dead and the terrorists believe him to be a risk until the NSA puts him on the most wanted list. With their trust restored, Cheadle gets a message out revealing a mole within the NSA (new objective for enemy).
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones succeeds in retrieving the Ark from the Nazis. However, during their escape, the Nazis catch Marion and Jones must now rescue her before they return to Berlin. Jones is forced to choose between the Ark and Marion and chooses the Ark and is captured. The Nazis open the Ark and are killed but Jones survives because he respects the religion.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
John and Jane must separate or they will be assassinated easily. So they decide to deliver something their bosses want more than them to buy their own freedom.
Lethal Weapon
Murtaugh’s daughter is kidnapped in exchange for his information of what Hostetler said. Riggs plays dead. They go on the offensive to retrieve her, Murtaugh is ready to trust Riggs and kill all the bad guys.
Donnie Brasco
After cleaning up after an assassination, Donnie must kill a mobster’s son or else betray Lefty, condemning Lefty to death.
Starship Troopers
After the death of Diz, Rico leads an assault on the Bug Brain as their new commander echoing the words of his mentors.
Gangs of New York
After Amsterdam is mutilated by the Butcher, he leads a political party to unseat Boss Tweed and restore order to NYC.
The Last Samurai
Protagonist problem – wants to forget what he has seen in battle and has run away and become a drunk. Algren is offered a job leading a modern army against Katsumoto... an army that would surely wipe out Katsumoto.
The Shawshank Redemption
After the only witness to his innocence is murdered, Dufrense realizes he must get busy living or get busy dying because hope is a good thing.
Mission: Impossible III
After his wife is kidnapped, Ethan is taken into custody by his own agency. Ethan escapes and puts together an operation to rescue his wife, betraying the agency he has been loyal to.
Die Hard
After his feet are shredded by broken glass, McLain realizes he tells his wife “I love you” but never “I’m sorry.” Then he wonders why the bad guys are on the roof with the newly acquired detonators.
One aspect of the third act transformation I had overlooked was the stakes. CHANGE OR DIE – After Act Two, best if you can force your protagonist (or antagonist) to make an impossible choice. I started looking at more movies to see if I could spot any patterns that could be useful.
I asked myself what would be an impossible choice for Henry.
I began to scribble down ideas. I didn’t care how ridiculous they sounded I just needed to get as much down on paper as I could. I felt like I was flushing detritus out of my head in small bits (today you would call them tweets).
Babcock tells Elizabeth her father is dead. Trashes him as a traitor. BABCOCK: “He would have shot me in cold blood if I didn’t get him first.” Shows her his eyeglasses as proof.
Babcock asks the Army private to send over the chaplain and they are married in her EMT bunk.
Babcock has taken Elizabeth back to his apartment. The apartment is decorated in a mishmash of Oriental kitsch. Shoji screens, tatami mats and pagoda and buddha statues all over the place.
Babcock is passed out. She searches for anything. She finds his weapon but it’s empty. Everything that looks like it might hold something useful is locked.
I saw where this was going. Elizabeth would have to play the victim so Henry could rescue her. There didn’t seem like as though there were any alternatives. It was a tried and true plot device. I just wish I could have disguised it better.
Babcock gets shot in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Elizabeth turns and sees Henry all dressed up as a Navy Seal. HENRY: “Elizabeth come with me.” She picks up Babcock’s pistol and draws a bead on him.
HENRY: “Revenge doesn’t get you anything. She draws down for a moment before she shoots Babcock numerous times in the head and groin.
And then I envisioned some kind of bonding moment between Henry and Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: “He said you served in Panama before I was born. Did you kill people down there?” HENRY: “Yes. I’m not Rambo. Just a soldier doing my job.” ELIZABETH: “Why didn’t you tell me?” HENRY: “Your mother made me promise.” ELIZABETH: “You need to learn to stand up for yourself once in a while, Dad.”
It was here that Henry’s military background was born. It seemed to make sense.
… and just like before when I thought I had enough of a pitch to move on to a treatment, I felt like I had enough of a treatment to move on to the screenplay.
TITLE CARD: “In the near future...”
EXT. ON THE STEPS OF THE SUPREME COURT – DAY
A SPOKESMAN (40s), suit and tie, dignified, reads a prepared statement at a podium before a mass of REPORTERS.
SPOKESMAN
What is at issue is the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ within the Fourteenth Amendment. Historically, the sovereign nation of China has forbid its sojourners from renouncing their allegiance. Therefore, all persons of Chinese descent, by definition, are not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States and therefore, not entitled to US citizenship.
Though I struggled to set down on paper much of the “what happens” type of questions, I was confident enough that I had my “why did that happen” explored enough.
But I still had not written a logline for this idea. In retrospect, it would have helped.
Next week: Follow your treatment to the letter – at your own risk.
June 13, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 7 (SPOILERS)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
—Robert Frost
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
—Yogi Berra
I really wanted to tell a father-daughter story in a masculine way. I have three nieces and it’s no exaggeration to say they’ve had a huge impact on my life and how I see the world.
In composing the second act of Repatriation, my mind wandered to Under Siege, a movie I hadn’t seen in 15 years. Casey Ryback is a former Navy SEAL working as a cook on the U.S.S. Missouri. Amid all the action and shooting, he also protects Jordan Tate, a Playboy Playmate whose most passionate declaration is:
JORDAN
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life but you have to believe me, I don’t know anything.
Jordan’s role in the story is to look scared, be terrified and get caught. Most of her dialogue involves asking Ryback questions so he can provide exposition.
Under Siege is hardly the worst offender of these movie tropes (check out my previous thoughts on The Sentinel). You could make a credible argument that Under Siege helped to create these cinematic clichés.
Jordan does manage to save Ryback’s life before the climax by shooting one of the evil henchmen in the back… pretty standard faux nod to feminism for this kind of movie.
What made me think about this movie was the ending. Upon dispatching his enemies, Ryback and Jordan kiss in their moment of triumph. What makes this kiss a cringe-worthy moment is that she does not initiate the kiss. Rather, Ryback takes the kiss at the egging of his compatriots. It becomes an “I deserve it” moment for him rather than a “You deserve it moment” from her.
It was just about the most awkward “The Hero gets the girl” moment I’d ever seen. Though he was grateful to her for saving his life, he never gave her his respect… but to be fair, Jordan, as a character did little to earn it.
The James Bond franchise has made the final scene kiss such an enduring image that we as the audience rarely question the “girl as reward” cliché, the way they throw themselves at Bond, and what it might say about us as a society.
For Henry, and especially for an Asian American protagonist, getting the girl at the end seemed to be the obvious political choice as well. John Lee didn’t get to kiss Meg Coburn at the end of The Replacement Killers! What better way to challenge Hollywood’s depiction of the asexual, neutered Asian American male than to let him win the girl at the end?
It just seemed too obvious and too heavy handed for Henry.
I wanted Henry to protect his daughter without the typical award the Hero would receive for such an act. It occurred to me that not only did I want to challenge Asian American stereotypes, I wanted to challenge stereotypes and expectations in general (by the way, the thought process above occurred in about 1/2 sec – I was still typing away, stream of consciousness style).
IN THE ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST: Henry takes Elizabeth on a journey away from civilization. They have to live off grid with no contact with anyone else from civilization. They avoid established trails and pathways.
Henry’s equipment is basic. He has a small two man tent that can realistically sleep one. Since Elizabeth is still bound by Western culture, she has it alone for her privacy. Henry must sleep outside. Elizabeth also gets his only sleeping bag.
During their hikes she can’t sleep unless Henry is awake and is too restless to let Henry sleep. She can’t bathe herself, she can barely pee and she refuses to defecate. In less than a few days, she manages to consume all of Henry’s toilet paper.
Henry has a fresh water pump but Elizabeth is squeamish about it. ELIZABETH: “Don’t the animals pee in the creeks?” She finally drinks when she has no choice. However, despite Henry’s expertise Elizabeth still complains about his lack of preparation.
In this part of the treatment, I began exploring their characters and their relationship. In the original pitch, this was going to be the part where Henry returns to Los Angeles to retrieve medicine for his sick wife. Henry needed a new objective.
At this point, I knew she was a teenager and a high school graduate. Someone young and immature could come across as brash, bratty, obnoxious, whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent… you get the idea. One piece of advice that writers receive is that you once you know then end of your character’s arc, start them as far away from it as possible. This exercise was helpful in setting the parameters of her “coming of age” story and how Henry would be her guide.
In their most crass form, coming of age movies appear trite because a youth has to learn a life lesson that adults take for granted.
Wizard of Oz: There’s no place like home.
Can’t Buy Me Love: What’s the point of being popular if you lose all your friends?
Just One of the Guys: Dishonesty, even with the best of intentions it wrong.
The Karate Kid: With humility and perseverance you will prevail.
Black Knight: Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It is the presence of fear, yet the will to go on.
Big: Being a grown up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
13 Going on 30: Being a grown up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
What is Elizabeth’s journey then?
Now we get to heart of their conflict: Henry says being smart isn’t just about memorizing facts and repeating them rote. There is more to education than just giving teachers the answers they’re looking for. You have to deduce new information from old.
This is what Henry would like to teach her. What she would end up learning could be something completely different. In fact, later on I wrote:
Henry packs it in for the night. Elizabeth is seething with anger toward her father. ELIZABETH: “Maybe I am better off in China than here.” Come morning, Elizabeth sneaks up on Henry, steals his eyeglasses, then bolts.
At this point I thought I found my new objective for Henry. Separating him and Elizabeth meant that he could spent the next chunk of the story looking for her.
Eventually, slightly delirious, she makes it to Colby Canyon and the trail head. Clyde is waiting nearby. She nearly passes out as she approaches his truck. He pulls her into the shade and gives her water and tries to nurse her back to health, all the while staying out of sight of his SUV.
By reuniting her with Clyde, I take her out of jeopardy, leaving Henry to run into all kinds of problems on his own. I didn’t want to put Elizabeth in any prolonged, severe jeopardy… really, no one wants to torture teenagers, do they?
However, once she comes to:
...there is no sign of Elizabeth. There is also no sign of [Clyde's] truck.
I intended this action by Elizabeth to tip off ICE to their location to the authorities.
Then, Babcock gets an order to go pick up Colonel Li. They found Elizabeth.
With Colonel Li in his car, they drive up to Angeles National Forest. Babcock tries to make small talk saying that with all those Chinese Americans going back to China, Colonel Li will need someone who can liaison between the repatriots and the Chinese government. COLONEL LI: “Do you think that man is you?” BABCOCK: “Yes, I do.” COLONEL LI: “Bring this man back into the fold and we’ll see.”
This brought Babcock back into the story with a motivation to find Henry. Colonel Li has a plan.
Then, Babcock gets an order to go pick up Colonel Li. They found Elizabeth. As Babcock drives away, he spots someone looting Henry’s house but doesn’t do anything about it.
With Colonel Li in his car, they drive up to Angeles National Forest. Babcock tries to make small talk saying that with all those Chinese Americans going back to China, Colonel Li will need someone who can liaison between the repatriots and the Chinese government. COLONEL LI: “Do you think that man is you?” BABCOCK: “Yes, I do.” COLONEL LI: “Bring this man back into the fold and we’ll see.”
In retrospect, all this gave me was a reiteration of Babcock’s ambition and Colonel Li’s mustache twirling caricature. This sequence would remain in the story though the first draft of the screenplay.
Meanwhile, Henry has problems of his own.
ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST: Blind, Henry stumbles along trying to gauge the time. Despite his efforts, he is hopelessly lost – until he is confronted by an ARMED MILITIA MAN TOM BURROWS (40s) who orders Henry down on his knees.
However, for some reason, I remove the jeopardy with an offer to Henry from the Freemen to join them.
Henry tours the campsite. It’s mixed races, mostly middle aged men. An American flag hangs from the clothesline. HENRY: “You’re not Neo-Nazis, you’re not the Klan. You’re not any flavor of white supremacists. Educated. Well fed. Organized. Political. Freemen.” Tom goes on his political rant. The US Constitution is the greatest document ever written. He believes in the Constitution, he doesn’t believe in the government. TOM: “Sometimes you have to protect the individual. Sometimes you have to protect society from individuals. our government has failed to do either and we plan to give it a wake up call.”
This was the point in Henry’s story I wanted to come to. Something that addressed the first line of my TV pitch: “Despite being born in New York I find I’m often treated like an outsider in my own country.”
Henry tells Eldridge the story of his family. Henry is a sixth generation Chinese American. Family came for the gold rush but worked on the railroad. Henry’s father served in Vietnam. Came back and marched with Dr. King in Selma. HENRY: “This is my home and it’s worth fighting for even if my country won’t fight for me.”
But Henry’s declaration at this time would put him back into jeopardy by his own hand. In hindsight, this offer by the Freemen was a false choice. There was nothing Henry could say that would allow him to join them. Intuitively, I knew this. The outcome was correct but how I got there was illogical.
With Henry secured, the Freemen have a meeting. Tom says that it can’t be a coincidence that a Chinese man wanders into their camp when they are so close to executing their plans. Eldridge [the elder statesman of the group] believes they would not have sent a spy but simply would have bombed the shit out of them. TOM: “Then what do you think their plan is?”
For me, it’s useful to have a character pose a question that I don’t necessarily know the answer to. It usually forces me to answer it sooner or later.
Meanwhile (I use the word meanwhile a lot in my treatments):
SWITZER FALLS: Colonel Li (w/Babcock) sees Elizabeth for the first time. Colonel Li immediately identifies her as half and hates her. Doesn’t even want to interrogate her but instead leave her for dead. Babcock supercedes Colonel Li’s instructions and orders Elizabeth to be taken to a hospital for treatment.
Babcock initiates an act of defiance against Colonel Li. There were a few problems with this beat.
Why would Babcock defy him so quickly after kissing his ass?
Wouldn’t they know Elizabeth was half Chinese-half white before this moment?
A Chinese national military officer is barking orders at U.S. Army soldiers?
This scene didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense as I wrote it but I was on a typewriter and couldn’t stop to analyze this. I tried to justify this beat with the next beat by infecting Babcock with Yellow Fever (for those unfamiliar with the term, it’s used to describe White men with unrealistic fantasies of demure, submissive Asian women).
GLENDALE HOSPITAL: Babcock sits vigil with Elizabeth while she is unconscious. Just then, EMIKO TANAKA (20s) Japanese enters and is utterly annoyed. EMIKO: “Nick? You said you were in the hospital, I thought you were hurt.” BABCOCK: “I wanted to see you. We haven’t talked in a while and this case -”
But before Babcock can finish, Emiko leaves the room.
I knew I was running off the rails at this point but kept going.
EMIKO: “I thought you were hurt. Obviously you can’t respect boundaries.” BABCOCK: “You still care about me.” EMIKO: “Not anymore. This was dirty pool. We’re broken up. I can’t be that person in your life. Now I can’t be in your life.” BABCOCK: “I wanted to talk.” EMIKO: “Then call a shrink.”
I needed something to get back on track with the story.
EMIKO: “Lose my number.” As Emiko drives off, an ORDERLY comes up to Babcock. ORDERLY: “She’s conscious.”
I managed to get back on track by resuming his original objective: to get information from her about Henry.
THE INTERROGATION: Babcock tries to get Elizabeth to spill the names of her father’s co-conspirators. No one could have gotten away with what Henry did without inside help. That she sill be a co-conspirator and punished to hard labor if she doesn’t cooperate. Elizabeth says she doesn’t know anything.
Elizabeth really didn’t know anything and the audience knew that too. The question that should have been raised was how far was Babcock willing to go to get the information out of her? If he did, we would know it was false. In that moment, I didn’t go there. Instead I made a nearly fatal U-turn. It’s that moment you knew you were doing something wrong (morally or otherwise) but couldn’t stop yourself.
ELIZABETH: “What’s your problem? Did every blonde girl in high school turn you down? How long did that ‘fish out of water’ act last? Two weeks before they realized you were talking past them? That’s why white girls are smarter – they already figured you out and don’t want to waste their time.”
Babcock slaps her. ELIZABETH: “Let’s see how brave you are when I’m not strapped down to a hospital bed.”
I tried to get out of the scene by writing this:
Babcock is about to take another crack at her when he is interrupted by Colonel Li. COLONEL LI: “You should have taken my advice and let her die.”
…but realized this would lead me nowhere except to Elizabeth’s death. Her death in this manner would be cruel, arbitrary, and illogical. I didn’t know how to get out of this so I did the most heroic thing I could as the writer.
I abandoned this idea and just jumped to a good place where I could reset the action.
THE NEXT MORNING: Babcock is giving orders to a bunch of ICE Trainees to begin searching the area around Switzer Falls.
Find Henry. For now, I had gotten Babcock back on track. I’d rewrite what happened to Elizabeth later.
COLBY CANYON: Babcock and Colonel Li lead the trainees into the mountains. They begin to use air reconnaissance. They start tracking Henry’s path (they find his eyeglasses).
The idea that I had was that Babcock would track Henry to the Freemen basecamp where fighting would ensue. For some reason, I was thinking that but didn’t actually type that specific beat onto the paper.
Henry appears and Babcock takes a free shot at him. Henry dives to safety but both sides open fire on each other.
The Freemen feel Henry betrayed them and try to kill him. Babcock radios Morgan and says we found their basecamp. We don’t need Henry alive anymore. We have the conspirators. Morgan concurs and CALLS IT IN (‘IT’ being a naval strike.) After trading some jargon, the air strike is dialed in. Babcock POPS SMOKE. Clyde recognizes what Babcock is doing (setting off smoke so the bombers know what NOT to hit) and dives to safety but is shot dead in the process.
The hill is completely destroyed by an airstrike.
I had stumbled onto my big action set piece. This was the broadest stroke of the set piece but I could flesh it out later.
In the aftermath, body parts are collected. Nothing is left. They had a decent supply of ammo but were more prepared for a long survival stay. Clyde is barely alive and Henry is missing.
I realized I had killed Clyde but wanted to take it back. If Henry was missing, who would look for him? Elizabeth was chained to a hospital bed. Babcock had a strong motive to believe Henry and Clyde were dead and move on.
Babcock asks Colonel Li what are his chances of getting a job in China? COLONEL LI: “You did not accomplish your objective. You get no reward for effort.” Not only did Babcock not accomplish his assignment, he has a bigger mess to deal with. What is he supposed to do about Elizabeth?
By this point my brain was fried. My typing was done. I wanted to consider this experiment a success. I forced myself to make a lot of decisions about the characters, their actions and their transformations. Many of the decisions were probably wrong but at this point, I was looking for diamonds in the rough: things that gurgled up from my subconscious mind because I needed to make choices on the fly and had to write intuitively.
Yes, I was prepared to call this exercise a success:
Unfortunately, my story wasn’t done yet. I still didn’t have a third act.
June 12, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 6 (SPOILERS)
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
—Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY
Pursuant to the provisions of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 33, this Headquarters, dated May 3, 1942, all per- sons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above area by 12 o’clock noon, P. W . T., Saturday, May 9, 1942.
—Evacuation instruction poster for Los Angeles
There was an elephant in the room and I was afraid to deal with it. There was no way I could create a fictional story about the mass detention of Chinese Americans without somehow acknowledging or incorporating the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942 authorizing the removal of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast of the United States, relocating them in internment camps. The order was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
Fear of Japanese American disloyalty and sabotage was the main reason for the internment though contemporary revisionists will assert that it was actually an act of compassion performed to protect the safety of Japanese Americans.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, calls to round up and imprison Muslim Americans echoed much of the World War II rhetoric. Those who believe in “American exceptionalism” tend to turn a blind eye toward our historically poor relationship with and treatment of ethnic minorities.
I had my own concerns about alluding to this dark period of American history. I have many friends who were personally touched by this, either because they were interned or their parents were. Invoking the Japanese American internment could not be a trivial decision. However, many people I knew outside the Asian American community had, at best, a cursory awareness of the internment camps.
Repatriation would require a thoughtful and respectful approach to acknowledge what Japanese Americans went through and to educate the casual observer to a rarely talked about period in our history.
A fictional round up of Chinese Americans for Repatriation seemed more plausible if it were based on similar rationales and methods.
I began reflecting back on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. The original pitch to John Wells was about White House staffers. The president was intended to be a part time character while the main focus remained on the drama focused around Rob Lowe’s character Sam Seaborn. As the series progressed, the focused slowly evolved to fall on President Bartlet. It’s not hard to understand why: when you have the most powerful man in the free world as a character, it’s hard not to make him the protagonist.
I wanted Henry to remain the working class hero I envisioned but the world of the story exists because of the actions by people at the highest level of government: The president, his staff, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members. My fear was that those political machinations would pull focus away from Henry so I made the choice to keep them out of the story as possible.
I also knew that the heart of the story would be between Henry and Elizabeth once they reached the Angeles National Forest so storywise I needed to get them there as quickly as possible.
But I didn’t know what would happen to them once they were up in the forest. I knew I had to keep them in jeopardy but I didn’t know what that looked like. I knew there would be a pursuit but I felt there needed to be some significant time passage before that could happen.
I had two competing adventures: 1) they run into some kind of militia group preparing for Doomsday and 2) they run into Mexican carnales growing illegal marijuana deep in the mountains.
I also needed an antagonist. I had two competing ideas here too: 1) A Caucasian Inspector Javert-type pursuer who is an American citizen and 2) A Chinese national military commander. One character that kept coming up in conversations was Tommy Lee Jones’s character in The Fugitive. However, since his name is Samuel Gerard, I always had a sneaking suspicion that he was an homage to Inspector Javert, the pursuer of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables and studied him for his motivations for his actions.
I banged my head against the keyboard for a few days because of my indecision. I needed to commit to something on paper. It didn’t have to be my final answer but I needed to see if the progression worked or not. Often, when you see something on paper, the choices become clear.
However, I was stuck. I’d type something on the computer, delete it and write something else. I needed to try something different.
I have an old Brother electric typewriter I bought from Goodwill for about $10 for the odd form I had to fill out and mail back. A new ink ribbon and correction tape and it was good to go. I thought a good exercise would be to actually type onto paper, forcing me to make decisions while taking away my ability to edit my thoughts. No radio, no computer, no phone, no internet… just me at my desk with an electric typewriter.
The rule was that once I started typing, I had to keep typing: no stopping or pausing. Just type. Just get it down on paper. It doesn’t matter if it sucks, no one would ever see it (as you’ll soon see, it probably was a mistake to take these notes out of the drawer).
OPENING MONTAGE: A CLERK for the US SUPREME COURT reads a decision on the steps. CLERK: “What is at issue is the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof within the Fourteenth Amendment. China’s laws forbid its sojourners from renouncing their allegiance. Therefore, any person of Chinese descent in the United States, by definition, is not subject to its complete jurisdiction and therefore not entitled to US citizenship.”
INTERCUT WITH:
WHITE HOUSE/OVAL OFFICE: The President signs the Repatriation Proclamation.
ICE HEADQUARTERS, LOS ANGELES: COLONEL LI orders DON MORGAN, ICE regional director to begin Operation Repatriation. Morgan agrees reluctantly.
MONTAGE CONTINUES: Notices posted to front doors read: All persons of Chinese descent must report to REPATRIATION CENTERS beginning February 19.
A SOCCER FIELD-surrounded by chain link fences and barbed wire.
A PROCESSING CENTER where a REGISTRAR rebukes a woman for carrying too much: REGISTRAR: “Just what you can carry – no luggage racks, no stacking, no piling.” WOMAN: “This is less than what I can bring onto an airplane.
Okay, not too bad. This tells us what kind of world we’re in. Moving onto our heroes.
ALHAMBRA, CA – THE CHIN HOUSE: HENRY CHIN (40s) haggles with CLYDE WILSON (40s), African American, his neighbor over the price of his camping equipment. HENRY: “If that’s all you’re going to offer, I’d rather have you take it for free.” Henry has an ELECTRONIC MONITORING DEVICE around his ankle.
Henry’s daughter ELIZABETH (19) chastises Henry for not having a backbone. ELIZABETH: “It’s because of people like you that everyone thinks they can walk all over us.” HENRY: “If we fight, we die.” ELIZABETH: “I’m half French. Why do I have to go?”
It was in this iteration that Henry Chang became Henry Chin. At UCLA, one of my screenplays was an historical drama about a Chinese gold miner/laundryman named Chin Sun Fan. I was amused with the idea that I already had a biography of Henry Chin’s great, great, great, grandfather.
Clyde was a character I found floating in my head. I was thinking about how Chinese Americans disavowed any association with Japanese Americans during World War II. To use a JA character for this seemed too on the nose for this story. Clyde probably came from my memories of the boycott of Korean grocery stores in the early 1990s by African Americans in Brooklyn.
Answering is ICE agent NICK BABCOCK (25), newly sworn in and relatively green. BABCOCK: “Not my problem.” Babcock hates his assignment and WISHES FOR SOMETHING MORE. He states his own theme (SubThis): My family came over on the Mayflower. This isn’t my country anymore. Rues his lost opportunities for being born at the wrong time.
Clyde leaves with Henry’s camping gear. Babcock notices him. BABCOCK: “A Black man with camping gear, you don’t see that every day.”
ELizabeth was always an honor student and believed that was her ticket out of boredom. Her scholarship to Stanford was rescinded upon the Supreme Court decision and she is resentful that she may never aspire to more than her father’s success which she believes could have been more.
More character development. “SubThis” was my impromptu shorthand for “Subtext this.” The notion that Babcock’s family was here first and everyone else should wait their turn was going to inform all of Babcock’s actions.
I wanted to paint Elizabeth as a person full of potential, denied her opportunities by her circumstance.
HENRY’S HOUSE: It’s completely empty. A few cardboard boxes marked BASURA are piled near the front door. Henry peers out the window and sees armed ARMY SOLDIERS patrolling the neighborhood.
The next morning. A SHUTTLE BUS arrives to pick them up. Henry has a small shoulder bag. Elizabeth has four suitcases. Elizabeth exchanges some words with the driver when he won’t let her board. A CHINESE SOLDIER (Chinese uniformed) steps up and shoves Elizabeth aside and throws her suitcase into the gutter. An ARMY PRIVATE steps between the Chinese soldier and Elizabeth.
In response Elizabeth stings her father. ELIZABETH: “A complete stranger stands up for us more than you do.
At this point in the development, I envisioned Chinese soldiers on American soil. It also sets up Elizabeth’s resentment with her father.
PROCESSING CENTER: Henry takes out the HAND SANITIZER and cleans his hands. He opens the ziploc bag and appears to pop an iron supplement but instead squirts nearly the entire bottle of a hand sanitizer into the ziplock and seals it back up.
Henry balls the ziplock in his left hand as he removes his EYEGLASSES to wipe his brow. He hold his eyeglasses and the ziploc bag with one hand at his side, facing the direct sunlight.
After a few seconds, the ziplock bursts into a smokey flame. Henry tosses the ziploc into a trash receptacle, which bursts into a firey smokey flame. Henry screams as if he were startled, then kicks over the trash receptacle sending the billowing smoke everywhere.
Henry grabs Elizabeth and races toward a corner of the processing center. They reach the chain link fence and there is Clyde with a pair of BOLT CUTTERS.
I wanted to subvert the stereotype of passive Asian men by giving Henry something cool to do. Also, that Clyde turned out to be Henry’s ally was a relationship that would challenge stereotypes of Asians and African Americans and their relationships. By this point it became clear to me that race relations was something I was going to tackle.
CLYDE’S SUV: As they drive away, Henry reveals that this was his plan all along. To play the meek and docile minority so he wouldn’t draw suspicion. That his fight with Clyde in front of the soldiers was a way to protect Clyde. Elizabeth is royally pissed that she wasn’t in on the plan. Clyde said it was because she can’t keep a secret.
What I liked about this little bit is how little Elizabeth seems to know about her father and that he may know her a little bit better than she gave him credit for.
ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST, CHILEO: Clyde pulls into a campsite and makes sure the coast is clear. Henry and Elizabeth get out. Henry straps on his backpack, then looks down at Elizabeth’s feet she is wearing high heels. HENRY: “I thought I told you to wear comfortable shoes.” ELIZABETH: “They’re in my suitcase.” Clyde takes off his sneakers and hands them to her.
This is not going to be easy for Henry and Elizabeth but they have an ally in Clyde who can move about society with ease.
ICE HEADQUARTERS: Colonel Li chews out Morgan for his incompetence. Babcock sees the opportunity and jumps in to volunteer to retrieve the missing repatriots. After Colonel Li exits, Babcock asks Morgan if he thinks Colonel Li was impressed with his initiative. MORGAN: “You can’t impress the Chinese.”
END OF ACT ONE:
I was a little surprised when I wrote this. I had anticipated the Chinese national Colonel Li to pursue Henry but intuitively it made more sense for an ambitious and and comer to take the reins. It gives him a personal reason to pursue rather than just fulfilling the requirements of his job.
So far so good. I got them into the forest with someone chasing after them.
Clyde has given Henry about a week’s worth of freeze dried food. CLYDE: “It’ll take me at least a week to scrounge up more. The government is watching stuff like this very carefully because they don’t want the Chinese Americans to do exactly what you guys are doing. Colby Canyon, one week.”
With this they have a goal and a time frame to accomplish it.
Now comes the hard part.
June 11, 2012
From TV Pitch to Novel – The Making of The Repatriation of Henry Chin – Part 5 (SPOILERS)
Structure is the relationship of the parts to the whole and to each other.
—Howard Suber
The Power of Film
Looking back on my TV pitch for Repatriation, I realize I had little more than a hook. For me, the story of Henry Chin was my version of a “high concept.” Okay, maybe not as high concept as “Jurassic Shark” but the idea was clearly light years away from what I had in my portfolio.
Having cut my teeth in live theater, most of my work could be described as character dramas: family stories, relationship issues. This has led to me writing a lot of low budget, indie screenplays. The more I thought about Repatriation, the more I embraced the challenge of writing a big budget action film.
The first film that popped into my head was The Fugitive. For me, this film captured the sense of jeopardy and tone that I wanted for Repatriation. I rewatched it again for inspiration, not really to figure out what kind of stuff happens but more to get a sense of how much stuff happens.
In my breakdown of The Fugitive I counted 61 story beats. That means that each story beat will play out in roughly two minutes in a two hour movie.
Another “man on the run” movie I broke down was Enemy of the State with 79 beats.
This part is simple math and intuitive if you think about it. I’ve used this method to help me keep track of how much story I actually have. One of the pitfalls of counting beats like this is because sometimes a story beat is not really a story beat but a sequence.
How many times have you written an outline and included the following story beat:
They fall in love.
How long would it take for that to happen? In a romantic comedy it could take the entire movie (as in When Harry Met Sally).
In an action movie the danger is having a beat like this:
He escapes.
If you’re writing Escape from Alcatraz, that beat is the entire movie.
In my pitch I had several sentences that represented potentially long sequences. I needed to start breaking those down.
I’m Chinese American. Despite being born in New York I find I’m often treated like an outsider in my own country. I wanted to write something that captured that feeling.
I wrote this out by hand on an index card and taped it to my monitor as a constant reminder of why I was writing this story.
Repatriation is a one hour action drama that takes place in the near future in Los Angeles. It tells the story of a typical dysfunctional American family, the Changs. Henry Chang is a professor of chemistry. His wife Elizabeth is a stay at home mom recovering from kidney surgery. Their two sons are a study in opposites: Jason just got early acceptance to Stanford while Oliver is a college drop out.
This was the first major change in converting the TV pitch into a feature script. I had intended the TV series to be an ensemble show with multiple plot lines intertwining with each other. I decided it would be cleaner, more efficient, streamlined (you pick the adjective) to make it a more traditional story with a single protagonist.
The reason for this decision is that in a two hour movie, I felt I didn’t have enough time to introduce all these characters and get the audience emotionally invested in them. However, I still needed to create emotional stakes for all of Henry’s decisions. Because action movies tend to be top heavy with testosterone I decided to consolidate his family into one character: his daughter.
INT. CHANG HOUSE -- DAY
Henry has one daughter, ELIZABETH. She dresses plainly for school but once out the door, changes clothes and puts in her contact lenses.
Henry has a legal, moral and emotional responsibility to care and protect her. She is also not his equal as a wife or girlfriend might be. It also gives her room to grow as a character: from naïve to experienced and Henry would be responsible for shepherding that transformation.
In the pilot, Henry celebrates the publication of his paper by playing practical jokes on his colleagues using liquid nitrogen, elemental sodium and nitrogen tri-iodide.
This was the next major change I made. I felt that being a university professor didn’t strike the right tone. I wanted to tell a story about an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and being a university professor didn’t feel ordinary enough. It was important to me to make the audience live vicariously through Henry and I decided to give him a more mundane existence.
INT. RITE-AID PHARMACY -- DAY
Break room. Henry just got promoted to Pharmacy manager. Another employee is pissed. Today is his first day as department head. Henry plays a practical joke and every one laughs except one guy who storms off because he felt he should have gotten the promotion instead.
Having worked the sales floor in a national retail store I was familiar with some of the employee politics. Henry became a working stiff living paycheck to paycheck, raising a daughter.
Suddenly, government agents arrive to take Henry into custody. Before they can take him away, Henry notices that the people being rounded up are all Chinese.
I didn’t know what this beat looked like. It seemed unrealistic to me that government agents would target him specifically like this as well as students. Americans of Chinese origin represented 1.2% of the U.S. population in 2010. That is 3,794,673 people. To send “government agents” (i.e., more than one) to collect Henry would mean millions of agents sent collect everyone. I put a pin in this beat and planned to come back to it later.
Believing that his family is at risk, Henry uses his expertise in chemistry to create distractions so he can escape and stay one step ahead of the government as he collects his family members. Liquid nitrogen on a windshield, nitrogen tri-iodide to shatter locks, and elemental sodium in the swimming pool to create a powerful explosion.
I liked the detail but a lot of this stuff can be found in a college chemistry lab, not a Rite Aid. Some things had to change but I wanted the escape complicated by Henry’s retrieval of his daughter.
EXT. SCHOOL -- DAY
Henry goes to his daughter’s school but can’t reach her as she is taken away in handcuffs.
She will be deported to China since her mother was not an American citizen at the time of her birth.
ELIZABETH
My mother was French. Why not send me to France?
I changed Elizabeth to a child of mixed heritage. I wanted to raise the question “What is an American?” It’s easy to point at a full-blooded Chinese and accuse him of not being a real American. What about a person who is half Caucasian?
The Changs escape to the Angeles National Forest where they stumble upon a group of Chinese Americans also hiding from the government.
I wasn’t sure about Henry finding a group of refugees at this point in the story. One tenet of storytelling is to make things as difficult as you can for your protagonist. My gut instinct said that finding the refugees would make things easier for Henry. I wanted Henry to discover what was needed for survival rather than accept the lessons learned by someone else.
I wanted to keep him isolated and vulnerable. What if he didn’t run into a friendly group? What if he ran into hostiles?
EXT. ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST -- DAY
Henry steals water and boots from an empty campsite. Leaves behind an apology note and some money.
Found by a FREEMEN group... mixed races, all anti government.
Breaks his cell phone.
Henry has interrupted their plans to blow up City Hall. They think he’s a government spy.
Befriends a Black Freeman who understands what it’s like to not be considered a ‘real American’ and wonders why no one believes a minority could be qualified.
The group’s philosophy was antithetical to Henry’s but in this version they do accept him as an ally. This was the best idea I had at the time. I didn’t care for it because the decision to allow Henry into the group wasn’t Henry’s. I wanted to place as many of the decisions into his hands as possible and this seemed like a turning point in the story that wasn’t based on a his choice.
Speaking with them Henry discovers the underlying conspiracy. China has become a world economic power on the backs of its unskilled labor. What’s missing are people with specialized skills: engineers, architects, and scientists. All American citizens of Chinese descent, even if they were born here, even if they don’t speak a word of Mandarin, must now go to China for repatriation and the United States is too timid to fight for them.
This beat presented a problem that wasn’t necessarily intellectual. My intuition told me something was misplaced here. Structurally this revelation occurs in the middle of the story. The movie that popped into my mind was The Da Vinci Code. Here’s the logline for the movie.
A symbologist is caught in a 2000-year-old web of secrecy and uncovers the truth about The Holy Grail — a truth that could shatter the very foundations of Western Civilization.
—Amazon.com
And this is how the secret is revealed in the movie.
LANGDON
Now as you can imagine, the female symbol is its exact opposite. This is called the Chalice.
TEABING
And the Chalice resembles a cup, or vessel or more importantly, the shape of a woman’s womb.
(beat)
Now the Grail has never been a cup. It is quite literally this ancient symbol of womanhood. And in this case, a woman who carried a secret so powerful that if revealed it would devastate the very foundations of Christianity.
SOPHIE
Wait please, you’re saying that the Holy Grail is a person? A woman?
The reason why I thought about The Da Vinci Code was because of where in the story “the truth about the Holy Grail” is revealed. This snippet of dialogue occurs 68 minutes into the movie. My own sense of timing felt that this revelation belonged either near the beginning of the story where we can explore the consequences of that secret or near the end of the story making the story the discovery of the secret.
As it is, this revelation is not through discovery but through exposition. Teabing offers them knowledge he already has.
At this point in the development of Repatriation, I knew that the midpoint of the story was not the place to reveal the conspiracy but I couldn’t decide if it belonged in the beginning or at the end of the story. Does Henry act on this information or do his actions reveal this information? I wasn’t prepared to make this decision at this time.
Another problem that I ran into was the loss of Henry’s sick wife as a character. By cutting her from the story, I lost the reason why Henry would have to return to civilization. I came up with this:
EXT. ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST -- DAY
The government has caught up with Henry and there is a standoff.
Henry escapes with the help of the Black Freeman who is wounded.
But where does he escape to? He can’t really return to civilization: that doesn’t feel like a logical option. He can continue deeper into the wilderness but that feels more like a continuation of the “push” sequence rather than a turning point into the “pull” sequence.
It also seemed too much to believe that he would run into both a refugee camp and a militia group. I felt that Henry should run into one or the other but not both.
For the pitch, I put in all these ideas to give a flavor of the story but creating the actual plot meant that I had to scrutinize each beat and figure out why and where it belongs.
I had to go back to the drawing board.
